OJtmngelual  2UUan«  Conference,  1873. 

HISTOET, 

ESSAYS,  ORATIONS,  AND  OTHER  DOCUMENTS 


OF  THE 


SIXTH  GENERAL  CONFERENCE 


OF  THE 


EVANGELICAL  ALLIANCE, 

Held  in  New  York,  October  2-12,  1873. 


EDITED  BY 

KEV.  PHILIP  SCHAFF,  D.D., 

AND 

KEY.  S.  IREN^EUS  PKIME,  D.D. 


NEW    YORK: 
HARPER    &    BROTHERS,    PUBLISHERS, 

FEANKLIN    SQUARE. 
1874. 


Entered  according  to  Act  of  Congress,  in  the  year  1874,  by 

HARPER  &  BROTHERS, 
In  the  Office  of  the  Librarian  of  Congress,  at  Washington. 


PREFACE. 


THE  Executive  Committee  of  the  Evangelical  Alliance  of  the  United  States, 
in  making  arrangements  for  the  Sixth  General  Conference,  confided  the  prepa- 
ration of  the  Programme  and  the  selection  of  writers  and  speakers  to  a  special 
committee,  consisting  of  the  following  named  persons : 

REV.  WILLIAM  ADAMS,  D.D.,  KEV.  S.  I.  PRIME,  D.D., 

REV.  THOMAS  D.  ANDERSON,  D.D.,  REV.  G.  W.  SAMSON,  D.D., 

REV.  G.  R.  CROOKS,  D.D.,  REV.  PHILIP  SCHAFF,  D.D., 

REV.  JOHN  HALL,  D.D.,  REV.  NOAH  HUNT  SCHENCK,  D.D., 

REV. -JAMES  M'COSH,  D.D.,  LL.D.,  REV.  H.  B.  SMITH,  D.D., 

REV.  E.  A.  WASHBURN,  D.D. 

The  Committee  on  the  Programme  having,  with  protracted  deliberation, 
matured  the  plan  of  the  Conference  and  chosen  the  themes  to  be  discussed, 
sought  the  men  best  fitted  in  their  judgment  to  treat  these  subjects,  for  the 
defense  and  advancement  of  evangelical  truth. 

About  one  hundred  men,  from  various  parts  of  the  world,  eminent  for  learn- 
ing, ability,  and  worth,  holding  high  rank  in  theology,  philosophy,  science, 
and  literature,  were  thus  brought  together,  with  the  richest  fruits  of  their  la- 
bors, and  animated  by  a  common  impulse  to  contribute  each  his  part  to  the 
power  and  usefulness  of  the  great  Conference.  The  result  was  far  beyond  the 
expectations  of  the  Committee.  These  essays  and  orations,  discussing  almost 
every  important  theological,  religious,  and  moral  question  of  the  age,  were  ea- 
gerly listened  to  from  morning  till  night,  for  ten  consecutive  days,  by  thou- 
sands of  sympathizing  hearers  in  this  city,  during  a  season  of  financial  dis- 
tress, and  then  were  multiplied,  through  secular  and  religious  periodicals, 
among  millions  of  readers. 

It  is  safe  to  say  that  the  utterances  of  a  religious  assembly  were  never  re- 
ceived with  more  profound  respect  by  so  great  a  number  of  attentive  minds. 
It  was,  therefore,  an  immediate  duty  to  gather  into  a  permanent  volume  the 
productions  of  the  Conference.  To  this  end  the  Committee  on  the  Programme 
confided  the  preparation  of  this  volume  to  the  General  Secretary  of  the  Con- 
ference, Rev.  S.  Irenasus  Prime,  D.D.,  and  to  the  Honorary  and  Acting  Cor- 
responding Secretary  of  the  United  States  Alliance,  Rev.  Philip  Schaff,  D.D. 
To  the  former  was  committed  "  the  charge  of  the  general  arrangement  and 
typographical  character  of  the  volume,  the  preface,  historical  sketch,  and  gen- 
eral index  ;"  and  to  the  latter  "  the  charge  of  the  papers  delivered  before  the 
Conference,  their  classification,  and  all  the  details  pertaining  to  their  introduc- 
tion into  the  volume."  This  devolved  on  Dr.  Schaff  the  labor  of  translating 
papers  from  foreign  languages,  revising  them  all,  and  the  greatest  care  in  see- 


iv  PREFACE. 

ing  them  accurately  through  the  press.  In  some  cases  it  was  necessary  to 
send  the  proofs  across  the  ocean,  and  then  to  reset  the  essays,  to  embody  the 
numerous  alterations  made  by  the  authors.  The  editorial  labor  performed  in 
making  these  repeated  revisions  has  been  immense.  No  one  can  comprehend 
the  skill  and  patient  toil  involved  except  those  who  are  acquainted  with  the 
work,  and  the  Programme  Committee  desire  to  put  on  record  here  their  ap- 
preciation of  this  great  and  gratuitous  service. 

The  papers  contained  in  this  volume  give,  however,  but  a  faint  idea  of  the 
character  and  spirit  of  the  Conference.  Its  principal  charm  was  the  personal 
intercourse  of  Christian  brethren  from  all  parts  of  the  world,  and  the  secret  of 
its  power  and  success,  we  believe,  was  the  presence  of  the  Holy  Spirit  from  the 
opening  social  reception  in  New  York  to  the  sublime  close  in  Washington, 
when  delegates  from  every  clime  made  the  Rotunda  of  the  National  Capitol 
resound  with  the  praise  of  Christ,  and  joined  with  one  voice  and  heart  in  pro- 
fessing the  Apostles'  Creed,  repeating  the  Lord's  Prayer,  and  singing  the  dox- 
ology.  The  Spirit  of  God  alone  could  subdue  all  human  passions  and  dis- 
cords— national,  sectional,  sectarian,  and  personal — and  make  them  tributary 
to  the  universal  harmony.  He  alone  could  impart  such  devotional  fervor 
and  intense  enthusiasm  as  thrilled  the  crowded  assemblies  from  day  to  day. 
Under  His  blessed  influence,  the  Conference  was  truly  a  communion  of  saints, 
a  foretaste  and  pledge  of  a  higher  and  better  union,  which  the  same  Spirit  will 
bring  about  in  his  own  good  time. 

The  blessing  of  this  Conference  is  seen  in  the  general  encouragement  of 
faith,  hope,  and  zeal  in  the  Master's  service.  The  delegates  from  abroad  have 
carried  it  home  and  disseminated  it  in  their  respective  fields  of  labor.  The 
echo  of  its  quickening  power  comes  back  to  us,  in  reports  of  public  meetings 
in  the  capitals  of  Europe,  in  published  discourses,  and  private  letters — all  over- 
flowing with  gratitude  to  God  for  what  the  delegates  had  seen  and  heard  in 
those  memorable  days  of  October.  Christians  of  the  Old  and  the  New  World, 
separated  by  the  ocean,  feel  now  as  never  before  the  concentrated  power  of 
evangelical  Protestantism,  and  the  inestimable  value  of  mutual  sympathy  and 
willingness  to  learn  from  each  other,  and  to  work  and  pray  for  each  other. 
May  God  hasten  the  fulfillment  of  the  prophecy  of  the  one  flock  and  one 
Shepherd  ! 

The  Committee  wish  to  express  their  acknowledgments  to  the  Recording 
Secretaries,  Rev.  Messrs.  H.  B.  Chapin  and  S.  W.  Crittenden,  for  their  assist- 
ance in  the  preparation  of  this  volume.  Great  credit  is  due  to  the  Publishers 
for  the  patience,  enterprise,  and  liberality  which  they  have  shown  in  bringing 
out  the  volume  at  their  own  risk,  without  expense  to  the  Alliance.  And  with 
earnest  desires  for  its  wide  nnd  permanent  usefulness,  it  is  sent  forth  to  the 
members  and  friends  of  the  Evangelical  Alliance  throughout  the  world. 


HISTOEICAL  SKETCH. 


HISTOKIC AL  SKETCH 

OF  THE 

SIXTH  GENERAL  CONFERENCE 

OP  THE 


Held,  New  York,  October  2-12,  1873. 


IN  the  month  of  August,  1867,  the  Fifth  General  Conference  of  the  Evan- 
gelical Alliance  was  held  in  the  city  of  Amsterdam,  Holland.  At  that  meet- 
ing a  request  was  presented  by  the  Evangelical  Alliance  of  the  United  States 
of  America  that  the  next  General  Conference  might  be  held  in  the  city  of 
New  York. 

At  an  informal  meeting  of  Delegates  to  that  Conference  it  was  suggested 
that  the  United  States  Alliance  should  enter  into  correspondence  with  the 
various  branches  throughout  the  world,  with  a  view  to, the  acceptance  of  the 
invitation,  should  it  be  found  practicable  and  desirable. 

The  General  Conferences  had  been  held  at  intervals  of  four  or  five 
years;,  and  as  it  was  not  expected  that  a  very  large  number  of  members 
would  cross  the  ocean  to  attend  a  meeting  in  America,  it  was  the  decided 
opinion  of  European  members  that  the  New  York  Conference  should  be 
held  within  two  or  three  years  after  the  one  at  Amsterdam, 'and  that  anoth- 
er should  be  convened  in  Europe  at  the  usual  time.  As  the  result  of  corre- 
spondence, it  was  determined  to  hold  the  Conference  in  New  York,  in  Sep- 
tember, 1869,  and  an  invitation  was  issued  accordingly.  At  request  of  the 
British  Organization,  the  time  was  changed  to  September,  1870. 

The  Alliance  in  the  United  States  began  to  make  preparations  for  this 
Conference  in  the  year  1868,  and  in  the  summer  of  the  year  following 
the  Rev.  Philip  Schaff,  D.D.,  was  deputed  to  visit  the  several  Alliances  in 
Europe,  and  to  extend  a  personal  invitation  to  men  of  learning  and  ability 


4  EVANGELICAL  ALLIANCE. 

who  were  in  sympathy  with  the  Alliance  to  attend  the  Conference.  On 
November  4, 1869,  the  United  States  Alliance  met  with  a  large  assembly 
of  clergymen  of  the  city  of  New  York  and  neighboring  towns,  and  a  great 
number  of  laymen,  in  the  Collegiate  Keformed  Dutch  Church,  corner  of 
Fifth  Avenue  and  Twenty-ninth  Street,  to  hear  the  report  of  Dr.  Schaff, 
who  had  recently  returned  from  his  journey  in  Europe. 

Eis  report  was  in  the  highest  degree  encouraging,  and  the  resolution  was 
adopted  to  go  forward  with  the  preparations. 

More  than  $10,000  were  subscribed  on  the  spot  toward  the  expenses  of 
the  Conference. 

A  committee,  to  whom  was  confided  the  Programme  for  the  Conference, 
having  arranged  the  subjects  which  it  was  considered  important  to  discuss, 
selected  from  various  countries  the  men  who  were  believed  to  be  best  quali- 
fied in  their  respective  departments  of  thought  and  labor  to  make  valuable 
contributions  to  the  Conference. 

These  gentlemen  were  consulted,  and  the  programme  was  completed. 
Arrangements  were  also  made  for  the  entertainment  of  the  members  by 
Christian  families  in  the  city.  In  the  beginning  of  the  month  of  August  it 
was  confidently  expected  that  in  a  few  weeks  the  Conference  would  be  as- 
sembled. And  when  the  war  between  France  and  Germany  began  to  threat- 
en the  successful  consummation  of  the  desired  plans,  the  Executive  Com- 
mittee decided  not  to  postpone  the  Conference  in  any  event.  But  telegrams 
and  letters  from  France,  Germany,  Switzerland,  and  England  came,  stating 
that  a  full  representation  of  their  members  would  be  impossible,  and  from 
some  no  representatives  could  be  expected. 

August  5, 1870,  the  Committee,  with  great  reluctance,  resolved  to  post- 
pone the  Conference,  "at  least  for  the  present  year,  and  until  such  time 
as  the  providence  of  God  shall  open  the  way  for  its  successful  convoca- 
tion." 

A  few  delegates  from  foreign  lands  had  arrived  in  this  country  before  the 
postponement,  and  others  arrived  soon  after,  to  the  number  of  twenty-six, 
representing  Great  Britain,  France,  Switzerland,  Italy,  Hungary,  Turkey, 
South  America,  and  Tasmania.  A  public  greeting  was  given  to  these  breth- 
ren by  the  United  States  Alliance  in  the  Young  Men's  Christian  Associa- 
tion Building,  on  Friday  evening,  September  23,  1870.  Among  those 
present  from  abroad  were  the  Rev.  James  Davis,  Secretary  of  the  British 
Alliance ;  the  Rev.  Joseph  Angus,  D.D.,  and  the  Rev.  Thomas  Aveling, 
of  London ;  the  Rev.  R.  Koenig,  of  Pesth,  Hungary ;  the  Rev.  Dr.  Revel, 
of  Florence,  Italy ;  the  Rev.  J.  G.  Bliss,  of  Constantinople ;  and  the  Rev. 
J.  Ketley,  of  Demerara,  South  America.  The  presence  of  these  and  other 


SIXTH  GENERAL  CONFERENCE.  5 

brethren,  from  such  widely  separated  portions  of  the  world,  furnished  an 
indication  of  the  interest  that  had  been  awakened  in  the  expected  Con- 
ference throughout  Christendom,  and  served  to  deepen  the  regret  at  its 
postponement.  And  on  the  following  Sunday  evening,  when  a  public 
meeting  in  the  interest  of  the  Alliance  was  held  in  the  Association  Build- 
ing, addressed  by  the  Eev.  James  Davis,  of  London,  and  others,  the  crowd- 
ed audience  that  filled  the  spacious  hall  to  overflowing,  and  the  numbers 
who  were  obliged  to  leave  for  want  of  room,  showed  how  deeply  the  com- 
munity were  interested  in  the  Conference  that  had  been  deferred. 

RESUMPTION  OF  PREPARATIONS. 

In  the  spring  of  1872,  it  was  decided,  after  correspondence  with  the  other 
branches  of  the  Alliance,  to  hold  the  Conference  from  the  2d  to  the  12th  of 
October,  1873.  During  the  summer  of  1872,  Dr.  Schaff  again  visited  Eu- 
rope, to  confer  with  distinguished  gentlemen  whose  presence  was  especially 
desired,  and  earnest  preparations  were  resumed  at  home.  The  disappoint- 
ment incident  to  the  postponement  in  1870  rendered  it  difficult  to  arouse  in 
the  public  mind  the  enthusiasm  that  had  existed  at  that  time.  But  the  com- 
mittee labored  with  all  the  more  ardor.  Sub-committees  were  formed,  on 
the  Programme,  on  Finance,  on  Preliminary  Meetings,  on  arrangements  for 
Entertaining  Delegates,  Music,  etc.,  etc.  Public  meetings  were  held  in  a 
number  of  churches  of  different  denominations,  with  the  view  to  increase 
the  interest  of  the  community  in  the  Conference.  Pastors  cheerfully  pledged 
themselves  to  raise  contributions  from  their  congregations. 

While  the  work  of  preparation  was  thus  going  on,  favors  were  shown  to 
the  committee,  which  greatly  assisted  them  in  their  arduous  endeavors. 
The  Young  Men's  Christian  Association  renewed  the  generous  offer  that 
they  had  made  in  1870,  of  the  gratuitous  and  exclusive  use  of  their  spacious 
building  for  the  Conference  during  its  ten  days'  session.  The  Trustees  of 
St.  Paul's  Methodist  Episcopal  Church,  corner  of  Fourth  Avenue  and  Twen- 
ty-second Street,  of  the  Fourth  Avenue  Presbyterian  Church,  directly  oppo- 
site, and  of  the  Madison  Square  Presbyterian  Church,  corner  of  Madison 
Avenue  and  Twenty-fourth  §treet,  kindly  placed  these  edifices  at  the  dis- 
posal of  the  Conference.  Steinway  Hall  and  the  large  Hall  of  the. Cooper 
Union  were  also  tendered  to  the  Conference.for  such  occasional  use  as  might 
be  desired,  free  of  charge.  Offers  of  hospitality  flowed  in,  sufficient  to  meet 
the  demand,  many  families  returning  from  their  summer  sojourn  in  the 
country  earlier  than  usual  to  entertain  their  guests,  and  others  furnishing 
the  means  for  entertainment  at  hotels,  while  most  of  our  leading  hotels  of- 
fered to  receive  delegates  at  greatly  reduced  rates.  Nor  should  the  valua- 


C  EVANGELICAL  ALLIANCE. 

ble  aid  rendered  by  the  press  be  overlooked.  Not  only  the  religious  week- 
lies, but  the  principal  secular  daily  papers  in  New  York,  as  well  as  many 
newspapers  throughout  the  land,  contained  editorial  notices  of  the  Confer- 
ence that  served  greatly  to  enhance  the  public  interest. 

SOCIAL  REUNION. 

On  Thursday  evening,  October  2d,  the  "  Social  Reunion  of  Members  and 
Invited  Guests"  took  place  in  the  Association  Building,  which  was  suitably 
arranged  for  the  occasion.  The  walls  of  the  reception-room  and  parlors 
were  hung  with  paintings  of  the  artists  whose  studios  are  in  the  building, 
and  the  lecture-room  and  library  were  used  as  refreshment-rooms. 

Admission  to  the  building  was  only  by  tickets,  which  had  been  distrib- 
uted, in  addition  to  members  of  the  Conference,  to  pastors  of  contributing 
churches,  to  families  entertaining  delegates,  and  to  other  friends  of  the 
Alliance,  so  far  as  the  capacity  of  the  building  admitted.  Nearly  every 
Christian  nation  was  represented ;  heathen  nations  had  their  representatives 
in  the  persons  of  missionaries  of  the  Cross ;  and  distant  India  sent  one  of 
her  own  natives,  no  longer  an  idolater,  but  a  worshiper  of  the  true  God,  and 
a  member  of  the  household  of  faith.  All  branches  of  the  one  Evangelical 
Church  were  represented  by  clergymen  and  laymen,  distinguished  by  vari- 
ous peculiarities,  yet  rejoicing  to  feel  that  they  were  one  in  Christ  Jesus. 

After  an  hour  of  delightful  social  intercourse,  the  audience-room  was 
thrown  open.  The  great  throng  moved  toward  the  doors  in  solid  array. 
Soon  every  seat  was  filled,  and  every  inch  of  available  standing-room  was 
occupied.  Half  of  the  ground-floor  was  reserved  for  the  use  of  the  dele- 
gates, and  on  the  platform  were  seated  the  President  and  many  of  the  other 
officers  of  the  United  States  Alliance,  and  such  of  the  delegates  as  were  to 
take  part  in  the  services  of  the  evening. 

It  is  not  often  that  one  is  permitted  to  gaze  upon  such  a  sight  as  was  then 
presented.  The  hall  itself  was  tastefully  decorated.  The  platform  was  car- 
peted, and  adorned  with  evergreens,  flowers,  and  plants.  In  the  centre  of 
the  wall  behind  the  platform  were  the  initials  and  motto  of  the  Alliance, 
with  the  date  of  its  organization  and  the  date  of  the  present  Conference: 


Unum   Corpus  Sumus   in   Christo. 

1846.  4873. 


SIXTH  GENERAL  CONFERENCE.  7 

Just  below  this  was  the  motto,  also  descriptive  of  the  principles  of  the 
Alliance,  U!N  NECESSARIIS  UNITAS;  IN  DUBIIS  LIBERTAS;  IN  OMNIBUS 
CARITAS."  Around  these  mottoes  the  names  of  the  eminent  Eeformers  and 
Theologians,  Luther,  Calvin,  Wycliffe,  Edwards,  Knox,  Bunyan,  and  Wes- 
ley, were  arranged.  On  the  balcony  was  the  Greek  name  of  the  fish, 
'IXGYS,  the  mystic  emblem  of  the  faith  of  the  early  Christians  in  the  days 
of  their  persecution,  containing,  as  it  does,  the  initial  letters  of  the  words  in 
which  they  confessed  Jesus  Christ,  the  Son  of  God,  as  their  Saviour,  'Ijjdou? 
Xjoioroe  Ofou  fY*oe  SWTJ/JO. 

From  the  ceiling  above  the  platform  the  flag  of  the  Union  was  gracefully 
festooned,  to  which  was  appended  the  shield  containing  our  National  Motto, 
"E  Pluribus  TJnum" — a  motto  equally  appropriate  to  the  united  Christian 
body  under  whose  auspices  the  festivities  of  the  evening  were  celebrated. 
On  either  side  of  the  American  flag,  completing  the  drapery,  were  the  flags 
of  Great  Britain,  France,  and  Germany. 

At  the  other  end  of  the  hall,  on  the  front  of  the  gallery,  were  the  first 
and  last  letters  of  the  Greek  alphabet,  applied  by  Christ  to  himself  in  the 
last  chapter  of  Kevelation,  AQ.  Around  the  entire  gallery  were  hung  the 
flags  of  the  various  nations  alternating  with  that  of  the  United  States. 

The  Hon.  William  E.  Dodge,  President  of  the  United  States  Alliance,  took 
the  chair,  and  the  exercises  were  commenced  with  singing  the  hymn, 

' '  From  all  who  dwell  below  the  skies, 
Let  the  Creator's  praise  arise ; 
Let  the  Redeemer's  name  be  sung 
Through  every  land,  by  every  tongue." 

The  hymn  was  sung  to  the  familiar  tune  of  "  Old  Hundred,"  the  grand  or- 
gan accompanying,  and  the  entire  audience  rising  and  joining  in  this  act  of 
praise.  The  Eev.  C.  Dallas  Marston,  M.A.,  of  London,  then  led  the  audience 
in  the  Lord's  Prayer. 

The  Eev.  William  Adams,  D.D.,  LL.D.,  of  New  York,  delivered  an  address 
of  welcome  to  the  members  of  the  Conference,  which  is  to  be  found  on  page 
65  of  this  volume.  Eesponses  followed  from  a  number  of  distinguished 
foreign  delegates. 

Lord  Alfred  Churchill,  of  London,  after  reading  a  letter  of  greeting,  ad- 
dressed by  the  Council  of  the  British  Alliance  to  the  United  States  Alliance 
(see  page  719  of  Appendix  L,  to  this  volume),  expressed  his  great  pleasure 
in  accepting  the  hospitality  of  American  Christians,  and  his  belief  that  the 
influence  of  this  Conference,  in  which  Christians  in  his  own  country  were  so 
much  interested,  would  be  felt  all  over  the  civilized  world.  He  closed  with 


8  EVANGELICAL  ALLIANCE. 

assuring  the  meeting  of  the  good-will  of  all  classes  of  Christians  in  Great 
Britain  toward  America,  its  churches  and  its  people. 

The  Rev.  John  Stoughton,  D.D.,  of  London,  said  that  as  he  was  entering 
the  hall  a  gentleman  whispered  in  his  ear,  "  This,  sir,  is  the  grandest  meet- 
ing that  has  been  held  for  ages.  It  beats  the  Ecumenical  Council  at  Rome !" 
lie  believed  the  gentleman  was  correct,  as  Americans  generally  are  when 
they  express  their  opinions.  The  Council  at  Rome  was  nothing  but  a  gath- 
ering of  the  members  of  a  single  Church,  and  that  the  most  sectarian  Church 
in  the  world;  whereas  this  Conference  has  representatives  from  various 
branches  of  the  Christian  Church,  all  of  them  distinguished  more  or  less  by 
the  true  spirit  of  catholicity. .  • 

He  had  come  to  this  country  with  all  the  feelings  of  an  Englishman,  but 
he  had  been  so  overwhelmed  with  kindness  that,  though  here  only  a  month, 
he  felt  one-half  American  already.  He  saw  in  the  hall  the  Stars  and  Stripes 
and  the  Union  Jack  peacefully  folded  together,  and  as  he  looked  upon  the 
audience  he  felt  that  henceforth  a  war  between  England  and  America  would 
be  an  impossibility.  As  a  Christian  he  was  prepared  to  join  hands  with  all 
in  waving  the  banner  that  bears  upon  its  folds  the  simple  cross.  He  hoped 
great  things  from  the  Conference,  and  prayed  that  peace  and  union  might 
attend  it  from  the  beginning  to  the  end. 

Rev.  George  Fisch,  D.D.,  of  Paris,  felt  that  he  was  enjoying  a  foretaste  of 
heaven.  It  was  a  blessing  to  be  where  there  were  no  boundaries,  no  na- 
tionalities, but  an  alliance  that  embraced  us  all.  He  hoped  that  the  Confer- 
ence would  be  of  great  benefit  to  evangelical  Christians  in  France,  and  that 
the  American  Republic,  which  was  dear  to  the  French  people,  would  teach 
them  that  a  republic,  if  it  is  to  stand  firm,  must  be  built  upon  the  ground  of 
personal  conscience  and  personal  faith  in  God. 

Rev.  Franck  Coulin,  D.D.,  of  Geneva,  Switzerland,  sincerely  wished  that 
there  was  but  one  language  on  earth  as  well  as  in  heaven.  He  had  long 
wished  to  visit  America,  the  classic  land  of  religious  liberty,  but  he  could 
never  have  anticipated  the  warm  welcome  that  awaited  him  here.  Some 
people  said  the  Evangelical  Alliance  was  not  practical,  but  he  felt  that  the 
present  meeting  was  enough  to  disprove  such  a  charge.  Whitefield  once 
preached  on  Christian  unity,  from  the  text,  "God  is  no  respecter  of  persons; 
but  in  every  nation  he  that  feareth  Him  and  worketh  righteousness  is  ac- 
cepted with  Him."  So  he  would  know  all  Christians,  not  as  sectarians,  but 
as  disciples  of  Christ.  He  was  sure  that  all  who  were  gathered  at  this  meet- 
ing, though  representing  different  branches  of  the  Christian  family,  were 
unanimous  in  desiring  the  success  of  the  Conference. 

Professor  I.  A.  Dorner,  D.D.,  of  the  University  of  Berlin,  said  that  evan- 


SIXTH  GENERAL  CONFERENCE.  9 

gelical  America  had  invited  evangelical  Europe  to  this  Conference,  and  that 
this  invitation  was  appreciated  by  his  own  countrymen,  as  well  as  by  all 
others  to  whom  it  had  been  extended.  Some  of  the  most  distinguished 
friends  of  the  Alliance  in  Germany  were  not  here.  The  Eev.  Dr.  Hoffmann, 
of  Berlin,  a  man  of  great  influence  in  Germany,  expected  to  attend,  but  had 
recently  been  called  to  his  heavenly  rest.  The  learned  Professor  Tischen- 
dorff,  of  Leipsic,  would  have  made  one  of  our  number,  but  he  had  been  sud- 
denly seized  with  a  severe  illness  that  rendered  it  impossible  for  him  to 
come.  The  interests  of  the  Alliance  were  dear  to  all,  and  he  felt  that  the 
true  idea  of  a  Christian  Church  would  be  vivified  by  such  a  meeting  as  this, 
and  the  bonds  of  Christian  brotherhood  strengthened. 

Professor  Theodore  Christlieb,  D.D.,  of  the  University  of  Bonn,  Prussia, 
in  addressing  the  audience  in  the  English  language,  felt  like  young  David 
when  he  tried  to  march  in  the  armor  of  Saul !  At  the  Council  of  Ephesus, 
held  1400  years  ago,  the  following  greeting  was  given:  "Brethren,  I  greet 
you  in  the  name  of  Mary,  the  Mother  of  God,  because  through  her  you  have 
been  brought  safely  over  the  ocean."  Coming  from  the  land  of  the  Refor- 
mation, he  would  greet  the  Conference,  not  in  the  name  of  Mary,  but  in  the 
name  of  the  blessed  Saviour,  who  had  brought  them  safely  together.  In 
behalf  of  his  brethren,  he  thanked  the  United  States  Alliance  for  the  recep- 
tion given  them.  Germans  were  not  much  accustomed  to  flatter,  but  he 
must  say  that  the  welcome  here  had  exceeded  those  at  former  meetings  of 
the  Alliance,  and  would  make  it  very  difficult  for  any  European  nation  to 
invite  the  Alliance  for  some  time  to  come.  The  German  delegates  would 
learn  much  from  their  visit  to  the  United  States.  They  had  already  seen 
something  of  its  institutions,  its  usages,  and  its  customs,  and  would  carry 
home  impressions  that  would  be  of  great  benefit  to  them.  Germany  had  for 
ages  been  a  country  of  spiritual  troubles,  but  he  felt  confident  that  Protest- 
antism, resting  on  the  basis  of  truth  and  liberty,  would  ever  be  invincible 
against  all  forms  of  human  error.  There  were  times — and  this  was  one  of 
them — when  Germans  could,  in  a  sense,  forget  that  they  were  Germans,  and 
shake  hands  with  their  French  brethren  (offering  his  hand  to  the  Rev.  Dr. 
Fisch,  of  Paris).  The  fathers  of  our  faith  were  already  one  before  the 
Throne,  and  their  children  should  be  one.  He  hoped  that  German  Chris- 
tians, as  well  as  all  others,  would  be  strengthened  by  this  Conference,  and 
that  Protestantism  would  go  forth  as  a  thoroughly  united  and  truly  Ecu- 
menical power,  until  the  world  was  brought  to  the  feet  of  Jesus. 

Rev.  M.  Cohen  Stuart,  D.D.,  of  Rotterdam,  regretted  that  he  was  the  only 
delegate  present  from  Holland.  But  though  alone,  he  was  followed  by  the 
prayers  of  the  friends  who  had  sent  him,  and  who  would  gladly  have  come 


10  EVANGELICAL  ALLIANCE. 

themselves,  bad  it  been  possible  for  them  to  do  so.  Though  he  had  been  in 
this  country  but  three  weeks,  he  already  felt  quite  at  home.  He  was  glad 
to  see  the  American  and  the  Dutch  flags  twined  around  the  hall,  to  see 
in  these  flags  the  same  identical  colors,  red,  white,  and  Hue,  and  to  meet  with 
so  many  good  Dutch  names  and  warm  Dutch  hearts  here.  He  hoped  it 
would  be  our  constant  prayer  that  the  Evangelical  Alliance  might  be  led 
and  sanctified  by  the  Holy  Spirit,  so  as  to  promote,  according  to  its  high 
calling,  the  kingdom  of  truth  and  of  love. 

The  Kev.  Narayan  Sheshadri,  of  Bombay,  India,  a  converted  high-caste 
Brahmin,  and  a  missionary  of  the  Free  Church  of  Scotland,  said  that  his 
appearance  at  the  Conference  gave  the  lie  to  the  assertion,  sometimes  made, 
that  the  missionary  enterprise  had  been  a  failure.  India  had  indeed  been 
dead,  but  a  resurrection  was  taking  place  in  that  country,  and  he  hoped 
that  it  would  soon  be  felt  through  the  whole  length  and  breadth  of  the 
land.  He  had  come  to  the  Conference  with  the  greatest  expectations,  not 
merely  because  he  believed  in  the  power  of  sympathy,  but  because  he  be- 
lieved in  the  eternal  verities  of  the  Bible.  His  countrymen  were  unfortu- 
nately divided  by  caste — originally  four,  there  were  now  some  four  hundred 
castes — but  he  hoped  to  see  them  eventually  united ;  and  this  would  be  ef- 
fected by  carrying  out  the  objects  that  the  Evangelical  Alliance  had  in  view. 
He  had  been  told1,  before  leaving  home,  that  he  would  find  castes  in  Chris- 
tian lands,  but,  on  his  return,  he  should  tell  his  countrymen  that  the  differ- 
ences among  Christians  were  slight,  and  their  unity  was  substantial ;  that 
they  were  one  in  the  grand,  essential,  eternal  truths  of  salvation.  If  we 
could  all  go  forth  from  these  meetings  determined  to  present  Christ  to  the 
world,  the  effect  would  be  so  great  that  neither  skeptics  nor  heathen  could 
resist  it. 

Charles  Reed,  Esq.,  M.P.,  of  London,  was  the  last  speaker.  He  was  grati- 
fied that  the  key-note  had  been  so  well  struck  in  Dr.  Adams's  address  of 
welcome.  He  had  noticed  that  every  other  speaker  had  expressed  the 
same  brotherly  kindness.  He  had  attended  many  meetings  in  his  own 
country,  but  had  never  found  a  better  feeling  in  an  audience  than  he  saw 
exhibited  in  the  gathering  of  to-night.  As  a  layman  he  was  glad  to  be 
upon  the  same  platform  with  so  many  distinguished  clergymen.  There  had 
been  times  when  councils  such  as  this  had  been  called  together,  and  none 
but  the  clergy  allowed  to  take  part  in  them.  It  was  a  blessed  thing  that 
the  Evangelical  Alliance  opened  the  avenue  through  which  the  clergy  and 
their  flocks  might  pass  together. 

All  the  addresses,  of  which  the  above  brief  abstract  gives  but  an  imper- 
fect idea,  breathed  a  spirit  of  kindness  and  brotherhood  that  banished  every 


SIXTH  GENERAL  CONFERENCE.  11 

prejudice  of  nationality  or  creed,  and  welded  the  hearts  of  the  immense  au- 
dience together  as  the  heart  of  one  man ;  and  when  Professor  Christlieb,  in 
the  course  of  his  address,  turned  to  the  Eev.  Dr.  Fisch,  of  Paris,  and  these 
two  brethren,  from  countries  that  have  so  recently  been  engaged  in  deadly 
conflict,  clasped  each  other's  hands,  the  enthusiasm  of  the  audience  knew  no 
bounds,  and,  rising  to  their  feet,  they  caused  cheer  after  cheer  to  echo  and 
re-echo  through  the  hall. 

And  when  the  Hindoo,  Sheshadri,  clad  in  Oriental  costume,  with  snow- 
white  turban  and  flowing  robe,  in  classic  English  and  with  earnest  utter- 
ance, spoke  of  himself  as  an  example  of  the  success  of  missions,  and  express- 
ed his  sympathy  with  the  Alliance,  and  his  hopes  for  the  future  of  his  coun- 
try, the  hearts  of  the  audience  were  again  filled  with  the  deepest  emotion. 

After  two  hours  of  rich  enjoyment,  the  exercises  of  the  evening  closed 
with  the  benediction  by  the  Rev.  Noah  Hunt  Schenck,  D.D.,  of  Brooklyn. 

ORGANIZATION  OF  THE  CONFERENCE. 

At  ten  o'clock  on  Friday  morning,  October  8,  the  Conference  met  in 
Stein  way  Hall  for  formal  organization  and  the  transaction  of  business.  The 
hall  was  crowded  to  its  utmost  capacity,  even  the  aisles  being  filled  with 
interested  spectators.  The  large  platform  and  the  seats  in  front  of  it  were 
occupied  by  delegates  and  invited  guests. 

The  Hon.  William  B.  Dodge  presided,  and,  before  proceeding  to  business, 
a  half-hour  was  spent  in  devotional  services.  The  audience  united  in  sing- 
ing the  doxology, 

"Praise  God,  from  whom  all  blessings  flow, 
Praise  Him,  all  creatures  here  below ; 
Praise  Him  above,  ye  heavenly  host, 
Praise  Father,  Son,  and  Holy  Ghost." 

The  venerable  Professor  Charles  Hodge,  D.D.,  LL.D.,  of  Princeton,  New 
Jersey,  offered  prayer  in  these  words : 

"  Come,  Holy  Spirit,  come !  Descend  in  all  Thy  plenitude  of  grace.  Come 
as  the  Spirit  of  reverence  and  love.  Aid  us,  O  God,  in  the  discharge  of  the 
duties  on  which  we  are  about  to  enter.  We  have  assembled  here  from  al- 
most all  parts  of  the  world.  We  have  come  to  confess  Thee  before  men ;  to 
avow  our  faith  that  God  is,  and  that  He  is  the  Creator,  Preserver,  and  Gov- 
ernor of  the  World.  We  are  here  to  acknowledge  that  the  God  of  Abra- 
ham, and  of  Isaac,  and  of  Jacob  is  our  God.  We  are  here  to  confess  Christ 
as  God  manifest  in  the  flesh,  and  as  our  only  and  all-sufficient  Saviour,  who 
for  us  sinners  died  upon  the  cross,  to  reconcile  us  unto  God,  and  to  make 
expiation  for  the  sins  of  men ;  and  who,  having  died  for  our  offenses,  has 
risen  again  for  our  justification.  We  acknowledge  Him  as  now  seated  at 


12  EVANGELICAL  ALLIANCE. 

the  right  hand  of  the  Majesty  on  high,  all  power  in  heaven  and  on  earth 
having  been  committed  to  His  hands.  Thanks  be  to  God,  thanks  be  to 
God,  that  lie  has  put  on  us,  unworthy  as  we  are,  the  honor  to  make  this 
confession,  and  to  bear  this  testimony  to  God  and  to  His  Son.  O  God, 
look  down  from  heaven  upon  us.  Shed  abroad  in  our  hearts  the  Holy 
Spirit,  that  we  may  be  truly  one  in  Christ  Jesus. 

"  0  Thou  blessed  Spirit  of  the  living  God,  without  whom  the  universe 
were  dead,  Thou  art  the  source  of  all  life,  of  all  holiness,  of  all  power.  0 
Thou  perfect  Spirit,  Thou  precious  gift  of  God,  come,  we  pray,  and  dwell  in 
every  heart,  and  touch  every  lip.  We  invoke  the  blessing  of  the  Father, 
Son,  and  Holy  Ghost  on  this  Evangelical  Alliance.  We  spread  abroad  our 
banner,  in  the  sight  of  all  men,  with  the  confession  which  Thou  hast  put 
into  our  lips  —  the  confession  of  all  Christendom.  We  confess  God  the 
Father  to  be  our  Father;  Jesus  Christ,  His  Son,  to  be  our  Saviour;  the 
Holy  Ghost  to  be  our  Sanctifier ;  and  His  Word  to  be  the  infallible  rule  of 
faith  and  practice.  Grant,  0  Lord,  that  wherever  human  words  are  uttered, 
this  confession  may  be  the  language  of  every  heart.  And  to  the  Father, 
Son,  and  Holy  Ghost  be  glory,  now  and  evermore.  Amen."1 

The  Rev.  James  H.  Rigg,  D.D.,  of  Westminster,  London,  read  the  seven- 
teenth chapter  of  the  Gospel  according  to  St.  John,  after  which  the  Very 
Rev.  R.  Payne  Smith,  D.D.,  Dean  of  Canterbury,  repeated  the  Apostles' 
Creed,  the  audience  rising  and  uniting  in  the  recital : 

I  believe  in  God  the  Father  Almighty,  Maker  of  heaven  and  earth ;  and 
in  Jesus  Christ,  His  only  Son,  our  Lord,  who  was  conceived  by  the  Holy 
Ghost,  born  of  the  Virgin  Mary,  suffered  under  Pontius  Pilate,  was  crucified, 
dead,  and  buried.  He  descended  into  hell ;  the  third  day  He  arose  again 
from  the  dead ;  he  ascended  into  heaven,  and  sitteth  on  the  right  hand  of 
God  the  Father  Almighty;  from  thence  he  shall  come  to  judge  the  quick 
and  the  dead.  I  believe  in  the  Holy  Ghost ;  the  Holy  Catholic  Church ; 
the  communion  of  saints ;  the  forgiveness  of  sins ;  the  resurrection  of  the 
body ;  and  the  life  everlasting.  Amen. 

Prayer  was  then  offered  by  the  Rev.  Matteo  Prochet,  of  Genoa,  Italy,  and 
the  whole  Assembly  joined  in  singing  the  hymn, 

"  All  hail  the  power  of  Jesus'  name." 

At  the  close  of  these  services,  the  Hon.  William  E.  Dodge,  of  New  York, 
spoke  as  follows : 

"FELLOW -CHRISTIANS,  MEMBERS,  AND  DELEGATES, — It  becomes  my 
pleasant  duty,  as  President  of  the  United  States  Evangelical  Alliance,  to  call 
the  Conference  to  order,  that  the  necessary  steps  may  be  taken  for  perma- 
nent organization. 


SIXTH  GENEKAL  CONFERENCE.  13 

"  In  response  to  our  invitation,  you  have  come  from  different  parts  of  the 
world,  to  attend  this  General  Conference  in  a  land  to  many  of  you  new  and 
strange.  In  the  name  of  the  United  States  Alliance,  I  extend  to  you  again 
this  morning  a  cordial  welcome  to  our  shores,  our  homes,  and  our  hearts. 
We  trust  that  the  separation  from  beloved  friends  and  from  pressing  duties, 
with  all  the  discomforts  of  travel,  may  find  some  compensation  in  the  joys 
of  a  Christian  fellowship  that  only  such  an  occasion  can  afford,  and  in  the 
new  and  riper  views  of  Christian  obligation  and  privilege  that  such  discus- 
sions as  are  now  before  us  promise  to  unfold. 

"  To  those  who  have  crossed  the  ocean  for  the  first  time,  there  will  also  be 
an  opportunity  to  become  more  intimately  acquainted  with  the  life  and  fea- 
tures of  the  New  World.  You  will  find  here  vast  numbers  from  your  own 
lands,  who  have  come  to  adopt  this  as  a  home  for  themselves  and  their  chil- 
dren. You  will  learn  something  of  the  form  of  civil  government  that  distin- 
guishes this  from  other  countries.  You  will  notice  the  various  religious  or- 
ganizations, seeking  no  support  from  the  State,  but  only  demanding  protec- 
tion in  the  full  enjoyment  of  religious  liberty.  You  will  perhaps  be  aston- 
ished at  the  growth  and  prosperity  that  have  been  attained  in  so  short  a 
time.  The  population  of  this  city  in  which  we  are  convened  has,  within 
the  life  of  men  present  with  us  here  to-day,  grown  from  70,000  to  about 
1,000,000,  while  the  population  of  the  United  States  has  in  the  same  time 
increased  from  6,000,000  to  40,000,000. 

"Americans  who  travel  abroad  gaze  with  interest  upon  the  growth  of  cen- 
turies— ancient  cathedrals,  castles,  and  cities  of  historic  fame ;  here  we  can 
only  point  you  to  what  has  been  accomplished  chiefly  during  a  single  cen- 
tury. We  hope  that  many  of  you  may  visit  our  Western  States,  cross  our 
inland  seas,  and  witness  for  yourselves  the  marvelous  changes  in  progress 
there. 

"We  meet  as  Christian  brethren,  and,  laying  aside  for  the  time  the  dis- 
tinctions that  separate  us  into  sects  and  parties,  we  rejoice  to  greet  one  an- 
other as  children  of  a  common  Father,  assembled  to  deliberate  on  the  mighty 
concerns  of  his  kingdom,  and  to  consider  how  we  can  best  promote  the  great 
principles  that  bind  us  and  all  true  believers  together.  The  topics  to  be 
discussed  are  most  timely  and  important,  and  we  trust  that  the  conclusions 
reached  will  fully  vindicate  the  wisdom  of  convening  such  a  body  of  men. 

"  Permit  me  to  remind  you  that  the  calling  of  this  Conference,  composed 
of  representatives  of  almost  every  land,  and  well-nigh  every  department 
of  Christian  thought  and  activity,  has  awakened  wide  interest  in  our  own 
country,  and,  I  doubt  not,  in  other  lands.  The  eyes  of  God  and  of  men  are 
watching  us.  Let  us  enter  upon  our  duties  with  a  deep  sense  of  our  entire 


14  EVANGELICAL  ALLIANCE. 

dependence  on  that  -wisdom  which  is  from  above,  and  with  earnest  prayer 
that  the  Divine  Spirit  may  guide  all  our  deliberations.  Animated  with  such 
feelings,  and  blessed  with  such  aid,  it  can  not  be  that  we  shall  separate  with- 
out carrying  away  thoughts  and  purposes  that  shall  redound  to  the  glory 
of  God  and  the  welfare  of  our  fellow-men. 

"  Years  hence  it  may  be  one  of  the  happiest  memories  we  shall  cherish 
that  we  were  permitted  to  take  even  an  humble  part  in  the  proceedings  of 
this  Sixth  General  Conference  of  the  Evangelical  Alliance.  May  it  do  much 
toward  preparing  the  way  for  the  relief  of  those  still  persecuted  for  right- 
eousness' sake  in  various  portions  of  the  globe ;  may  it  give  an  impulse  to 
the  growth  of  religious  liberty  everywhere ;  may  it  bind  together  Chris- 
tians of  every  name  more  closely,  and  also  help  forward  the  growing  senti- 
ment in  favor  of  arbitration  in  the  settlement  of  international  difficulties, 
and  lift  up  among  all  people  a  victorious  standard  in  the  face  of  modern 
skepticism,  rationalism,  the  claims  of  the  Papacy,  and  every  other  false 
system. 

"Let  me  add  that  such  arrangements  as  were  in  our  power  have  been 
made  for  the  comfort  and  convenience  of  the  delegates  during  their  stay 
among  us.  Again  giving  you  a  hearty  welcome  in  the  name  of  the  United 
States  Alliance,  I  request  the  Conference  now  to  proceed  to  a  more  formal 
organization." 

After  the  delivery  of  this  address,  the  list  of  delegates  to  the  Conference 
was  presented,  showing  a  membership  of  516,  including  regularly  accredited 
delegates  from  the  various  Branches  of  the  Alliance  throughout  the  world, 
and  gentlemen  admitted  to  the  floor  of  the  Conference  by  invitation  of  the 
United  States  Alliance.  Of  the  delegates,  there  were  75  from  Great  Britain, 
9  from  France,  12  from  Germany,  6  from  Switzerland,  2  from  Belgium,  1 
from  Holland,  2  from  Spain,  1  from  Italy,  1  from  Greece,  2  from  Turkey, 
1  from  Prussia,  and  4  from  India,  making  a  total  of  116  from  the  Eastern 
Hemisphere.  From  the  different  Branches  of  the  Alliance  in  the  British 
Provinces  of  North  America,  including  the  Bermuda  Islands,  the  West  In- 
dies, and  Prince  Edward  Island,  there  were  56,  and  from  the  United  States 
Alliance  and  its  Branches  there  were  294  delegates.  Among  the  members 
by  invitation  were  missionaries  from  Burmah,  Siam,  China,  Ceylon,  India, 
Turkey,  Syria,  Egypt,  and  South  Africa,  so  that  nearly  every  portion  of  the 
inhabited  world  was  represented. 

The  reading  of  the  roll,  owing  to  its  great  length,  was  dispensed  with,  and 
on  motion  of  the  Eev.  G.  R.  Crooks,  D.D.,  of  New  York,  the  Conference  pro- 
ceeded to  the  election  of  officers.  Ex-President  Theodore  D.  Woolsey,  D.D., 


SIXTH  GENERAL  CONFERENCE.  15 

LL.D.,  of  New  Haven,  Connecticut,  was  unanimously  chosen  President  of 
the  Conference,  supported  by  Vice-presidents;  and  Secretaries,  General, 
Honorary,  and  Eecording,  were  elected.  The  complete  roll  of  the  officers 
and  members  of  the  Conference  may  be  found  on  page  755  of  this  volume. 
The  Eev.  Dr.  Woolsey,  on  taking  the  chair,  addressed  the  Conference  as 
follows : 

"  CHRISTIAN  FRIENDS, — We  are  met  here  to-day  because  we  believe  in 
the  Communion  of  Saints.  We  believe  that  man  in  his  nature  has  aspira- 
tions, has  a  sense  of  want,  has  a  need  of  redemption,  and  is  one  in  all  his 
races.  We  believe,  also,  that  God  is  one,  and  that  in  all  the  various  unfold- 
ings  of  Christian  life  there  is  one  Christian  character :  the  spirit  of  love  to 
God  and  love  to  man,  resting  on  Jesus  Christ  our  Lord,  in  the  hope  of  re- 
demption through  Him.  We  can  say, '  Unto  Him  that  loved  us,  and  wash- 
ed us  from  our  sins  in  His  own  blood,  and  hath  made  us  kings  and  priests 
unto  God  and  His  Father ;  to  Him  be  glory  and  dominion  for  ever  and  ever. 
Amen.'  And  as  in  all  ages  of  the  past,  from  the  age  of  the  apostles  down  to 
our  time,  in  every  land,  and  under  every  form  of  worship  which  had  access 
through  Christ  to  the  Father,  there  has  been  communion  of  the  saints ;  we 
believe  in  one  great  universal  Church,  that  has  lasted  through  all  time  until 
now,  and  that  is  to  last  until  the  end  of  all  things. 

"And  thus,  to  quote  from  Bishop  Coxe, 

'  Oh !  where  are  kings  and  empires  now 

Of  old  that  went  and  came  ? 
But,  Lord,  thy  Church  is  praying  yet, 
A  thousand  years  the  same.' 

"Notwithstanding  the  inefficacy  of  prayer  has  been  demonstrated  by  sci- 
ence (!),  the  Church  goes  on  praying  still,  all  the  same;  and  as  long  as  there 
are  Christians  in  the  world  they  will  pray  instinctively,  in  spite  of  all  logical 
conclusions. 

"  Thus,  too,  we  believe  in  the  diffusiveness  of  the  Gospel.  I  heard  last 
night  of  a  friend  now  here  (Rev.  Narayan  Sheshadri)  being  converted  from 
natural  pantheism  to  an  intelligent  and  cordial  belief  in  Christ,  and  so  I  was 
reminded  that  '  Many  shall  come  from  the  east  and  west,  and  shall  sit  down 
with  Abraham,  and  Isaac,  and  Jacob  in  the  kingdom  of  heaven.'  This 
Gospel  has  spread  on  every  side,  with  equal  power  of  self-diffusion  through 
all  lands.  Think  what  a  change  it  has  made  in  our  continent !  A  German 
antiquary  says  that  in  Caesar's  time  a  squirrel  could  jump,  from  tree  to  tree, 
from  the  Ehine  to  the  Elbe.  So,  two  hundred  and  fifty  years  ago,  an  al- 
most unbroken  forest  stretched  from  the  Atlantic  to  the  Pacific,  roamed  over 


16  EVANGELICAL  ALLIANCE. 

by  a  few  Pagans.  Now  in  these  United  States  more  than  60,000  Protest- 
ant churches  attest  to  the  diffusive  energy  of  the  Gospel. 

"And  this  Gospel  makes  everywhere  the  same  appeals  to  the  conscience 
that  it  has  done  in  times  past.  Not  many  months  ago  a  young  Japanese 
called  upon  me  and  said,  'I  am  a  Christian,  and  I  have  received  an  appoint- 
ment from  my  Government.  Now  I  want  to  know,  inasmuch  as  my  Gov- 
ernment may  order  me  to  do  something  inconsistent  with  the  profession  of 
a  Christian  life,  what  am  I  to  do?'  I  told  him,  of  course,  that  he  was  to 
obey  God  before  men,  but  that,  if  he  maintained  his  Christian  life,  every 
thing  would  be  clear  to  him  at  the  time.  The  same  problem  is  coming  up 
before  the  enlightened  Japanese  conscience  as  before  ours.  It  is  the  same 
everywhere. 

"  But  in  the  present  age,  while  the  social  and  the  missionary  triumphs  of 
the  Church  have  been  great,  the  assaults  and  attacks  upon  Christianity  have 
been  almost  equally  great  and  formidable.  And,  now,  what  is  to  be  the 
effect?  Is  it  not  to  bind  us  together  as  Christians,  and  make  us  forget  our 
differences  ?  And  while  we  value  the  discipline  and  the  recollections  hand- 
ed down  to  us  from  our  fathers  more  than  those  of  others,  will  not  these  as- 
saults of  the  adversaries  of  our  faith  make  all  the  regiments  of  the  army  of 
God  move  together  as  one  united  band  ? 

"Gentlemen,  I  need  not  repeat  the  welcome  already  given  to  you.  Yet,  as 
your  President,  I  may  once  more  say  to  you  that  we  welcome  you  all.  We 
welcome  the  Lutheran ;  we  welcome  the  children  of  free,  heroic  Switzer- 
land, and  the  representatives  of  France,  the  much  suffering  and  glorious 
Church  of  France ;  we  welcome  those  from  all  other  parts  of  Europe,  and 
those  who  have  come  like  first-fruits  from  the  Eastern  lands ;  and,  with  al- 
most English  hearts  beating  within  us,  we  welcome  our  friends  from  En- 
gland, Scotland,  and  Ireland,  of  every  name  who  are  here." 

At  the  conclusion  of  President  "Woolsey's  address,  the  Rev.  T.  D.  Ander- 
son, D.D.,  of  New  York,  moved  the  following  rules  of  order,  which  were 
adopted : 

First.  The  proceedings  of  the  Conference  shall  be  conducted  according 
to  the  rules  and  regulations  governing  parliamentary  bodies. 

Second.  A  committee  on  the  daily  Programme  shall  be  appointed,  to  whom 
shall  be  referred,  without  debate,  the  papers,  and  overtures,  and  other  mat- 
ters submitted  for  the  consideration  of  the  Conference. 

Third.  As  the  object  of  the  Conference  is  a  comparison  of  views  and  free 
discussion,  and  not  legislation,  no  resolutions  committing  the  Conference  to 
special  measures  will  be  entertained. 


SIXTH  GENERAL  CONFERENCE.  17 

Fourth.  No  member  shall  be  allowed  to  speak  more  than  once  on  the 
same  subject  without  the  unanimous  consent  of  the  Conference. 

On  motion  of  the  Rev.  Noah  Hunt  Schenck,  D.D.,  of  Brooklyn,  Rev.  James 
Davis  of  London,  Eev.  M.  Cohen  Stuart,  D.D.,  of  Rotterdam,  Holland,  and 
Rev.  S.  Irenseus  Prime,  D.D.,  of  New  York,  were  appointed  a  committee 
on  credentials  of  delegates  not  yet  presented,  with  power  to  complete  the  roll. 

The  Very  Rev.  R.  Payne  Smith,  D.D.,  Dean  of  Canterbury,  then  read  a 
letter  addressed  to  him,  before  leaving  home,  by  the  Archbishop  of  Canter- 
bury, with  the  request  that  he  would  read  it  before  the  General  Conference. 
This  interesting  letter,  in  which  the  Archbishop  expresses  his  sympathy 
with  the  Alliance,  and  his  prayer  for  God's  blessing  on  the  Conference,  is 
published  on  page  720  of  Appendix  I.  to  this  volume. 

The  Conference  being  now  fully  organized  for  business,  the  first  topic 
specified  in  the  printed  programme  was  taken  up,  viz. : 

"REPORTS  ON  THE  STATE  OF  RELIGION  IN  VARIOUS 
CHRISTIAN  COUNTRIES." 

The  Rev.  Matteo  Prochet,  of  Genoa,  delivered  an  address  on  the  "  State 
of  Religion  in  Italy,"  and  the  Rev.  Leopold  Witte,  of  Cothen,  Prussia,  read, 
in  part,  a  paper  on  "  Evangelical  Theology  in  Germany,"  prepared  by  Pro- 
fessor A.  Tholuck,  D.D.,  of  the  University  of  Halle. 

THE  DAILY  LUNCH. 

From  Steinway  Hall,  the  members  of  the  Conference,  at  one  o'clock,  re- 
paired to  the  Young  Men's  Christian  Association  Building,  where  a  collation 
had  been  prepared.  And  on  each  succeeding  day  of  the  Conference,  be- 
tween the  morning  and  afternoon  sessions,  refreshments  were  served  in  the 
lecture-room  and  library  of  the  building,  free  of  expense  to  the  delegates; 
and  entertainment  was  in  this  way  furnished  to  about  800  persons  daily, 
including  members  of  the  Conference,  distinguished  visitors,  and  others. 

CONTINUATION  OF  THE  FIRST  DAY'S  PROCEEDINGS. 
At  two  o'clock  in  the  afternoon,  the  Conference  resumed  its  sessions,  in 
Association  Hall.  The  hall  was  densely  crowded,  the  members  of  the  Con- 
ference occupying  the  whole  front  half  of  the  main  floor,  which  was  perma- 
nently reserved  for  their  use.  President  Woolsey  took  the  chair.  Address- 
es on  the  "State  of  Religion"  in  their  respective  countries  were  delivered 
by  the  following  gentlemen  :  Rev.  M.  Cohen  Stuart,  D.D.,  Holland ;  Rev.  H. 


18  EVANGELICAL  ALLIANCE. 

Krummacher,  Germany;  Rev.  Eugene  Reichel,  Switzerland;  Eev.  Fritz 
Fliedner,  Spain;  Rev.  M.  D.  Kalopothakes,  M.D.,  Greece;  Rev.  Leonard 
Anet,  Belgium ;  and  Rev.  Leopold  Witte  concluded  the  reading  of  Dr.  Tho- 
luck's  paper,  which  had  been  interrupted  in  the  morning  by  the  adjourn- 
ment. 

Dr.  Schaff  gave  a  brief  account  of  his  interview  the  past  summer  with  his 
Majesty  the  Emperor  of  Germany,  who  requested  and  authorized  him  to 
present  to  the  Conference  his  cordial  greeting,  and  the  assurance  of  his  warm 
sympathy  with  the  Alliance.  [See  Appendix  I.,  p.  721.] 

Before  the  adjournment,  the  Hon.  George  H.  Stuart,  in  the  name  of  the 
Philadelphia  Branch  of  the  United  States  Alliance,  of  which  he  is  President, 
extended  to  the  Conference  an  invitation  to  visit  Philadelphia  in  a  body  on 
Monday,  October  13 ;  at  the  same  time  announcing  that  the  Pennsylvania 
Railroad  had  generously  offered  to  place  a  special  train  gratuitously  at  the 
disposal  of  the  Conference  for  this  visit.  President  M'Cosh  invited  the  del- 
egates to  stop  a  couple  of  hours  at  Princeton,  on  their  way  to  Philadelphia. 
These  invitations  were  cordially  accepted. 

In  view  of  the  interest  taken  in  the  proceedings  of  the  Conference,  and 
the  impossibility  of  accommodating  in  a  single  audience-room  the  numbers 
who  desired  to  attend,  notice  was  given  that  there  would  be  two  meetings  in 
the  evening,  one  at  Association  Hall,  and  the  other  at  St.  Paul's  Methodist 
Episcopal  Church,  corner  of  Fourth  Avenue  and  Twenty-second  Street. 
The  benediction  was  then  pronounced  by  the  Rev.  Dr.  Hodge,  of  Princeton. 

At  half-past  seven  o'clock  in  the  evening  the  Conference  re-assembled  in. 
Association  Hall,  where  an  address  was  delivered  by  the  Rev.  Auguste  De- 
coppet,  B.D.,  of  Paris,  on  "  The  Position  of  the  Protestant  Religion  in 
France,"  followed  by  a  few  remarks  on  the  same  topic  by  the  Rev.  George 
Fisch,  D.D.,  of  Paris.  The  Rev.  John  Stoughton,  D.D.,  of  London,  read  a 
paper  on  "  The  Ecclesiastical  and  Spiritual  Relations  of  America  to  En- 
gland," and  the  exercises  of  the  evening  were  concluded  with  a  brief  ad- 
dress by  the  Rev.  J.  C.  Brown,  LL.D.,  of  Berwick,  England,  on  the  "  State 
of  Evangelical  Religion  in  Russia,"  in  which  country  a  portion  of  his  life 
has  been  spent.  The  benediction  was  then  pronounced  by  the  Rev.  Wil- 
liam Patton,  D.D.,  of  New  Haven,  Conn. 

•  The  meeting  held  on  the  same  evening  in  St.  Paul's  Methodist  Episcopal 
Church  was  attended  by  a  large  and  interested  audience,  many  of  the  mem- 
bers of  the  Conference  being  also  present.  Lord  Alfred  S.  Churchill,  of 
London,'  one  of  the  Vice-presidents  of  the  Conference,  occupied  the  chair. 
A  hymn  was  sung,  and  prayer  was  offered  by  the  Rev.G.  W.  Weldon,M.A., 
of  London.  The  chairman,  after  a  few  appropriate  remarks,  announced  as 


SIXTH  GENERAL  CONFERENCE.  19 

the  topic  of  the  evening,  "  The  Evangelical  Alliance :  its  Objects,  and  its  In- 
fluence in  promoting  Christian  Union  and  Religious  Liberty,"  and  intro- 
duced, as  the  first  speaker,  the  Rev.  James  Davis,  of  London,  Secretary  of 
the  British  Evangelical  Alliance. 

Mr.  Davis,  instead  of  reading  the  paper  prepared  by  him  on  this  topic, 
which  appears  in  this  volume,  delivered  a  popular  address  on  the  objects 
and  aims  of  the  Alliance,  and  was  followed  by  the  Rev.  J.  S.  Russell,  of 
London,  on  the  same  subject.  Addresses  were  also  delivered  by  the  Dean 
of  Canterbury  and  the  Rev.  Mr.  Weldon.  Professor  Charles  A.  Aiken,  D.D., 
of  Princeton,  New  Jersey,  then  read  a  letter  written  by  the  late  Rev.  Merle 
d'Aubignd,  D.D.,  of  Geneva,  Switzerland,  and  addressed  to  the  "  President 
and  Members  of  the  Ecumenical  Council  of  Evangelical  Christians  at  New 
York."  This  letter  was  intended  for  the  proposed  Conference  of  1870, 
and,  after  the  death  of  its  distinguished  author,  was  sent  by  his  widow,  to 
be  read  at  the  Conference  of  1873.  It  may  be  found  on  page  717  of  Ap- 
pendix I. 

At  the  close  of  these  exercises,  the  doxology  was  sung,  and  the  benedic- 
tion was  pronounced  by  the  Rev.  Richard  Smyth,  D.D.,  of  Londonderry, 
Ireland. 

THE  DAILY  PRAYER-MEETING. 

The  business  sessions  of  Saturday,  October  4,  were  preceded  by  a  devo- 
tional meeting  at  the  Madison  Square  Presbyterian  Church,  commencing  at 
nine  o'clock  A.M.,  and  continued  for  three-quarters  of  an  hour.  The  church 
was  well  filled,  and  the  services,  consisting  for  the  most  part  of  prayer  and 
praise,  were  characterized  by  great  solemnity.  The  Rev.  Dr.  Adams,  pas- 
tor of  the  church,  conducted  the  meeting,  and  the  congregation  were  led  in 
prayer  by  the  Rev.  J.  C.  Harrison,  of  London,  the  Dean  of  Canterbury,  the 
Rev.  C.  Dallas  Marston,  of  London,  and  the  Rev.  Narayan  Sheshadri,  of 
Bombay,  India, 

This  devotional  service  was  held  at  the  same  place  and  hour  on  each  suc- 
ceeding day  of  the  Conference ;  and  as  brethren  of  different  names,  and 
from  various  quarters  of  the  world,  bowed  together  before  the  common 
mercy-seat,  the  feeling  of  every  heart  was,  "Lord,  it  is  good  for  us  to  be 
here."  It  was  a  service  that  drew  heart  to  heart,  and  all  hearts  to  Christ, 
and  was  a  fitting  preparation  for  the  duties  of  each  day. 

PROCEEDINGS  OF  THE  SECOND  DAY. 

At  ten  o'clock  A.M.  the  Conference  assembled  in  Association  Hall,  Presi- 
dent Woolsey  in  the  chair.  As  on  the  previous  day,  the  hall  was  thronged 


20  EVANGELICAL  ALLIANCE. 

to  its  utmost  capacity,  and  hundreds  were  unable  to  gain  admittance.  The 
exercises  were  commenced  with  prayer  in  the  French  language  by  the  Rev. 
Franck  Coulin,  D.D.,  of  Geneva,  Switzerland,  and  the  President  was  about  to 
introduce  the  first  speaker,  when  a  note  was  handed  to  him  stating  that  the 
multitude  who  were  unable  to  enter  the  already  over-crowded  hall  desired 
that  another  meeting  should  be  organized  in  one  of  the  neighboring  church- 
es. Arrangements  were  made  upon  the  spot  for  the  opening  of  the  Fourth 
Avenue  Presbyterian  Church,  in  which  meetings  were  held  both  morning 
and  afternoon. 
The  general  topic  of  the  day  was 

"CHRISTIAN  UNION," 

and  the  first  speaker  at  Association  Hall  was  Professor  Charles  Hodge,  D.D., 
LL.D.,  of  Princeton,  New  Jersey,  who  delivered  an  address  on  "  The  Unity 
of  the  Church  based  on  Personal  Union  with  Christ."  It  had  been  expected 
that  Bishop  Matthew  Simpson,  D.D.,  of  Philadelphia,  would  address  the  Con- 
ference on  the  same  topic,  but  illness  compelled  him,  at  the  last  hour,  to  de- 
cline the  service,  much  to  the  regret  of  all.  His  place,  however,  was  ably 
filled  by  the  Rev.  G.  R.  Crooks,  D.D.,  of  New  York.  The  Rev.  Eliphalet 
Nott  Potter,  D.D.,  President  of  Union  College,  Schenectady,  New  York,  and 
the  Rev.  C.  Dallas  Marston,  M.A.,  of  London,. presented  papers  on  "The 
Communion  of  Saints:  Modes  of  its  Promotion  and  Manifestation."  The 
Very  Rev.  R.  Payne  Smith,  D.D.,  Dean  of  Canterbury,  spoke  on  "  Christian 
Union  consistent  with  Denominational  Distinctions." 

At  the  afternoon  session  the  Right  Rev.  Gregory  T.  Bedell,  D.D.,  of  Gam- 
bier,  Ohio,  treated  the  same  topic,  prefacing  his  address  with  a  fitting  allu- 
sion to  the  catholic  spirit  of  the  late  Bishop  M'llvaine,  of  Ohio,  who  during 
his  lifetime  had  cherished  and  manifested  the  deepest  interest  in  the  Evan- 
gelical Alliance.  The  Rev.  W.  Noel,  of  Berlin,  then  delivered  an  address,  in 
the  German  language,  on  the  "  Influence  of  the  Evangelical  Alliance  in  pro- 
moting the  Spirit  of  Christian  Union ;"  and  was  followed  by  the  Rev.  Emile 
F.  Cook,  B. A.,  of  Paris,  on  "The  Evangelical  Alliance  in  France,"  and  the 
Rev.  F.  W.  Conrad,  D.D.,  of  Philadelphia,  on  "  Interchange  of  Pulpits."  The 
exercises  were  then  concluded  with  the  benediction,  in  French  and  English, 
by  the  Rev.  Dr.  Coulin,  of  Geneva,  Switzerland. 

At  the  meeting  in  the  Fourth  Avenue  Presbyterian  Church,  the  Rev. 
Alexis  Caswell,  D.D.,  of  Providence,  Rhode  Island,  presided  in  the  morn- 
ing, and  the  Hon.  Felix  .R.  Brunot,  of  Pittsburg,  Pennsylvania,  in  the  after- 
noon. At  the  morning  session  prayer  was  offered  by  the  Rev.  David  Ma- 
clise,  D.D.,  of  New  York,  after  which  the  Rev.  Mr.  Marston  and  the  Rev. 


SIXTH  GENERAL  CONFERENCE.  21 

Dr.  Conrad  read  the  papers  subsequently  read  by  them  in  Association  Hall ; 
the  Rev.  Narayan  Sheshadri  gave  an  affecting  account  of  his  conversion  to 
Christianity  and  of  his  mission  work  in  India ;  and  the  Rev.  Fritz  Fliedner, 
of  Madrid,  spoke  on  the  subject  of  "  Evangelization  in  Spain."  The  bene- 
diction by  Rev.  Mr.  Sheshadri  concluded  the  exercises. 

At  the  afternoon  session,  after  prayer  by  the  Rev.  William  Ormiston, 
D.D.,  of  New  York,  Bishop  Bedell  and  the  Rev.  Mr.  Cook  read  the  papers 
presented  by  them  in  Association  Hall ;  the  Rev.  H.  Wilkes,  D.D.,  LL.D., 
of  Montreal,  delivered  an  impromptu  address  on  the  "State  of  Religion  in 
Canada;"  and  the  Rev.  H.  Krummacher  spoke  of  "Inner  Missions  in  Ger- 
many," and  afterward  pronounced  the  benediction,  in  the  German  language. 

SUNDAY  SERVICES. 

On  Sunday,  October  5,  the  pulpits  of  very  many  of  the  evangelical  church- 
es of  New  York  and  vicinity  were  occupied  by  members  of  the  Conference, 
who  were  heard  by  large  and  attentive  audiences. 

In  the  evening  two  public  meetings  were  held,  commencing  at  half-past 
seven  o'clock :  the  one  in  the  Academy  of  Music,  and  the  other  in  Steinway 
Hall.  Long  before  the  doors  of  these  edifices  were  opened,  throngs  of  peo- 
ple blocked  the  sidewalks,  and  extended  even  to  the  middle  of  the  streets  in 
front ;  and  at  the  opening  of  the  doors  the  pressure  was  so  great  that  many 
in  despair  gave  up  all  effort  to  enter.  Both  buildings  were  soon  packed  to 
their  utmost  capacity,  and  at  least  8000  persons,  probably,  were  present  at 
the  two  meetings,  while  hundreds  were  unable  to  gain  admittance. 

At  the  Academy  of  Music,  the  Hon.  Felix  R.  Brunot,  of  Pittsburg, 
Pennsylvania,  presided.  The  exercises  of  the  evening  were  commenced 
with  the  singing  of  the  hymn,  "  Come,  thou  Almighty  King,"  after  which 
the  Dean  of  Canterbury  read  the  143d  Psalm,  and  led  the  assembly  in 
prayer.  The  chairman,  Mr.  Brunot,  after  a  few  appropriate  remarks,  intro- 
duced, in  succession,  the  following  speakers:  Rev.  Robert  Knox,  D.D.,  of 
Belfast,  Ireland ;  Rev.  Narayan  Sheshadri,  of  Bombay,  India ;  Rev.  Franck 
Coulin,  D.D.,  of  Geneva,  Switzerland,  who  spoke  in  French ;  Rev.  Moses 
D.  Hoge,  D.D.,  of  Richmond,  Virginia;  Rev.  W.  H.  Fremantle,  of  London ; 
Rev.  W.  F.  Stevenson,  of  Dublin,  Ireland ;  Rev.  T.  Lorriaux,  B.D.,  of  Paris ; 
Rev.  James  H.  Rigg,  D.D.,  of  London ;  General  Clinton  B.  Fisk,  of  St.  Louis, 
Missouri ;  and  Charles  Reed,  Esq.,  M.P.,  of  London.  During  the  progress 
of  the  meeting  two  hymns  were  sung,  and  the  exercises  were  closed  with 
the  doxology,  and  the  benediction  by  the  venerable  Samuel  H.  Cox,  D.D.,  of 
New  York. 

At  Steinway  Hall,  the  Hon.  Nathan  Bishop,  LL.D.,  of  New  York,  pre- 


22  EVANGELICAL  ALLIANCE. 

sided;  and  after  the  singing  of  tbe  hymn,  "All  hail  the  power  of  Jesus' 
name,"  prayer  was  offered,  and  the  following  speakers  were  successively  in- 
troduced :  Rev.  Kichard  Smyth,  D.D.,  of  Londonderry,  Ireland ;  Rev.  Pro- 
fessor Stanley  Leathes,  of  King's  College,  London  ;  Rev.  L.  C.  Berkeley,  of 
Lurgan,  Ireland ;  the  Dean  of  Canterbury ;  Hugh  Miller,  M.D.,  of  Bloom- 
field,  Scotland;  Rev.  Narayan  Sheshadri,  of  India;  and  Hon.  George  H. 
Stuart,  of  Philadelphia.  Several  hymns  were  sung  between  the  addresses; 
and  at  the  close  of  the  meeting  the  Rev.  Professor  J.  F.  Astie',  of  Lausanne, 
Switzerland,  offered  prayer,  and  the  benediction  was  pronounced  by  the  Rev. 
H.  Krummacher,  of  Brandenburg,  Germany. 

PROCEEDINGS  OF  THE  FOURTH  DAY. 

On  Monday,  October  6,  the  Conference  held  two  sectional  meetings,  the 
attendance  at  both  of  which  showed  not  only  that  there  was  no  abatement 
in  the  interest  with  which  the  public  regarded  the  proceedings  of  the  Con- 
ference, but  that  this  interest  was  increasing  in  intensity. 

The  general  topic  of  the  day  was 

"CHRISTIANITY  AND  ITS  ANTAGONISMS." 

The  First  Section,  which  met  in  Association  Hall,  morning  and  afternoon, 
discussing  it  in  its  Theological  bearings ;  and  the  Second  Section,  which  met 
in  St.  Paul's  Methodist  Episcopal  Church,  morning  and  afternoon,  discussing 
it  from  a  Philosophical  point  of  view. 

At  Association  Hall,  President  Woolsey  took  the  chair  at  ten  o'clock,  and 
called  upon  Bishop  Campbell,  of  the  African  Methodist  Episcopal  Church 
in  the  United  States,  to  lead  in  prayer. 

Before  the  business  of  the  day  was  commenced,  the  General  Secretary 
of  the  Conference  read  a  communication  from  the  American  Bible  Society, 
offering  to  each  foreign  delegate  to  the  Conference,  as  a  souvenir  of. his 
visit  to  this  country,  a  copy  of  one  of  the  editions  of  the  Bible  published 
by  the  society;  also,  an  invitation  from  the  Managers  of  the  American 
Institute  to  the  delegates  to  visit  their  Exhibition  gratuitously.  The  Rev. 
O.  H.  Tiffany,  D.D.,  of  Washington,  D.C.,  invited  the  delegates  to  visit  the 
Capital  of  the  United  States,  as  the  guests  of  the  Metropolitan  Branch 
of  the  United  States  Alliance,  after  their  visit  to  Philadelphia.  The  Gen- 
eral Secretary  announced  that  through  the  kindness  of  Mr.  Alexander 
Stuart,  of  the  house  of  R.  L.  &  A.  Stuart,  carriages  would  be  at  the  door  of 
Association  Building  on  Wednesday,  at  two  o'clock  P.M.,  for  such  of  the 
European  delegates  as  desired  to  visit  Greenwood  Cemetery  and  Prospect 
Park,  in  Brooklyn.  After  the  applause  that  greeted  these  invitations  had 


SIXTH  GENERAL  CONFERENCE.  23 

subsided,  the  delivery  of  the  papers  announced  in  the  programme  of  the  day 
was  begun. 

The  Rev.  Professor  Stanley  Leathes,  of  King's  College,  London,  and  Pro- 
fessor Theodore  Christlieb,  D.D.,  of  the  University  of  Bonn,  Prussia,  read 
papers  on  the  "Best  Methods  of  counteracting  Modern  Infidelity;"  and 
President  W.  F.  Warren,  D.D.,  of  the  University  of  Boston,  Massachusetts, 
on  "  American  Infidelity ;  its  Factors  and  Phases." 

At  the  afternoon  session,  the  Rev.  E.  A.  Washburn,  D.D.,  of  New  York, 
and  Professor  Paul  Zimmermann,  D.D.,  of  Leipsic,  Germany,  read  papers 
on  "Reason  and  Faith;"  Professor  Felix  Bovet,  of  Neuchatel,  Switzerland, 
read  a  paper,  in  the  French  language,  on  "  Christianity  and  the  Gospel ;" 
and  the  Rev.  M.  Cohen  Stuart,  D.D.,  of  Rotterdam,  read  a  paper  prepared 
for  the  Conference  by  Professor  J.  J.  Van  Oosterzee,  D.D.,  of  the  University 
of  Utrecht,  Holland,  on  "  The  Gospel  History  and  Modern  Criticism."  A 
paper  prepared  by  the  Rev.  John  Cairns,  D.D.,  of  Berwick,  England,  on 
"  The  Causes  of,  and  Best  Methods  of  counteracting  Modern  Infidelity,"  was 
presented:  owing  to  want  of  time,  it  was  not  read,  but  is  printed  in  this 
volume.  The  meeting  was  closed  with  the  benediction  by  President  Potter, 
of  Union  College,  New  York. 

At  St.  Paul's  Methodist  Episcopal  Church,  the  Rev.  Alexis  Caswell,  D.D., 
of  Providence,  Rhode  Island,  occupied  the  chair.  The  proceedings  were 
opened  with  prayer  by  President  S.  G.  Brown,  D.D.,  of  Hamilton  College, 
Clinton,  New  York.  Papers  were  read  by  President  James  M'Cosh,  D.D., 
LL.D.,  of  the  College  of  New  Jersey,  on  "  The  Religious  Aspects  of  the 
Doctrine  of  Development;"  by  Principal  Dawson,  LL.D.,  of  M'Gill  College, 
Montreal,  on  "  Primitive  Man  and  Revelation ;"  and  by  Professor  C.  P. 
Krauth,  D.D.,  of  Philadelphia,  on  "The  Strength  and  Weakness  of  Ideal- 
.ism." 

Dr.  M'Cosh's  paper  was  followed  by  an  interesting  and  animated  discussion, 
in  which  Rev.  G.  W.  Weldon,  M.A,  of  London,  Rev.  Dr.  Hodge,  of  Prince- 
ton, and  Rev.  Dr.  J.  C.  Brown,  of  Berwick,  England,  took  part ;  and  Professor 
Guyot,  of  Princeton,  followed  Dr.  Dawson's  paper  with  some  remarks. 

In  the  afternoon,  papers  were  read  by  Professor  Arnold  Henry  Guyot, 
LL.D.,  of  the  College  of  New  Jersey,  Princeton,  on  "  Cosmogony  and  the  Bi- 
ble;" by  President  J.  W.  Nevin,  D.D.,  of  Lancaster,  Pennsylvania,  on  "  Chris- 
tianity and  Humanity ;"  and  by  Professor  Edmund  Spiess,  Ph.D.,  of  the 
University  of  Jena,  Germany,  on  "The  Comparative  Study  of  Religions." 

As  in  the  morning,  interesting  discussions  followed  the  reading  of  the 
papers,  in  which  President  M'Cosh,  of  Princeton,  Principal  Dawson,  of 
Montreal,  Rev.  Dr.  Hodge,  of  Princeton,  Rev.  Alexander  Burnett,  of  Aber- 


24  EVANGELICAL  ALLIANCE. 

deen,  Eev.  Joseph  Edkins,  of  China,  and  President  Anderson,  of  Kochester, 
New  York,  took  part.  The  session  was  closed  with  prayer  and  the  bene- 
diction by  the  Rev.  J.  F.  Stearns,  D.D.,  of  Newark,  New  Jersey. 

At  half-past  seven  o'clock  in  the  evening,  a  French  meeting  was  held  in 
Association  Hall.  The  weather  through  the  day  had  been  unpleasant — it 
was  the  only  inclement  day  during  the  entire  sessions  of  the  Conference— 
and  the  rain  at  night  threatened  to  interfere  seriously  with  the  gathering 
of  our  French  brethren.  But  the  hall  was  well  filled.  Professor  Felix 
Bovet,  of  Neuchatel,  Switzerland,  was  called  to  preside,  and,  after  addresses 
of  welcome  by  the  Eev.  Philip  Schaff,  D.D.,  of  New  York,  in  the  English 
language,  and  Professor  Elie  Charlier,  of  New  York,  in  the  French  lan- 
guage, interesting  addresses  were  made  in  French  by  Professor  Bovet,  by 
the  Rev.  A.  Decoppet,  and  the  Rev.  Dr.  Fisch,  of  Paris ;  by  the  Rev.  M.  Le- 
litivre,  of  Nimes ;  by  the  Rev.  C.  Boegner,  of  Strasbourg ;  by  the  Rev.  L. 
Anet  and  the  Rev.  E.  Rochedieu,  of  Brussels ;  and  by  Professor  Pronier 
and  the  Rev.  Dr.  Coulin,  of  Geneva. 

The  key-note  of  the  meeting  was  struck  by  the  Rev.  Dr.  Schaff,  in  his 
opening  address  of  welcome,  which  was  as  follows: 

"  MR.  CHAIRMAN,  DEAR  FRIENDS,  AND  BRETHREN, — In  compliance  with 
the  request  of  your  Committee  of  Arrangements,  I  have  the  honor  and 
pleasure  to  open  your  proceedings,  and  to  extend  to  you  all,  in  behalf  of  the 
Evangelical  Alliance  of  the  United  States,  a  cordial  welcome  to  our  churches, 
our  homes,  and  our  hearts.  "We  deeply  regret  the  unavoidable  absence 
of  Guillaume  Monod,  Pressense,  Bersier,  Rosseeuw  St.  Hilaire,  Babut,  and 
Godet,  who  are,  however,  present  with  us  in  spirit  and  prayer,  and  who 
charged  me  with  their  best  wishes  for  the  Conference.  We  appreciate  your 
presence  all  the  more  since  it  has  been  very  difficult  for  you  to  leave  your 
post  of  duty.  No  delegation  is  better  entitled  to  our  affectionate  regard 
and  sympathy  than  the  delegation  from  "  la  belle  France,"  and  my  own 
native  Switzerland. 

"As  Americans,  we  can  never  forget  the  debt  of  gratitude  we  owe  to 
France  for  her  efficient  aid  in  achieving  our  national  independence ;  and  your 
Lafayette  is  one  of  our  household  words,  in  inseparable  union  with  the  name 
of  him  who  is  "  first  in  war,  first  in  peace,  and  first  in  the  hearts  of  his  coun- 
trymen." Nor  are  we  less  indebted  to  Switzerland  for  giving  us  such 
statesmen  as  Gallatin,  and  such  scholars  as  Agassiz  and  Guyot,  and  the 
model  of  a  republic  that  rests  on  popular  self-government,  and  combines 
the  advantages  of  national  sovereignty  and  State  independence,  or  of  a  cen- 
tralized and  confederate  government. 


SIXTH  GENERAL  CONFERENCE.  25 

"As  Protestants  we  shall  always  remember  that  France,  in  the  person  of 
John  Calvin,  gave  to  the  world  the  foremost  theologian,  legislator,  and  dis- 
ciplinarian of  the  Reformation,  and  in  the  Huguenots  a  race  of  Christian 
heroes,  who,  like  the  Puritan  Fathers  of  New  England,  sacrificed  every 
thing  to  their  sacred  convictions,  and  became  the  benefactors  of  every  Prot- 
estant country.  We  boast  of  the  Huguenot  blood  that  flows  in  the  veins 
of  many  of  the  first  families  in  America.  Coming  to  our  own  times,  the 
writings  of  your  Guizot,  Monod,  Merle  d'Aubigne,  Pressense,  Godet,  Vinet, 
are  as  much  appreciated  among  us  as  in  their  native  land,  and  may  be 
found  in  the  libraries  of  scholars  and  working  men  from  New  York  to  San 
Francisco.  The  Protestant  Church  of  France  has  been  like  a  burning  bush 
in  the  wilderness,  and  stands  to  this  day  a  living  monument  of  God's  pro- 
tecting care  and  the  unconquerable  power  of  truth ;  it  is  miraculously  pre- 
served, after  centuries  of  persecution,  for  a  better  future. 

"  It  has  been  my  good  fortune  in  early  life  to  be  brought  in  personal  con- 
tact with  your  Vinet — the  Protestant  Pascal ;  with  Merle  d'Aubigne — the 
historian  of  the  Reformation,  whose  widow  intrusted  to  me  his  testamentary 
words  to  this  Conference ;  with  the  saintly  Adolph  Monod,  in  whose  socie- 
ty I  spent  several  of  the  most  delightful  days  of  my  life ;  with  Godet,  the 
commentator  on  St.  John  and  St.  Luke,  who  was  my  most  intimate  friend 
when  we  studied  in  the  University ;  with  Guyot,  who  is  now  our  own,  like 
his  friend  and  fellow-townsman  Agassiz;  and  with  yourself,  Mr.  Chairman, 
who  gave  us  such  a  charming  book  on  your  pilgrimage  to  the  Holy  Land. 
In  this  intercourse  I  formed  the  early  conviction  that  the  natural  charms  of 
the  French  character,  when  sanctified  by  divine  grace,  constitute  one  of  the 
noblest  types  of  a  Christian  gentleman. 

"  In  the  providence  of  God,  France  has  recently  passed  through  a  furnace 
of  affliction.  But  this  is  only  a  passing  cloud : 

"Behind  a  frowning  Providence, 
God  hides  a  smiling  face." 

In  the  life  of  nations  as  well  as  individuals  the  deepest  humiliation  is 
sometimes  the  richest  blessing  in  disguise.  Already  has  France  astonished 
the  world  with  a  proof  of  her  recuperative  energy  and  inexhaustible  mate- 
rial resources.  Let  us  hope  that  she  will  soon  astonish  the  Church  by  a 
moral  and  spiritual  regeneration,  and  outshine  the  glory  of  bloody  victories 
by  the  nobler  and  more  enduring  glory  of  general  education,  self-governing 
liberty,  and  the  pure  religion  of  the  Gospel  of  peace." 

In  the  addresses  grateful  allusion  was  made  to  the  warm  sympathy  ex- 
isting between  the  United  States  and  the  French-speakina;  countries  of  Eu- 


26  EVANGELICAL  ALLIANCE. 

rope,  and  the  earnest  hope  was  expressed  by  more  than  one  speaker  that 
France  might  follow  in  the  footsteps  of  this  Western  Eepublic,  in  the  enjoy- 
ment of  civil  and  religious  liberty  and  spiritual  light 

A  well-attended  meeting  of  our  "Welsh  population  was  also  held  on  this 
evening,  at  the  Welsh  Presbyterian  Church,  in  Thirteenth  Street,  at  which 
the  Rev.  II.  Powell,  pastor  of  the  church,  presided ;  and  addresses  were  de- 
livered by  the  Rev.  John  Evans,  of  Liverpool,  and  by  several  resident  cler- 
gymen of  Welsh  parentage. 

PROCEEDINGS  OF  THE  FIFTH  DAY. 

On  Tuesday,  October  7,  so  many  meetings  of  the  Conference  were  held 
simultaneously  as  to  greatly  embarrass  those  who  wished  to  hear  certain 
speakers,  but  who  found  it  impossible  to  be  in  several  places  at  the  same 
time.  Sectional  meetings  were  held  in  Association  Hall,  morning,  after- 
noon, and  evening;  in  St.  Paul's  Methodist  Episcopal  Church,  morning  and 
evening;  in  the  Madison  Square  Presbyterian.  Church,  in  the  afternoon; 
and  in  the  Broadway  Tabernacle  in  the  evening;  and  a  children's  meeting 
was  held  in  the  Church  of  the  Disciples,  corner  of  Madison  Avenue  and 
Forty-fifth  Street,  in  the  afternoon. 

The  general  topic  of  the  day  was 

"CHRISTIAN  LIFE." 

At  the  morning  session  of  the  First  Section  in  Association  Hall,  President 
Woolsey  in  the  chair,  the  blessing  of  God  was  invoked  by  the  Rev.  J.  C. 
Harrison,  of  London. 

An  invitation  was  presented  from  the  Erie  Railway,  offering  a  free  ex- 
cursion to  all  of  the  delegates  to  Niagara  Falls  and  back.  A  communica- 
tion was  read  from  his  Honor  the  Mayor  of  New  York,  inviting  the  mem- 
bers of  the  Conference,  in  the  name  of  the  authorities  of  the  city,  to  visit 
the  Public  Institutions  of  New  York.  This  invitation  was  unanimously 
extended  by  the  Common  Council,  in  response  to  the  following  message 
from  the  Mayor : 

Mayor's  Office,  New  York,  October  6, 1873. 

To  the  Honorable  the  Common  Council. 

GENTLEMEN,— The  Evangelical  Alliance,  composed  of  delegates  from 
various  Christian  bodies  throughout  the  world,  is  now  holding  a  Conference 
in  this  city.  The  assembly  includes  gentlemen  from  Canada,  Europe,  and 
other  foreign  countries,  who  occupy  positions  of  honor  and  responsibility, 
and  are  eminent  at  home  and  abroad  for  learning,  piety,  and  active  benev- 
olence. 

Among  the  subjects  in  which  they  will  naturally  feel  a  deep  interest,  and 


SIXTH  GENERAL  CONFERENCE.  27 

which  will  occupy  their  attention,  is  our  method  of  dealing  with  the  large 
class  of  the  unfortunate  and  the  criminal  among  us ;  and,  as  many  of  these 
gentlemen  visit  our  city  for  the  first,  and  perhaps  for  the  last  time,  it  seems 
proper  that  the  people  of  this  city,  through  their  representatives,  should  ex- 
tend to  them  an  invitation  to  visit  our  justly  celebrated  institutions,  and  ac- 
quaint themselves,  as  far  as  possible,  with  their  practical  operations. 

As  many  of  these  delegates  come  from  nationalities  in  which  a  large  pro- 
portion of  our  own  citizens  were  reared,  it  is  much  to  be  desired  that  they 
should  not  return  to  their  firesides  with  any  existing  prejudices  against  our 
form  of  government,  but  with  pleasant  memories,  and  increased  respect  and 
esteem  for  the  land  which  is  now  the  home  of  their  fellow-countrymen,  and 
with  which  the  portion  of  the  world  they  represent  is  so  closely  identified 
by  social  and  commercial  ties. 

(Signed)  W.  R  HAVEMEYER. 

On  motion  of  the  Eev.  C.  Dallas  Marston,  M.A.,  of  London,  a  vote  of 
thanks  to  the  Mayor  and  Common  Council  of  New  York,  and  to  the  Erie 
Eailway  Company,  was  unanimously  passed. 

The  Conference  then  proceeded  with  its  business,  and  papers  were  read 
by  the  Eev.  William  Arnot,  of  Edinburgh,  on  "The  Eelation  between  Doc- 
trine and  Life;"  and  by  the  Eev.  Eichard  Fuller,  D.D.,  of  Baltimore,  Mary- 
land, and  the  Eev.  William  Nast,  D.D.,  of  Cincinnati,  Ohio,  on  "Personal 
Eeligion:  its  Aids  and  Hinderauces." 

It  was  not  the  intention  to  hold  a  meeting  in  Association  Hall  in  the 
afternoon ;  but,  as  the  overflow  of  people  from  the  Madison  Square  Presby- 
terian Church,  where  a  sectional  meeting  was  to  be  held,  drifted  into  the 
hall  and  completely  filled  it,  a  meeting  was  improvised1,  at  which  the  Rev. 
Joseph  Parker,  D.D.,  of  London,  and  the  Eev.  Henry  Ward  Beecher,  of 
Brooklyn,  delivered,  substantially,  the  addresses  afterward  delivered  by 
them  in  the  Madison  Square  Church,  on  "  The  Pulpit  of  the  Age ;"  and  the 
Eev.  John  Hall,  D.D.,  of  New  York,  being  suddenly  called  on,  spoke  on  the 
same  subject. 

At  the  evening  session,  after  prayer  by  the  Eev.  William  Patton,  D.D., 
of  New  Haven,  papers  were  read  by  the  Eev.  J.  C.  Harrison,  of  Lon- 
don, and  Eev.  Professor  W.  S.  Plumer,  D.D.,  of  the  Theological  Seminary, 
Columbia,  South  Carolina,  on  "Family  Eeligion;"  by  the  Eev.  W.  W.  Pat- 
ton,  D.D.,  of  Chicago,  Illinois,  on  "Eevivals  of  Eeligion:  how  to  make 
them  Productive  of  Permanent  Good ;"  and  by  President  M.  B.  Anderson, 
LL.D.,  of  the  University  of  Eochester,  New  York,  on  "The  Eight  Use  of 
Wealth." 

At  the  meeting  of  the  Second  Section,  in  St.  Paul's  Methodist  Episopal 


28  EVANGELICAL  ALLIANCE. 

Church,  at  ten  o'clock  A.M.,  the  Rev.  Alexis  Caswell,  D.D.,  of  Providence, 
Rhode  Island,  presided,  and  the  exercises  were  commenced  with  prayer  by 
the  Rev.  E.  E.  Jenkins,  D.D.,  of  London.  Papers  were  read  by  the  Rev. 
James  H.  Rigg,  D.D.,  of  the  Wesleyan  Training  School,  Westminster,  Lon- 
don, on  "  Secular  and  Religious  Education ;"  and  by  President  Noah  Por- 
ter, D.D.,  LL.D.,  of  Yale  College,  New  Haven,  Connecticut,  on  "  Modern  Lit- 
erature in  its  Relation  to  Christianity."  The  paper  of  Dr.  Rigg  called  forth 
a  spirited  discussion,  in  which  President  Potter,  of  Union  College,  President 
M'Cosh,  of  Princeton  College,  and  James  Girdlestone,  Esq.,  and  J.  Carwell 
"Williams,  Esq.,  of  London,  took  part. 

.  At  the  meeting  of  this  section  in  the  evening,  Hon.  William  E:  Dodge, 
of  New  York,  presided;  and  prayer  was  offered  by  the  Rev.  J.  C.  Brown, 
LL.D.,  of  Berwick,  England.  A  paper  was  read  by  the  Rev.  A.  L.  Simpson, 
D.D.,  of  Derby,  England,  on  "  Modern  Literature  and  Christianity ;"  after 
which  remarks  were  made  on  the  same  topic  by  the  Rev.  William  Ormis- 
ton,  D.D.,  of  New  York,  the  Rev.  Dr.  Rigg,  of  London,  and  the  Rev.  Robert 
Crook,  LL.D.,  of  Belfast.  The  first  topic  of  the  morning  session,  "  Secu- 
lar and  Religious  Education,"  was  then  resumed,  and  the  discussion  of  it 
was  continued  by  the  Rev.  E.  0.  Haven,  D.D.,  the  Rev.  William  Ormiston, 
D.D.,  and  the  Hon.  William  E.  Dodge,  of  New  York ;  the  Rev.  F.  W.  Con- 
rad, D.D.,  of  Philadelphia ;  the  Rev.  Dr.  Rigg,  of  London  ;  President  S.  G. 
Brown,  D.D.,  of  Hamilton  College,  New  York ;  and  the  Rev.  L.  E.  Berkeley, 
of  Lurgan,  Ireland.  The  exercises  were  closed  with  the  benediction  by 
the  Rev.  Mr.  Berkeley. 

The  Third  Section  met  in  Madison  Square  Presbyterian  Church,  at  two 
o'clock  in  the  afternoon.  The  galleries  were  occupied  by  students  of  the- 
ological seminaries  in  New  York  and  vicinity,  and  the  whole  church  was 
filled  to  its  utmost  capacity.  President  Woolsey  introduced  Charles  Reed, 
Esq.,  M.P.,  of  London,  as  chairman,  who,  after  a  brief  address,  announced  as 
the  topic  of  the  afternoon  "  The  Pulpit  of  the  Age."  Addresses  were  de- 
livered by  the  Rev.  Joseph  Parker,  D.D.,  of  London ;  Professor  D.  P.  Kidder, 
D.D.,  of  Drew  Theological  Seminary,  Madison,  New  Jersey ;  and  the  Rev. 
Henry  Ward  Beecher,  of  Brooklyn.  After  the  singing  of  the  doxology, 
the  audience  was  dismissed  with  the  benediction  by  the  Rev.  Mr.  Beecher. 

At  the  meeting  for  children,  held  at  three  o'clock  in  the  afternoon,  in  the 
Church  of  the  Disciples,  corner  of  Madison  Avenue  and  Forty-fifth  Street, 
the  Rev.  George  H.  Hepworth,  pastor  of  the  church,  conducted  the  devo- 
tional exercises;  and  an  address  was  delivered  by  the  Rev.  Narayan  She- 
shadri,  of  India.  The  large  church  was  well  filled  with  an  audience  com- 
posed partly  of  children  and  partly  of  adults,  all  equally  interested  in  the 


SIXTH  GENERAL  CONFERENCE.  29 

remarkable  man  whom  God  has  raised  from  idolatry  to  be  a  teacher  of 
Christians  in  a  Christian  land. 

The  Fourth  Section  met  in  the  Broadway  Tabernacle,  at  half-past  seven 
o'clock  in  the  evening,  Charles  Eeed, 'Esq.,  M.P.,  of  London,  in  the  chair. 
After  an  anthem,  beautifully  rendered  by  the  choir  of  the  church,  the  Eev. 
A.  T.  Pierson,  of  Detroit,  Michigan,  led  in  prayer.  The  topic  of  the  evening 
was  "  Sunday-schools,"  and  addresses  were  delivered  by  the  Kev.  Richard 
Newton,  D.D.,  of  Philadelphia,  the  Rev.  Nathaniel  Weiss,  of  Paris,  the.  Rev. 
J.  H.  Vincent,  D.D.,  of  New  York,  and  Charles  Reed,  Esq.,  M.P.,  of  London. 
This  meeting  was  especially  attractive  to  those  who  are  actively  engaged 
in  Sunday-school  work,  and  they  were  present  in  large  numbers.  Not  only 
was  every  seat  in  the  church  occupied,  but  the  aisles  and  passages  were 
crowded  with  those  whose  interest  in  the  addresses  led  them  to  stand  dur- 
ing the  whole  of  the  long  service. 

Thus  the  eight  meetings  of  the  day  closed,  sending  to  their  homes  thou- 
sands of  hearers  with  hearts  stimulated  to  seek  for  higher  attainments  in 
that  "  Christian  Life  "  which  had  been  the  theme  of  the  day. 

PROCEEDINGS  OF  THE  SIXTH  DAY. 

On  Wednesday,  October  8,  three  sectional  meetings  were  held :  the  first 
at  Association  Hall;  the  second  at  St.  Paul's  Methodist  Episcopal  Church ; 
and  the  third  at  the  Fourth  Avenue  Presbyterian  Church.  These  meet- 
ings were  confined  to  the  morning,  the  afternoon  being  left  free  for  the 
ride  to  Greenwood  Cemetery  and  Prospect  Park,  and  the  evening  for  a 
reception  and  public  meeting  at  the  Academy  of  Music,  in  Brooklyn. 

The  general  topic  of  the  day  was 

"ROMANISM  AND  PROTESTANTISM." 

At  Association  Hall  the  exercises  were  commenced  with  prayer  by  Pro- 
fessor W.  S.  Plumer,  D.D.,  of  Columbia,  South  Carolina. 

The  Rev.  Dr.  Prime,  General  Secretary,  presented  messages  of  greeting  to 
the  Conference,  sent  by  the  Ministerial  Association  of  Columbus,  Ohio,  and 
by  the  Young  Men's  Christian  Association  of  Maine,  then  in  convention  at 
Auburn,  Maine.  Papers  were  then  read  by  Professor  I.  A.  Dorner,  D.D.,  of 
the  University  of  Berlin,  and  Professor  Roswell  D.  Hitchcock,  D.D.,  LL.D., 
of  the  Union  Theological  Seminary,  New  York,  on  "The  Infallibilism  of 
the  Vatican  Council,  and  Nominal  Protestantism;"  by  the  Rev.  George 
Fisch,  D.D.,  of  Paris,  on  "  The  Present  State  of  Popery  in  France ;"  and 
by  the  Rev.  Leopold  Witte,  of  Cothen,  Prussia,  on  "  Ultramontanism  and 
the  Four  Prussian  Church  Laws.''  The  benediction  was  pronounced  by  the 
Rev.  Dr.  Fisch,  of  Paris. 


30  EVANGELICAL  ALLIANCE. 

At  the  meeting  of  the  Second  Section,  in  St.  Paul's  Methodist  Episcopal 
Church,  Lord  Alfred  S.  Churchill,  of  London,  presided ;  and  prayer  was 
offered  by  the  Rev.  W.  II.  Fremantle,  of  London.  Papers  were  read  by 
Professor  W.  KrafFt,  D.D.,  of  the  University  of  Bonn,  Prussia,  on  "  The 
Vatican  Council  and  the  Old  Catholic  Movement;"  by  the  Rev.  Professor 
C.  Pronier,  of  the  Free  Church  Theological  Seminary,  Geneva,  on  "  Roman 
Catholicism  in  Switzerland  since  the  Proclamation  of  the  Syllabus;"  and 
by  the  Rev.  R  S.  Storrs,  D.D.,  of  Brooklyn,  New  York,  on  "The  Appeal 
of  Romanism  to  Educated  Protestants." 

Rev.  Dr.  Schaff,  after  some  introductory  remarks,  read  a  paper  from  the 
Old  Catholic  Congress,  recently  held  at  Constance,  signed  by  Bishop  Rein- 
kens  and  others,  and  addressed  to  the  General  Conference,  and  a  letter  from 
Pore  Hyacinthe,  of  Geneva,  to  the  members  of  the  Evangelical  Alliance. 
These  letters  are  in  this  volume.  The  session  was  closed  with  the  benedic- 
tion by  the  Rev.  W.  Ives  Budington,  D.D.,  of  Brooklyn,  New  York. 

At  the  meeting  of  the  Third  Section,  in  the  Fourth  Avenue  Presbyterian 
Church,  Hon.  William  A.  Buckingham,  ex-Governor  of  Connecticut,  occu- 
pied the  chair.  Prayer  was  offered,  in  the  French  language,  by  the  Rev.  Dr. 
Coulin,  of  Geneva,  after  which  the  programme  was  as  follows :  "  Roman  and 
Reformed  Doctrines  of  Justification  contrasted,"  by  Right  Rev.  George  D. 
Cummins,  D.D.,  of  Kentucky;  "  Protestantism,  Romanism,  and  Modern  Civ- 
ilization," by  Professor  George  P.  Fisher,  D.D.,  of  Yale  College,  New  Haven, 
Connecticut ;  "  The  Evangelization  of  France,"  by  the  Rev.  T.  Lorriaux,  B.D., 
of  Paris ;  "  How  shall  Protestant  Ministers  best  meet  the  Demands  of  the 
Present  Age?"  by  the  Rev.  Franck  Coulin,  D.D.,  of  Geneva,  Switzerland; 
"Christian  Liberty,"  by  President  Alvah  Hovey,  D.D.,  of  the  Newton  The- 
ological Institution,  Massachusetts.  The  benediction  was  pronounced  by 
President  Hovey. 

In  the  afternoon  the  foreign  delegates  visited  Greenwood  Cemetery  and 
Prospect  Park,  in  Brooklyn.  At  two  o'clock,  carriages  kindly  provided  by 
Mr.  Alexander  Stuart,  of  New  York,  were  at  the  door,  and  the  excursion 
was  highly  enjoyed  by  all  who  took  part  in  it. 

After  this  pleasant  ride,  the  delegates  were  taken  to  the  Academy  of  Mu- 
sic in  Brooklyn,  and  were  entertained  at  dinner  with  a  large  number  of 
ladies  and  gentlemen  of  Brooklyn. 

As  multitudes  who  were  in  attendance  upon  the  sessions  of  the  Confer- 
ence could  not  make  the  excursion,  devotional  meetings  were  held  in  St. 
Paul's  Methodist  Episcopal  Church,  and  in  the  Fourth  Avenue  Presbyterian 
Church,  commencing  at  two  o'clock.  At  the  former  place,  the  Rev.  Mr. 
Sheshadri  preached,  and  at  the  latter  Rev.  "Wm.  Arnot,  both  churches  being 


SIXTH  GENERAL  CONFERENCE.  31 

filled  to  overflowing,  and  both  audiences  greatly  edified  by  the  discourses 
that  were  delivered. 

BROOKLYN  MEETING. 

• 

At  half-past  seven  o'clock  in  the  evening,  the  popular  meeting  that  had 
been  arranged  for  Brooklyn  took  place  in  the  Academy  of  Music.  The 
multitudes  that  attended,  and  the  enthusiasm  that  was  manifested,  showed 
that  the  citizens  of  our  sister  city  were  not  a  whit  behind  those  of  New 
York  in  their  appreciation  of  the  Conference.  The  stage  was  tastefully 
draped  on  the  sides  and  rear  with  the  flags  of  the  various  nations  repre- 
sented, and  was  occupied  by  the  delegates  and  invited  guests.  The  Eev. 
B.  S.  Storrs,  D.D.,  presided,  and  opened  the  meeting  with  a  brief  but  elo- 
quent address.  The  hymn,  "Come,  thou  Almighty  King,"  was  sung,  and 
the  assembly  was  led  in  prayer  by  the  Dean  of  Canterbury.  Spirited  ad- 
dresses were  made  by  the  Rev.  Matteo  Prochet,  of  Italy ;  Lord  Alfred  S. 
Churchill,  of  London ;  the  Eev.  Henry  Ward  Beecher,  of  Brooklyn  ;  the  Eev. 
John  Stoughton,  D.D.,  of  London ;  the  Eev.  George  M.  Grant,  of  Nova 
Scotia;  the  Eev.  John  Hall,D.D.,of  New  York;  the  Eev.Narayan  Sheshadri, 
of  India ;  and  the  Eev.  C.  Stovel,  of  London.  The  addresses  were  all  of  a 
popular  nature,  abounding  in  humor,  but  more  in  serious  thoughts  that 
moved  the  hearts  of  all  who  heard ;  and  at  a  late  hour  the  audience  retired, 
feeling  that  the  evening  had  been  one  of  rare  enjoyment. 

PROCEEDINGS  OF  THE  SEVENTH  DAY. 

On  Thursday,  October  9,  three  sectional  meetings  were  held :  the  first 
in  Association  Hall,  morning  and  afternoon ;  the  second  in  St.  Paul's  Meth- 
odist Episcopal  Church,  morning  and  afternoon ;  and  the  third  at  the  Church 
of  the  Disciples,  corner  of  Madison  Avenue  and  Forty-fifth  Street,  in  the 
evening. 

The  general  topic  of  the  day  was 

"CHEISTIANITY  AND  CIVIL  GOVEENMENT." 

At  Association  Hall,  the  morning  session  was  opened  at  ten  o'clock,  as  usu- 
al, the  President  in  the  chair.  The  exercises  were  commenced  with  prayer 
by  the  Eev.  Dr.  Caswell,  of  Providence,  Ehode  Island ;  after  which  a  letter 
was  read  conveying  to  the  Conference  the  greetings  of  the  Congregational 
Association  of  Illinois.  Papers  were  then  read  as  follows :  "  The  Church 
and  the;  Nation,"  by  the  Eev.  W.  H.  Fremantle,  M.A.,  of  London ;  "  The  Ee- 
lations  of  Constitution  and  Government  in  the  United  States  to  Eeligion," 
by  the  Eev. T. D.  Woolsey,  D.D.,  LL.D.,  of  New  Haven,  Connecticut;  "The 


32  EVANGELICAL  ALLIANCE. 

Sabbath  made  for  Man,  and  bis  Consequent  Eight  to  Legislation  for  serv- 
ing its  Ends,"  by  the  Rev.  Mark  Hopkins,  D.D.,  LL.D.,  of  Williamstown, 
Massachusetts.  Opportunity  being  given  for  discussion,  J.  Carwell  Will- 
iams, Esq.,  of  London,  replied  to  the  views  of  Rev.  Mr.  Fremantle  in  favor 
of  an  established  religion  in  the  State  ;  and  W.  J.  Menzies,  Esq.,  of  Edin- 
burgh, supported  them. 

At  the  afternoon  session,  President  Hovey,  of  the  Newton  Theological 
Institution,  Massachusetts,  repeated  the  paper  on  "  Christian  Liberty,"  pre- 
viously read  by  him  before  another  section  of  the  Conference ;  and  James 
Girdlestone,  Esq.,  of  London,  delivered  an  address  on  "Legislation  on  Moral 
Questions."  The  papers  assigned  to  this  section  being  now  finished,  volun- 
teer remarks  on  the  general  topic  of  the  day  were  called  for,  in  response  to 
which  Hon.  Felix  R  Brunot,  of  Pittsburg,  Pennsylvania,  and  the  Rev.  T. 
P.  Stevenson,  D.D.,  of  Philadelphia,  spoke  in  favor  of  the  express  recogni- 
tion of  God  in  the  written  constitutions  of  Christian  governments;  and  the 
Rev.  G.  M.  Grant,  of  Nova  Scotia,  the  Dean  of  Canterbury,  Bishop  Simpson, 
of  Philadelphia,  and  the  Rev.  David  Inglis,  D.D.,  of  Brooklyn,  spoke  on  the 
subject  of  "  Church  and  State." 

At  the  close  of  this  discussion,  the  Rev.  H.  C.  McCook,  of  Philadelphia, 
gave  notice  of  the  arrangements  made  for  the  visit  of  the  delegates  to  Phil- 
adelphia, whereupon  the  Dean  of  Canterbury  moved  a  vote  of  thanks,  as 
follows : 

MR.  PRESIDENT,  AND  LADIES-  AND  GENTLEMEN, — After  the  announce- 
ment just  heard,  I  think  the  delegates,  both  American  and  foreign — I  don't 
consider  myself  of  the  foreign  party — ought  to  pass  a  vote  of  thanks  to 
the  Pennsylvania  Railway  Company,  and  to  the  Committee  of  Arrange- 
ments of  the  Philadelphia  Branch,  for  the  very  kind  way  in  which  they 
have  made  preparations  for  our  pleasure'  and  comfort.  I  therefore  sug- 
gest that  such  a  motion  be  put  to  vote. 

This  motion  was  seconded,  and  unanimously  carried.  The  meeting  closed 
with  the  benediction  by  the  Rev.  Dr.  Forsyth,  Chaplain  of  the  West  Point 
Military  Academy,  New  York. 

At  the  meeting  of  the  Second  Section,  in  St.  Paul's  Methodist  Episco- 
pal Church,  the  Rev.  G.  R.  Crooks,  D.D.,  of  New  York,  presided,  and,  after 
the  usual  devotional  exercises,  the  following  papers  were  read :  "  The  In- 
fluence of  Christianity  on  Civil  and  Religious  Liberty,"  by  President  W.  H. 
Campbell,  D.D.,  of  Rutgers  College,  New  Brunswick,  New  Jersey ;  "  Evils  of 
a  Union  of  Church  and  State,"  by  the -Hon.  J.  L.  M.  Curry,  LL.D.,  of  Rich- 
mond, Virginia;  "The  Effects  of  Civil  and  Religious  Liberty  on  Chris- 


SIXTH  GENERAL  CONFERENCE.  33 

tianity,"  by  Professor  D.  R.  Goodwin,  D.D.,  of  the  Episcopal  Theological 
Seminary,  Philadelphia.  The  exercises  were  closed  with  the  benediction 
by  Professor  Henry  B.  Smith,  D.D.,  LL.D.,  of  the  Union  Theological  Semi- 
nary, New  York. 

At  the  afternoon  session,  the  Rev.  Alexis  Caswell,  D.D.,  of  Providence, 
presided ;  and  prayer  was  offered  by  the  Rev.  S.  H.  Tyng,  Jr.,  D.D.,  of  New 
York.  Ex-President  Hopkins,  of  Williams  College,  Massachusetts,  repeat- 
ed the  paper  on  "  Sabbath  Legislation,"  read  by  him  in  the  morning  at  As- 
sociation Hall,  and  a  brief  discussion  followed,  after  which  the  meeting  was 
closed  with  the  benediction. 

The  sectional  meeting  held  in  the  Church  of  the  Disciples,  Madison  Av- 
enue and  Forty-fifth  Street,  convened  at  half-past  seven  o'clock  in  the  even- 
ing, the  Hon.  George  H.  Stuart,  of  Philadelphia,  acting  as  chairman.  The 
large  church  was  completely  filled,  and  hundreds  were  unable  to  gain  ad- 
mission. After  prayer  by  the  Rev.  J.  Stanford  Holme,  D.D.,  of  New  York, 
Rev.  Professor  J.  F.  Astie,  of  the  Theological  Seminary  of  the  Free  Church, 
Lausanne,  Switzerland,  read  a  paper  on  "The  Free  Churches  on  the  Conti- 
nent of  Europe."  Addresses  on  the  subject  of  "  The  Support  of  the  Chris- 
tian Ministry  "  were  then  delivered  by  the  Rev.  John  Hall,  D.D.,  of  New 
York,  the  Rev.  T.  Y.  Killen,  of  Belfast,  Ireland,  the  Rev.L.  E.  Berkeley,  of 
Lurgan,  Ireland,  Professor  M.  W.  Jacobus,  D.D.,  of  the  Western  Theologic- 
al Seminary,  Allegheny,  Pennsylvania,  and  Bishop  Cummins,  of  Kentucky. 
The  meeting  was  closed  with  the  benediction  by  the  Rev.  George  H.  Hep- 
worth,  of  New  York. 

Professor  Christlieb,  in  reading  his  paper  on  "The  best  Methods  of  Coun- 
teracting Modern  Infidelity,"  before  the  Conference,  on  Monday,  the  6th 
inst.,  had  omitted  portions  of  it  for  want  of  time.  He  was  requested  to  re- 
peat it  in  full,  and  notice  was  given  that  he  would  comply  with  this  request 
on  Thursday  evening,  the  9th  inst.,  in  the  Madison  Square  Presbyterian 
Church.  Rev.  Dr.  Adams  introduced  the  speaker,  and  for  two  hours  and 
three  quarters  he  held  the  attention  of  a  vast  assembly,  and  many  remained 
standing  during  the  whole  time. 

PUBLIC   INSTITUTIONS  VISITED. 

In  addition  to  the  meetings  of  Thursday,  the  day  was  rendered  interest- 
ing and  instructive  to  a  portion  of  the  delegates  by  a  visit  to  the  public  in- 
stitutions of  the  city,  tendered  by  the  municipal  authorities.  Owing  to  the 
pressure  of  its  business,  the  Conference  was  unable  to  adjourn  for  this  ex- 
cursion; but  about  one  hundred  and  fifty  of  the  delegates,  among  them  those 
especially  interested  in  public  charities  and  in  prison  reform,  met  the  Mayor, 


34  EVANGELICAL  ALLIANCE. 

the  Commissioners  of  Charities  and  Correction,  and  several  members  of 
the  Boards  of  Aldermen  and  Assistant  Aldermen,  at  the  foot  of  Twenty- 
sixth  Street,  East  River,  at  ten  o'clock  in  the  morning,  and  were  conveyed 
by  steamboat  to  Blackwell's,  Randall's,  Hart's,  and  "Ward's  islands.  On 
Blackwell's  Island  the  Penitentiary,  Work-house,  Insane  Asylum,  and  Hos- 
pitals were  visited.  On  Randall's  Island  the  children  of  the  Orphan  Asy- 
lum were  drawn  up  in  line  to  receive  their  visitors,  and  the  boys  very  cred- 
itably went  through  some  military  exercises  with  their  wooden  muskets. 
Speeches  were  made  to  the  delegates  by  three  of  the  inmates  of  the  Asy- 
lum— Henry  Savage,  Thomas  Graham,  and  Emma  Gardner.  Commissioner 
Stern  also  made  a  brief  address,  and  responses  were  made  by  the  Rev.  G. 
W.  Weldon  and  the  Rev.  Thomas  W.  Aveling  of  London,  and  Professor 
Henry  A.  Nelson,  D.D.,  of  Cincinnati,  Ohio.  On  the  school-ship  Mercury,  at 
Hart's  Island,  a  variety  of  nautical  evolutions  were  most  admirably  exe- 
cuted by  the  boys;  and  addresses  were  made  by  the  Mayor,  Alderman 
Vance,  and  the  Rev.  Dr.  George  Fisch,  of  Paris.  On  Ward's  Island  the  vis- 
itors were  conducted  through  the  building  originally  erected  for  an  inebri- 
ate asylum,  but  now  used  as  an  asylum  for  disabled  soldiers.  In  the  large 
hall  of  this  building  dinner  was  served  to  the  delegates,  after  which  Mayor 
Havemeyer,  the  Rev.  Matteo  Prochet,  of  Genoa,  Professor  Felix  Bovet,  of 
Neuchatel,  and  the  Rev.  Dr.  Joseph  Parker,  of  London,  made  appropriate 
remarks.  The  company  reached  New  York,  on  their  return,  at  about  six 
o'clock  in  the  afternoon,  where  they  found  carriages  awaiting  them  on  the 
dock,  to  convey  them  to  their  several  places  of  abode.  The  courtesy  of  the 
municipal  authorities,  the  magnitude  of  the  charities  inspected,  the  admira- 
ble condition  of  the  institutions  visited,  the  beauty  of  the  scenery,  the  scenes 
and  events  of  the  day,  made  a  profound  impression  upon  the  delegates. 

PROCEEDINGS  OF  THE  EIGHTH  DAY. 

On  Friday,  October  10th,  four  sectional  meetings  were  held  :  the  first,  in 
Association  Hall,  morning  and  afternoon;  the  second,  in  St.  Paul's  Meth- 
odist Episcopal  Church,  morning  and  afternoon ;  the  third,  in  the  Fourth 
Avenue  Presbyterian  Church,  in  the  morning;  and  the  fourth,  in  the  Madi- 
son Square  Presbyterian  Church,  in  the  afternoon,  all  of  them  attended  by 
large  and  interested  audiences. 

The  general  topic  of  the  day  was 

"CHRISTIAN  MISSIONS— FOREIGN  AND  DOMESTIC." 

At  the  morning  session  in  Association  Hall,  President  Woolsey  in  the 
chair,  prayer  was  offered  by  President  Asa  D.  Smith,  D.D.,  of  Dartmouth 


SIXTH  GENEKAL  CONFERENCE.  35 

College,  Hanover,  New  Hampshire ;  and  a  paper  was  read  by  the  Kev.  Jo- 
seph Angus,  D.D.,  of  Regent's  Park  College,  London,  on  "  The  Duty  of  the 
Churches  in  Relation  to  Missions."  The  Rev.  Rufus  Anderson,  D.D.,  LL.D., 
of  Boston,  Massachusetts,  presented  a  paper  on  "Territorial  Divisions  of 
Missionary  Fields  of  Labor,  and  Missionary  Courtesy ;"  and  by  Dr.  Ander- 
son's request  it  was  read  by  the  Rev.  Dr.  Clark,  one  of  the  secretaries  of  the 
American  Board  of  Commissioners  for  Foreign  Missions.  A  paper  pre- 
pared by  the  Rev.  Dr.  Grundemann,  of  Pottsdam,  Germany,  on  "Roman 
Catholic,  Greek,  and  Protestant  Missions  compared,"  which  was  to  have  been 
read  by  Professor  Christlieb,  was  deferred,  owing  to  the  late  hour  at  which 
the  translation  of  it  had  come  to  hand.  It  is  published  in  this  volume, 
among  the  papers  of  Friday,  October  10.  The  Rev.  Thomas  M.  Eddy, 
D.D.,  of  New  York,  read  a  paper  on  "  The  Obligations  of  Science,  Litera- 
ture, and  Commerce  to  Christian  Missions."  An  opportunity  being  given 
for  impromptu  remarks,  brief  speeches  on  mission  work  were  made  by  the 
Rev.  Thomas  Penrose,  of  Reading,  England ;  Professor  Charles  A.  Blanchard, 
of  Chicago,  Illinois ;  the  Rev.  Narayan  Sheshadri,  of  Bombay,  India ;  and  the 
Rev.  J.  W.  M.  Williams,  D.D.,  of  Baltimore,  Maryland. 

The  afternoon  session  was  commenced  with  prayer  by  the  Rev.  John 
Chambers,  D.D.,  of  Philadelphia.  The  Rev.  Dr.  Schaff  presented  a  paper 
from  Count  Andreas  von  Bernstorff,  of  Berlin,  on  "Lay  Preaching,"  which 
was  ordered  to  be  printed  in  the  volume  of  proceedings.  George  A.  Stu- 
art, Esq.,  of  Philadelphia,  delivered  an  address  on  "Lay  Preaching;"  after 
which  II.  Thane  Miller,  Esq.,  of  Cincinnati,  Ohio,  sang,  with  touching  effect, 
the  hymn,  "  Tell  me  the  old,  old  story,"  the  audience  joining  in  the  chorus. 
The  Rev.  Robert  Knox,D.D.,of  Belfast,  Ireland,  read  a  paper  on  "  City  Mis- 
sions in  Ireland;"  after  which  brief  impromptu  addresses  on  the  subject  of 
missions  were  delivered  by  Professor  Christlieb,  of  Germany,  and  the  Hon. 
Frederick  T.Frelinghuysen,  United  States  Senator,  of  Newark,  New  Jersey. 
George  H.  Stuart,  Esq.,  read  a  letter  from  the  Rev.  Alexander  Duff,  D.D.,  of 
Scotland,  sending  a  hearty  "  God-speed  "  to  the  Conference,  and  expressing 
his  regret  at  not  being  able  to  attend  its  sessions.  The  benediction  was 
pronounced  by  the  Rev.  Cyrus  D.  Foss,  D.D.,  of  New  York. 

At  the  meeting  of  the  second  section,  at  ten  o'clock  A.M.,  in  St.  Paul's 
Methodist  Episcopal  Church,  ex-Governor  William  A.Buckingham,  of  Con- 
necticut, and  United  States  Senator,  presided,  and  the  exercises  were  com- 
menced with  prayer  by  the  Rev.  Dr.  Forsyth,  of  West  Point.  Addresses 
were  delivered  by  the  Rev.  Narayan  Sheshadri,  of  Bombay,  India,  Hugh 
Miller,  M.D.,  of  Broomfield,  Scotland,  and  the  Rev.  J.  S.  Woodside,  of 
Northern  India,  on  "  Christianity  among  the  Hindoos,"  "  Obstacles  to  Mis- 


36  EVANGELICAL  ALLIANCE. 

sion  Work,"  and  "  Women's  Work  in  India ;"  by  Bishop  E.  De  Schwei- 
nitz,  S.T.D.,  of  Bethlehem,  Pennsylvania,  on  "  Missions  among  the  lowest 
of  the  Heathen;"  and  by  the  Rev.  E.  E.  Jenkins,  D.D.,  of  Southport,  En- 
gland, formerly  a  missionary  to  India,  upon  the  general  subject  of  missions 
in  India. 

At  the  afternoon  session  papers  were  read  and  addresses  delivered  by 
the  Rev.  William  Murray,  of  Falmouth,  Jamaica,  on  "  Christianity  in  the 
West  Indies ;"  by  Hon.  Felix  R.  Brunot,  of  Pittsburg,  Pennsylvania,  and 
Hon.  Nathan  Bishop,  LL.D.,  of  New  York,  both  connected  with  the  United 
States  Indian  Commission,  on  "Indians  in  the  United  States;"  and  by  the 
Rev.  Moses. D.  Hoge,  D.D.,  of  Richmond,  Virginia,  on  "The  Mission  Field 
of  the  South."  The  meeting  was  closed  with  the  benediction  by  the  Rev. 
Dr.  Hoge. 

At  the  meeting  of  the  Third  Section,  in  the  Fourth  Avenue  Presbyterian 
Church,  at  ten  o'clock  A.M.,  the  Rev.  E.  P.  Rogers,  D.D.,  of  New  York, 
presided ;  and  after  prayer  by  the  Rev.  Robert  Knox,  D.D.,  of  Belfast,  Ire- 
land, a  paper  was  presented  by  the  Rev.  Antonio  Carrasco,  of  Madrid,  on 
"  The  State  of  Religion  in  Spain,"  which  was  delivered  in  Spanish  by  the 
author,  and  translated  by  the  Rev.  Fritz  Fliedner,  also  of  Madrid.  A 
paper  prepared  by  the  Rev.  H.  H.  Jessup,  D.D.,  of  Beirut,  Syria,  on  "  Mis- 
sions to  the  Oriental  Churches,"  was  read  by  the  Rev.  D.  Stuart  Dodge,  of 
New  York,  lately  a  missionary  to  Syria.  A  paper  was  read  by  the  Rev. 
L.  E.  Berkeley,  of  Lurgan,  Ireland,  on  "  Evangelization  in  Ireland."  The 
Rev.  M.  Lelievre,  of  Nimes,  France,  presented  a  paper  on  "  The  Evan- 
gelical Home  Mission  of  France,"  which,  at  his  request,  was  read  by  the 
Rev.  Emile  Cook,  of  Paris.  The  meeting  was  concluded  with  the  bene- 
diction. 

The  Fourth  Section  met  at  two  o'clock  in  the  afternoon,  in  the  Madison 
Square  Presbyterian  Church.  It  was  addressed  wholly  by  foreign  mission- 
aries who  were  in  attendance  upon  the  Conference,  each  speaker  being  lim- 
ited to  ten  minutes.  Addresses  were  delivered  by  the  Rev.  Edwin  E.  Bliss, 
of  Constantinople;  the  Rev.  B.  Labarree,  of  Persia;  the  Rev.  M.  D.  Kalo- 
pothakes,  M.D.,  of  Greece ;  the  Rev.  Mr.  Thomas,  of  India;  Mr.  W.  Yorke, 
of  the  Dindigal  Training-school,  Madras,  India;  the  Rev.  A.  Grout,  of 
South  Africa;  the  Rev.  C.  H.  Carpenter,  of  British  Burmah;  and  the  Rev. 
Justus  Doolittle,  of  China. 

In  the  evening  a  German  popular  meeting  was  held  in  Association  Hall. 
The  Rev.  Dr.  Schaff  presided ;  and  the  meeting  was  opened  with  the  sing- 
ing of  Luther's  grand  old  hymn,  "  Ein  feste  Burg  ist  unser  Gott."  Prayer 
was  offered  by  the  Rev.  Edward  Dreier,  of  Neuen  Kirchen,  Hanover;  and 


SIXTH  GENERAL  CONFERENCE.  37 

the  chairman,  after  some  felicitous  remarks,  introduced  to  the  audience  the 
following  speakers :  Professor  Corner,  of  Berlin ;  Professor  Christlieb,  of 
Bonn  ;  Eev.  Paul  Zimmermann,  of  Leipsic ;  Rev.  A.  H.  M.  Held,  of  New 
York ;  and  the  Rev.  George  Zahner,  D.D.,  of  Ohio.  This  meeting,  which 
was  very  fully  attended  by  our  German  fellow-citizens,  was  one  of  great 
interest,  the  topics  presented  by  the  speakers  being  the  vital  questions  of 
German  theology  and  church  life,  with  special  reference  to  the  reciprocal 
relations  of  Germany  and  the  United  States.  Before  adjourning,  it  was  re- 
solved to  hold  a  similar  meeting  on  Sunday  evening  at  the  Cooper  Insti- 
tute, at  which  opportunity  should  be  given  of  hearing  other  speakers. 

In  the  evening  an  elegant  reception  was  given  to  the  Conference  by  the 
Hon.  "William  E.  Dodge,  President  of  the  United  States  Alliance.  In  ad- 
dition to  the  members  of  the  Conference,  most  of  the  clergy  of  the  city  and 
many  invited  guests  filled  the  spacious  mansion  of  Mr.  Dodge,  on  Murray 
Hill,  in  Madison  Avenue.  Conversation,  music,  and  refreshments  enliven- 
ed the  evening ;  and  brief  speeches  were  made  by  the  venerable  Dr.  Cox, 
the  Rev.  Mr.  Sheshadri,  and  the  Rev.  J.  C.  Harrison,  of  London.  After 
two  or  three  hours  of  delightful  intercourse,  the  Rev.  Mr.  Harrison,  by  re- 
quest of  Mr.  Dodge,  offered  prayer,  and  the  guests  soon  after  took  their 
departure. 

PROCEEDINGS  OF  THE  NINTH  DAY. 

On  Saturday,  October  llth,  the  last  day  of  the  business  sessions  of  the 
Conference,  three  sectional  meetings  were  held :  the  first,  in  Association 
Hall,  morning  and  evening;  the  second  in  St.  Paul's  Methodist  Episcopal 
Church,  in  the  morning;  and  the  third  in  the  Fourth  Avenue  Presbyterian 
Church,  in  the  morning.  In  addition  to  these,  a  united  session  of  all  the 
sections  was  held  in  Association  Hall,  at  two  o'clock  in  the  afternoon. 

The  general  topic  of  the  day  was 

"CHRISTIANITY  AND  SOCIAL  REFORMS." 

At  the  morning  session  in  Association  Hall,  the  President  in  the  chair, 
the  exercises  were  opened  with  prayer  by  Bishop  Alfred  Lee,  D.D.,  of  Del- 
aware. Rev.  Dr.  Cattell,  President  of  Lafayette  College,  Easton,  Pennsyl- 
vania, extended  to  the  delegates  an  invitation  to  attend,  on  the  21st  of  Octo- 
ber, the  dedication  exercises  of  Pardee  Hall,  a  new  building  intended  for 
the  scientific  department  of  the  college,  stating  also  that  free  railway  tick- 
ets would  be  furnished  to  all  who  could  make  it  convenient  to  attend. 

The  Rev.  Henry  M.  Field,  D.D.,  of  New  York,  invited  the  foreign  dele- 
gates to  visit  Central  Park  after  the  adjournment  of  the  Conference  in  the 


38  EVANGELICAL  ALLIANCE. 

afternoon,  stating  that  carriages  would  be  at  the  door  of  the  hall  at  that 
time  for  their  use. 

President  Eliphalet  Nott  Potter,  D.D.,  invited  the  delegates  to  visit  Union 
College  at  their  convenience. 

After  a  vote  of  thanks  for  these  courtesies,  papers  were  read  by  Rev.  Pro- 
fessor J.  Harris  Jones,  Ph.D.,  of  Trevecca  College,  Wales,  on  "  Christianity 
as  a  Reforming  Power;"  by  the  Rev.  W.  Fleming  Stevenson,  of  Dublin, 
Ireland,  on  "  The  Working  Power  of  the  Church — how  best  to  Utilize  it ;" 
and  by  President  W.  H.  Allen,  LL.D.,  of  Girard  College,  Philadelphia,  on 
"  The  Labor  Question."  The  reading  of  Dr.  Allen's  paper  was  followed 
with  remarks  on  the  same  topic  by  Professor  L.  H.  Atwater,  D.D.,  LL.D., 
of  Princeton  College,  New  Jersey,  and  President  Woolsey,  of  New  Haven. 

At  the  sectional  meeting  in  St.  Paul's  Methodist  Episcopal  Church,  the 
Rev.  Cyrus  D.  Foss,  D.D.,  of  New  York,  presided ;  and  after  prayer,  papers 
were  read  by  the  Rev.  Thomas  W.  Aveling,  of  London,  on  "  Christian  Phi- 
lanthropy ;"  and  by  the  Rev.  William  A.  Muhlenberg,  D.D.,  of  St.  Luke's  Hos- 
pital, New  York,  on  "  The  Lord's  Supper  in  Relation  to  Christian  Union." 
A  paper  on  "  The  Care  of  the  Sick,"  prepared  by  the  late  Count  Agdnor  de 
Gasparin,  of  Geneva,  for  the  Conference  of  1870,  was  read  in  part  by  the  Rev. 
Hervey  D.  Ganse,  of  New  York,  and  may  be  found  in  full  in  this  volume. 
A  few  remarks  were  made  on  the  subject  of  "Deaconesses,"  by  the  Rev. 
Fritz  Fliedner,  of  Madrid,  son  of  Pastor  Fliedner,  the  founder  of  the  House 
of  Deaconesses  at  Kaiserwerth,  on  the  Rhine. 

At  the  sectional  meeting  held  in  the  Fourth  Avenue  Presbyterian  Church, 
the  Rev.  Howard  Crosby,  D.D.,  Chancellor  of  the  University  of  New  York, 
presided,  and  prayer  was  offered  by  the  Rev.  E.  C.  Wines,  D.D.,  of  New 
York.  Papers  were  read  by  Professor  Henry  A.  Nelson,  D.D.,  of  Lane 
Theological  Seminary,  Cincinnati,  Ohio,  on  "  Intemperance  and  its  Suppres- 
sion," by  the  Rev.  E.  C.  Wines,  D.D.,  LL.D.,  of  New  York,  Secretary  of  the 
National  Prison  Association,  on  "  Christianity  in  its  Relation  to  Crime  and 
Criminals ;"  by  the  Rev.  Elie  Robin,  B.D.,  of  Paris,  on  "  Industrial  Schools 
as  an  Agency  in  the  Prevention  of  Crime ;"  and  by  Henry  Bergh,  Esq.,  of 
New  York,  on  "  Cruelty  to  Animals." 

/It  was  originally  intended  to  have  the  important  subject  of  "Young 
Men's  Christian  Associations"  treated  on  Tuesday,  October  7th,  on  which 
day  the  general  topic  was  "  Christian  Life."  But  as  it  was  desirable  that  op- 
portunity should  be  given  to  the  members  of  the  Young  Men's  Christian 
Association  of  New  York,  and  to  young  men  in  general,  to  be  present  when 
this  subject  was  discussed,  it  was,  by  request,  postponed  to  Saturday  even- 
ing, October  llth,  as  an  occasion  when  a  larger  number  of  young  men 


SIXTH  GENERAL  CONFERENCE.  39 

could  conveniently  attend.  This  meeting  was,  therefore,  held  subsequently 
to  the  formal  exercises  with  which  the  business  of  the  Conference  was  closed. 
Morris  K.  Jesup,  Esq.,  President  of  the  Young  Men's  Christian  Association 
of  New  York,  and  one  of  the  Vice-presidents  of  the  Conference,  occupied 
the  chair,  and  the  exercises  were  commenced  with  prayer  by  the  Hon. 
Charles  Young,  President  of  the  Young  Men's  Christian  Association  of 
Prince  Edward  Island.  A  paper  on  "Young  Men's  Christian  Associa- 
tions "  was  read  by  Cephas  Brainerd,  Esq.,  of  New  York ;  and  addresses 
were  made  by  the  Rev.  Thomas  W.  Aveling,  the  Rev.  John  Stoughton, 
D.D.,  and  George  Vigeon,  Esq.,  of  London;  the  Rev.  Henry  Miller,  of 
Hammersmith,  England ;  the  Rev.  M.  Lelievre,  of  Nimes,  France ;  and  the 
Rev.  Dr.  Coulin,  of  Geneva,  in  the  French  language,  translated  by  Mr.  N. 
Cyr,  of  New  York ;  the  Rev.  Leonard  Anet,  of  Brussels,  Belgium ;  the 
Hon.  George  H.  Stuart,  of  Philadelphia;  and  H.  Thane  Miller,  Esq.,  of 
Cincinnati,  Ohio,  who  also  sang  the  hymn,  "I  love  to  tell  the  Story,"  with 
organ  accompaniment  and  chorus.  The  meeting  was  closed  with  the  bene- 
diction by  the  Rev.  Henry  Tarrant,  of  Leeds,  England. 

At  two  o'clock  in  the  afternoon  the  whole  Conference  met  in  Associa- 
tion Hall,  President  Woolsey  in  the  chair,  for  the  formal  closing  of  the  bus- 
iness sessions.  Two  verses  were  sung  of  the  hymn  "Blest  be  the  tie 
that  binds;"  and  prayer  was  offered  by  the  Rev.  William  Arnot,  of  Edin- 
burgh, Scotland.  The  Rev.  William  Adams,  D.D.,  LL.D.,  of  New  York, 
Chairman  of  the  Programme  Committee,  stated  in  its  behalf  that  the  Com- 
mittee had  spent  much  time  and  labor  in  the  arrangement  of  the  papers, 
and  that  if  there  had  been  any  disappointment  on  the  part  of  those  who 
had  presented  communications  to  the  Committee,  it  was  the  result  of  causes 
which  the  Committee  could  not  control. 

The  Rev.  John  Hall,  D.D.,  presented  a  report  from  the  Programme  Com- 
mittee recommending  that  various  memorials  which  were  placed  in  the 
hands  of  the  Committee  be  printed  in  the  volume  of  proceedings  to  be  pub- 
lished. These  papers  so  ordered  may  be  found  on  pages  730-746  of  Ap- 
pendix II. 

Lord  Alfred  S.  Churchill  read  an  address  from  the  delegates  of  Great  Brit- 
ain and  Ireland,  acknowledging  the  hospitalities  received,  and  expressing  a 
most  grateful  appreciation  of  them.  He  accompanied  this  address  with  a 
few  very  happy  remarks,  and  concluded  with  the  prayer  that  the  blessings 
of  God  might  ever  rest  upon  the  American  nation. 

The  Rev.  George  Fisch,  D.D.,  of  Paris,  presented  a  similar  address  on 
behalf  of  the  delegates  from  France,  Switzerland,  and  Belgium,  and  rejoiced 
to  add  that  they  would  return  to  their  homes  refreshed  and  inspirited. 


40  EVANGELICAL  ALLIANCE. 

[At  this  point  notice  was  received  that  tbe  Fourth  Avenue  Presbyterian 
Church  was  filled  with  an  audience  who  desired  to  have  speakers  sent  to 
them,  and  accordingly  Bishop  Cummins,  Rev.  Dr.  Fisch,  and  others,  by  re- 
quest, proceeded  to  the  Church  to  address  this  second  meeting.] 

The  Eev.  Dr.  Dorner  presented  an  address  of  thanks  from  the  German 
delegates,  which  was  read  by  the  Rev.  Leopold  Witte,  of  Cothen,  Prussia, 
who  added  that  they  would  give  a  practical  shape  to  their  thanks  if  the 
Conference  would  come  to  Germany. 

The  Rev.  Anson  Green,  D.D.,  of  Toronto,  in  behalf  of  the  Canadian  dele- 
gates, said  that,  though  Canada  was  a  colony  of  the  British  Empire,  they 
claimed  the  privilege  of  speaking  for  themselves,  and  of  saying  that  the 
welcome  given  them  had  made  an  impression  upon  them  that  would  never 
be  forgotten.  The  Rev.  George  M.  Grant,  of  Halifax,  Nova  Scotia,  added 
that,  in  anticipating  their  coming,  the  Canadian  delegates  did  not  know  but 
that  they  might  fall  between  two  stools,  being  recognized  as  neither  "  for- 
eign" nor  "home"  delegates;  but  the  result  had  proved  their  fear  to  be 
groundless,  as  the  kindness  shown  them  could  not  have  been  exceeded. 

As  these  sentiments  were  uttered  the  members  of  the  various  delegations 
manifested  their  hearty  approval  of  them  by  standing  as  their  several  rep- 
resentatives were  speaking. 

The  Rev.  William  Ormiston,  D.D.,  of  New  York,  moved  the  following 
resolution,  which  he  accompanied  with  appropriate  remarks,  and  which  was 
seconded  and  carried : 

Resolved,  That  in  view  of  the  great  and  manifold  blessings  of  the  Divine 
Providence  vouchsafed  to  this  meeting  of  the  Evangelical  Alliance,  its  mem- 
bers gratefully  desire  to  record  a  humble  expression  of  devout  thankful- 
ness to  Almighty  God  for  his  goodness,  and  to  commend  each  other  to  his 
care. 

The  Rev.  William  Arnot,  of  Edinburgh,  moved  the  following  resolu- 
tion, which  he  supported  in  a  brief  speech,  and  which  was  seconded  and 
adopted : 

Resolved,  That  the  General  Conference  recognizes  with  great  satisfaction 
the  interest  which  the  pastors  and  churches  of  the  city  of  New  York,  Brook- 
lyn, and  vicinity  have  taken  in  the  Evangelical  Alliance,  which  interest  ap- 
pears to  pervade  the  whole  country. 

The  Rev.  John  Hall,  D.D.,  of  New  York,  replied  to  this  resolution  in 
behalf  of  the  pastors  of  New  York,  Brooklyn,  and  vicinity,  thanking  the 
delegates  for  the  acceptable  and  valuable  services  rendered  by  them  in  min- 
istering to  their  congregations. 


SIXTH  GENERAL  CONFERENCE.  41 

The  Kev.  J.  C.  Harrison,  of  London,  moved  the  thanks  of  the  Conference 
to  the  families  who  had  so  hospitably  entertained  the  delegates.  It  was  the 
prayer  of  all  of  them  that  the  blessing  of  God  might  ever  rest  upon  these 
homes.  The  Eev.  T.  Lorriaux,  of  Paris,  most  heartily  seconded  this  mo- 
tion, and  spoke,  not  only  of  private  hospitalit}',  but  also  of  the  gratification 
received  by  the  delegates  in  visiting  the  public  institutions  of  New  York, 
as  the  guests  of  the  city. 

To  this  resolution,  which  was  unanimously  adopted,  the  Rev.  T.  D.  An- 
derson, D.D.,  of  New  York,  responded  in  behalf  of  the  families  who  had 
entertained  delegates,  and  who  felt  that  they  had  received  more  than  they 
had  bestowed.  Had  there  not  been  this  interchange  of  social  feeling,  the 
Conference  would  have  lacked  a  most  important  element  of  influence,  and 
the  delegates  would  have  returned  to  their  homes  without  the  ties  of  friend- 
ship that  now  unite  them  to  those  who  have  been  their  hosts. 

On  motion  of  Rev.  Professor  J.  Harris  Jones,  Ph.D.,  of  Wales,  the  thanks 
of  the  delegates  were  presented  to  the  Young  Men's  Christian  Association 
of  New  York,  for  their  hospitalities  to  the  Conference.  Morris  K.  Jesup, 
Esq.,  President  of  the  Association,  responded  to  this  resolution.  He  said 
that  the  New  York  Young  Men's  Christian  Association  claimed  to  be  an 
Evangelical  Alliance  on  a  small  scale.  It  numbered  4000  young  men,  band- 
ed together  for  Christian  work,  irrespective  of  sect  or  denomination.  It  was, 
therefore,  fitting  that  the  Association  should  entertain  such  a  body  as  the  Evan- 
gelical Alliance ;  and  if  their  building  had  been  as  large  as  their  hearts,  there 
would  have  been  ample  room  for  all  who  desired  to  attend  the  Conference. 

The  Rev.  W.  Ives  Budington,  D.D.,  of  Brooklyn,  submitted  the  follow- 
ing resolution,  which  was  adopted: 

Resolved,  That  the  thanks  of  the  Alliance  are  due  and  arc  hereby  ten- 
dered to  the  Press  in  this  city  and  elsewhere,  which  has  given  to  the  public, 
at  great  expense,  reports  remarkably  full  and  accurate,  of  the  papers  read 
and  of  the  speeches  uttered  in  this  Assembly,  and  our  acknowledgments 
are  also  made  for  the  intelligent  appreciation  so  generally  shown  of  the  ob- 
jects and  spirit  of  this  Alliance. 

On  motion  of  the  Rev.  Dr.  Schaff,  of  New  York,  it  was 

Resolved,  That  the  thanks  of  the  Conference  be  presented  to  the  proprie- 
tors and  agents  of  the  several  Transatlantic  steamship  lines  who  so  gener- 
ously furnished  facilities  of  transportation  for  the  foreign  delegates,  and  to 
those  American  railroad  companies  who  so  kindly  proffered  free  excursions 
to  both  foreign  and  American  delegates,  thereby  greatly  contributing  to  the 
success  of  the  Conference  and  to  the  gratification  of  all  its  members  ;  also  to 
the  various  institutions  that  have  extended  courtesies  to  the  members  of  the 
Conference. 


42  EVANGELICAL  ALLIANCE. 

The  companies,  corporations,  and  institutions  included  in  the  above  reso- 
lution are  as  follows: 

The  Cunard,  White  Star,  Anchor,  Transatlantic,  the  Bremen  Lloyd,  and 
the  Hamburg  and  New  York  Ocean  Steamship  Companies. 

The  Erie  Railway  Company ;  the  Pennsylvania  Railroad  Company ;  the 
Philadelphia,  Wilmington,  and  Baltimore  Railroad  Company ;  the  Balti- 
more and  Potomac  Railroad  Company ;  and  the  Delaware  and  Lackawanna 
Railroad  Company. 

The  Mayor  and  Common  Council  of  New  York ;  the  Board  of  Education 
of  New  York ;  the  College  of  the  City  of  New  York ;  the  Managers  of  the 
House  of  Refuge,  New  York ;  the  Mercantile  Library  Association  of  New 
York ;  the  Metropolitan  Museum  of  Art,  New  York ;  the  Seaman's  Friends' 
Society,  New  York ;  the  New  York  Historical  Society ;  the  American  In- 
stitute, New  York ;  and  the  Newark,  New  Jersey,  Industrial  Institute. 

On  motion  of  James  Girdlestone,  Esq.,  of  London,  a  resolution  of  thanks 
was  passed  to  the  Committees  of  the  United  States  Alliance,  for  the  pains 
taken  by  them  to  make  the  Conference  a  success ;  and  to  the  President  and 
other  officers  of  the  Conference  for  the  fidelity  with  which  they  had  dis- 
charged their  responsible  duties. 

This  resolution  was  responded  to  by  the  Rev.  S.  Irensens  Prime,  D.D., 
General  Secretary  of  the  Conference,  and  by  the  Rev.  Dr.  Woolsey,  the 
President  The  remarks  of  Dr.  Prime  were  as  follows : 

The  labor  which  has  been  devolved  on  the  officers  of  the  United  States 
Alliance  in  making  the  preparations  for,  and  in  conducting  the  Conference, 
is  known  to  no  one  better  than  to  myself.  We  have  anticipated  the  as- 
sembling of  this  Conference  with  intense  interest  and  anxiety,  and  have 
spent  weeks  and  months  and  years  in  perfecting  those  arrangements  which 
have  now  their  final  and,  we  hope,  satisfactory  accomplishment. 

Twice  the  time  fixed  for  the  Conference  was  unavoidably  postponed, 
and  these  disappointments  greatly  dampened  our  spirits  and  discouraged 
our  efforts.  But  we  did  the  best  we  could.  We  sent  out  our  invitation 
into  all  the  earth,  and  its  remotest  parts  responded.  Those  who  had  the 
most  to  do  with  the  preparations  are  the  most  sensible  of  our  shortcomings. 
We  know  the  want  of  perfect  accommodation  for  each  one  of  the  thousands 
who  have  pressed  at  the  doors  of  every  house  we  have  opened  for  our  meet- 
ings. Gladly  would  we  have  taken  them  all  to  our  assemblies.  We  have 
heard  complaints  from  some  that  they  could  not  have  seats  secured.  And 
those  who  had  secured  seats  have  complained  that  they  could  not  always 
get  them.  But  the  throngs  have  been  so  great,  and  so  far'beyond  the  ex- 


SIXTH  GENERAL  CONFERENCE.  43 

pectation  of  any  one,  that  some  inconvenience  must  be  suffered.  How  small 
has  that  inconvenience  been,  compared  with  the  honor  and  privilege  and 
blessing  of  being  permitted  to  stand,  even  for  an  hour,  in  the  midst  of  the 
greatest  and  noblest  convention  of  the  ministers  of  Christ  that  was  ever  as- 
sembled upon  this  Continent!  Its  memory  will  be  a  joy  to  us  long  after 
we  have  forgotten  the  discomforts  and  toils  that  have  attended  it. 

There  are  some  laborers  in  this  service  to  whom  thanks  are  eminently 
due;  they  are  the  several  committees,  the  active  working  men  in  them, 
who  have  had  charge  of  the  buildings,  of  the  hospitality  and  entertainment 
of  guests,  the  programme,  music,  railroad,  and  finance  committees,  and  oth- 
ers, all  of  whom  have  wrought  hard  and  long ;  and  I  am  here  to  say  that  if 
the  arrangements  have  been  such  as  to  warrant  your  approval,  to  those  in- 
defatigable men  your  thanks  are  due.  These  ushers,  whose  duties  have 
been  arduous  and  exhausting,  are  chiefly  students  in  theology,  who  have 
gratuitously  given  their  services,  that  they  might  contribute  to  your  com- 
fort, while  they  themselves  should  now  and  then  get 'a  word  of  wisdom  and 
knowledge  from  your  lips. 

We  have  all  tried  to  do  our  duty.  Wherein  we  have  failed  in  temper 
and  courtesy,  in  the  midst  of  the  inevitable  difficulties  of  handling  such  im- 
mense assemblies  in  so  many  places  at  one  and  the  same  time,  we  humbly 
beg  your  forgiveness.  When  our  turn  comes  to  have  the  Conference  again, 
we  will  avail  ourselves  of  present  experience,  and  do  it  far  better  than  now. 

It  is  an  honor  to  have  been  a  servant  in  this  glorious  Conference.  If  it 
had  cost  the  life  of  any  of  us,  the  sacrifice  would  have  been  small.  But  we 
have  all  lived,  and  are  stronger,  wiser,  and  we  hope  better,  for  the  work. 
From  this  mount  of  service  and  privilege,  we  shall  go  down  to  the  Master's 
work  refreshed  and  quickened,  to  do  and  to  die  where  and  when  we  are 
called. 

Rev.  Dr.  Hall  moved  a  vote  of  thanks,  especially  to  the  venerable  Presi- 
dent, Dr.  Woolsey,  for  the  gentle  firmness  and  graceful  dignity  with  which 
he  had  presided.  This  was  enthusiastically  adopted,  and  President  Wool- 
sey said : 

GENTLEMEN,  MEMBERS  OF  THE  CONFERENCE, — The  hour  has  come  to 
close  this  meeting,  and  with  it  the  business  sessions  of  the  Conference.  In 
the  few  moments  in  which  I  am  to  address  you,  I  have  to  thank  the  Secre- 
taries for  their  continual  assistance,  without  which  I  could  have  done  noth- 
ing. I  have  the  pleasure,  my  fellow-members  of  the  Conference  from  the 
United  States,  in  your  name,  to  thank  the  foreign  delegates  for  the  rich  in- 


44  EVANGELICAL  ALLIANCE. 

struction  they  have  given  us,  and  for  having  come  so  far,  at  no  small  ex-" 
pense  of  time,  for  our  good.  And  I  have  to  thank  you  all  for  your  great 
interest  in  the  meetings,  and  for  your  readiness  to  comply  with  the  rules 
for  the  observance  of  order. 

And  now,  gentlemen,  what  have  we  gained  from  our  attendance  at  these 
meetings?  Estimating  the  papers  presented  as  highly  as  we  may,  has  not 
the  great  gain  been  a  deeper  impression  of  the  unity  of  Christians  than  we 
have  had  before,  of  the  communion  of  saints  throughout  the  world,  an  im- 
pression that  may  last  through  our  lives,  and  may  develop  within  us  a  higher 
spirit  of  true  catholicity  than  we  have  had  hitherto?  The  remarkable  com- 
munication from  the  "Old  Catholics"  that  was  presented  to  us  shows  that 
there  are  those  beyond  the  bounds  of  "Protestantism"  who,  although  widely 
differing  from  us,  recognize  the  same  common  Saviour,  and  have  a  sym- 
pathy with  us.  Suppose,  now,  a  member  of  the  Church  of  Rome  who  pre- 
served his  connection  with  the  Pope  should  come  to  us  and  say,  "  I  am  in- 
deed a  Catholic;  I  can  not  in  conscience  break  away  from  the  Church  of  my 
fathers,  but  I  believe  in  Christ,  and  I  believe  that  you  love  Christ  and  love 
the  kingdom  of  Christ  in  the  world ;  my  heart  is  with  you,  and  I  wish  to 
express  my  sympathy  for  you,"  would  you  not  receive  him?  Would  you 
not,  when  he  said,  "  I  believe  that  through  the  grace  of  the  Lord  Jesus 
Christ  we  shall  be  saved,  even  as  you,"  call  him  your  brother?  [Decided 
expressions  of  assent  from  the  members  of  the  Conference.] 

Recall  to  your  minds,  gentlemen,  that  time  in  the  ancient  Church  when  a 
party  announced  the  principle  that  except  the  Gentiles  were  circumcised, 
and  obeyed  the  law  of  Moses,  they  could  not  be  saved. 

Among  those  narrow-minded  Christians  there  were  very  many  good  men 
who  would  have  died  for  Jesus.  There  were  multitudes  who  agreed  with 
the  apostle  Peter — contrary  to  their  own  principle,  really — when  he  said, 
"  We  believe  that  through  the  grace  of  the  Lord  Jesus  Christ  we  shall  be 
saved,  even  as  they."  For  such  Christians,  who  differ  so  widely  from  us, 
and  yet  in  their  Christian  life  are  one  with  us,  we  will  open  the  door  of  our 
hearts ;  we  will  not  drive  them  from  our  assemblies. 

And  may  I  not  ask,  gentlemen,  if  this  meeting  is  not  fitted  to  recall  to 
our  minds  that  vast  assemblage,  that  "  great  multitude  which  no  man  could 
number,  of  all  nations,  and  kindreds,  and  people,  and  tongues,"  who  "stood 
before  the  throne,  and  before  the  Lamb,  clothed  with  white  robes,  and  palms 
in  their  hands,  and  cried  with  a  loud  voice,  saying,  Salvation  to  our  God 
which  sitteth  upon  the  throne,  and  unto  the  Lamb."  Who  were  these  mul- 
titudes, arraj-ed  in  white  robes?  They  were  those  who  came  out  of  great 
tribulation,  and  washed  their  robes  and  made  them  white  in  the  blood  of 


SIXTH  GENERAL  CONFERENCE.  45 

the  Lamb.  Shall  we  not  give  all  diligence  to  wash  our  robes,  and  make 
them  white  in  the  blood  of  the  Lamb,  that  we  may  form  a  part  of  this  great 
and  ever-increasing  throng?  I  wish  you  all  farewell ! 

The  doxology,  "Praise  God  from  whom  all  blessings  flow,"  was  then 
sung ;  the  benediction  was  pronounced  by  the  Kev.  Anson  Green,  D.D.,  of 
Toronto,  Canada;  and  the  Conference,  which  had  been  increasing  in  inter- 
est each  day  of  its  sessions,  and  which  had  awakened  a  growing  enthusiasm 
in  the  multitudes  who  daily  attended  it,  brought  its  regular  business  to  a 
close. 

After  the  adjournment  the  foreign  delegates  rode  to  Central  Park,  in  ac- 
cordance with  the  invitation  of  Dr.  Field. 

While  they  were  absent,  the  delegates  from  the  United  States  Alliance 
and  its  Branches  held  a  meeting  in  Association  Hall,  at  which  steps  were 
taken  to  promote  the  usefulness  of  the  Alliance  in  this  country. 

SERVICES  OF  THE  LAST  DAY. 

On  Sunday,  October  12th,  the  last  day  of  the  Conference,  the  delegates 
filled  very  many  of  the  pulpits  of  New  York  and  vicinity,  preaching  every- 
where to  crowded  congregations  with  great  acceptance. 

FAREWELL  SERVICES. 

The  interest  that  had  been  rising  during  the  ten  days  of  the  Conference 
reached  its  height  on  this  last  Sunday  evening,  when  FIVE  places  of  meet- 
ing were  opened,  attended  by  at  least  15,000  persons,  and  yet  not  furnishing 
sufficient  room  for  all  who  desired  to  be  present.  Meetings  were  held  from 
seven  to  nine  o'clock,  in  Steinway  Hall,  at  which  the  Rev.  T.  D.  Anderson, 
D.D.,  of  New  York,  presided ;  in  Tammany  Hall,  at  which  the  Hon.  George 
H.  Stuart,  of  Philadelphia,  presided;  and  in  the  Church  of  the  Disciples, 
corner  of  Madison  Avenue  and  Forty-fifth  Street,  at  which  the  Rev.  George 
H.  Hepworth,  of  New  York,  presided.  At  all  of  these  meetings  interesting 
farewell  addresses  were  delivered  by  members  of  the  Conference,  and  devo- 
tional exercises  were  intermingled.  At  Cooper  Institute  a  crowded  German 
meeting  was  held.  Dr.  Schaff  presided;  and  the  large  audience  listened 
with  the  deepest  interest  to  valedictory  addresses,  in  their  own  language, 
from  Professor  Krafft,  of  Bonn  ;  the  Rev.  Mr.  Noel,  of  Berlin ;  the  Rev.  Mr. 
Fliedner,  of  Madrid  ;  and  the  Rev.  Mr.  Witte,  of  Cothen,  Prussia. 

The  farewell  meeting  was  held  in  the  Academy  of  Music,  commencing  at 
half-past  seven  o'clock.  Tickets  of  admission  were  required  as  on  the  pre- 
ceding Sunday  evening,  and  nearly  an  hour  before  the  commencement  of 


46  EVANGELICAL  ALLIANCE. 

the  exercises  the  building  was  densely  crowded  in  every  part,  and  thou- 
sands went  away  unable  to  gain  admission. 

The  Hon.  William  F.  Havemeyer,  Mayor  of  the  City  of  New  York,  pre- 
sided, and  introduced  the  services  with  a  few  appropriate  remarks.  Prayer 
was  offered  by  Kev.  Thomas  Armitage,  D.D.,  of  New  York,  and  the  assem- 
bly united  in  singing  the  hymn,  "Come,  thoti  Almighty  King."  Prayer 
was  offered  by  the  Kev.  George  Fisch,  D.D.,  of  Paris,  who,  in  closing,  re- 
peated the  Lord's  Prayer,  the  entire  audience,  by  previous  request,  joining 
with  him  audibly,  each  one  in  his  own  language. 

The  Rev.  Howard  Crosby,  D.D.,  of  New  York,  then  introduced  in  order 
the  following  speakers,  representing  the  various  delegations  from  abroad : 
the  Rev.  Dr.  Cook,  of  Quebec,  Canada ;  the  Rev.  Professor  J.  F.  Astie",  of 
Lausanne,  Switzerland;  the  Rev.  Emile  Cook,  B.A.,  of  Paris;  the  Rev. 
Matteo  Prochet,  of  Genoa,  Italy;  the  Rev.  William  Arnot,  of  Edinburgh, 
Scotland ;  the  Rev.  Narayan  Sheshadri,  of  Bombay,  India ;  Professor  Theo- 
dor  Christlieb,  D.D.,  of  Bonn,  Prussia ;  the  Rev.  L.  E.  Berkeley,  of  Lur- 
gan,  Ireland;  and  the  Very  Rev.  R.  Payne  Smith,  D.D.,  Dean  of  Canter- 
bury. 

In  all  of  the  addresses  there  was  a  spirit  of  grateful  satisfaction  with  what 
God  had  wrought  during  the  Conference ;  of  overflowing  affection  for  the 
brethren  with  whom  such  sweet  counsel  had  been  taken ;  of  hearty  good- 
will to  the  country  whose  extent,  and  resources,  and  institutions,  had  been 
looked  upon  with  wonder  and  admiration  ;  of  sincere  sorrow  at  the  part- 
ings that  must  now  take  place,  the  more  painful  because  the  intercourse 
had  been  so  pleasing;  of  earnest  desire  that  the  Conference  might  result  in 
permanent  good  to  the  cause  of  Christ ;  and  of  tender  interest  in  the  multi- 
tudes who  are  as  sheep  having  no  shepherd,  knowing  not  by  sweet  experi- 
ence the  Lord  Jesus  Christ  and  his  salvation. 

At  about  ten  o'clock  the  delegates  who  had  been  engaged  in  addressing 
the  other  meetings  of  the  evening  had  reached  the  Academy,  and  joined 
their  fellow-members  of  the  Conference  on  the  platform,  preparatory  to 
hearing  the  closing  words  of  farewell.  The  following  hymn  was  sung,  com- 
posed for  the  occasion  by  the  Rev.  Hervey  D.  Ganse,  of  New  York : 

By  a  thousand  ways  we  come, 

A  thousand  ways  we  go ; 
These  in  India  have  their  home, 

And  these  near  Alpine  snow. 
Islanders  of  distant  seas, 

Dwellers  on  the  Western  main, 
Men  of  Britain  and  of  Greece, 

Of  China  and  of  Spain — 


SIXTH  GENERAL  CONFERENCE.  47 

We  are  many,  we  are  one  ; 

For,  by  one  Spirit  led, 
All  our  paths  together  run, 

Though  o'er  the  earth  they  spread. 
Straight  to  Christ  they  lead  for  light ; 

Straight  to  Christ  for  sin  forgiven ; 
Straight  behind  him  through  the  fight, 

Then,  with  Him,  straight  to  heaven. 

Merge  we  then  our  separate  speech, 

To  form  a  common  tongue. 
Cease,  ye  discords,  while  we  reach 

A  universal  song. 
"Jesus  "  be  the  name  we  sing! 

Help  us,  Spirit  of  the  Lord, 
And  the  utmost  lands  shall  ring, 

With  the  glorious  word. 

Hark,  with  shouts  the  saints  on  high 

The  King  of  glory  crown ! 
Roll  apart,  oh  solid  sky, 

And  pour  the  anthem  down  ! 
"Hallelujah !"     Say,  ye  men, 

Is  it  heaven  or  earth  that  sings  ? 
Shout  the  chorus  back  again  : 

"  Our  Christ  is  King  of  kings." 

The  Rev.  Noah  Hunt  Schenck,  D.D.,  of  Brooklyn,  New  York,  then  de- 
livered the  farewell  address,  which  may  be  found  on  page  707  of  this  vol- 
ume. After  the  singing  of  two  verses  of  the  hymn,  "I  love  thy  kingdom, 
Lord,"  the  Rev.  William  Adams,  D.D.,  LL.D,  of  New  York,  offered  the 
final  prayer,  imploring  the  blessing  of  God  on  all  that  had  been  done  by 
the  Conference,  and  commending  the  delegates  to  the  divine  protection  and 
care. 

The  doxology  was  sung, 

"To  God  the  Father,  God  the  Son, 
And  God  the  Spirit,  three  in  one, 
Be  honor,  praise,  and  glory  given 
By  all  on  earth,  and  all  in  heaven." 

The  benediction  was  pronounced  by  Bishop  E.  S.  Janes,  D.D.,  of  New 
York,  and  the  members  of  the  Conference  separated. 


48  EVANGELICAL  ALLIANCE. 

EXCURSION  TO  PRINCETON  AND  PHILADELPHIA. 

On  Monday  morning,  October  13th,  the  foreign  delegates  to  the  Confer- 
ence, with  a  number  of  invited  guests,  about  250  in  all,  visited  Princeton 
and  Philadelphia,  in  accordance  with  the  invitations  to  which  reference  has 
already  been  made.  A  special  train,  composed  mostly  of  palace  cars,  was 
placed  by  the  Pennsylvania  Railroad  Company  at  their  disposal,  leaving  Jer- 
sey City  at  half-past  nine  o'clock  in  the  morning.  The  weather,  just  cool 
enough  for  comfort,  was  bright  and  clear,  the  country  was  beautifully  varie- 
gated with  the  changing  tints  of  autumn,  giving  the  delegates  from  abroad 
a  sight  of  American  scenery  in  October.  The  train  reached  Princeton  at 
nbout  eleven  o'clock,  and  as  the  procession  of  visitors,  after  being  received  by 
the  Faculties  of  the  College  and  the  Theological  Seminary,  passed  up  the 
avenue  that  leads  from  the  railroad  station,  the  walk  was  lined  on  both  sides 
by  the  College  students  who  welcomed  the  members,  and  astonished  some 
of  them,  with  their  "Rocket  Cheer."  After  passing  the  Theological  Semi- 
nary, where  the  students,  in  double  row,  stood  uncovered  in  their  honor, 
the  delegates  proceeded  to  the  Second  Presbyterian  Church,  where  a  meet- 
ing was  held  for  an  hour.  The  floor  of  the  church  was  filled  with  the  cit- 
izens of  Princeton,  and  the  galleries  with  the  students  of  the  two  institu- 
tions. The  venerable  Dr.  Hodge,  of  the  Theological  Seminary,  presided, 
and  offered  the  opening  prayer,  after  which  brief  but  pertinent  addresses  were 
made  by  the  Dean  of  Canterbury,  the  Rev.  W.  Arnot,  of  Edinburgh,  the 
Rev.  Dr.  Rigg,  of  London,  the  Rev.  Dr.  Coulin,  of  Geneva,  in  the  French  lan- 
guage, the  Rev.  M.  Decoppet,  of  Paris,  and  the  Rev.  Henry  Ward  Beecher, 
of  Brooklyn.  The  delegates  then  spent  half  an  hour  in  inspecting  the  Col- 
lege buildings,  after  which  they  partook  of  a  bountiful  collation  in  the  old 
College  library,  and  returning  to  the  railroad,  journeyed  to  Philadelphia. 

On  arriving  in  Philadelphia,  at  four  o'clock  in  the  afternoon,  the  dele- 
gates wrere  conveyed  to  Independence  Hall,  the  room  in  which  the  Declara- 
tion of  Independence  was  made  by  Congress  in  1776.  Here  Judge  Pierce, 
in  behalf  of  the  Mayor  and  Common  Council  of  Philadelphia,  welcomed 
them  to  the  city.  Rev.  Henry  Ward  Beecher  followed  with  a  brief  address 
of  welcome,  in  the  name  of  the  country ;  and  replies  were  made  by  the  Rev. 
C.  Dallas  Marston,  of  England,  the  Rev.  L.  E.  Berkeley,  of  Ireland,  the  Rev. 
Matteo  Prochet,  of  Italy,  the  Rev.  George  Fisch,  of  France,  and  the  Rev. 
Narayan  Sheshadri,  of  India.  The  Dean  of  Canterbury  closed  the  exercises 
with  prayer.  As  the  delegates  passed  from  the  hall,  they  all  looked  with 
interest  at  the  old  bell  that  rang  out  the  tidings,  nearly  a  century  ago,  that 
the  country  was  free. 


SIXTH  GENERAL  CONFEEENCE.  49 

From  Independence  Hall  the  delegates  were  conducted  to  the  Continent- 
al Hotel,  where,  after  the  Divine  blessing  by  the  Eev.  Henry  A.  Boardman, 
D.D.,  the  oldest  pastor  in  Philadelphia,  they  partook  of  a  sumptuous  dinner, 
furnished  by  the  Philadelphia  Branch  of  the  Alliance. 

After  this  repast  was  over,  the  delegates  proceeded  in  a  body  to  Horticul- 
tural Hall,  in  Broad  Street,  in  which  a  public  meeting  was  to  be  held  in 
honor  of  their  visit.  The  hall  was  appropriately  decorated,  the  walls  being 
hung  with  floral  designs,  with  the  names  of  Luther,  Calvin,  Huss,  Wycliffe, 
Zwingle,  Knox,  and  Wesley,  in  letters  of  flowers.  Across  the  stage  there 
was  a  triple  arch,  formed  of  evergreens,  bearing  in  floral  letters  the  mot- 
toes, "All  one  in  Christ,"  and  "  Let  brotherly  love  continue."  The  audience 
present  filled  the  hall  to  its  utmost  capacity,  and  the  platform  was  scarcely 
adequate  to  the  task  imposed  upon  it  of  holding  all  of  the  delegates  who 
were  in  attendance. 

George  H.  Stuart,  Esq.,  President  of  the  Philadelphia  Branch  of  the  Alli- 
ance, presided,  and  after  the  singing  of  the  doxology,  prayer  was  offered  by 
the  Eev.  J.  C.  Harrison,  of  London.  Mr.  Stuart  made  a  few  introductory  re- 
marks, and  was  followed  by  ex-Governor  Pollock,  who  welcomed  the  mem- 
bers of  the  Conference  in  the  name  of  the  citizens  of  Philadelphia,  and  by 
Bishop  Simpson,  who  welcomed  them  in  behalf  of  the  churches  of  Phila- 
delphia. Addresses  were  then  made  by  the  Dean  of  Canterbury,  the  Eev. 
Narayan  Sheshadri,  the  Eev.  Henry  Ward  Beecher,  the  Eev.  M.  Cohen 
Stuart,  of  Holland,  the  Eev.  Dr.  Fisch  and  the  Eev.  Emile  Cook,  of  Paris, 
the  Eev.  Emile  Eochedieu,  of  Brussels,  the  Eev.  W.  Arnot,  of  Edinburgh, 
the  Eev.  Dr.  Ormiston,  of  New  York,  and  the  Eev.  T.  Y.  Killen,  of  Belfast. 
These  addresses  were  interspersed  with  hymns,  in  the  singing  of  which  the 
audience  heartily  joined.  Although  it  was  after  eleven  o'clock  when  the 
exercises  were  concluded,  the  interest  continued  unabated  to  the  end,  and 
the  enthusiasm  displayed  by  the  vast  audience  was  fully  equal  to  that 
which  had  characterized  the  series  of  meetings  held  in  New  York. 

In  addition  to  the  meeting  in  Horticultural  Hall,  three  others  were  held, 
one  in  the  Baptist  Church  on  the  opposite  corner,  another  in  the  First  Ee- 
formed  Presbyterian  Church,  and  the  third  in  the  Tabernacle  Presbyterian 
Church,  in  the  immediate  neighborhood  of  the  hall,  at  all  of  which  there 
were  full  audiences  and  interesting  addresses. 

After  the  adjournment  of  these  meetings  the  delegates  returned  to  the 
Continental  Hotel,  where  arrangements  had  been  made  by  the  Philadelphia 
Branch  of  the  Alliance  for  their  entertainment  over  night. 


50  EVANGELICAL  ALLIANCE. 

EXCURSION  TO  WASHINGTON. 

On  Tuesday  morning,  October  14th,  at  nine  o'clock,  a  special  train  was 
placed  at  the  disposal  of  the  delegates  by  the  Philadelphia,  Wilmington, 
and  Baltimore,  arid  the  Baltimore  and  Potomac  railways,  and  a  reluctant 
farewell  was  said  to  Philadelphia,  whose  generous  hospitality  had  been  so 
highly  enjoyed.  At  Baltimore  the  delegates  were  met  by  a  deputation 
from  Washington,  consisting  of  the  Rev.  Drs.  Sunderland,  Gray,  Watkins, 
Williams,  and  Cleveland,  who  took  them  in  charge  as  the  guests  of  the  Me- 
tropolitan Branch  of  the  United  States  Alliance.  On  reaching  Washington 
they  were  greeted  with  a  peal  from  the  bells  of  the  Metropolitan  Methodist 
Episcopal  Church,  and  were  conducted  to  Willard's  Hotel,  where  arrange- 
ments had  been  made  by  the  Metropolitan  Alliance  for  their  entertainment 
while  in  Washington.  Here  a  cordial  welcome  to  the  Capital  of  the  United 
States  was  formally  extended  to  them  by  the  Rev.  O.  H.  Tiffany,  D.D.,  act- 
ing chairman  of  the  reception  committee,  and  Governor  Shepherd  tendered 
them  the  hospitalities  and  freedom  of  the  District  of  Columbia. 

PRESENTATION  OF  THE  DELEGATES  TO  THE  PRESIDENT  OF  THE  UNITED 

STATES. 

It  had  been  arranged  that  the  delegates  should  call  upon  the  President 
immediately  on  their  arrival  in  Washington,  as  a  pressing  engagement  called 
him  from  home,  and  he  had  delayed  his  departure  a  few  hours  for  the  sake 
of  this  visit.  Accordingly  they  proceeded  in  a  body  to  the  Executive  man- 
sion, headed  by  Governor  Shepherd,  and  Richard  Harrington,  Esq.,  Secreta- 
ry of  the  District  of  Columbia.  On  arriving,  they  were  received  by  the 
President  and  his  Cabinet  Ministers.  Mrs.  Grant,  and  several  other  ladies, 
were  also  present. 

The  Rev.  Dr.  Tiffany  addressed  the  President,  as  follows: 

MR.  PRESIDENT, — The  Evangelical  Alliance,  which  has  been  in  session 
at  New  York,  was  a  gathering  of  Christian  men  representing  the  Protestant 
faith.  They  came  from  many  lands  and  uttered  the  mature  thoughts  of 
their  Churches ;  they  deliberated  on  topics  of  common  interest  to  all  Chris- 
tians, and  it  is  confidently  believed  that  thus  great  stimulus  has  been  given 
to  Christian  scholarship,  enthusiasm  awakened  in  Christian  work,  and  the 
ties  of  Christian  fellowship  greatly  strengthened.  The  churches  and  citi- 
zens have  extended  through  the  local  Metropolitan  Branch  of  the  Alliance 
an  invitation  to  the  foreign  delegation  to  visit  the  National  Capital.  They 
have  come  in  response  to  that  invitation,  accompanied  by  many  American 


SIXTH  GENERAL  CONFERENCE.  51 

friends,  and  I  now  have  the  honor  of  presenting  to  the  President  of  the 
United  States  and  his  Cabinet  the  officers  and  members  of  the  Evangelical 
Alliance,  but  will  first  invite  you  to  join  in  an  invocation,  led  by  the  Dean 
of  Canterbury,  to  our  Heavenly  Father. 

The  Dean  of  Canterbury  offered  prayer,  invoking  the  blessing  of  Heav- 
en on  this  country,  where  the  Alliance  had  been  so  hospitably  received,  and 
on  its  Chief  Magistrate,  and  praying  that  this  visit  might  lead  to  peace  and 
good-will  among  all  nations  and  all  men. 

President  Grant  replied  to  the  Eev.  Dr.  Tiffany's  address  of  introduction 
with  his  usual  brevity,  but  his  words  were  to  the  point.  Addressing  the 
delegates,  he  said,  "  It  affords  me  very  great  pleasure  to  welcome  the  Evan- 
gelical Alliance  to  the  capital  of  this  great  nation,  which  I  feel  is  the  freest 
of  nations  to  work  out  the  problem  of  your  mission." 

The  delegates  were  severally  introduced  to  the  President  and  members 
of  the  Cabinet  by  George  H.  Stuart,  Esq.,  of  Philadelphia;  and  after  the 
ceremony  of  introduction  was  over,  several  brief  addresses  were  made. 
The  delegates  then  withdrew,  pleased  with  the  simplicity  of  the  ceremonies 
attendant  on  a  Kepublican  court,  and  gratified  at  the  distinguished  atten- 
tion that  had  been  shown  them. 

In  the  evening  public  meetings  were  held  in  the  Metropolitan  Methodist 
Episcopal  Church,  the  First  Presbyterian  Church,  Trinity  Episcopal  Church, 
and  the  Congregational  Church,  which  were  all  densely  crowded,  and  at 
which  addresses  were  delivered  by  a  number  of  the  delegates. 

VISIT  TO  THE  CAPITOL  AND  PUBLIC  BUILDINGS. 

At  nine  o'clock  on  Wednesday  morning  the  delegates  visited  the  Capitol 
and  the  public  buildings  in  Washington.  While  at  the  Capitol  the  rotun- 
da was  turned  into  a  temple  of  praise,  the  whole  body  of  visitors  joining  in 
the  singing  of  the  hymn,  "All  hail  the  power  of  Jesus'  name;"  then  pro- 
ceeding to  the  East  portico,  the  Eev.  E.  P.  Eogers,  D.D.,  of  New  York,  re- 
peated the  Lord's  Prayer,  and  the  Eev.  C.  Dallas  Marston,  M.A.,  of  London, 
the  Apostles'  Creed,  in  both  of  which  the  whole  assembly  reverently  joined 
with  audible  voice,  after  which  the  doxology  was  sung,  "  Praise  God,  from 
whom  all  blessings  flow."  . 

After  visiting  the  various  public  buildings,  so  far  as  time  permitted,  the 
delegates  returned  to  Willard's  Hotel,  and,  at  one  o'clock,  sat  down  to  a 
banquet  given  by  Governor  Shepherd,  of  the  District  of  Columbia.  The 
Governor,  in  addressing  his  guests,  spoke  as  follows : 

"  I  am  honored,  gentlemen,  by  your  presence  as  my  guests  to-day.     Al- 


52  EVANGELICAL  ALLIANCE. 

though  from  want  of  time  the  entertainment  offered  you  may  not  be  com- 
mensurate with  the  occasion,  our  welcome  is  none  the  less  hearty  and  sin- 
cere. Your  visit  to  the  seat  of  government  will  long  be  remembered  by 
our  people,  and  if  you  will  take  with  you  as  agreeable  recollections  of  Wash- 
ington as  you  leave  among  us  of  yourselves  we  will  be  gratified  indeed. 
We  have  welcomed  you  as  leaders  in  the  great  movement  for  the  regenera- 
tion of  our  race.  We  will  part  with  you  with  wishes  of  God-speed  in  the 
noble  work  which  claims  the  best  energies  of  your  great  minds  and  noble 
hearts.  Our  regret  is  that  your  stay  with  us  is  so  brief.  Our  joy  is  that, 
though  brief  your  sojourn,  you  have  inspired  our  people  with  new  zeal  in 
the  interests  of  the  Christian  Church.  Allow  me  to  conclude  with  this  sen- 
timent :  '  The  Evangelical  Alliance  ;  may  its  results  be  equal  to  the  grand- 
eur of  its  conception  and  the  nobleness  of  its  ends.' " 

To  this  address,  appropriate  responses  were  made  by  several  of  the  dele- 
gates, and  after  an  hour  of  happy  interchange  of  thought  and  feeling,  the 
entertainment  was  brought  to  a  close. 

The  delegates  left  Washington  in  the  afternoon,  returning  to  New  York, 
through  Philadelphia,  or  journeying  southward  or  westward  as  they  pre- 
ferred. 

Many  of  them  went  to  Niagara  Falls,  accepting  the  kind  invitation  of  the 
Erie  Railroad  Company  to  go  and  return  free  of  expense.  A  large  number 
had  visited  the  Falls  before  this  invitation  was  given,  the  Evangelical  Alli- 
ance of  the  United  States  having  offered  to  defray  the  cost  of  the  journey 
by  rail  to  all  the  delegates  from  abroad  who  wished  to  make  the  tour. 

Having  spent  as  much  time  in  this  country  as  their  several  duties  at 
home  would  permit,  the  delegates  from  foreign  lands  returned  to  their 
homes,  by  various  lines  of  ocean  steamers,  leaving  behind  them  precious 
memories  of  their  presence  and  labors.  Friendships  hallowed  by  the  grace 
and  service  of  God  were  formed,  to  be  cherished  with  tenderness  through 
life,  and  to  be  revived  and  perpetuated  in  eternity.  Impulses  were  given 
by  their  words  of  power  to  the  cause  of  truth  and  righteousness  which  will 
never  be  effaced  from  the  thought  of  this  people.  The  families  which  en- 
joyed their  society  count  it  a  blessing  and  an  honor  to  have  entertained 
these  angels  of  the  Churches.  And  the  Conference,  the  largest  and  perhaps 
the  most  important  that  has  been  held  in  modern  times,  will  mark  an  era  in 
the  history  of  Evangelical  Christianity. 


ESSAYS,  OKATIONS, 

AND  OTHER  DOCUMENTS 


EVANGELICAL  ALLIANCE 


TABLE  OF  CONTENTS. 


PACK 
HISTORICAL  SKETCH a 

ADDRESS  OF  WELCOME, 

By  the  Rev.  WILLIAM  ADAMS,  D.D.,  LL.D.,  New  York.  Delivered  at  the  Social 
Reception,  on  Thursday  Evening,  October  2,  1873,  in  the  Young  Men's  Christian 
Association  Hall....,  ,  65 


DIVISION  I. 

REPORTS  ON  THE  STATE  OF  RELIGION  IN  VARIOUS 
CHRISTIAN  COUNTRIES. 

Friday,  October  3, 18T3. 

1.  ON  THE  POSITION  OF  THE  PROTESTANT  RELIGION  IN  FRANCE,  AND  PARTICULARLY  OF 

THE  NATIONAL  FRENCH  REFORMED  CHURCH. 

By  the  Rev.  AUGUSTE  DECOPPET,  B.D.,  Pastor   of  the  National  Reformed  Church 
in  Paris 71 

2.  THE  OTHER  PROTESTANT  CHURCHES  IN  FRANCE. 

By  the  Rev.  GEORGE  FISCH,  D.D.,  Pastor  of  the  Free  Church  in  Paris 76 

3.  CHRISTIAN  LIFE  IN  GERMANY. 

By  the  Rev.  HERMANN  KRUMMACHER,  Brandenburg,  Prussia 78 

4.  EVANGELICAL  THEOLOGY  IN  GERMANY:  SURVEY  OF  MY  LIFE  AS  A   TEACHER  OF 

THEOLOGY. 

By  Professor  AUGUST  THOLUCK,  D.D.,  University  of  Halle.      Translated  and   read, 
with  an  Addition,  by  the  Rev.  LEOPOLD  WITTE,  Cothen,  Prussia 8f> 

5.  THE  RELIGIOUS  CONDITION  OF  HOLLAND. 

By  the  Rev.  M.  COHEN  STUART,  D.D.,  from  Rotterdam 90 

6.  THE  RELIGIOUS  AND  MORAL  CONDITION  OF  BELGIUM. 

By  the  Rev.  LEONARD  ANET,  of  Brussels,  Pastor  and  General  Secretary  of  the  Chris- 
tian Missionary  Church  in  Belgium 9f> 

7.  STATE  OF  RELIGION  IN  SWITZERLAND. 

By  the  Rev.  EUGENE  REICHEL,  Montmirail,  Switzerland 99 

8.  STATE  OF  RELIGION  IN  SCANDINAVIA. 

By  the  Rev.  C.  H.  A.  KALKAR,  D.D.,  Copenhagen 101 

9.  THE  STATE  OF  RELIGION  IN  ITALY. 

By  the  Rev.  MATTEO  PROCHET,  Pastor  of  a  Waldensian  Church  at  Genoa,  Italy 106 

10.  REPORT  ON  THE  STATE  OF  RELIGION  IN  SPAIN. 

By  the  Rev.  ANTONIO  CARRASCO,  Madrid 112 

11.  THE  EVANGELIZATION  OF  SPAIN. 

By  the  Rev.  FRITZ  FLIEDNER,  of  Madrid 123 

12.  RELIGION  IN  GREECE. 

By  the  Rev.  MICHAEL  D.  KALOPOTHAKES,  M.D.,  Athens If  7 

13.  THE  BRITISH  PROVINCES  OF  NORTH  AMERICA. 

By  the  Rev.  ROBERT  MURRAY,  Halifax,  Nova  Scotia 129 

14.  CHRISTIANITY  IN  THE  WEST  INDIES. 

By  the  Rev.  WILLIAM  MURRAY,  Falmouth,  Jamaica 133 

[Reports  on  the  state  of  religion  in  Great  Britain  and  the  United  States — the  two  most  im- 
portant Protestant  countries  in  the  world — were  intentionally  omitted  from  the  Programme, 
both  on  account  of  the  vastness  of  the  subject  and  the  prevailing  Anglo-American  character 
of  the  whole  Conference.] 


DIVISION  II. 

CHRISTIAN   UNION. 

Saturday,  October  4,  1873. 

1.  THE  UNITY  OF  THE  CHURCH  BASED  ON  PERSONAL  UNION  WITH  CHRIST. 

By  the  Rev.  CHARLES  HODGE,  D.D.,  LL.D.,  Professor  of  Theology  in  the  Theological 
Seminary  at  Princeton,  New  Jersey 130 


">8  CONTENTS. 

2.  CHRISTIAN  UNION  CONSISTENT  WITH  DENOMINATIONAL  DISTINCTIONS.  PACK 
By  the  Very  Rev.  R.  PAYNE  SMITH,  D.D.,  Dean  of  Canterbury 145 

3.  SPIRITUAL  UNITY  NOT  ORGANIC  UNION. 

By  the  Rt.  Rev.  GREGORY  T.  BEDELL,  D.D.,  Bishop  of  the  Diocese  of  the  Protestant 
Episcopal  Church  in  Ohio 150 

4.  THE  COMMUNION  OF  SAINTS — MODES  OF  ITS  PROMOTION  AND  MANIFESTATION. 

By  the  Rev.  ELIPHALET  NOTT  POTTER,  D.D.,  President  of  Union  College,  Schenectady, 
N.  Y.     Together  with  a  Communication  from  Professor  TAYLER  LEWIS,  LL.D 154 

5.  THE  COMMUNION  OF  SAINTS — MODES  OF  ITS  PROMOTION  AND  MANIFESTATION. 

By  the  Rev.  C.  DALLAS  MARSTON,  M.A.,  Vicar  of  St.  Paul's,  Onslow  Square,  London...  ICO 

6.  CHRISTIAN  LOVE  THE  BOND  OF  CHRISTIAN  UNION. 

By  the  Rev.  GEORGE  R.  CROOKS,  D.D.,  New  York 167 

7.  CHRISTIAN  UNION  ;  OR,  THE  EVANGELICAL  ALLIANCE  IN  FRANCE. 

By  the  Rev.  EMI LE  F.  COOK,  B.A.,  Paris 161) 

8.  INTERCHANGE  OF  PULPITS. 

By  the  Rev.  F.  W.  CONRAD,  D.D.,  of  Philadelphia,  Pennsylvania 174 

9.  THE  LORD'S  SUPPER  IN  RELATION  TO  CHRISTIAN  UNION. 

By  the  Rev.  WILLIAM  AUGUSTUS  MUHLENBERG,  D.D.,  Pastor  and  Superintendent  of 
St.  Luke's  Hospital,  New  York,  and  of  St.  Johnland,  Long  Island 180 

10.  THE  ECCLESIASTICAL  AND  SPIRITUAL  RELATIONS  OF  AMERICA  TO  ENGLAND. 

By  the  Rev.  JOHN  STOUGHTON,  D.D.,  Kensington,  London 184 

11.  THE  EVANGELICAL  ALLIANCE:  ITS  ORIGIN,  OBJECTS,  AND  OPERATIONS. 

By  the  Rev.  JAMES  DAVIS,  Secretary  of  the  British  Organization,  London 189 

12.  THE  EVANGELICAL  ALLIANCE  :   ITS   OBJECTS  AND   INFLUENCE   IN   PROMOTING   THE 

UNIVERSAL  PRIESTHOOD  OF  BELIEVERS  TO  THE  COMMUNION  OF  SAINTS. 
By  the  Rev.  W.  NOEL,  Counselor  of  the  "Ober-Kirchen  rath,  "First  Pastor  of  the  Louisa 
Parish  Church  at  Berlin,  and  Secretary  of  the  "German  Evangelical  Church  Diet"...  197 


DIVISION  III. 

CHRISTIANITY  AND  ITS  ANTAGONISMS. 

Monday,  October  6,  18T3. 

THEOLOGICAL  SECTION. 

1.  THE  BEST  METHODS  OF  COUNTERACTING  MODERN  INFIDELITY. 

By  the  Rev.  THEODORE  CHRISTLIEB,  D.D.,  Professor  of  Theology,  and  Chaplain  in  the 
University  of  Bonn,  Prussia 208 

2.  BEST  METHODS  OF  COUNTERACTING  MODERN  INFIDELITY. 

By  the  Rev.  STANLEY  LEATHES,  Professor  of  Hebrew,  King's  College,  London 224 

3.  THE  CAUSES  OF,  AND  BEST  METHODS  OF  COUNTERACTING,  MODERN  INFIDELITY. 

By  the  Rev.  JOHN  CAIRNS,  D.D.,  Berwick,  England 228 

4.  THE  GOSPEL  HISTORY  AND  MODERN  CRITICISM. 

By  the  Rev.  J.  J.  VAN  OOSTERZEE,  D.D.,  Professor  of  Theology  at  the  University  of 

Utrecht,  Holland 238 

r>.  AMERICAN  INFIDELITY:  ITS  FACTORS  AND  PHASES. 

By  the  Rev.  WILLIAM  F.  WARREN,  D.D.,  President  of  Boston  University 249 

6.  REASON  AND  FAITH. 

I  By  the  Rev.  E.  A.  WASHBURN,  D.D.,  of  New  York 25f> 

7?  CHRISTIANITY  AND  THE  GOSPEL. 

By  FELIX  BOVET,  Ph.D.,  Professor  of  Theology  in  the  College  at  Neuch&tel,  Switzerland.  261 

PHILOSOPHICAL  SECTION. 

1.  RELIGIOUS  ASPECTS  OF  THE  DOCTRINE  OF  DEVELOPMENT. 

By  the  Rev.  JAMES  McCosn,  D.D.,  LL.D.,  Princeton,  N.  J.,  President  of  the  College 
of  New  Jersey 264 

2.  PRIMITIVE  MAN  AND  REVELATION. 

By  J.  W.  DAWSON,  LL.D.,  Principal  of  McGill  College,  Montreal 272 

3.  COSMOGONY  AND  THE  BIBLE  ;    OR,  THE   BIBLICAL  ACCOUNT  OF  CREATION  IN  THE 

LIGHT  OF  MODERN  SCIENCE. 
By  Professor  ARNOLD  HENRY  GUYOT,  LL.D.,  Princeton,  New  Jersey 276 

4.  THE  GOSPEL  AND  PHILOSOPHY. 

By  Professor  ERNEST  NAVILLE,  of  Geneva,  Switzerland,  Corresponding  Member  of  the 

Institute  of  France 288 

f>.  THE  STRENGTH  AND  WEAKNESS  OF  IDEALISM. 

By  the  Rev.  CHARLES  P.  KRAUTH,  D.D.,  Vice-Provost  of  the  University  of  Pennsylva- 
nia, Philadelphia 293 


CONTENTS.  59 

G.  CHRISTIANITY  AND  HUMANITY.  PAGE 
By  the  Rev.  JOHN  WILLIAMSON  NEVIN,  D.D.,  LL.D.,  President  of  Franklin  and  Mar- 
shall College,  Lancaster,  Pennsylvania * 302 

7.  COMPARATIVE  STUDY  OF  RELIGIONS,  IN  ITS  BEARING  UPON  CHRISTIAN  APOLOGETICS. 
By  EDMUND  SPIESS,  Ph.D.,  Privatdocent  of  Theology  in  the  University  of  Jena,  Ger- 
many   309 

APPENDIX  TO  DIVISION  III. 

8.  DISCUSSION  ON  DARWINISM  AND  THE  DOCTRINE  OF  DEVELOPMENT 317 


DIVISION  IV. 

CHRISTIAN  LIFE. 

Tuesday,  October  7,  1873. 

FIRST  SECTION.— PERSONAL  AND  FAMILY  RELIGION. 

1.  THE  RELATION  BETWEEN  DOCTRINE  AND  LIFE. 

By  the  Rev.  WILLIAM  ARNOT,  Edinburgh 327 

2.  PERSONAL  RELIGION  :  ITS  AIDS  AND  HINDERANCES.  , 

By  the  Rev.  RICHARD  FULLER,  D.D.,  Baltimore,  Maryland 333 

3.  PERSONAL  RELIGION  :  ITS  AIDS  AND  HINDERANCES. 

By  the  Rev.  WILLIAM  NAST,  D.D.,  Cincinnati,  Ohio 338 

4.  FAMILY  RELIGION — WITH  SPECIAL  REFERENCE  TO  ENGLAND. 

By  the  Rev.  JOSHUA  C.  HARRISON,  London 341 

5.  FAMILY  RELIGION. 

By  the  Rev.  WILLIAM  S.  PLUMER,  D.D.,  Professor  in  the  Theological  Seminary,  Co- 
lumbia, South  Carolina 348 

6.  REVIVALS  OF  RELIGION — HOW  TO  MAKE  THEM  PRODUCTIVE  OF  PERMANENT  GOOD. 

By  the  Rev.  W.  W.  PATTON,  D.D.,  Chicago,  Illinois 351 

7.  THE  RIGHT  USE  OF  WEALTH. 

By  M.  B.  ANDERSON,  LL.D.,  President  of  the  University  of  Rochester,  Rochester, 
New  York 357 

• 

SECOND  SECTION.— EDUCATION  AND  LITERATURE. 

1.  MODERN  LITERATURE  AND  CHRISTIANITY. 

By  the  Rev.  A.  L.  SIMPSON,  D.D.,  of  Derby,  England 363 

2.  MODERN  LITERATURE  IN  ITS  RELATION  TO  CHRISTIANITY. 

By  the  Rev.  NOAH  PORTER,  D.D.,  LL.D.,  President  of  Yale  College,  New  Haven,  Con- 
necticut   369 

3.  RELATIONS  OF  THE  SECULAR  AND  RELIGIOUS  ELEMENTS  IN  POPULAR  EDUCATION  IN 

ENGLAND. 

By  the  Rev.  JAMES  H.  RIGG,  D.D.,  Principal  of  the  Wesleyan  Training  College  for 
Male  Teachers,  Westminster,  London 377 

THIRD  SECTION.— THE  PULPIT  OF  THE  AGE. 

1.  MODERN  PREACHING  AND  ITS  REQUIREMENTS. 

By  the  Rev.  JOSEPH  PARKER,  D.D.,  London 383 

2.  THE  BEST  METHODS  OF  PREACHING. 

By  the  Rev.  DANIEL  P.  KIDDER,  D.D.,  Professor  in  the  Drew  Theological  Seminary, 
Madison,  New  Jersey...'. 387 

3.  THE  MISSION  OF  THE  PULPIT. 

By  the  Rev.  HENRY  WARD  BEECHER,  of  Brooklyn,  New  York 392 

4.  WHAT  TO  PREACH. 

By  the  Rev.  JOHN  HALL,  D.D.,  of  New  York 397 

FOURTH  SECTION.— SUNDAY-SCHOOLS. 

1.  THE  SUNDAY-SCHOOL  WORK — ITS  GREATNESS — THE  CHURCH  RESPONSIBLE  FOR  IT. 

By  CHARLES  REED,  Esq.,  M.P.,  London 390 

2.  IMPORTANCE  OF  THE  SUNDAY-SCHOOL  AGENCY. 

By  the  Rev.  RICHARD  NEWTON^  D.D.,  Philadelphia,  Pennsylvania 405 


60  CONTENTS. 

3.  SUNDAY-SCHOOLS  IN  FRANCE.  PAGE 
By  the  Rev.  NATHANAEL  WEISS,  of  Paris 410 

4.  SUNDAY-SCHOOLS — THE  BIBLE  SERVICE. 

By  the  Rev.  J.  H.  VINCENT,  D.D.,  New  York 415 

FIFTH  SECTION.— CHRISTIAN  ASSOCIATIONS. 

YOUNG  MEN'S  CHRISTIAN  ASSOCIATIONS. 

By  CEPHAS  BRAINERD,  Esq.,  of  New  York 419 


DIVISION  V. 

ROMANISM  AND  PROTESTANTISM. 

Wednesday,  October  8, 1873. 

FIRST  SECTION.— MODERN  ROMANISM  AND  PROTESTANTISM. 

1.  THE  INFALLIBILISM  OF  THE  VATICAN  COUNCIL  AND  NOMINAL  PROTESTANTISM. 

By  the  Rev.  I.  A.  DORNER,  D.D.,  Professor  of  Theology  in  the  University  of  Berlin...  427 

2.  ROMANISM  IN  THE  LIGHT  OF  HISTORY. 

By  the  Rev.  ROSWELL  D.  HITCHCOCK,  D.D.,  LL.D.,  Professor  in  the  Union  Theolog- 
ical Seminary,  New  York 436 

3.  THE  PRESENT  STATE  OF  POPERY  IN  FRANCE. 

By  the  Rev.  GEORGE  FISCH,  D.D.,  of  Paris 438 

4.  ULTRAMONTANISM  AND  THE  FOUR  PRUSSIAN  CHURCH  LAWS. 

By  the  Rev.  LEOPOLD  WITTE,  ofCoethen,  Prussia 443 

5.  THE  REACTION  OF  THE  GERMAN  NATIONAL  SPIRIT  AGAINST  ULTRAMONTANISM. 

By  the  Rev.  AUGUST  DORNER,  Ph.D.,  Repetent  in  the  University  of  Gottingen 446 

6.  THE  APPEAL  OF  ROMANISM  TO  EDUCATED  PROTESTANTS. 

By  the  Rev.  R.  S.  STORRS,  D.D.,  Brooklyn,  New  York 449 

7.  PROTESTANTISM,  ROMANISM,  AND  MODERN  CIVILIZATION. 

By  the  Rev.  GEORGE  P.  FISHER,  D.D.,  Professor  in  Yale  College,  New  Haven,  Con- 
necticut   461 

8.  ROMAN  AND  REFORMED  DOCTRINES  OF  JUSTIFICATION  CONTRASTED. 

By  the  Rt.  Rev.  GEORGE  DAVID  CUMMINS,  D.D.,  of  Kentucky 467 

9.  How  SHALL  PROTESTANT  MINISTERS  BEST  MEET  THE  DEMANDS  OF  THE  PRESENT 

AGE? 

By  the  Rev.  FRANCK  COULIN,  D.D.,  of  Geneva,  Switzerland 475 

10.  CHRISTIAN  LIBERTY. 

By  the  Rev.  ALVAH  HOVEY,  D.D.,  President  of  Newton  Theological  Institution,  Massa- 
chusetts   481 

SECOND  SECTION.— THE  OLD  CATHOLICS. 

1.  LETTER  FROM  THE   OLD   CATHOLIC   CONGRESS,  assembled  at  Constance,  September 

12-14,  1873.     With  Introduction  by  the  Rev.  PHILIP  SCHAFF,  D.D.,  Professor  in 
the  Union  Theological  Seminary,  New  York 485 

2.  LETTER  FROM  the  Rev.  HYACINTHE  LOYSON,  Pastor  of  the  Old  Catholic  Church,  Ge- 

neva, Switzerland 490 

3.  THE  VATICAN  COUNCIL  AND  THE  OLD  CATHOLIC  MOVEMENT. 

By  the  Rev.  W.  KRAFFT,  D.D.,  Professor  of  Church  History  in  the  University  of  Bonn.  491 

4.  ROMAN  CATHOLICISM  IN  SWITZERLAND  SINCE  THE  PROCLAMATION  OF  THE  SYLLABUS. 
By  the  Rev.  C.  PRONIER,  Professor  of  Systematic  Theology  in  the  Theological  Seminary 

of  the  Free  Church,  Geneva,  Switzerland .' 498 

THIRD  SECTION.— EVANGELIZATION  OF  ROMAN  CATHOLIC 

COUNTRIES. 

1.  EVANGELIZATION  IN  IRELAND. 

By  the  Rev.  LOWRY  EDMONDS  BERKELEY,  Lurgan,  Ireland 508 

2.  THE  EVANGELIZATION  OF  FRANCE. 

By  the  Rev.  THEOPHILUS  LORRIAUX,  B.D.,  Paris,  Secretary  of  the  Central  Protestant 
Evangelical  Society  of  France 517 


CONTENTS.  61 

DIVISION  VI. 

CHBISTIANITY  AND  CIVIL  GOVERNMENT. 

Thursday,  October  9, 1873. 

FIRST  SECTION.— CHURCH  AND  STATE. 

PAGE 

1.  THE  RELATIONS  OF  CONSTITUTION  AND  GOVERNMENT  IN  THE  UNITED  STATES  TO 

RELIGION. 

By  the  Rev.  THEODORE  D.  WOOLSET,  D.D.,  LL.D.,  lately  President  of  Yale  College, 
New  Haven,  Connecticut , 523 

2.  THE  CHURCH  AND  THE  NATION. 

By  the  Rev.  W.  H.  FREMANTLE,  M.A.,  London 529 

3.  LEGISLATION  ON  MORAL  QUESTIONS. 

By  JAMES  GIRDLESTONE,  Esq.,  of  London 535 

4.  SUNDAY  LEGISLATION.     THE  SABBATH  MADE  FOR  MAN — HIS  CONSEQUENT  RIGHT  TO 

LEGISLATION  FOR  SERVING  ITS  ENDS. 

By  the  Rev.  MARK  HOPKINS,  D.D.,  Williamstown,  Massachusetts,  lately  President  of 
Williams  College 540 

5.  EVILS  OF  A  UNION  OF  CHURCH  AND  STATE. 

By  the  Hon.  J.  L.  M.  CURRY,  LL.D.,  Richmond,  Virginia 544 

6.  THE  FREE  CHURCHES  OF  THE  CONTINENT  ;  OR,  AMERICAN  IDEAS  IN  EUROPE. 

By  the  Rev.  J.  F.  ASTIE,  Professor  in  the  Theological  Seminary  of  the  Free  Church, 
Lausanne,  Switzerland 549 

SECOND  SECTION.— CHRISTIANITY  AND  LIBERTY. 

1.  THE  INFLUENCE  OF  CHRISTIANITY  ON  CIVIL  AND  RELIGIOUS  LIBERTY. 

By  the  REV.  W.  H.  CAMPBELL,  D.D.,  President  of  Rutger's  College,  New  Brunswick, 
New  Jersey 558 

2.  THE  EFFECTS  OF  CIVIL  AND  RELIGIOUS  LIBERTY  ON  CHRISTIANITY. 

By  the  Rev.  DANIEL  R.  GOODWIN,  D.D.,  Professor  in  the  Protestant  Episcopal  Divinity 
School,  Philadelphia 562 

THIRD  SECTION.— MINISTERIAL  SUPPORT. 

1.  NEED  OF  LIBERAL  SUPPORT  FOR  THE  GOSPEL  MINISTRY. 

By  the  Rev.  JOHN  HALL,  D.D.,  of  New  York 567 

2.  MINISTERIAL  SUPPORT  IN  THE  IRISH  EPISCOPAL  AND  PRESBYTERIAN  CHURCHES. 

By  the  Rev.  T.  Y.  KILLEN,  of  Belfast,  Ireland 571 

3.  SUPPORT  OF  THE  CHRISTIAN  MINISTRY. 

By  the  Rev.  M.  W.  JACOBUS,  D.D.,  LL.D.,  Professor  in  the  Theological  Seminary,  Al- 
legheny, Pennsylvania 574 


DIVISION  VII. 

CHRISTIAN  MISSIONS.— FOREIGN  AND  DOMESTIC. 

Friday,  October  10, 18T3. 

FIRST  SECTION.— PRINCIPLES  OF  MISSION  WORK. 

1.  DUTY  OF  THE  CHURCHES  IN  RELATION  TO  MISSIONS. 

By  the  Rev.  JOSEPH  ANGUS,  D.D.,  Principal  of  Regent's  Park  College,  London 583 

2.  DIVISIONS  OF  MISSIONARY  FIELDS  OF  LABOR — MISSIONARY  COURTESY. 

By  the  Rev.  RUFUS  ANDERSON,  D.D.,  LL.D.,  Boston,  Massachusetts,  lately  Foreign  Sec- 
retary of  the  American  Board  of  Commissioners  for  Foreign  Missions 588 

3.  PROTESTANT,  CATHOLIC,  AND  GREEK  MISSIONS,  COMPARED  AS  TO  PRINCIPLE,  METH- 

OD, AND  RESULTS. 
By  the  Rev.  R.  GRUNDEMANN,  Ph.D.,  of  Moerz,  Prussia 591 

4.  THE  OBLIGATIONS  OF  LITERATURE,  SCIENCE,  AND  COMMEHCE  TO  CHRISTIAN  MISSIONS. 
By  the  Rev.  THOMAS  M.  EDDY,  D.D.,  New  York,  Corresponding  Secretary  of  (he  Mis- 
sionary Society  of  the  Methodist  Episcopal  Church 594 

5.  LAY  PREACHING. 

By  the  Hon.  GEORGE  H.  STUART,  of  Philadelphia 598 

6.  LAY  PREACHING. 

By  COUNT  ANDREAS  BERNSTORFF,  of  Berlin,  Prussia 601 


62  CONTENTS. 

SECOND  SECTION.— PARTICULAR  MISSIONARY  FIELDS. 

1.  CHRISTIANITY  AMONG  THE  HINDOOS.  PAGK 
By  the  Rev.  NARAYAN  SHESHADRI,  of  Bombay,  India. 605 

2.  WOMAN'S  WORK  IN  INDIA. 

By  the  Rev.  J.  S.  WOODSIDE,  of  Dehra  Doon,  India 612 

8.    MISSIONS    AMONG   THE    LOWEST    OF   THE    HEATH KN. 

By  the  Rt.  Rev.  E.  DE  SCHWEINITZ,  S.T. D.,  Bishop  of  the   Moravian   Church,  and 
President  of  the  Theological  Seminary  at  Bethlehem,  Pennsylvania. 619 

4.  THE  MISSION  FIELD  OF  THE  SOUTH. 

By  the  Rev.  MOSES  D.  HOGE,  D.D.,  Richmond,  Virginia 623 

5.  THE  INDIANS  IN  THE  UNITED  STATES. 

By  the  Hon.  FELIX  R.  BRUNOT,  Pittsburg,  Pennsylvania,  Chairman  of  the  United  States 
Board  of  Indian  Commissioners 630 

6.  MISSIONS  TO  THE  ORIENTAL  CHURCHES. 

By  the  Rev.  HENRY  HARRIS  JESSUP,  D.D.,  Beirut,  Syria 634 

7.  THE  EVANGELICAL  HOME  MISSION  OF  FRANCE. 

By  the  Rev.  MATTHIEU  LELIEVRE,  of  Nimes,  France 643 

8.  CITY  MISSIONS. 

By  the  Rev.  ROBERT  KNOX,  D.D.,  Belfast,  Ireland 647 

9.  MISSIONS  OF  THE  EVANGELICAL  CHURCH  OF  PRUSSIA  AMONG  GERMAN  PROTESTANT 

CONGREGATIONS  ABROAD. 

By  the  Rev.  W.  NOEL,  Counselor  of  the  "Ober-Kirchenrath,"  and  First  Preacher  of  the 
Louisa  Parish  Church  at  Berlin ..  650 


DIVISION  VIII. 

CHRISTIANITY  AND  SOCIAL  REFORMS. 

Saturday,  October  11, 1873. 

1.  CHRISTIANITY  AS  A  REFORMING  POWER. 

By  JOHN  HARRIS  JONES,  Ph.D.,  Professor  in  Trevecca  College,  Wales 661 

2.  THE  WORKING  POWER  OF  THE  CHURCH — HOW  BEST  TO  UTILIZE  IT. 

By  the  Rev.  W.  FLEMING  STEVENSON,  Dublin 666 

3.  THE  LABOR  QUESTION. 

By  the  Hon.  WILLIAM  H.  ALLEN,  LL.D.,  President  of  Girard  College,  Philadelphia....  670 

4.  CHRISTIAN  PHILANTHROPY. 

By  the  Rev.  T.  W.  AVELING,  London 675 

5.  THE  CARE  OF  THE  SICK. 

By  the  late  Count  AGENOR  DE  GASPARIN,  Geneva,  Switzerland 681 

6.  INTEMPERANCE  AND  ITS  SUPPRESSION. 

Bv  the  Rev.  HENRY  A.  NELSON,  D.D.,  Professor  in  Lane  Theological  Seminary,  Cincin- 
"nati,  Ohio 689 

7.  CHRISTIANITY  IN  ITS  RELATIONS  TO  CRIME  AND  CRIMINALS. 

By  the  Rev.  E.  C.  WINES,  D.D.,  LL.D.,  Secretary  of  the  National  Prison  Association 
of  the  United  States , 695 

8.  INDUSTRIAL  SCHOOLS  AS  AN  AGENCY  IN  THE  PREVENTION  OF  CRIME. 

By  the  Rev.  E.  ROBIN,  Paris 701 


FAREWELL  ADDRESS, 

By  the  Rev.  NOAH  HUNT  SCHENCK,  D.D.,  Brooklyn,  New  York.  Delivered  at  the 
close  of  the  Valedictory  Services  in  the  Academy  of  Music,  New  York,  Sunday  night, 
October  12,  1873 707 


APPENDIX  I. 

LETTERS  OF  GREETING. 

TESTAMENTARY  ADDRESS  OF  THE  LATE  DR.  MERLE  D'AUBIGNE,  GENEVA,  SWITZERLAND...  717 
GREETING  FROM  THE  COUNCIL  OF  THE  BRITISH  ORGANIZATION  OF  THE  EVANGELICAL  AL- 
LIANCE   711) 

FROM  THE  ARCHBISHOP  OF  CANTERBURY 720 

FROM  THE  GERMAN  EVANGELICAL  CHURCH  DIET 720 


CONTENTS.  63 

FROM  THE  CENTRAL  COMMITTEE  FOR  INNER  MISSIONS  OF  THE  GERMAN  EVANGELICAL  ' 

CHURCH 721 

FROM  THE  EMPEROR  WILLIAM  OF  GERMANY 721 

FROM  THE  EVANGELICAL  OBER-KIRCHENRATH  IN  BERLIN 721 

FROM  PROFESSOR  ROSSEEUW  ST.  HILAIRE,  VERSAILLES,  Member  of  the  Institute  of  France.  722 

FROM  THE  REV.  ALEXANDER  DUFF,  D.D.,  LL.D.,  OF  EDINBURGH,  SCOTLAND 723 

FROM  PROFESSOR  J.  I.  DOEDES,  D.D.,  OF  UTRECHT,  HOLLAND 724 

FROM  THE  HONORABLE  ROBERT  C.  WINTHROP,  LL.D.,  OF  BOSTON 724 


APPENDIX  II. 

ADDITIONAL  DOCUMENTS. 

CLOSING  REPORT  OF  THE  COMMITTEE  ON  THE  PROGRAMME 729 

PEACEFUL  ARBITRATION  : — A  Communication  from  the  Committee  of  the  LONDON  PEACE 

SOCIETY 730 

ENGLAND  AND  RUSSIA  IN  CENTRAL  ASIA,  IN  RELATION  TO  THE  SPREAD  OF  CHRISTIANITY 

AND  CIVILIZATION  IN  THE  EAST. 

By  the  Rev.  J.  LONG,  Church  Missionary  in  Calcutta 731 

CONCERTED  ACTION  ON  SUNDAY  LEGISLATION. 

A  Communication  from  Mr.  ALEXANDER  LOMBARD,  of  Geneva,  President  of  the  Swiss 

Society  for  the  Sanctification  of  the  Lord's  Day 733 

FROM  THE  WORKING-MEN'S  LORD'S  DAY  REST  ASSOCIATION,  OF  LONDON 734 

INTERNATIONAL  ASSOCIATION  FOR  THE  DEFENSE  OF  THE  CHRISTIAN  FAITH. 

Proposed  by  the  Rev.  Dr.  VAN  OOSTERZEE,  Professor  of  Theology  at  Utrecht,  Holland...  734 
ABOLITION  OF  THE  SLAVE-TRADE. 

From  BENJAMIN  MILLARD,  Secretary  of  the  Antislavery  Society,  London 735 

PROTESTANTISM  IN  BRAZIL. 

From  the  Corresponding  Secretaries  of  the  Evangelical  Alliance,  Brazil 73C 

RELIGIOUS  LIBERTY  IN  TURKEY,  AND  THE  CONDITION  OF  ITS  PROTESTANT  POPULATION. 

From  the  Committee  of  the  Turkey  Branch  of  the  Evangelical  Alliance 73(! 

MEMORIAL  ON  THE  OPIUM  TRADE. 

From  the  Chairman  and  Secretary  of  the  Turkey  Branch 73!> 

CRUELTY  TO  ANIMALS. 

By  HENRY  BERGH,  Esq.,  of  New  York 740 

AMERICAN  SEAMEN'S  FRIEND  SOCIETY. 

By  the  President  and  Secretary  of  the  Society 741 

FRATERNAL  APPEAL  TO  THE  FRIENDS  OF  THE  EVANGELICAL  ALLIANCE  AND  OF  CHRISTIAN 

UNION  GENERALLY  ;  WITH  A  PROVISIONAL  SKETCH  OF  A  PLAN  FOR  A  GENERAL  PROT- 
ESTANT UNION. 

Signed  by  the  Rev.  Dr.  S.  S.  SCHMUCKER,  Emeritus  Professor  of  the  Theological  Semi- 
nary at  Gettysburg,  and  many  others 742 

ADDRESSES  OF  THANKS  FROM  FOREIGN  DELEGATIONS 74(! 

RESOLUTIONS  OF  THANKS  ADOPTED  BY  THE  CONFERENCE...,  748 


APPENDIX  III. 

A  STATISTICAL  EXHIBIT  OF  EVANGELICAL  CHRISTIANITY  IN  THE  UNITKD  STATES 751 

ROLL  OF  THE  SIXTH  GENERAL  CONFERENCE  OF  THE  EVANGELICAL  ALLIANCE 755 

THE  DOCTRINAL  BASIS  OF  THE  UNITED  STATES  EVANGELICAL  ALLIANCE 760 

CONSTITUTION  OF  THE  UNITED  STATES  EVANGELICAL  ALLIANCE 761 


To  THE  MEMORY  OF  PRONIER  AND  CARRASCO,  WITH  THEIR  PORTRAITS 7(52 

To  THE  MEMORY  OF  COOK,  WITH  A  PORTRAIT 767 


ALPHABETICAL  INDEX 76!» 


ADDRESS  OF  WELCOME, 

BY  THE  REV.  WILLIAM  ADAMS,  D.D.,  LL.D.,  NEW  YORK. 

[Delivered  at  the  Social  Reception,  on  Thursday  Evening,  October  2,  1873,  in  the  Young  Mens 

Christian  Association  Hall.~\ 


I  DEEM  it  a  special  pleasure  and  honor 
that  I  have  been  requested,  in  the  name  of 
the  Christian  people  of  this  country,  to  ad- 
dress a  few  words  of  welcome  to  those  who 
have  gathered  at  this  Conference,  and  espe- 
cially to  those  from  the  other  side  of  the  sea. 
Some  of  you  have  long  been  known  to  many 
of  us  as  personal  friends  and  correspondents ; 
others  have  been  gratefully  known  by  their 
works  of  scholarship  and  philanthropy.  The 
author  of  a  good  book  is  a  true  cosmopolite. 
He  is  at  home  in  every  part  of  the  world. 
The  author  of  a  Christian  hymn  sung  in  all 
the  churches  of  Christendom,  the  originator 
of  a  new  and  successful  scheme  of  Christian 
philanthropy,  is  welcome  as  a  friend  wher- 
ever there  are  Christians  to  worship  and  to 
work.  Pleasant,  indeed,  is  it  to  grasp  by  the 
hand  and  look  upon  the  faces  of  men  with 
whom  we  have  long  had  unspoken  sympa- 
thy through  the  books  which  lie  upon  our 
tables.  Coming  to  us  on  such  an  occasion 
as  this,  and  on  such  an  errand,  none  of  you 
can  be  "strangers  and  foreigners;"  all  are 
"  fellow-citizens  with  the  saints,  and  of  the 
household  of  God."  As  such  we  greet  you 
with  cordial  affection.  We  bless  you  in  the 
name  of  the  Lord,  and  welcome  you  most 
heartily  to  our  country,  our  churches,  our 
pulpits,  and  our  homes. 

This  welcoming  on  the.  part  of  Christians 
in  the  New  World  to  visitors  coming  from 
the  Old  World  marks  an  advanced  epoch  in 
the  great  drama  of  human  history.  The  two 
hemispheres  are  separated  in  space  by  the 
long  and  lumbering  billows  of  the  Western 
Ocean,  but,  as  time  advances,  we  see  more 
and  more  how  they  are  unified  in  the  great 
plan  and  purpose  of  the  Almighty.  Neither 
is  complete  in  itself.  The  Old  abides  not 
5 


alone.  It  prolongs  and  perpetuates  itself  in 
the  New.  The  New  is  not  a  sudden  and  in- 
dependent creation,  like  fabled  Delos  made 
to  stand  still  as  the  theatre  of  an  extempo- 
raneous civilization.  It  is  the  growth,  ex- 
pansion, and  continuance  of  the  Old.  You 
can  not  travel  on  this  Western  Continent 
without  noticing  that  European  history  has 
notched  itself  into  our  very  soil,  and  chroni- 
cled its  several  stages  of  development  in  the 
names  of  our  States,  and  cities,  and  towns, 
and  universities.  Those  who  come  to  us 
from  France  will  recall  and  read  the  history 
of  their  native  laud  in  names  scattered  all 
over  this  country,  from  the  St.  Lawrence  011 
the  north,  with  that  Mount  of  Vision  known 
to  us  in  our  English  pronunciation  as  Mont- 
real, away  through  lake  and  river  to  St. 
Louis  and  New  Orleans  and  Carolina,  where 
the  Huguenots  left  the  name  of  their  weak 
and  bigoted  king,  Charles  IX.  Those  who 
come  to  us  from  Holland,  if  they  miss  dike 
and  fog,  surely  can  not  feel  themselves  far 
from  home  in  this  city  of  New  Amsterdam, 
and  on  the  banks  of  that  river  discovered  by 
Dutch  enterprise.  Germany,  if  she  did  not 
begin  her  migration  so  soon  as  others,  is 
making  up  for  delay  in  the  volume  of  her 
population,  like  that  which  centuries  ago 
overran  the  south  of  Europe,  spreading  her 
language  and  her  industry  over  this  vast 
domain ;  and  we  welcome  to-day  her  repre- 
sentatives to  this  city  of  New  York  as  the 
fourth  largest  German  city  in  the  world. 
As  for  Great  Britain,  these  household  names 
of  States,  counties,  cities,  and  colleges — New 
York,  New  Jersey,  Pennsylvania,  Virginia, 
Essex,  Middlesex,  Suffolk,  Berkshire,  Boston, 
Cambridge,  Plymouth,  Dorchester,  Harvard, 
Yale,  Dartmouth,  William  and  Mary — afford 


ADAMS:   ADDRESS  OF  WELCOME. 


easy  proof  that  this  Western  World,  with  its 
free  governments,  its  institutions  of  learning 
and  religion,  is  but  the  outgrowth  and  result 
of  the  successive  throes,  struggles,  and  rev- 
olutions of  the  old  ancestral  isle.  As  the 
names  of  parents  are  given  to  their  children 
and  their  children's  children,  so  the  names 
of  the  martyrs,  the  patriots,  the  scholars,  the 
statesmen,  the  good  and  the  great  men  of 
former  ages,'wortby  to  be  held  in  everlast- 
ing remembrance,  are  reproduced  and  per- 
petuated through  the  length  and  the  breadth 
of  this  New  World. 

There  was  a  time  (we  trust  it  has  passed 
forever)  when  certain  writers,  in  a  spirit  .of 
jealousy,  distrust,  and  hate,  were  accustom- 
ed to  refer  to  us  as  a  "  raw  and  recent  pop- 
ulation," without  history  or  ancestry,  as  if 
we  were  "  disgraceful  foundlings,  blushing 
at  the  bend  of  illegitimacy  in  our  coat  ar- 
morial." Can  children  lose  their  lineage  by 
migration  ?  Do  we  part  with  blood,  birth- 
right, or  pedigree  when  we  cross  the  sea  ? 
If  there  be  virtue  in  any  patronymic  claim 
Lave  not  we  as  indefeasible  a  right  in  the 
fame  of  every  patriot,  scholar,  and  philan- 
thropist of  the  Old  World  as  any  who  still 
tread  the  ancestral  acres  ? 

It  was  the  conceit  of  classic  mythology 
that  the  Muse  of  History  was  the  daughter 
of  Jove.  The  thought  thus  suggested  we 
put  into  a  better  Christian  phrase,  believ- 
ing in  the  unity  of  God's  purpose  in  Provi- 
dence. That  which  we  receive  from  our  Bi- 
bles has  been  wrought  out  iu  philosophic 
form  by  Schlegel  and  Miiller.  Look  at  de- 
tached parts  of  the  drama — at  the  Hugue- 
nots of  France,  exiled,  massacred,  after  the 
revocation  of  the  Edict  of  Nantes ;  at  the  Hol- 
landers, harried  by  Philip  of  Spain ;  at  the 
Non-conformists  of  England  during  the  Five- 
Mile  Act  of  the  Stuarts — and  you  would  be 
bewildered  and  depressed,  as  if  there  were 
no  equitable  Power  to  protect  and  reward 
virtue.  But  these  are  only  "  parts  of  God's 
ways."  To  judge  them  as  if  they  were  in- 
dependent, insulated,  and  complete  events 
is  as  if  one  gazing  on  some  eddy  or  back- 
water in  the  Mississippi  should  infer  that 
the  mighty  river  were  running  upward  and 
backward.  Sweep  a  wider  vision,  make  a 


more  copious  induction,  wait  and  look  again, 
cross  the  ocean  whither  the  brave  exiles  be- 
took themselves,  and  observe  the  institutions 
of  civil  and  religious  liberty,  the  churches, 
the  schools,  the  happy  homes,  which  have 
sprung  up  iu  this  New  World,  and  behold 
the  vindication  of  Divine  equity,  progress 
and  development  in  the  magnificent  plan  of 
Divine  Providence.  Calvin  and  Coligny  did 
not  join  in  person  the  several  expeditions 
to  the  American  coast  which  they  so  zeal- 
ously patronized ;  but  Calvin,  Coligny  and 
Knox,  Cranmer,  Ridley,  Hooper  and  Latimer, 
as  well  as  the  great  German  Reformers,  Lu- 
ther, Melauchthon  and  Zwingli,  are  living 
and  working  upon  our  soil  to-day.  John 
Hampden,  whose  society  Richard  Baxter 
said  would  give  a  charm  to  the  Everlasting 
Rest  of  the  Saints,  ceased  not  to  live  when 
he  fell  in  battle,  for  the  patriot  statesman 
walks  abroad  in  our  own  land.  The  "  good 
old  cause"  for  which  Algernon  Sidney  prayed 
with  his  latest  breath  on  Tower  Hill  in  Lon- 
don did  not  perish  when  that  noble  martyr 
was  beheaded.  We  ask  you,  coming  from 
the  Old  World,  to  see  and  judge  for  your- 
selves the  result  and  fruitage  of  great 
events,  which  carry  us  all  back  to  the  cell  of 
Argyll,  the  scaffold  of  Russell,  the  grave  of 
Wickliffe,  and  the  ashes  of  Huss.  It  has  ver- 
ily seemed  to  us  that  it  was  not  so  much  we 
as  they  that  were  welcoming  you  to  these 
shores ;  that  the  very  air  was  full  of  the  mar- 
tyr spirits  of  the  mighty  dead,  our  common 
ancestry,  bidding  us,  iu  our  blessed  brother- 
hood, to  enjoy  together  the  rich  results  of 
their  faith,  prayers,  and  agonies,  in  a  free  re- 
ligion, a  free  Bible,  a  free  Church,  free  schools, 
a  free  press,  and  free  souls — a  glorious  lega- 
cy of  the  past  to  the  present — the  seed-corn 
and  the  roots  beyond  the  sea  in  the  Old,  tho 
harvest  and  the  compensation  in  the  New. 

The  object  of  our  Conference  is  neither 
political  nor  ecclesiastical.  We  come  not  to 
discuss  forms  of  church  organization  or  gov- 
ernment, or  any  thing  which  is  extrinsic  and 
casual.  Wo  meet  to  manifest  and  express 
our  Christian  unity.  Divers  are  the  names 
which  wo  bear,  both  as  to  countries  and 
churches  —  German,  French,  Swiss,  Dutch, 
English,  Scotch,  Irish,  Lutheran,  Reformed, 


ADAMS :  ADDEESS  OF  WELCOME. 


67 


Anglican,  Presbyterian,  Episcopalian,  Meth- 
odist, Baptist,  Independent — but  we  desire 
and  intend  to  show  that,  amidst  all  this  va- 
riety of  form  and  circumstances,  there  is  a 
real  unity  of  faith  and  life ;  believing,  ac- 
cording to  the  familiar  expression  of  our 
common  Christian  creed,  in  the  "  Holy  Cath- 
olic Church  and  the  Communion  of  Saints." 
We  are  living  in  times  when,  all  over  the 
world,  there  is  a  manifest  longing  for  more 
of  fraternal  unity.  France  and  Germany 
have  both  given  us  new  words  expressive  of 
this  desire  for  cosmopolitan  unity.  Conven- 
tions and  expositions  are  held  in  which  rep- 
resentatives from  all  countries  meet  to  com- 
pare and  interchange  ideas  and  commodities. 
These  are  signs  which,  like  the  tufts  of  grass 
and  sprigs  of  red  berries  which  caught  the 
eye  of  Columbus  from  the  mast-head  of  the 
Pinta,  betoken  the  vicinity  of  land.  We 
may  be  mistaken  in  our  reckoning  5  fog- 
banks  may  be  taken  for  laud ;  but  we  know 
in  what  direction  the  land  lies,  and  we  must 
sail  onward  till  we  reach  it.  We  pretend 
not  to  create  unity — certainly  not  by  artifi- 
cial ligatures — but  to  testify  to  that  which 
exists  already.  God  is  one.  The  Kedemp- 
tion  by  Jesus  Christ  is  one.  The  body  of 
Christ  is  one.  The  kingdom  of  God  on  earth, 
for  the  coming  of  which  all  hearts  and  voices 
are  taught  to  pray,  is  presented  as  an  object 
in  the  singular  number — one,  and  not  many. 
What  is  of  essential  benefit  to  one  church 
and  one  nation,  in  course  of  time  becomes 
the  property  of  all.  You  can  not  fence  off 
the  great  ocean  into  private  pastures ;  you 
can  not  partition  off  the  firmament  into 
household  lots ;  you  can  not  divide  snu, 
moon,  and  stars  into  bits  of  personal  prop- 
erty ;  you  can  not  play  Eobiuson  Crusoeism 
iu  the  Church  of  God.  No  man  can  appro- 
priate to  himself,  in  an  insular  spirit,  any 
exclusive  right  in  those  great  matters  to  the 
discussion  of  which  we  now  welcome  you 
— Christian  Faith,  Christian  Life,  Christian 
Work,  Christian  Hope,  and  Christian  Des- 
tiny. Bigots  may  misunderstand  this,  and 
lend  themselves  to  what  is  private,  local, 
and  exclusive ;  but  there  is  no  such  thing 
as  private  property  in  good  thoughts,  good 
deeds,  and  good  men.  Paul  is  ours,  and  Ce- 


phas is  ours,  and  Apollos  is  ours.  All  the 
great  historic  names  associated  with  schol- 
arship, philanthropy,  and  religion,  no  mat- 
ter in  what  laud  they  were  born  or  in  what 
country  they  were  baptized,  are  the  com- 
mon property  of  all  Christian  believers.  All 
truths,  all  discoveries,  all  inventions,  all 
things  good  and  worthy,  in  due  time  are  as 
sure  to  diffuse  themselves  abroad  in  every 
direction,  as  water  to  find  its  level^  or  the 
free  air  of  heaven,  to  flow  into  every  open 
space.  By  no  method  can  we  prevent  this 
if  we  would.  Believing  in  this  great  ordi- 
nance of  God,  we  welcome  you  most  hearti- 
ly to  the  expression  and  enjoyment  of  this 
high  Christian,  unity.  It  has  been  said, 
whether  by  poetry  or  science  it  matters  not, 
that  there  is  a  certain  point  iu  the  upper 
air  in  which  all  the  discordant  sounds  of  the 
earth  —  the  rattle  of  wheels,  the  chime  of 
bells,  the  roll  of  the  drum,  the  laugh  of  the 
child,  and  the  moan  of  the  beggar  —  meet 
and  blend  in  perfect  harmony.  Surely  it  is 
something  more  than  a  poetic  conceit,  even 
the  sure  word  of  inspiration,  that,  when  once 
we  are  lifted  up  to  a  fellowship  in  Christ 
Jesus,  we  meet  in  a  high  and  heavenly  place 
where  "  all  things  are  gathered  together  in 
one,  both  which  are  iu  heaven  and  which 
are  on  earth,  even  in  him  " — an  elevation  so 
high  that  there  is  a  complete  oblivion  to  all 
those  manifold  distinctions  of  country,  race, 
and  name  which  belong  entirely  to  a  lower 
and  heavier  atmosphere. 

The  pleasure  of  our  Conference  is  subject 
to  abatement.  Some  whose  presence  would 
have  graced  this  occasion  are  not,  for  God 
has  taken  them.  If,  as  we  believe,  departed 
spirits  are  conscious  of  what  occurs  on  earth, 
those  beloved  friends  and  brethren  are  not 
indifferent  to  a  scene  like  this — Merle  d'Au- 
bign6,  Count  Gasparin,  Dr.  Hoffman,  Norman 
M'Leod,  Dean  Alford,  Dr.  Guthrie,  and  our 
own  M'llvaino  and  Schmncker.  If  it  be 
good  and  pleasant  for  brethren  to  dwell  to- 
gether in  unity  upon  the  earth,  how  much 
better,  more  fragrant  than  precious  oint- 
ment, and  sweeter  than  the  dew  of  Hermon 
will  it  be  when  all  who  are  united  to  one  au- 
other  through  Christ  shall  be  welcomed  to 
his  presence  by  the  Lord  of  Glory  !  Ancient 


ADAMS :  ADDRESS  OF  WELCOME. 


philosophy  dreamed  of  a  symposium  which 
all  the  wise  and  good  should  enjoy  in  a  fa- 
bled Elysium ;  but  inspiration  has  specified 
this  as  ono,  of  the  elements  of  Christian  bless- 
edness, that  we  are  come  to  "  the  spirits  of 
the  just  made  perfect" — "to  the  General 
Assembly  of  the  Church  of  the  First-born 
written  in  Heaven."  Welcoming  one  another 
to  these  Christian  assemblies  upon  the  earth ; 
greeting  every  occasion  like  this  for  the  ex- 
pression of  Christian  confidence  and  love ; 
beseeching  you,  brethren,  for  the  Lord  Jesus 
Christ's  sake,  and  for  the  love  of  the  Spirit, 
that  you  strive  together  in  your  prayers  to 
God ;  that,  coming  together  with  joy  by  the 
will  of  God,  we  may  with  you  be  refreshed, 
our  thoughts  run  forward  with  gladness  to 
the  time  when  all  true  servants  of  Christ, 
coming  from  the  East  and  the  West,  the 
North  and  the  South,  with  their  bosoms 
full  of  sheaves,  shall  meet  together  at  the 


harvest-homo  in  the  cud  of  the  world.  In 
the  very  words  of  Dean  Alford,  whoso  per- 
sonal presence  we  miss  among  us — words 
which  were  chauted  at  his  funeral  sen-ice  in 
Canterbury  Cathedral — 

"  Ten  thousand  times  ten  thousand, 

In  sparkling  raiment  bright, 
The  armies  of  the  ransomed  saint?, 

Throng  up  the  steeps  of  light. 
'Tis  finished— all  is  finished, 

Their  fight  with  Death  and  Sin ; 
Fling  open  wide  the  golden  gates, 

And  let  the  victors  iu. 

"Oh  then  what  raptured  greetings 

On  Canaan's  happy  shore, 
What  knitting  severed  friendships  up 
Where  partings  are  no  more '." 

So  it  is  that  our  hopes  of  heaven  enter  into 
the  welcome  we  once  more  give  you,  in  the 
name  of  the  Lord  Jesus  and  of  Christian 
brotherhood. 


I. 
REPORTS  ON  THE  STATE  OF  RELIGION 

1ST 

YARIOUS  CHRISTIAN  COUNTRIES. 

Delivered  on  Friday,  October  3d,  1873. 


DIVISION  I,— CONTENTS, 


PAGE 

1 .  DECOPPET  :   Religion  in  the  Reformed  Church  of  France 71 

2.  FISCH  :    Other  Protestant  Churches  in  France 76 

3.  KRUMMACHER  :    Christian  Life  in   Germany 78 

4.  TIIOLUCK  :   Evangelical  Theology  in  Germany 85 

5.  STUART  :   Religious  Condition  of  Holland. 90 

6.  ANET:   Religious  and  Moral  Condition  of  Belgium 95 

7.  REICHEL  :    State  of  Religion  in  Switzerland 99 

8.  KALKAR  :    State  of  Religion  in  Scandinavia 101 

9.  PROCHET  :    State  of  Religion  in  Italy 106 

10.  CARRASCO  :   Religion  in  Spain 112 

11.  FLIEDNER  :   Evangelization  of  Spain 123 

12.  KALOPOTHAKES  :   Religion  in  Greece 127 

13.  MURRAY,  ROBERT  :    The  ^British  Provinces  of  North  America 129 

14.  MURRAY,  WILLIAM  :    Christianity  in  the  West  Indies 133 


ON  THE  POSITION  OF  THE  PROTESTANT  RELIGION 
IN  FRANCE,  AND  PARTICULARLY  OF  THE  NA- 
TIONAL FRENCH  REFORMED  CHURCH. 

BY  THE  REV.  AUGUSTE  DECOPPET,  B.D., 

Pastor  of  the  National  Reformed  Church  in  Paris. 


DEAR  BRETHREN, — In  the  absence  of  Mr. 
Bersier,  who  was  to  have  addressed  you  upon 
the  state  of  religion  in  France,  allow  me  to 
treat  a  portion  of  his  subject,  inviting  your 
attention  to  French  Protestantism,  and  par- 
ticularly to  that  Reformed  Church  which  I 
have  the  honor  of  representing  here. 

I  have  always  found  that  there  is  some 
difficulty  in  speaking  of  one's  own  church 
in  the  presence  of  representatives  of  other 
churches ;  for  one  can  not  say  all  the  good 
or  all  the  ill  of  it  that  comes  to  one's  mind. 
One  hardly  dares  to  say  all  the  good,  lest 
one  should  seem  to  boast ;  while,  on  the  oth- 
er hand,  the  Church  is  a  mother  whose  in- 
firmities and  weaknesses  her  children  would 
fain  leave  veiled.  I  am  embarrassed  by  the 
conviction  that  there  is  much  to  commend 
in  French  Protestantism  and  the  Reformed 
Church,  and  that,  unfortunately,  there  is 
much  to  lament.  I  propose  to  ask  you  to 
hear  both  sides,  with  the  hope  that  the  good 
will  at  least  counterbalance  the  evil. 

Among  the  virtues  that  we  readily  recog- 
nize in  our  American  and  English  brethren 
— and  their  number  is  by  no  means  small — 
is  the  love  of  facts  and  figures.  We  are 
quite  clear  that  you  are  thorough  positivists 
in  the  best  sense  of  the  term.  Let  me  then 
begin  with  figures. 

The  Protestant  population  of  France  is 
still  but  a  feeble  minority,  which  holds  its 
own,  but  does  not  sensibly  increase.  Before 
the  late  war  we  numbered  about  <i  million. 
The  annexation  of  Alsace  has  taken  from 
us  250  communities,  numbering  some  200,000 
members.  It  also  took  from  us  one  of  our 
theological  faculties,  that  of  Strasburg,  de- 
servedly famed  for  its  learning ;  and  thereby 
weakened  considerably  Protestant  influence 
in  our  country. 

Our  churches  are  divided  into  three  prin- 
cipal groups — or  rather  into  two  families — 
the  Lutherans,  half  of  whom  were  torn  from 
us  by  conquest,  and  the  Reformed  body.  The 
latter  is  made  up  of  a  mother,  whom  we  must 
account  as  already  aged,  since  it  dates  from 
the  earliest  days  of  the  French  Reformation, 
and  of  several  daughters — I  speak  of  the 
National  Church,  which  is  united  to  the 
state, and  consists  of  about  030,000  members, 


and  of  several  free  Churches  of  different  ages 
and  denominations. 

These  Churches  live  in  excellent  harmony. 
The  Evangelical  Alliance  is  no  vain  word 
with  us,  in  proof  of  which  I  may  state  that 
;he  evangelizing  and  charitable  societies  of 
the  various  churches  work  in  common.  And 
nere,  be  it  said,  by-the-way,  I  see  the  best 
means  of  confirming  our  common  ties.  Let 
us  work  with  one  heart  in  doing  God's  will 
on  earth — better  work  together  than  dispute 
together. 

Thus,  then,  we  have  union  among  us. 
Shall  we  one  day  attain  to  unity  ?  Will  the 
time  come  when  we  shall  form  one  sole  Prot- 
stant  French  Church  ?  I  hope  so ;  for  this 
unity  would  be  very  desirable.  Let  us  not 
delude  ourselves;  in  Catholic  countries  divis- 
ions in  Protestantism  are  a  source  of  weak- 
ness to  ourselves  and  a  serious  obstacle  to 
the  evangelization  of  the  peoples  of  the  Lat- 
in race,  who  have  a  strong  tendency  toward 
unity  and  centralization.  We  must  strive 
to  remedy  these  divisions  wherever  possible, 
bearing  in  mind  that  unity  was  the  principal 
object  of  the  prayer  of  our  Lord  for  his  dis- 
ciples in  all  ages :  "  That  they  may  be  one, 
as  we  are  one  "  (John  xvii.,  22).  In  our  day 
the  elements  of  union  among  the  different 
members  of  the  great  Protestant  family  are 
much  more  important  than  the  causes  of 
division.  Our  several  communities  ought 
not  to  content  themselves  with  a  merely 
Platonic  love ;  theirs  should  be  a  real  love 
which  blends  them  into  one  body.  For  is  it 
not  the  grand  aim  of  the  Evangelical  Alli- 
ance to  hasten  the  day  when  there  shall  be 
one  fold  under  one  Shepherd?  In  France 
the  time  is  perhaps  not  very  far  distant  when 
the  various  evangelical  fractions  of  Protest- 
antism will  form  a  single  church.  Already 
earnest  hopes  in  this  direction  have  been 
expressed  in  many  quarters,  and  when  the 
progress  of  ideas  or  the  natural  pressure  of 
events  has  brought  about  the  separation  of 
church  and  state,  the  fusion  of  which  I  speak 
will  perhaps  be  well-nigh  accomplished. 

Meanwhile,  as  I  have  already  said,  we  are 
laboring  together  in  our  country  at  God's 
work— and  these  labors,  thanks  to  God  and 
the  aid  of  our  foreign  brethren,  are  not  with- 


72 


REPORTS  ON  THE  STATE  OF  RELIGION. 


out  fruit.  Most  of  our  evangelizing  societies 
which  were  founded  at  the  beginning  of  thia 
century  are  not  merely  still  supporting  them- 
selves, but  are  for  the  most  part  in  a  satis- 
factory state,  and  developing  themselves 
steadily  if  not  rapidly. 

Thus  we  are  "up  and  doing."  It  may 
eveii  be  said,  without  exaggeration,  that 
Protestantism  in  France  possesses  wonderful 
vitality.  Yes,  the  existence  of  Protestantism 
in  our  country,  after  so  many  struggles  and 
persecutions,  is  neither  more  nor  less  than  a 
miracle  of  the  faithfulness  of  God.  On  an 
old  seal,  the  device  of  which  has  been  pre- 
served, the  French  Church  may  be  seen  repre- 
sented under  the  image  of  the  burning  bush 
of  Moses,  with  this  motto :  Flagror,  sed  uon 
comburor — "  I  burn,  but  am  not  consumed." 
These  words  sum  up  the  tragical  history  of 
our  Church.  This  Church  has  been  essential- 
ly militant ;  she  has  known  better,  perhaps, 
than  any  other  what  it  is  to  fight  for  life. 
This  must  not  be  forgotten  in  explaining  the 
present  position  of  Protestantism  in  France. 
If  it  has  not  sensibly  increased,  if  it  has  not 
acted  powerfully  upon  the  masses,  this  is  to 
be  attributed  to  the  precarious  and  stormy 
character  which  has  almost  always  marked 
its  existence.  Conquest  is  difficult  to  a  so- 
ciety that  has  to  devote  all  its  strength  to 
self-defense.  At  this  very  moment  Protest- 
antism is  greatly  cramped  in  its  movements. 
The  liberty  of  propagaudisrn*  has  almost  al- 
ways been  greatly  restricted  in  France — nar- 
rowly limited  by  chilling  and  excessive  regu- 
lations. In  our  unfortunate  country  it  is  not 
as  in  free  America ;  it  is  difficult  to  stir  with- 
out authorized  permission.  Without  govern- 
ment authority  a  lecture  can  not  be  given,  a 
place  of  worship  opened,  a  meeting  held,  or 
tracts  distributed.  Added  to  this,  the  Cath- 
olic jpriesthood  is  very  powerful  —  more  so, 
alas !  at  the  present  time  than  ever,  exercis- 
ing, particularly  in  small  towns  and  country 
places,  considerable  influence  upon  those  in 
authority.  It  succeeds  in  fettering  us  in  a 
thousand  ways.  It  does  all  it  can  to  dis- 
credit us  in  the  eyes  of  the  nation,  attacking 
us  violently  from  its  pulpits,  and  not  hesita- 
ting to  employ  against  us  the  grossest  calum- 
nies. Most  young  Frenchmen  are  brought 
up  in  a  holy  horror  of  Protestautism ;  and 
traces  of  this  early  impression  are  even  found 
clinging  to  the  minds  of  men  of  independent 
thought — nay,  of  those  whose  boast  it  is 
that  they  are  free-thinkers.  It  is  not  un- 
usual to  hear  from  their  lips,  or  find  in  their 
writings  the  most  untrue  assertions  relative 
to  the  history  and  doctrines  of  our  Church. 

Protestant  citizens,  as  such,  are  generally 
esteemed  and  loved.  They  are  found  in  the 
first  industrial  ranks,  in  the  army,  in  the 
various  walks  of  science,  and  even  in  gov- 

*  An  awkward  word  this :  we  speak  of  "  making 
converts,"  but  I  see  the  inconvenience  of  thia  ex- 
pression. 


eminent  posts.  But  it  is  not  so  with  Prot- 
estantism. It  is  but  a  stranger  with  us — 
misunderstood,  despised.  Is  this  because  the 
French  character  is  hostile  to  it,  or  that  Prot- 
estantism is  not  suited  to  France  f  It  would 
bo  a  great  mistake  to  think  BO.  France  is 
not  hostile  to  Christianity ;  she  ignores  it. 
She  is  indifferent,  superstitious  or  incredu- 
lous, because  the  Gospel  is  unknown  to  her. 
I  am  convinced  that  when  we  shall  have 
real  religious  liberty,  when  we  are  able  to 
spread  broadcast  the  seeds  of  evangelical 
faith,  Protestantism  will 'make  way  in  our 
country  far  and  wide.  Already  do  many  se- 
rious minds,  disgusted  with  Ultramontauisin, 
turn  toward  us,  and  whenever  we  have  an 
opportunity  of  addressing  a  Catholic  congre- 
gation we  are  listened  to  with  marked  in- 
terest and  sympathy.  France  is  much  bet- 
ter disposed  toward  the  Gospel  than  is  gen- 
erally imagined.  She  thirsts  after  truth, 
after  religiou;  but  what  wonder  that  she 
rejects  that  which  is  offered  her,  when  this 
religion  checks  all  her  liberal  aspirations, 
and  treats  as  accursed  whatever  she  calls 
progress?  And  hence  it  is  that,  notwith- 
standing all  the  pilgrimages  and  so-called 
religious  manifestations  of  the  present  day, 
provoked  by  the  fanaticism  of  the  priests, 
the  chasm  grows  deeper  and  deeper  in  our 
country  between  modern  society  and  Ca- 
tholicism. But  faith  comes  by  hearing,  and 
how  shall  she  hear  without  preachers  T 

Protestantism  has  thus  a  great  mission  to 
fulfill  in  France,  and  one  to  which  it  is  fully 
alive — that  of  giving  her  the  Gospel.  God 
has  preserved  it  as  if  by  a  miracle,  that  it 
may  become  the  salvation  of  our  country. 
It  is  the  ark  that  floats  upon  the  troubled 
waters  of  infidelity  and  superstition,  and 
which  contains  the  family  from  whence  a 
new  people  shall  spring. 

In  order  that  this  mission  may  be  accom- 
plished, there  are  two  desiderata — religious 
liberty,  and  the  settling  of  internal  strug- 
gles. 

Of  religious  liberty,  in  the  first  place.  I 
have  already  been  able  to  show  you  how 
restrained  and  inadequate  this  liberty  is. 
When  will  it  be  more  ample  ?  If  our  famous 
"  gouveruement  de  combat "  succeeds  in  re- 
establishing the  legitimate  monarchy,  we 
shall  not  find  that  it  will  bear  us  liberty  in 
the  folds  of  its  white  flag.  If,  on  the  other 
hand,  as  we  would  fain  hope,  the  present 
political  crisis  results  in  establishing  the  Re- 
public on  a  firmer  basis,  an  era  of  liberty 
may  begin  in  France  which  we  shall  bo 
able  to  turn  to  account  by  sowing  the  good 
seed  of  the  Gospel  in  that  vast  field  which 
has  been  furrowed  by  so  many  and  so  sad 
trials. 

A  new  work  was  founded  last  year  at 
Nlmes,  under  the  name  of  the  "Mission  of  tho 
Interior,"  tho  object  of  which  is  to  group  to- 
gether all  our  forces  with  an  eye  to  evan- 


DECOPPET:  RELIGION  IN  THE  EEFOEMED  CHURCH  IN  FRANCE.        73 


gelizing.  This  work  adapts  itself  to  needs 
•which  are  so  urgent,  and  is  so  clearly  a  Chris- 
tian duty,  that  it  can  not  fail  to  extend  itself. 
Allow  me  to  seize  a  moment  here  to  explain 
what  I  understand,  as  applied  to  France  and 
to  other  Catholic  countries,  by  an  "  Internal 
Mission." 

This  mission,  as  I  conceive  it,  should  be 
confided  to  pastors  or  laymen  devoted  to  this 
one  object,  who  are  gifted  with  the  ability 
of  speaking  in  public.  They  would  go  from 
town  to  town  and  from  village  to  village 
announcing  the  Gospel — and  this,  not  in  the 
form  of  sermons,  but  by  means  of  meetings, 
addressing  their  hearers  in  plain,  popular  lan- 
guage, as  free  as  possible  from  theological 
technicalities.  These  meetings  should  be 
announced  by  means  of  placards  and  the 
public  press,  and  held,  not  in  buildings  con- 
secrated to  religious  services,  where  no  one 
Avould  attend  them,  but  in  any  conArenient 
concert  -  hall,  assembly -room,  or  theatre. 
Whatever  attempts  of  this  kind  have  been 
recently  made  have  met  with  signal  success. 
But  the  seed  must  be  sown  broadcast.  The 
Gospel  must  be  published.  It  must  at  all 
costs  penetrate  beyond  the  temples  in  which 
it  has  been  too  closely  confined  and  brought 
to  the  doors  of  the  ignorant.  But — and  I  in- 
sist strongly  upon  this  point — we  must  have 
for  this  work  men  who  have  no  other  min- 
istry, and  who  can  devote  themselves  to  it 
alone.  Catholicism  has  its  preaching  friars. 
Let  Protestantism,  too,  have  its  preaching 
confraternity  at  last ! 

The  second  great  task  that  must  be 
achieved  if  Protestantism  is  to  take  a  prop- 
er footing  in  France,  is  the  settling  the  great 
internal  struggle  between  faith  and  Ration- 
alism that  has  disturbed  the  National  Church 
for  about  half  a  century.  So  long  as  this 
struggle  lasts,  our  Church  will  not  be  able 
to  make  any  important  conquests.  This 
struggle,  indeed,  absorbs  the  flower  of  our 
strength  instead  of  concentrating  it  in  ex- 
ternal action,  and  has,  moreover,  singularly 
helped  to  discredit  Protestantism  among 
Catholics.  The  spectacle  of  our  discords — 
often  violent  discords  —  is  far  from  being 
edifying,  and  they  furnish  the  enemies  of 
our  Church  with  a  plausible  pretext  for  their 
assertion  that  Protestantism  leads  neces- 
sarily to  negation,  and  that  it  is  on  the  high- 
road to  dissolution. 

But  no !  The  crisis  through  which  we  are 
passing  is  not  a  dissolution.  I  will  describe 
its  true  nature  in  a  few  words :  it  is  the  ef- 
fort of  a  Church  which,  after  having  been 
thrown  down,  scattered,  almost  destroyed, 
is  laboring  with  patient  energy  to  rise  again 
and  reconstitute  itself  consistently  witli  its 
own  laws.  Notwithstanding  its  distresses, 
this  struggle  has  neither  been  carried  on 
without  dignity  nor  without  utility.  It  has 
compelled  many  minds  to  shake  oft'  their  in- 
difference, to  concern  themselves  about  re- 


ligious questions,  and  to  give  a  reason  for 
their  faith.  It  has  served  also  to  dissipate 
many  illusions  by  showing  what  befalls 
Christianity  when  its  supernatural  basis  is 
removed. 

This  struggle  would,  doubtless,  have  had 
neither  the  same  duration  nor  the  same  vio- 
lence if  our  Church  had  not  been  united  to 
the  State ;  but  this  union  at  the  date  when 
our  Church  accepted  it  at  the  hands  of  Na- 
poleon, in  1802,  was  unavoidable.  It  was  the 
official  recognition  of  its  existence  and  its 
rights,  the  proclamation  of  liberty  of  con- 
science and  equality  of  "  communions."  It 
appeared  at  the  time  an  immense  benefit ; 
and  it  was  so  indeed,  for  it  was  the  repara- 
tion of  past  injustice  and  the  right  of  citi- 
zenship restored  to  Protestantism.  To  which 
we  may  add  that  at  that  epoch  the  sever- 
ance of  Church  aud  State  was  an  idea 
that  had  hardly  presented  itself  to  men's 
minds. 

It  would  require  more  time  than  I  have 
at  my  disposal  were  I  to  retrace,  however 
roughly,  the  history  of  the  present  crisis.  I 
will  limit  myself  to  describing  its  position  at 
this  moment. 

Our  Church  was  deprived  of  its  synods 
three  centuries  ago.  The  last,  held  at  Lou- 
dun  in  1659,  was  dissolved  by  Louis  XIV. 
Our  fathers  well  understood  the  weight  of 
the  blow  struck  by  the  great  despot  at  their 
Church ;  for  Bailie",  the  president  of  the  syn- 
od, protested  energetically,  declaring  that 
it  was  absolutely  impossible  that  the  Reform- 
ed religion  could  be  preserved  without  hold- 
ing these  assemblies.  Later,  Napoleon  I.  re- 
stored to  our  Church  its  legal  existence,  but 
he  did  not  restore  its  synodical  organization, 
and  such  was  the  general  lukewarmness  that 
no  one  claimed  it.  Our  communities  were 
therefore  obliged  to  live  apart  from  '  one 
another ;  they  had  no  means  whereby  to  ex- 
press their  faith  in  concert,  and  to  form  res- 
olutions in  common.  It  was  a  body  without 
a  head,  or  rather  it  consisted  of  scattered 
members,  with  no  ties  except  common  mem- 
ories, a  common  liturgy,  and  a  common  ad- 
ministration. Thanks  to  this  disorganiza- 
tion, Rationalism,  at  first  moderate,  and  still 
holding  in  a  measure  to  the  supernatural  el- 
ement, and  eventually  more  and  more  nega- 
tive, spread  itself,  unchecked,  in  certain 
churches.  The  law  declared,  truly  enough, 
that  it  was  the  business  of  the  consistories 
to  watch  over  the  maintenance  of  discipline 
and  of  the  liturgy ;  but  when  these  consisto- 
ries, appointed  since  1852  by  all  the  faithful, 
belonged  for  the  most  part  to  the  radical 
part}',  this  law  became  a  dead  letter.  Thus 
was  there  an  end  in  the  Church  to  all  fixed 
authority  whereby  to  defend  her  against  the 
innovation  of  doctrines  to  which  she  had 
hitherto  been  a  stranger:  her  self-govern- 
ment was  gone — she  \vas  cut  adrift — a  ves- 
sel without  a  rudder.  Such  a  state  of  things 


74 


REPORTS  ON  THE  STATE  OF  RELIGION. 


could  not  have  gone  on  without  imperiling 
the  very  existence  of  our  Church  ;  and  hence 
those  efforts  of  the  evangelical  party,  for 
some  years  past,  to  obtain  from  government 
the  right  to  convoke  a  general  synod. 

These  efforts  have  been  crowned  with  suc- 
cess. Thanks  to  the  restorative  and  liberal 
government  of  M.  Thiers,  we  have  triumph- 
ed over  the  opposition  of  our  adversaries 
and  obtained  a  general  synod.  It  met  last 
year  at  Paris,  and  its  labors,  extending  over 
no  fewer  than  twenty  -  uiue  sittings,  have 
sent  an  echo  throughout  our  country  and 
beyond  it.  Three  main  questions  were  the 
object  of  its  deliberations :  1st.  The  authori- 
ty of  the  synod,  and  its  competence  to  ex- 
press the  faith  of  the  Church ;  2d.  The  dec- 
laration of  faith;  3d.  The  religious  condi- 
tions to  which  electors  are  liable.  The  ma- 
jority of  the  synod  settled  these  questions  in 
n  sense  at  once  evangelical  and  liberal.  It 
restored  to  the  Church  her  self-government, 
with  order  and  dignity  in  the  re-establishing 
of  the  constitution  of  its  synod.  It  expressed 
the  faith  of  the  Church  in  the  following  dec- 
laration :  "At  the  moment  when  it  resumes 
the  series  of  its  synods,  interrupted  for  so 
many  years,  the  Reformed  Church  of  France 
experiences,  above  all  things,  the  need  of 
rendering  thanks  to  God,  and  of  testifying 
to  its  love  to  Jesus  Christ,  its  divine  Head, 
who  has  sustained  and  consoled  it  through- 
out the  course  of  its  trials.  She  declares 
that  she  remains  faithful  to  the  principles 
of  faith  and  liberty  upon  which  she  was 
founded.  With  her  fathers  and  martyrs  in 
the  Confession  of  la  Rochelle,  with  all  the 
churches  of  the  Reformation  in  their  several 
symbols,  it  proclaims  the  sovereign  authori- 
ty of  the  Holy  Scriptures  in  matters  of  faith, 
and  salvation  by  faith  in  Jesus  Christ  the 
only  Son  of  God,  who  died  for  our  sins  and 
rose  again  for  our  justification.  She  pre- 
serves and  maintains,  at  the  foundation  of 
her  teaching,  her  worship  and  her  religion, 
the  great  Christian  facts  represented  in  her 
sacraments,  celebrated  in  her  religious  so- 
lemnities, and  expressed  in  her  liturgies, 
particularly  in  the  confession  of  sins,  in  the 
Apostles'  Creed,  and  in  the  Service  of  the 
Holy  Communion."  Lastly,  the  majority  of 
the  synod  decided  that  no  one  could  be  ap- 
pointed a  pastor  of  the  Church  if  he  could 
not  accept  the  faith,  and  that  no  one  could 
become  an  elector  unless  he  declared  "he 
was  from  his  heart  attached  to  the  Prot- 
estant Reformed  Church  of  France,  and  to 
revealed  truth  as  contained  in  the  sacred 
books  of  the  Old  and  New  Testaments." 

In  vain  the  minority  protests  against  these 
decisions,  and  causes  agitations  in  our  church- 
es to  prevent  their  being  carried  into  execu- 
tion. The  decisions  are  an  established  fact, 
and  carry  with  them  a  considerable  moral 
authority.  These  decisions  solemnly  attest 
that  the  Reformed  Church  of  France  desires 


to  be  faithful  to  its  glorious  past  career, 
and  to  the  Gospel,  that  she  is  not  a  philo- 
sophical school  open  to  all  systems,  but  that 
she  understands  her  mission  to  be  that  of 
a  Christian  Church,  which  rests  upon  the 
affirmation  of  the  great  supernatural  facts 
which  form  the  historical  basis  of  Chris- 
tianity. 

If,  in  opposition  to  our  endeavors,  and  by 
an  abuse  of  power  which  would  be  an  act  of 
despotism,  the  Government  were  not  to  ac- 
cept the  decisions  of  the  synod,  what  would 
be  the  course  of  the  evangelical  majority 
which  forms  the  Church  ?  This  is  the  im- 
portant question  that  occupies  us  at  this  mo- 
ment, and  with  regard  to  which  we  search 
to  discern  what  is  the  will  of  God.  To  sepa- 
rate ourselves  from  the  state,  leaving  our 
members  to  group  themselves  freely  accord- 
ing to  their  religious  affinities — this  would 
be  the  most  heroic,  but  would  it  be  the  wisest 
course  ?  I  doubt  it  greatly.  Separation  of 
Church  and  State  has  made  great  progress 
among  us  for  the  last  twenty  years ;  our  last 
synod  freely  declared  itself  in  favor  of  this 
step,  and  there  are  few  pastors  among  us 
who  do  not  admit  that  separation  is  desira- 
ble in  theory ;  but  its  practical  realization 
presents,  in  France,  peculiar  difficulties.  Our 
Protestant  populations  are  not  yet  ripe  for 
this  great  act  of  independence  and  faith,  the 
necessity  of  which  they  do  not  sufficiently 
understand.  If  the  evangelical  pastors  were 
to  set  the  example  —  and  they  are  often 
tempted  to  do  so — there  is  reason  to  fear 
that  their  flocks  would  not  follow  them. 
With  an  eye  to  this  fear,  would  it  be  wise 
to  abandon  them,  in  the  official  establish- 
ment, to  the  teaching  of  radical  pastors, 
who  would  take  good  care — and  we  know 
very  well  why — not  to  separate  themselves 
from  the  state  ?  Would  not  this  be  to  sac- 
rifice to  a  theory  the  spiritual  life  of  our 
people  and  the  future  itself  of  the  Protestant 
faith  ?  And  supposing  that  the  members  of 
our  Church  unanimously  came  to  a  rupture 
with  the  state,  then  Catholicism  would  re- 
main the  one  religion  officially  recognized 
as  the  state  religion  in  France — flourishing 
anew,  while  the  nation  would  behold  Prot- 
estantism falling  back  into  that  background 
from  which  it  has  emerged  after  so  much 
toil.  The  question  is,  as  you  see,  a  very 
complicated  and  a  very  delicate  one;  and 
the  greater  part  of  the  evangelical  Christians 
of  our  Church,  while  they  long  for  separa- 
tion, are  convinced  that  we  must  await  the 
course  of  events,  and  that,  although  our  com- 
munities should  prepare  themselves,  it  would 
be  imprudent  to  attempt  to  bring  it  about. 
In  my  mind,  the  only  possible  and  desirable 
solution  that  presents  itself  at  the  present 
moment,  is  that  the  state  should  recognize 
two  national  churches  —  the  evangelical 
Church,  with  its  synod — the  inheritor  of  the 
faith  and  ecclesiastical  constitution  of  our 


DECOPPET :   RELIGION  IN  THE  REFORMED  CHURCH  IN  FRANCE. 


75 


fathers — -and  the  liberal  Church,  without  any 
confession  of  faith,  open  to  no  matter  what 
doctrines,  and  to  any  systems  calling  them- 
selves Protestant. 

However  this  may  be,  the  situation  at  this 
moment  is  critical;  it  is  near  its  turning- 
point.  The  second  session  of  the  synod  will 
shortly  begin ;  and  if  the  Government  should 
not  confirm  the  acts  of  the  synod  of  1872,  or 
should  persist  in  silence  thereupon,  the  evan- 


gelical majority  will  have  to  come  to  a  sol- 
emn determination. 

Unite  with  us,  dear  brethren,  in  asking 
God  that  this  determination  may  be  blessed 
by  heavenly  guidance,  that  it  may  be  at  the 
same  time  faithful  and  prudent,  and  that, 
under  the  serious  circumstances  that  will 
decide  the  destinies  of  our  beloved  Church, 
the  faith,  firmness,  and  wisdom  of  our  fa- 
thers may  be  found  again  in  their  children. 


THE  OTHER  PROTESTANT  CHURCHES  IN  FRANCE. 


BY  THE   REV.  GEORGE   FISCH,  D.D., 

Pastor  of  the  Free  Church  in  Paris. 


I  MUST  first  thank  the  Committee  on  the 
Programme  for  the  opportunity  which  is  af- 
forded to  me  to  complete  the  report  on  the 
religious  state  of  France. 

There  is  outside  of  the  Reformed.  Church 
another  Church,  also  established  and  support- 
ed by  the  state ;  I  mean  the  Lutheran.  That 
Church  numbered  before  the  -war  300,000 
souls,  with  three  different  centres :  1.  Alsace 
and  Lorraine,  where  there  were  220,000  Lu- 
therans; 2.  The  D6partement  du  Doubs,  with 
40,000 ;  and  3.  Paris,  with  an  equal  number. 
The  conquest  of  Alsace  and  Lorraine  by  Ger- 
many took  away  from  her  the  main  body, 
and  left  only  the  two  other  minor  centres, 
separated  by  a  distance  of  three  hundred 
miles.  In  the  Doubs,  in  that  industrious 
country  of  Montbeliard,  the  Lutheran  Church 
has  a  great  struggle  to  sustain.  It  is  di- 
vided between  the  Rationalists  and  the 
Evangelical  party,  but  the  latter  one  is 
still  advancing.  There  is  a  great  desire  in 
the  people  to  hear  the  pure  Gospel.  The 
progress  made  in  that  line  for  the  last  twen- 
ty years  is  most  encouraging.  In  Paris  all 
the  pastors  and  elders  are  Evangelical,  with- 
out a  single  exception.  The  Lutheran 
Church  is  admirably  well  organized.  It 
supported  formerly  a  large  missionary  work 
among  the  Germans,  through  the  help  of  the 
Christians  of  the  country  across  the  Rhine. 
Since  the  resources  from  Germany  have  been 
in  great  part  suspended,  our  Lutheran  friends 
have  made  noble  efforts  to  keep  up  these 
works.  Their  schools  are  attended  by  a 
great  many  Roman  Catholic  children,  and 
have  been  the  means  of  bringing  hundreds 
of  them  into  the  bosom  of  the  Protestant 
Church. 

Let  me  now  speak  of  the  churches  which 
are  independent  of  the  state.  They  are 
three  :  the  Baptists,  the  Methodists,  and  the 
Free  Church.  As  I  belong  to  the  last  one,  I 
will  speak  of  the  others  first. 

1.  The  Baptists  owe  their  origin  to  Ameri- 
ca. The  first  spark  of  life  which  gave  rise 
to  that  Church  was  spread  by  an  Ameri- 
can traveler,  and  now  they  are  supported 
by  the  Baptists  of  the  United  States.  They 
have  a  dozen  churches  in  the  De"parteineut 
de  Pitisne.  These  are  composed  almost  ex- 
clusively of  converts  from  Popery.  At  a  time 
when  other  churches  were  tolerated  under 


Louis  Philippe,  and  during  the  first  years  of 
the  Empire,  they  had  the  honor  of  bearing 
alone  the  brunt  of  persecution.  They  have 
opened  a  new,  beautiful  church  in  one  of 
our  most  fashionable  streets  of  Paris.  I  am 
sure  that  most  of  the  money  required  for 
that  building  came  from  America,  as  our 
dear  Baptist  brethren  are  very  poor. 

2.  The  Methodists.    They  have  labored  in 
France  for  forty  years,  and  number  now  17 
circuits,  184  places  of  worship,  a  member- 
ship of  more  than  1900,  and  besides,  90  can- 
didates for  admission,  and  3800  children  in 
their  Sunday-schools.      That  Church  is  a 
model  of  organization.     It  has  done  a  great 
deal  of  good  in  the  South  of  France,  Avhere 
the  excellent  Dr.  Cook,  whoso  son  is  one  of 
our  delegates  to  this  Conference,  has  worked 
for  a  long  time  as  an  apostle,  and  had  the 
honor  to  give  his  name  to  all  those  who 
Avere  converted  at  that  time.     The  people 
of  God  in  the  South  were   called  cncookfo. 
That  denomination  was  prominent  from  the 
very  beginning  of  the  Evangelical  Alliance 
by  its  zeal  in  behalf  of  Christian  Union,  and 
we  still  sustain  to  it  the  most  friendly  re- 
lations. 

3.  The  Free  Church.     It  owes  its  origin  to 
the  ecclesiastical  movement  of  1848.  Dr.  Fred- 
erick Monod  left  the  Established  Church  on 
account  of  its  refusal  to  adopt  any  confession 
of  faith.     He  called  upon  the  independent 
churches  already  existing  in  the  country  to 
send  delegates  to  Paris,  and  the -Synod  held 
in  that  city  in  1849  elaborated  a  constitution 
which  is,  in  onr  own  opinion,  the  very  best 
we  know  of.    It  is  the  most  happy  marriage 
of  Presbyterian  ism  and  Congregationalism. 
We  combine  all  the  advantages  which  each 
of  these  two  denominations  claims  for  itself. 
Congregationalism  is  based  upon  an  entire 
freedom  of  each  congregation,  and  we  have 
it  as  fully  as  possible.     Presbyteriauism  is 
based  upon  the  essential  unity  of  all  the 
congregations   forming   one   body,  and   we 
have  our  Synods  and  our   four  Synodical 
boards  for  common  action.     Order  and  lib- 
erty are  equally  secured  in  our  midst. 

The  present  number  of  our  churches  will 
appear  very  small  in  this  country.  It  is 
only  forty-six ;  but  wo  are  growing.  This 
great  nation,  so  small  when  the  Pilgrims 
landed  on  your  shores,  and  which  now  ex- 


FISCH :   THE  OTHER  PROTESTANT  CHURCHES  IN  FRANCE. 


77 


tends  from  the  Atlantic  to  the  Pacific,  should, 
more  than  any  other,  countenance  the  small 
things  when  they  are  growing,  and  have  as 
its  motto  the  words  of  the  Scripture,  that  we 
must  not  despise  the  small  beginnings.  The 
salaries  of  our  pastors  will  also  appear  very 
strange  in  this  assembly.  We  are  poor,  very 
poor,  and  all  that  we  can  afford  to  give  to  a 
pastor  in  a  rural  district  is  from  three  hun- 
dred and  sixty  to  four  hundred  dollars. 
However,  every  one  of  our  members,  who  are 
for  the  most  part  workmen  or  peasants,  gives 
on  an  average  fifty  of  our  francs  a  year  for 
the  support  of  God's  work. 

The  Lord  has  blessed  us  with  precious  re- 
vivals. One  of  them  has  already  been  con- 
tinuing for  three  years,  at  St.  Jean,  in  a  Prot- 
estant town  seated  amidst  enchanting  scenery 
in  one  of  the  most  beautiful  valleys  of  the 
Avennes.  It  began  in  our  own  Church,  and 
afterward  reached  the  Established  Church. 
You  may  hear  from  morning  to  evening  the 
sweet  sound  of  our  hymns  in  the  silk-spinning 
factories.  There  were  Sundays  when  both 
the  Established  and  the  Free  Church  remain- 
ed open  the  whole  day  for  prayer,  and  the 
prayer-meetings  succeeded  each  other  with- 
out interruption.  And  the  spirit  of  broth- 
erly love  is  so  prevalent  there  that  our  last 
Synod,  which  was  held  at  St.  Jean  in  Au- 
gust, held  its  session  partly  in  the  National 
Church.  What  would  you  think  of  Trinity 
Church  in  this  city  being  offered  to  the  Pres- 
byterian General  Assembly  for  its  meetings  ? 
Another  of  our  churches,  Le  Riou,  in  the 
Haute  Loire,  situated  at  the  height  of  5000 
feet  above  the  sea,  has  been  also  visited  by 
a  continuous  revival,  which  for  these  last  five 
years  has  been  bringing  hundreds  of  souls  to 
true  repentance. 

Many  of  our  churches  have  been  almost 
entirely  brought  over  from  Popery.  The 
most  important  of  this  class  is  the  Evangel- 
ical Church  of  Lyons.  It  was  founded  by 
one  who  was  much  known  and  admired  in 
this  country — Adolphe  Monod,  who  was  de- 
cidedly the  greatest  French  preacher  of  our 


age.  I  had  the  privilege  of  being  its  pastor 
for  fourteen  years,  and  it  numbered  six  hun- 
dred communicants,  nearly  all  of  whom  were 
converts  from  Popery.  Other  churches,  at 
St.  Etienne,  Roanne,  Clermont,  etc.,  are  in 
the  same  position.  The  Evangelical  Society 
of  France,  which,  although  based  on  Catho- 
lic ground,  is  under  the  management  of  mem- 
bers of  the  Free  Church,  works  exclusively 
among  Roman  Catholics,  and  sees  thousands 
and  thousands  of  them  attending  with  ex- 
treme delight  the  preaching  of  salvation. 

If  we  are  feeble  in  point  of  numbers,  we 
have,  nevertheless,  within  the  pale  of  our 
churches  several  of  the  men  who  are  most 
conspicuous  in  France.  You  must  not  meas- 
ure us,  you  must  weigh  us.  I  will  speak 
only  of  my  two  colleagues  in  the  same  church 
at  Paris — M.  Bersier,  whose  name  is  so  pop- 
ular for  his  admirable  sermons,  and  Dr.  De 
Pressense',  who  is  both  a  divine  and  a  Chris- 
tian orator,  and  who,  as  member  of  our  Na- 
tional Assembly,  is  doing  great  good  for  our 
nation.  He  is  equally  listened  to  by  the  two 
sides  of  our  Parliament — by  the  clericals,  be- 
cause he  advocates  the  rights  of  Christian- 
ity ;  by  the  Republicans,  because  he  advo- 
cates the  rights  of  liberty. 

And  now,  before  I  conclude,  let  me  enforce 
the  words  of  my  friend,  M.  Decoppet,  who 
expressed  the  hope  that  his  Church  and  ours 
might  soon  stand  upon  the  same  platform. 
I  am  so  happy  to  be  free  that  my  love  to 
my  brethren  who  struggle  still  so  nobly  in 
the  Established  Church  makes  me  heartily 
desire  that  they  may  be  soon  as  free  as  I 
am ;  and  if  we  keep  up  the  Republic,  that 
event  may  occur  sooner  than  we  now  an- 
ticipate. There  is  a  strong  party  of  Repub- 
licans, whose  watch-word  is,  "  Separation 
between  Church  and  State."  If  they  have 
once  the  majority  in  our  Government,  they 
will  carry  it  into  practice ;  and  then,  when 
perfect  religious  freedom  does  prevail  in 
France,  what  a  glorious  day  for  my  native 
country !  What  an  immense  work  we  shall 
have  to  do !  Help  us  to  it  by  your  prayers. 


CHRISTIAN  LIFE  IN  GERMANY. 


BY  THE  REV.  HERMANN  KRUMMACHER,  BRANDENBURG. 
[Born  at  Langeitberrj,  Prussia,  March  28,  1828.] 


MOST  ESTEEMED  AND  BELOVED  BUETIIKEX, 

IN  CHRIST, — I  have  been  called  upon  by  yon 
to  give  a  picture  of  Christian  life  iu  Germany 
— I  suppose  in  Protestant  Germany.  For 
your  sake,  and  for  the  sake  of  my  country,  I 
wish  that  a  more  skillful  delineator  had  been 
charged  with  this  task.  However,  as  it  is 
conferred  on  me,  I  will  try  to  accomplish  it 
as  well  as  I  can.  I  hope  your  indulgence 
will  cover  the  defects  of  my  sketch  as  well 
as  my  mismanaging  your  noble  language, 
and  I  pray  the  Lord  to  forbid  that  any  mis- 
chief be  done  by  it. 

There  are  two  Germans  who  bear  the  epi- 
thet "  the  most  German  of  Germans ;"  they 
are  both  also  honored  with  the  name  of  "fa- 
ther." One  of  them  is  Father  Luther,  the 
ice-breaker  of  German  Reformation,  the  au- 
thor of  our  German  Bible,  the  singer  of  the 
Protestant  triumphal  song,  "Em  feste  burg 
ist  unser  Gott" — A  secure  Fortress  is  our 
God.  The  other  is  Father  Arndt,  the  Tyr- 
taius  of  the  German  war  of  independence, 
the  teacher  of  German  history,  the  poet  of 
the  national  song,  "What  is  the  German's 
Fatherland?" 

Of  course  these  two  men  can  not  be  placed 
on  the  same  height  of  historical  importance. 
What  is  Ernst  Moritz  Arndt  in  comparison 
with  Dr.  Martin  Luther?  Nevertheless,  it 
is  no  mere  accident  that  the  German  nation 
calls  these  two  men  its  most  genuine  sous, 
and  views  in  them  the  type  of  its  own  na- 
ture, and  that  it  looks  up  to  these  men  with 
that  reverence  which  is  expressed  in  the  ap- 
pellation "  father." 

This  union  of  the  reformer  Luther  and 
the  patriot  Arndt  iu  the  popular  opinion, 
corresponds  with  a  rule  of  action  which  has 
hitherto  been  predominant  in  the  history  of 
the  German  nation,  and  which  has  impressed 
itself  deeply  into  its  life.  Namely,  the  most 
important  epochs  of  the  German  development 
have  always  been  at  the  same  time  both  re- 
ligious and  national  epochs;  the  religious 
and  the  national  motives  have  therein  co- 
operated with  one  another.  I  beg  you  to 
comprehend  this  thesis  simply  as  it  is  meant, 
viz.,  positive,  not  exclusive  or  comparative : 
I  have  solely  the  task  to  speak  about  Ger- 
many. 

This  union  of  the  religious  and  nation- 
al causes  appears  also  in  each  of  those  two 
most  German  of  the  Germans.  Luther,  the 


church-reformer,  has  addressed  his  first  and 
principal  writ  of  reformation  to  the  Chris- 
tian nobility  of  the  German  nation  ;  and 
immediately  in  the  first  lines  of  it  lie  says, 
"The  distress  and  oppression  which  bend 
down  all  states  of  Christendom,  especially 
in  Germany,  have  anon  forced  me  to  shriek 
and  to  cry,  whether  God  would  be  pleased 
to  impart  his  spirit  to  any  one  to  enable 
him  to  re-establish  the  wretched  nation." 
Ernst  Moritz  Arndt,  the  patriotic  poet,  has 
also  composed  hymns  of  faith,  one  of  which 
begins : 

Ich  weiss  an  weu  ich  glaube— 

I  know  whom  I  believe ; 

and  continues : 

Das  ist  das  Licht  der  Hone, 

Das  ist  der  Jesus  Christ — 
Der  Fels,  anf  dem  ich  stehe, 

Der  diaraanten  ist — 

He  is  the  light  of  heaven, 
Our  Saviour  Jesus  Christ — 

The  diaraoud-rock  immovable. 
On  whom  my  foot  doth  stand. 

And  iu  a  dirge  of  his  he  exclaims : 

Don't  weep  o'er  me,  for  I  have  found 

My  sweetest  Lord  and  Saviour; 
I  have  my  share  iu  that  warm  wound, 

From  which  for  every  creature 
Ilis  precious  heart-blood  flowed  to  ground. 

Allow  me  to  cast  a  glance  at  history. 

The  German  nation  owes  its  existence, 
to  Christianity.  Before  Germany  embraced 
Christianity  there  were,  it  is  true,  German 
tribes,  but  no  bond  of  union  knit  them  to- 
gether. Boniface,  the  Apostle  of  the  Ger- 
mans, is  also  the  first  founder  of  the  German 
nation.  At  the  time  of  Boniface  and  the 
Carlovingiaus  German  history  first  began. 

The  first  period  of  it  comprehends  the 
mediaeval  centuries.  The  peculiar  charac- 
ter of  the  Middle  Ages  was — iu  spite  of  all 
struggles  between  the  "  irnperium  "  and  the 
•  sacerdotium  " — the  religious  or  church-like 
coloring  of  the  whole  national  and  social  life. 
The  peculiar  mission  of  the  middle  age  was 
the  education  of  the  nation  under  the  guid- 
ance of  the  Roman  Church.  But  by  this 
instruction  the  Germans  reached  only  the 
threshold  of  true  Christianity;  outward  ap- 
pearances of  spiritual  and  moral  life  were 
impregnated  with  Christianity.  Christian 


KRUMMACHER:  CHRISTIAN  LIFE  IN  GERMANY. 


79 


art,  Christian  learning,  grew  up ;  Christian 
habits  and  morals  took  root ;  but  that  ele- 
ment of  Christianity,  by  which  it  settles  it- 
self in  the  innermost  centre  of  human  per- 
sonality, the  mystical  element,  the  correlate  of 
which  is  subjective  piety,  had  not  its  due  right, 
neither  in  the  public  worship,  fitted  princi- 
pally to  satisfy  fancy,  nor  in  the  dogmatic 
laws  and  ordinances,  the  aim  of  which  was 
throughout,  not  the  devotion  of  the  heart  to 
God,  but  the  subjection  of  the  will  to  the 
Church,  that  is  to  say,  the  clergy.  Thus  it 
easily  happened  that  the  mystical  instinct 
took  evil  and  erroneous  courses. 

The  middle  age  is  terminated,  and  the 
modern  age  opens  with  reformation,  which 
in  a  sound  manner  established  the  mystical 
element  of  Christianity  by  means  of  the  doc- 
trine of  the  justification  by  faith,  in  which 
as  nowhere  else  we  see  pulsation,  we  feel 
the  warm  breath  of  reformation.  It  has  al- 
ready been  mentioned  that  Luther,  the  Ger- 
man reformer,  also  revived  in  our  country  a 
certain  national  feeling.  The  Reformation, 
primitively  and  substantially  a  religious 
movement,  spread  through  the  whole  intel- 
lectual, moral,  political,  and  social  life  of 
the  nation.  On  the  other  hand,  the  grava- 
mina of  the  imperial  diets  of  Worms  and 
Nuruberg  against  Rome,  and  worthies  like 
Franz  von  Sickiugen,  Ulrich  von  Hutten, 
Philipp  of  Hesse,  evidently  show  that  the 
Reformation  was  at  the  time  countenanced 
from  motives  rooting  in  the  awakened  sense 
of  national  freedom  and  independence. 

It  is  true,  a  bad  counteraction  set  bounds 
to  the  movement,  and  brought  a  part  of  the 
nation  back  under  the  yoke  of  Rome ;  the 
Thirty  Years'  War,  with  its  consequences  of 
desolation  and  devastation  for  our  country 
and  nation,  was  the  deplorable  effect  of  the 
contra-reformation,  and  of  the  arresting  of 
religious  life  within  the  Church  of  the  Ref- 
ormation. 

The  important  and  blissful  Pietistic  move- 
ment at  the  end  of  the  seventeenth  and  the 
beginning  of  the  eighteenth  century  expired 
without  enduring  and  decisive  consequences 
— in  part,  at  least,  because  it  went  not  hand 
in  hand  with  a  national  movement. 

Look,  lastly,  at  the  epoch  which  stands  at 
the  beginning  of  the  nineteenth  century: 
that  is  to  say,  the  time  of  the  War  of  Inde- 
pendence. The  decay  of  Christian  life,  and 
the  relaxation  of  national  feeling  in  the  pe- 
riod of  rationalism  and  illumination,  had 
brought  to  Germany  the  punishment  of  a 
dreadful  national  calamity.  The  change 
that  followed  was  at  once  a  national  and  a 
religious  one ;  and  refreshment  and  deepen- 
ing of  Christian  life  has  been  its  effect,  leav- 
ing fruit,  which  continues  ripening  until  this 
very  day. 

Now  the  last  third  of  our  century  in  Ger- 
many has  again  commenced  with  a  decisive 
epoch  of  national  development.  Whatever 


one  may  think  about  the  causes  of  this  event 
and  the  bloody  complications  by  which  it 
was  accompanied,  the  establishment  of  the 
German  empire  under  a  Protestant  emperor, 
realized  step  by  step  in  the  last  decennial, 
marks  an  increase  of  our  national  life  that 
has  surpassed  by  far  the  boldest  hopes  of  the 
warmest  and  most  intelligent  German  pa- 
triots. 

At  present  the  great  question  which  a  re- 
porter on  Christian  life  in  Germany  finds 
placed  before  him  is  this :  whether  in  thia 
last  epoch  the  old  rule  of  German  history 
has  realized  itself,  that  is  to  say,  whether  a 
religious  progress  has  united  itself  with  the 
national  one. 

Whoever  has  witnessed  the  last  decennial 
in  Germany,  knows  that  in  those  days  of 
danger  and  sorrow,  when  every  family  saw 
relations  of  his  going  to  war,  and  when  the 
bloody  battles  followed  one  after  another, 
there  were  many  signs  which  gave  rise  to 
the  hope  that  a  religious  revival  would  be 
the  fruit  of  the  events. 

Iu  the  years  1864, 1866,  and  1870,  among 
the  rich  and  the  poor,  upon  the  thrones  and 
in  the  meanest  cottages,  in  camps  and  hospi- 
tals, a  religious  susceptibility,  a  hunger  for 
the  Word  of  God,  an  eagerness  to  invoke 
God,  to  give  glory  to  him  and  to  serve  him 
by  works  of  charity,  arose  and  displayed 
themselves  in  such  a  degree,  that  a  great 
many  were  highly  surprised  by  this  store  of 
piety,  emerging,  as  it  were,  all  of  a  sudden, 
A  friend  of  mine  lived,  1870,  at  Saarbriicken ', 
during  the  fight  of  Spichereu  he  endeavored, 
together  with  others,  to  refresh  the  advancing 
warriors,  and  to  assist  the  wounded ;  but  at 
times  he  ran  home,  in  order  to  unite  with  the 
zealous  labor  abroad  on  the  field  the  fervent 
prayer  of  the  closet ;  he  has  assured  me  that 
he  felt  in  those  moments  of  prayer  as  if  he 
were  actually  fighting  with  the  combatants, 
and,  said  he,  "I  shall  always  bear  in  my 
mind  the  conviction  of  having  been  a  sword- 
less  partaker  in  that  glorious  victory  of 
Spichereu."  This  story  is  like  a  mirror  which 
reflects  the  spirit  and  the  demeanor  then  dif- 
fused over  the  whole  of  Protestaut  Germany. 

Two  or  three  years  have  passed  since  then, 
and  to-day  it  will  no  longer  be  rash  to  as- 
sert that  the  expectation  of  a  religious  revi- 
val as  the  fruit  of  the  great  national  events, 
which  was  originally  fostered,  has  not  been 
realized  ;  a  deepening  and  increase  of  Chris- 
tian life  has  not  been  associated  with  the 
political  and  national  progress.  This  is,  I 
think,  a  fact  of  history. 

This  fact  is  a  deplorable  one  ;  or  must  we 
use  stronger  and  harder  expressions?  say  it  is 
hopeless,  it  is  desperate  ?  It  is  an  indisputa- 
ble fact,  the  German  nation  can  not  in  fu- 
ture continue  its  way  through  history  with- 
out religion,  without  Christianity.  Were  it 
to  try  to  do  so,  it  would  bring  itself  to  de- 


80 


REPORTS  ON  THE  STATE  OF  RELIGION. 


cliue,  aud  find  its  ruin  even  earlier  than  oth- 
er nations  \mder  tbe  same  circumstances. 

The  fact  that  the  hope  of  a  Christian  re- 
vival has  failed,  would  indeed  indicate  noth- 
ing else  than  "  finis  Germauia-,"  unless  there 
were  two  consolatory  things.  The  first  is, 
that  our  nation  has  entered  into  the  present 
period  carrying  with  her  a  capital  of  Chris- 
lian  life,  gathered  up  in  the  former  time; 
the  other,  that  there  are  some  circumstances 
which  seem  to  allow  the  hope  that  in  the 
time  to  come  Christian  life  in  Germany  will 
again  take  a  turn  for  the  better. 

Permit  me  to  express  my  meaning  in  a 
few  words. 

The  German  nation,  I  said,  firstly,  has  car- 
ried with  her  a  fund  of  Christian  life  into 
this  present  period.  I  do  not  seek  to  deny 
that  in  my  country,  as  in  others,  yea,  per- 
haps more  than  anywhere  else,  an  incredu- 
lous and  Antichristian  culture  is  iu  vogue, 
and  that  the  symptoms  of  that  sad  fact  show 
themselves,  alas!  too  frequently  among  the 
people,  in  the  parliaments,  in  the  literature, 
iu  the  daily  papers.  The  alienation  of  thou- 
sands upon  thousands  from  any  kind  of  wor- 
ship, especially  in  our  large  cities ;  the  in- 
toxication of  the  masses  with  the  ideas  of 
Socialism ;  the  hunt  after  riches,  which  has 
spread  even  to  the  highest  classes ;  the  war 
waged  by  many  writers  under  the  pretext 
of  science,  especially  of  natural  philosophy, 
against  the  fundaments  of  religious  truth  ; 
the  favor  which  these  representatives  of 
unbelief  venture  to  expect  from  persons  of 
rank  aud  from  the  common  people — as,  for 
instance,  David  Strauss,  who  has  written  his 
second  "  Life  of  Jesus  "  for  the  German  na- 
tion, and  his  "Life  of  Voltaire,"  for  a  Ger- 
man princess,  a  daughter  of  the  royal  house 
of  England,  the  lately  so  painfully  tried 
Princess  Alice  of  Hesse — all  these  are  dark 
shadows  of  the  religious  aud  moral  life  in 
Germany ;  the  same  shadows  w,hich  are  at 
present  darkening  the  whole  civilized  world. 
But,  besides  those  gloomy  stains,  there  are 
also  light  points  and  spots,  bright  stars  and 
stripes. 

With  regard  to  the  theologians  and  cler- 
gymen, I  venture  to  say  that  there  are  but 
a  few  universities  without  faithful  profess- 
ors of  Scriptural  doctrine,  aud  but  few  dis- 
tricts in  the  pulpits  of  which  the  preaching 
of  Christ  crucified — unto  the  Jews  a  stum- 
bling-block, and  unto  the  Greeks  foolishness 
— is  not  throughout  predominant.  In  fact, 
the  critical  and  the  speculative  rationalism 
have  also  their  adherents  among  the  aca- 
demical and  practical  theologians ;  but  \vher- 
ever  it  pronounces  its  doctrines,  opposition 
is  not  wanting.  The  newspapers,  and  the 
popular  sentiment  ruled  by  them,  usually 
take  the  part  of  the  opponents  of  the  Gos- 
.  pel ;  but  their  auditories  and  their  chapels 
are  empty.  The  young  theologians  throng 
to  those  universities  where  faithful  teachers 


fill  the  chairs  of  theology,  and  almost  every- 
where the  hearers  assemble  by  preference 
round  the  pulpits  of  the  preachers  of  the 
Cross.  Among  the  Evangelicals  there  are,  it 
is  true,  several  parties,  oftentimes  combat- 
ing one  with  the  other,  not  without  sharp- 
ness; but  as  they  wield  the  sword  .against 
Rationalism  and  Romanism — the  former  of 
which  denies  that  the  truth,  the  latter  that 
the  grace,  has  come  by  Jesus  Christ — they 
belong  together,  at  all  events,  although  they 
hesitate — like  Luther  at  Marburg,  opposite 
Zwingli  —  to  enter  into  brotherhood  with 
each  other,  and  although  they  reproach  each 
other  by  saying,  "  You  have  a  different  spir- 
it." The  chief  parties  are  those  of  the  Lu- 
theran confessiouists  and  those  of  the  friends 
of  Protestant  union ;  these  two  parties  should 
be  useful  admonishers  to  each  other ;  but,  as 
iu  all  ecclesiastical  parties  the  inclination  to 
accept  advice  from  an  adversary  is  a  very 
rare  thing,  and  the  "  rabies  Iheologorum " 
a  very  frequent  one,  so  these  strifes  have 
scarcely  any  other  result  than  to  spend  no- 
ble faculties,  aud  to  hinder  the  spiritual 
growth  of  the  strugglers  and  the  prospering 
of  the  work  of  the  Lord.  Would  to  God  that 
the  noiseless  activity  of  the  Evangelical  Al- 
liance might  contribute  to  iucrease  in  Ger- 
many and  in  the  whole  of  Christendom  the 
endeavor  to  keep  the  unity  of  the  Spirit  in 
the  bond  of  peace. 

But  the  Protestant  Church  is  not  a  Church 
of  theologians  and  clergymen.  We  must 
enlarge  our  boundary  if  we  will  watch  Chris- 
tian life  in  Germany.  Let  us  look  at  the 
schools.  In  the  elementary  schools  all  Prot- 
estant children  learn  from  infancy  the  stories 
and  sentences  of  the  Bible  and  the  hymns  of 
the  Church ;  and  if  there  are  some  teachers 
who  perform  their  work  mechanically,  there 
are,  on  the  other  side,  a  great  many  who  en- 
deavor diligently  to  watch  for  the  souls  of 
the  children,  and  to  lead  them  to  the  Lord. 
Likewise,  among  the  principals  and  teachers 
of  the  higher  schools  many  are  to  be  found 
who,  while  they  mount  with  full  enthusiasm 
the  Olympus  of  Greece  and  the  hills  of  Rome, 
nevertheless  willingly  acknowledge  that  the 
mountain  of  the  house  of  the  Lord  is  exalt- 
ed above  all  mountains  of  the  world. 

Among  the  teachers  of  the  philosophical, 
historical,  physical,  and  political  sciences, 
we  find  in  all  branches,  besides  adherents 
of  modern  unbelief,  also  confessors  of  Chris- 
tian truth,  and  others  who  at  least  may  be 
considered  as  pioneers  of  the  Gospel,  because 
they  oppose  with  stern  decision  the  atheism 
and  materialism  of  our  days,  and  point  to 
the  hand  of  God,  which  directs  all  things. 

The  same  may  be  said  about  the  arts,  po- 
etry and  music,  sculpture  and  painting.  It 
is  known  that,  likewise,  in  other  influential 
places  the  confession  of  Christ  can  be  heard. 
I  will  silently  pass  over  the  ministers  and 
generals,  although  not  only  the  names  of 


KRUMMACHER :  CHRISTIAN  LIFE  IN  GERMANY. 


81 


Roon  and  Moltke  might  be  mentioned,  but 
if  I  may  be  permitted  I  will  remind  you  that 
our  hoary -haired  emperor  during  the  war 
has  proved  himself  to  be  not  only  a  gallant 
hero,  but  also  a  faithful  preacher,  who,  by  his 
telegrams  and  proclamations,  has  preached 
to  the  whole  of  Germany  in  a  simple,  but  all 
the  more  heartfelt,  manner,  of  the  grace  of 
God,  and  of  the  humility  that  becomes  hu- 
man beings.  Perhaps  you  have  been  told 
that  the  Crown-Prince  of  the  German  empire 
is  given  to  unbelief;  but  I  beg  of  you  to  ex- 
amine well  whether  this  report  can  be  true 
in  relation  to  a  prince  who  frequently  cor- 
responds and  is  most  intimate  with  a  certain 
renowned  and  faithful  theologian  known  to 
him  from  his  youth,  and  what  is  more,  who, 
when  this  venerable  friend  is  his  guest,  likes 
best  to  spend  the  evenings  in  retired  se- 
rious conversation,  and  to  close  them  with 
prayer. 

Surely  the  preaching  and  the  professing 
of  the  Gospel  has  not  yet  grown  mute  in  Ger- 
many— this  fact  can  not  be  unknown  to  those 
who  listen  with  open  ears  ;  and  whoever 
looks  abroad  with  open  eyes  will  find  that 
fruits  and  works  of  faith  are  also  not  want- 
ing. 

The  voluntary  exertions  for  the  further- 
ance of  Christ's  Gospel  in  Germany  can  not, 
of  course,  be  compared  to  those  of  America, 
but  at  any  rate  they  prove  that  there  are 
hearts  glowing  for  the  Lord  and  his  work. 
Another  speaker  has  been  charged  to  ac- 
quaint you  with  what  Germany  is  doing  for 
the  heathen  mission.  Permit  me,  please,  to 
turn  your  attention  to  the  sphere  of  home 
missions  (the  "Inner  Mission").  Here  I 
will  not  allude  to  the  many  Christians,  men 
aud  women,  who  perform  their  public  and 
domestic  duty  with  a  tendency  of  working 
for  Christ ;  but  I  restrict  myself  to  the  exer- 
tions, societies  and  institutions,  expressly  de- 
signed for  Christian  charity  and  the  interests 
of  the  kingdom  of  Christ. 

A  central  committee  of  the  "  Inner  Mis- 
sion" resides  at  Berlin  and  Hamburg;  its 
president  is  Dr.Wichern.  General  congress- 
es of"  Inner  Missions"  are  held  in  connection 
with  the  "  Kirchentag ;"  there  are,  besides, 
numerous  provincial  assemblies,  associations, 
and  committees  scattered  over  all  the  land. 

The,  purposes  of  the  "  Inner  Mission  "  are 
manifold,  as  is  well  known.  It  combats 
against  immoral  practices  and  institutions. 
It  is,  partly  at  least,  an  effect  of  its  pro- 
tests, that  public  gambling-houses,  defamed 
as  gambling-hells,  no  longer  exist  in  Germa- 
ny ;  war  is  also  made  against  drunkenness, 
the  brandy  pestilence,  though  there  are  at 
present  but  few  associations  exclusively  act- 
ing for  this  purpose ;  likewise  the  "  Inner 
Mission"  combats  against  that  murderous 
monster,  prostitution,  by  trying  to  awaken 
the  public  conscience,  and  to  raise  the  pow- 
er of  law  against  it  by  memorials  and  peti- 
G 


tious  addressed  to  the  parliaments.  Not  less 
the  profanation  of  the  Sabbath  is  combated 
against  by  several  means ;  in  this  combat 
the  "Inner  Mission"  is  supported  by  the  So- 
cialists, who  reclaim  Sunday,  of  course  not 
as  the  day  of  the  Lord,  but  as  their  own 
day.  Nevertheless,  this  fact  proves  that  the 
acknowledgment  of  the  excellence  of  Sun- 
day is  increasing.  A  nice  anecdote  concern- 
ing this  matter  is  related  about  the  Chan- 
cellor Bismarck.  Hearing  one  day  that  the 
workmen  on  his  estates  were  in  the  hab- 
it of  continuing  their  labors  on  Sundays, 
he  directly  ordered  that  they  should  not 
do  so  any  longer.  The  steward  objected 
to  this,  and  said  that  the  workmen,  who 
were  busily  employed  during .  the  whole 
week  for  the  landlord,  required  Sunday  to 
till  their  little  fields  and  gardens ;  to  which 
the  then  count  replied :  "  I  will  not  allow 
God  to  bo  bereft  of  what  is  his  on  my  es- 
tates ;  therefore  things  must  be  arranged 
otherwise ;  if  my  workmen  want  to  till 
their  own  fields,  or  if  their  corn  is  ripe, 
they  must  have  the  preference,  not  I ;  Sun- 
day labor  ends  with  this  day."  Ere  long, 
the  steward  notified  that  the  new  order 
was  attended  with  profitable  economical 
results. 

The  "Inner  Mission"  combats  also,  by 
words  and  acts,  the  worldly  spirit  of  the 
age,  with  which  rich  and  poor,  rude  aud 
learned,  are  infested.  This  mammonism, 
however,  is  not  yet  quite  rampant  in  Ger- 
many. The  Diet  has  given  us  a  proof  there- 
of by  unanimously  accepting  the  Jewish 
member  Lasker's  harsh  critique  on  stock- 
jobbing. 

With  the  combats  against  social  evils,  en- 
deavors to  satisfy  social  wants  are  closely 
connected.  Proprietors  of  estates  and  of 
manufactories  have  formed  several  associ- 
ations, attempting  to  frame  the  social  rela- 
tions between  masters  and  laborers  accord- 
ing to  the  principles  of  Christianity.  Some 
eighty  Christian  inns,  called  "zur  Heimath," 
afford  a  lodging  for  traveling  journeymen, 
aud  also  board  for  laborers.  About  three 
hundred  young  men's  Christian  associations 
include  some  nine  thousand  members.  In 
several  large  towns  schools  and  Sunday  as- 
semblies provide  for  the  spiritual  wants  of 
the  young  women.  By-the-way,  numerous 
infirmaries  may  bo  mentioned,  among  them 
six -and -twenty  houses  for  idiots,  cretins, 
and  epileptics,  of  whom  no  less  than  thirty 
to  forty  thousand  are  said  to  be  in  Germany. 
Some  seven  hundred  infant  schools,  in  towns 
and  villages,  offering  to  the  little  ones  of 
the  workmen  laboring  abroad  the  blessings 
of  a  Christian  nursery,  ought  not  to  be  for- 
gotten. 

In  three  hundred  asylums,  two  hundred 
of  which  have  been  founded  from  1848  to 
1867,  neglected  and  depraved  children  are 
educated ;  several  education  societies  co- 


REPORTS  ON  THE  STATE  OF  RELIGION. 


operate  with  them.  Asylums  and  Magda- 
Icnums  for  adults  go  hand  in  hand  with  as- 
sociations for  convicts  and  prostitutes. 

A  different  purpose  is  pursued  by  theGus- 
tavus  Adolphus  Society.  This  society  builds 
or  helps  to  build  churches,  chapels,  schools, 
and  parsonages  in  European,  Asiatic,  and 
American  countries,  where  the  Protestants 
live  iv  tiuowopf,  and  spends  at  present  up- 
ward of  250,000  thalers  a  year  for  its  pur- 
poses. A  church-building  society  has  exist- 
ed for  several  years  in  Berlin ;  but  to  this 
day  Berlin,  the  capital  of  the  German  em- 
pire, is  perhaps  of  all  towns  on  earth  the 
poorest  in  churches  and  chapels;  and  wo 
feel  ashamed  when  we  see  the  multitude  of 
temples  which  adorn  your  splendid  cities.  I 
shall  pass  over  the  endeavors  to  provide  for 
the  spiritual  wants  of  wanderers  and  emi- 
grants, and  also  the  Bible  and  Tract  socie- 
ties, and  mention,  lastly,  a  flourishing  branch 
of  the  work  of  "  Inner  Missions,"  viz.,  the 
rightly  so  called  American  Sunday-schools, 
t  he  number  of  which,  since  Mr.  Woodruff  vis- 
ited  us  iu  the  year  1863,  has  augmented  to 
about  one  thousand,  and  the  number  of  chil- 
dren therein  instructed  and  guided  to  the 
Good  Shepherd,  by  more  than  four  thousand 
young  men  and  women,  to  about  eighty 
thousand. 

For  a  great  many  of  these  labors  men  and 
women  who  have  been  expressly  trained  for 
this  work  are  required.  For  this  purpose 
brother  and  sister  houses  exist.  Among  the 
former  the  lianhe  Hans,  near  Hamburg,  and 
the  Johannes -stift,  near  Berlin,  excel,  both 
founded  by  Wichern  in  the  years  1833  and 
1855 ;  the  number  of  brothers  working  with- 
in the  different  brother-houses,  and  abroad, 
from  Syria  to  North  America,  amounts  to 
some  eight  hundred.  The  mother  of  all  ex- 
istent sister-houses  is  the  house  of  deacon- 
esses at  Kaiserswerth,  founded  by  Fliedner, 
1836.  At  present  there  are  about  2000  dea- 
conesses laboring  on  600  stations  from  Pe- 
tersburg to  Pittsburg.  Leaders  of  infant 
nurseries  are  prepared  iu  especial  establish- 
ments. 

All  these  institutions  and  labors  of  the 
"  Inner  Mission  "  are  in  existence ;  and  I  dare 
say  the  effect  of  the  dangers  and  evils  of  the 
age  is  that  Christians  iu  all  countries  and 
of  all  denominations  feel  more  strongly  than 
for  some  time  past  the  necessity  and  duty  of 
promoting  them  with  increased  ardor.  It  is 
true,  the  number  of  candidates  for  the  serv- 
ice of  the  Church,  the  school,  and  the  "  Inner 
Mission  "  has  alarmingly  diminished  during 
the  last  few  years ;  but  it  is  to  be  hoped  that 
the  various  endeavors  which  are  made  to 
remedy  the  want  will  not  be  useless ;  and 
there  are  also  other  tokens  which  give  us 
reason  to  hope  for  better  days. 

Concerning  this  last  subject  of  my  report 
I  will  first  mention  the  contest  which  in  Ger- 
many, as  in  Switzerland,  the  governments 


have  entered  into  with  the  Romish  hier- 
archy. It  is  not  my  task  to  examine  the 
origin  of  the  conflict,  nor  to  criticise  the  pro- 
ceedings of  the  belligerents.  I  confess,  how- 
ever, that  my  heart  is  with  the  governments. 
I  look  only  to  the  consequences  of  this  con- 
flict for  Christian  life  in  Germany;  and  in 
that  respect  I  can  not  but  deem  it  a  gracious 
arrangement  of  Providence  that  this  eccle- 
siastical conflict  has  happened  just  at  this 
time  of  political  increase  and  of  overflowing 
temporal  interests;  for  this  conflict,  which  ve- 
hemently stirs  up  the  minds  of  Catholics  and 
Protestants,  leads  irresistibly  the  thoughts 
to  higher  matters,  to  questions  of  religion. 
It  strikes  every  one's  eye  that  belief  is  still 
a  real  existence,  and  has  a  great  weight  with 
history,  and  that  it  is  a  foolish  idea  to  think 
that  the  era  of  the  Church  is  past  and  the 
cause  of  Christianity  overthrown.  Another 
fruit  of  the  ecclesiastical  crisis  will  be,  that 
the  Protestant  churches  will  at  least  obtain 
what  long  since  was  a  necessity,  a  presbyte- 
rial  and  synodal  constitution,  which  will  en- 
able and  compel  the  churches  to  self-help 
and  to  self-government. 

Are  we  not  allowed  to  expect  that  the 
German  Protestants  will  not  be  found  idle 
and  indifferent  ?  and  also  that  the  great 
tasks  and  stern  combats  of  this  time  will 
urge  the  believers  to  forget  their  quarrels 
and  to  work  and  fight  s"ide  by  side  f 

But  I  not  only  had  iu  view  the  prospects 
connected  with  the  events  of  ecclesiastical 
politics  when  I  pointed  at  encouraging  signs 
of  a  better  time  to  come.  I  wish  to  direct 
your  attention,  lastly,  to  another  side.  Who- 
ever listens  attentively  to  the  spiritual  dis- 
position of  the  present  generation,  can  not 
but  perceive  that  not  a  few  minds  have  be- 
gun to  be  disquieted  as  to  what  may  bo  the 
result  of  the  excessive  criticism  of  our  days. 
Firstly,  the  social  phenomena  have  raised 
this  disposition.  There  are  many  despisers 
of  the  sweet  Gospel  of  the  grace  of  God  and 
the  Saviour,  whose  both  ears  anon  tingle  at 
the  horrible  gospel  of  Socialism — which,  in- 
spired by  the  spirit  of  denial,  calls  property 
theft,  matrimony  slavery, religion  madness — 
and  at  the  exultant  howling  by  which  the 
masses  give  assent  to  this  infernal  gospel. 
Terrified,  they  begin  to  understand  that  the 
critical  intellect,  emancipated  from  religion 
and  moral  law,  becomes  an  "  advocatus  dia- 
boli"  and  a  Herostratus,  turning  the  whole 
building  of  human  society  into  a  chaos  of 
fragments  and  ashes. 

Other  causes  of  the  terror  waving  through 
our  land  belong  to  the  sphere  of  scientific 
literature.  Allow  me  to  mention  here  two 
books,  edited  in  the  course  of  the  last  year  or 
two,  which  have  made  an  uncommon  sensa- 
tion among  the  learned  people  of  our  country, 
viz.,  "  The  Old  and  New  Belief,"  by  David 
Strauss,  and  "The  Philosophy  of  the  Uncon- 
scious," by  E.  von  Hartmaun.  The  latter 


KRUMMACHER :  CHRISTIAN  LIFE  IN  GERMANY. 


83 


book  explains,  in  a  brilliant  style  a  system 
of  philosophy  which  purposes  to  be  neither 
rationalistic  nor  materialistic,  but,  in  fact, 
is  both  together;  the  quintessence  of  it  is, 
like  that  of  Schopenhauers's  system,  the  pes- 
simistic contemplation  of  life.  Sensuality,  as 
creditor,  demands  enjoyment ;  good  measure, 
pressed  down  and  shaken  together  and  run- 
ning over;  the  critical  intellect,  as  book- 
keeper, calculates  that  life  is  an  insolvent 
debtor,  that  the  demand  of  sensuality  is  not 
exigible,  the  consequence  of  which  is,  that 
to  have  come  into  life  and  to  be  fettered 
to  life  is  an  ineffable  misery.  This  philos- 
ophy of  ill-temper  and  despair  has  been  ap- 
plauded by  many  people ;  but  among  oth- 
ers— that  is  to  say,  those  who  in  the  conflict 
between  modern  civilization  and  Christian- 
ity take  the  part  of  the  former — the  said  sys- 
tem has  called  forth  the  dreadful  question : 
Where  Avill  this  terminate?  and  the  indig- 
nant outcry,  this  time  not  addressed  to  the 
Christian  apostles,  but  to  the  philosophical 
pseudo-apostles,  "  These  men  are  full  of  new 
wine."  Indeed,  these  people  do  not  hesitate 
to  oppose  the  new  system,  which  they  brand 
with  the  name  of  "  Miserabilism,"  declaring 
that  the  hereafter  of  the  Christian  doctrine 
is  the  most  certain  and  grand  of  all  realities. 
Perhaps  a  time  is  approaching  when  philoso- 
phy will  counter-work  with  energy  and  suc- 
cess the  antichristiau  current  of  the  pres- 
ent day. 

Concerning  theology,  it  may  be  hoped  that 
the  book  of  Strauss  will  help  to  effect 'a  sal- 
utary crisis.  Theological  science  in  Ger- 
many, indeed,  is  not  at  all  predominantly  a 
negative  one ;  no,  the  most  qualified  and  nu- 
merous theologians  stand  upon  the  funda- 
ment of  the  Gospel  of  the  only  begotten  Sou 
of  God,  and  of  the  word  of  the  Cross ;  they 
go  either  in  the  way  of  strict  orthodoxy,  or 
in  that  of  the  so-called  mediating  theology, 
among  the  followers  of  which  once  were  the 
venerable  "prseceptores  Germanise,"  Neander 
and  Nitzsch.  A  considerable  number  of  the- 
ologians, however,  are  ensnared  in  the  nets  of 
the  school  of  Baur;  this  has  not  such  dimen- 
sions in  Germany  as  in  Switzerland  and  Hol- 
land ;  but  the  critical  school  which  has  taken 
its  rise  from  Tubingen  has  nevertheless  a 
not  despicable  troop  of  followers,  who,  even 
if  they  do  not  adhere  in  all  questions  to  the 
master,  at  any  rate  accept  some  weighty  crit- 
ical principles  and  results  of  his.  Among 
the  latter  is  the  denial  of  the  apostolical  or- 
igin of  the  Gospel  of  St.  John,  and  the  asser- 
tion that  Christianity  at  its  beginning  was 
mere  Ebionitlsm;  among  the  former  is  the 
presupposition  that  miracles  are  impossible, 
and  the  opinion  that  the  aim  which  the  crit- 
ical science  must  pursue  and  reach  is  nothing 
else  than  the  derivation  of  Christianity  from 
natural  historical  causes.  The  theologians 
of  this  kind  are  in  part  eminent  for  talent 
and  learning,  and  very  zealous  in  writing ; 


they  are  anxious  of  acting  upon  laymen,  and 
have  for  this  purpose  founded  a  Protestant 
society,  and  edited  a  "  Bible-lexicon,"  and  a 
"  Bible  for  Protestants."  Many  minds  doubtr 
less  are  confounded  by  them.  The  book  of 
Strauss  may  become  a  wholesome  memen- 
to for  the  Protestants,  whose  tendency  it  is 
to  modify  Christianity  so  that  it  may  be- 
come inoffensive  and  savory  to  the  taste  of 
the  present  age — that  is  to  say,  of  the  nat- 
ural man. 

Although  this  book  has  without  doubt  no 
scientific  value,  it  is  nevertheless  a  very  im- 
portant one,  because  its  author  sets  before  us 
without  reserve  the  final  results  of  this  mir- 
acle-denying criticism.  In  the  first  part  he 
answers  the  question,  "Are  we  still  Chris- 
tians ?"  by  a  decided  No.  In  the  second  part 
he  starts  the  question,  "  Have  we  religion  ?" 
which  he  affirms  on  condition  that  you  con- 
sent to  call  religion  "the  consciousness  of 
being  a  particle  of  the  universe."  The  third 
part  contains  his  creed:  Laplace  and  Dar- 
win are  his  apostles,  who  teach  him  the 
knowledge  of  the  universe,  his  God ;  self- 
creation  of  the  world,  natural  selection,  and 
descent  of  man  from  the  ape,  are  the  mys- 
teries of  his  religion ;  the  amusements  of  the 
theatre  and  the  concert-room,  his  worship. 
The  fourth  part  is  a  trial  to  save  out  of  this 
chaos  a  kind  of  moral  law,  and  by  a  moral- 
izing "  quos  ego "  to  put  a  stop  to  the  wild 
billows  of  Socialism,  which  threaten  to  trou- 
ble the  comfortable  existence  of  the  phi- 
losopher. Strauss  had  hoped  that  the  im- 
mense majority  of  the  learned  would  hail  his 
book  with  a  storm  of  applause,  and  that  he, 
in  consequence,  would  spend  his  last  years 
surrounded  with  the  sweet  incense  of  praise. 
He  has  been  disappointed.  Even  those  who 
fancy  themselves  to  have  outgrown  the 
Church  and  Christianity  have,  for  the  most 
part,  disavowed  him.  From  this  abyss  of 
Nihilism  every  body  starts  back. 

And  the  theological  critics  in  question, 
how  have  they  taken  up  this  book  ?  It  has 
evidently  come  with  extreme  importunity  to 
them,  not  only  because  it  causes  disreputa-. 
tion  to  the  critic,  but  also  because  they  feel 
in  the  presence  of  this  book  what  a  phthis- 
ical man  feels  when  he  beholds  his  face  in  a 
glass,  and  is  thrilled  by  the  thought,  Thou 
art  deadly  sick !  The  premises  which  lead  to 
the  Nihilistic  consequences  of  Strauss  have 
become  the  subject  of  suspicion  to  their  fol- 
lowers. 

It  is  true,  at  the  period  of  the  lives  of  Jesus, 
of  Renan,  Schenkel,  and  Strauss,  there  was 
already  sufficient  reason  to  become  afraid  of 
the  consequences  of  the  miracle-denying  crit- 
icism. But  the  alarm  then  raised  was  soon 
forgotten ;  ere  long  the  liberal  theologians 
began  again  to  flatter  the  famous  Strauss. 
But  now,  we  hope,  the  terror  will  be  more 
impressive  and  enduring.  It  would  surely 
be  a  great  gain,  and  would  effect  a  mitiga- 


84 


REPORTS  ON  THE  STATE  OF  RELIGION. 


tion  of  the  bard  and  confounding  combats  in 
the  theological  schools,  if  the  men  of  liber- 
al tendency  would  learn  to  obey  the  precept 
of  St.  James,  to  "  be  swift  to  hear  and  slow  to 
speak,"  and  if  they  would  get  accustomed  to 
examine  the  reasons  of  the  apologists  as  ear- 
nestly as  the  latter  examine  and  ponder  the 
arguments  of  the  critic.  Many  utterances 
of  that  side  authorize  us  in  expecting  that 
the  book  of  Strauss  will  have  the  effect  of 
an  air -cleansing  thunder-storm;  the  book 
will  soon  be  forgotten,  even  as  the  sounds 
of  thunder  quickly  die  away ;  but  they  leave 
behind  them  the  cleansed  atmosphere. 

I  am  at  the  end  of  my  report.     Two-and- 
twenty  years  ago,  Dr.  de  Presseiise',  of  Paris, 


related  at  the  Kirchentag  of  Elbcrfeld  a 
few  words  which  the  deceased  Ncauder  once 
had  spoken  to  him.  "Before  our  nation," 
said  he,  "  I  see  a  deep  precipice,  but  above 
the  precipice  appears  a  brightness ;  I  don't 
know  whether  it  is  aurora  or  evening  red." 
But,  added  the  relator,  the  gleam  of  his 
eyes  bore  witness  that  he  believed  it  was 
aurora. 

My  dear  brethren,  I  think,  in  the  picture 
I  have  unfolded  to  yon,  neither  the  deep 
precipice  nor  the  brightness  above  it  have 
been  wanting.  My  belief,  my  hope,  my 
prayer  is,  that  this  brightness  may  be  the 
aurora  of  a  new  day — of  a  better  time !  Let 
it  also  be  your  prayer  for  my  fatherland. 


EVANGELICAL  THEOLOGY  IN  GERMANY: 


SURVEY  OF  MY  LIFE  AS  A  TEACHER  OF  THEOLOGY. 

BY  PROFESSOR  AUGUST  THOLUCK,  D.D.,  UNIVERSITY  OF  HALLE. 
[Translated  and  read,  with  an  Addition,  by  the  Rev.  LEOPOLD  WITTE,  Cothen,  Prussia.] 


MANY  a  time  countrymen  of  yours  have 
questioned  me  both  by  word  of  mouth  and 
by  letter :  What  is  now  the  state  of  Chris- 
tianity and  of  theology  in  Germany  ?  Many 
a  time  this  question  has  been  repeated  to  me 
at  those  diets  which  we  call  "  Kirchentage," 
in  our  synods  in  Switzerland,  Germany,  Hol- 
land, France,  and  England  ;  and  many  a 
time,  though  a  comparatively  short  period 
had  elapsed,  I  could  but  give  the  same  an- 
swer, only  pointing  out  some  peculiarities 
of  minor  importance. 

Oh !  my  dearly  beloved  friends,  if  the 
grace  of  the  Lord  had  granted  me  that  priv- 
ilege, rather  than  send  you  a  kind  of  theo- 
logical report,  I  would  have  spoken  from 
heart  to  heart  in  an  assembly  where  I  should 
have  found  Christian  brethren  who  for  many 
years  past  have  been  most  cordially  attach- 
ed to  me.  And,  although  a  foreigner,  yet  to 
many  of  you  I  should  not  have  been  a  stran- 
ger, nay,  some  might  consider  me  an  old 
friend.  Sincerely  deploring  as  I  do  that  I 
have  been  denied  that  gratification,  I  beg 
to  express  my  thanks  for  your  kindly  allow- 
ing me  to  send  to  you  a  dear  young  friend 
as  my  deputy,  and  to  use  him  as  my  mouth- 
piece for  submitting  to  you  a  retrospective 
review  of  the  development  of  German  the- 
ology in  this  latter  age. 

It  is  the  life  of  a  theologian  I  am  going  to 
give,  a  sketch  of  the  life  of  a  man  who,  be- 
ing thrown  together  with  high  and  low, 
with  kings,  priuces,  ambassadors,  scholars, 
and  artists,  has  taken  a  part  in  all  the  ec- 
clesiastical, the  Christian,  or  sometimes  rath- 
er unchristian  movements  of  his  age,  that 
have  been  brought  about  in  Germany,  France, 
Switzerland,  Holland,  and  Sweden. 

At  one  time  I  should  hardly  have  thought 
that  it  would  be  Christian  life  and  theology 
I  should  over  plead  for  in  my  own  country 
or  on  the  other  side  of  the  Atlantic.  I  grew 
up  alienated  from  the  Gospel,  and  far  from 
intending  to  devote  myself  to  the  study  of 
divinity.  On  leaving  the  Gymnasium,  when, 
according  to  a  German  custom,  I  had  to  de- 
liver an  address  on  any  subject  I  might  se- 
lect myself,  I  chose  to  lecture  on  "  The  Su- 
periority of  the  Oriental  World  over  the 
Christian."  In  my  school-days  already  I 
had  applied  myself  to  the  study  of  Orient- 


al languages.  Thus  it  was  that  philology, 
and  more  especially  Oriental  philology,  be- 
came the  centre  of  my  course  of  reading  at 
the  University.  I  entered  college  after  the 
French  war,  at  a  time  when  in  Germany, 
particularly  in  Prussia,  a  new  spirit  of  vital 
faith  had  been  awakened  and  had  taken 
possession  both  of  the  Church  and  of  theolog- 
ical science.  Some  slight  traces  of  that  re- 
vival might  be  discovered  at  Breslau,  where 
I  began  studying;  but  more  distinctly  it 
was  seen  in  Berlin  that  the  Gospel  was  gain- 
ing ground  in  the  higher  circles,  and  was 
strenuously  upheld  by  the  court.  Thith- 
er I  went,  in  1816,  to  continue  my  studies.  I 
was  introduced  into  some  circles  frequent- 
ed by  superior  men,  who  made  me  acquaint- 
ed with  Christian  faith  and  Christian  life. 
Yet  did  I  not  give  up  my  Oriental  research- 
es, but  pursued  them  steadily,  without  think- 
ing I  should  ever  pass  over  to  the  faculty 
of  divinity.  It  was  trials  and  afflictions 
that  made  me  consider  it  the  highest  aim 
of  a  man's  life  to  become  a  servant  of  Christ. 
In  consequence  of  too  hard  working,  I  be- 
gan spitting  blood,  and  was  obliged  more 
than  a  year  to  interrupt  my  studies  prepara- 
tory to  an  academical  chair. 

During  this  time  my  conscience  suggested 
the  question  unto  me:  Supposing  the  end 
of  thy  life  had  come,  wouldst  thou  be  able 
to  exculpate  thyself  before  Him,  who  has 
given  thee  the  knowledge  of  His  Gospel  not 
only  for  promoting  science,  but  that  thou 
mightst  lead  others  to  the  same  blissful  en- 
lightenment that  has  been  granted  thee  ? 
Then  I  made  a  vow  to  God  within  my  soul 
that,  if  it  pleased  Him  once  more  to  restore 
me  to  life,  I  would  devote  myself  to  no  oth- 
er calling  than  a  missionary's  life  in  Eastern 
countries,  a  resolution  I  was  chiefly  induced 
to  form  by  reading  the  Life  of  Martyn.  Then 
it  was  that,  having  some  connection  with 
Sir  George  Rose,  the  English  Ambassador  at 
Berlin,  I  was  encouraged  to  tender  my  serv- 
ices to  the  British  and  Foreign  Bible  Socie- 
ty, and  was  offered  an  agency  for  that  So- 
ciety in  Malta.  Hoping  that  my  still  very 
delicate  state  of  health  would  allow  me  to 
discharge  the  duties  of  my  office,  I  was  on 
the  point  of  accepting,  when  it  was  made 
evident  that  the  Lord  designed  me  for  a 


86 


REPORTS  ON  THE  STATE  OF  RELIGION. 


Htill  higher  vocation.  A  renewed  attack  of 
spitting  blood  forced  me  temporarily  to  re- 
nounce the  calling  I  had  fixed  upon ;  but 
just  then  the  Prussian  Government  inquired 
if  I  should  feel  inclined  to  accept  an  Assist- 
ant Lectureship  on  Hebrew  and  Oriental 
Literature,  on  the  occasion  of  Dr.  De  Wette 
having  to  resign  his  chair  in  the  University 
of  Berlin. 

So  I  was  unexpectedly  removed  into  the 
faculty  of  divinity.  About  the  same  time 
my  health  was  restored,  and  I  may  be  allow- 
ed to  say  that  thenceforward  I  adopted  for 
my  own  life  the  famous  motto  of  Count  Zin- 
zeudorf :  "  Ich  hab  nur  Eine  Passion,  und 
die  ist  Er,  nur  Er"  (I  have  but  one  passion, 
and  that  is  He,  and  He  alone).  To  bring 
back  souls  to  Christ,  was  from  that  time  the 
daily,  nay,  the  hourly  problem  as  well  as  the 
joy  of  my  life.  The  delivering  of  lectures 
on  the  Old  and  New  Testaments,  as  well  as 
on  the  literatures  of  the  Orient  and  Occi- 
dent, the  composition  of  critical  treatises 
and  of  popular  books  of  edification,  but, 
first  of  all,  the  daily  intercourse  with  the 
youth  of  the  University,  filled  np  every  hour 
of  jny  existence.  And  yet  my  thirst  for 
gaining  over  souls  remained  nnquenched. 
Every  day  I  prayed  to  God  that  He  might 
be  pleased  to  call  me  to  that  place  where 
a  hundred  years  before  August  H.  Francke 
had  built  his  orphan  asylum,  and  had,  by  his 
addresses  both  from  the  pulpit  and  from  the 
chair,  gathered  a  faithful  community,  teach- 
ing that  the  first  stage  on  the  way  to  the 
tree  of  knowledge  was  by  the  tree  of  life. 
What  the  yearning  soul  of  the  youth  had 
prayed  for,  was  in  store  for  the  man — yet 
not  till  after  a  hard  struggle.  Having  re- 
turned from  travels  to  England  and  Holland, 
which  the  liberality  of  our  Government  had 
enabled  me  to  undertake  for  scientific  pur- 
poses, I  was  called  upon  to  fill  the  chair  of 
Professor  Kuapp  at  Halle,  lately  deceased. 
In  spite  of  many  sacrifices  my  heart  had  to 
make,  I  joyfully  acceded  to  the  proposal. 

It  would  be  out  of  place  to  give  here  a  de- 
tailed account  of  all  the  theological  schools 
that  from  the  time  of  the  Reformation  had 
been  founded  within,  or  based  upon,  the  Ger- 
man Church,  and  had  contributed  to  bring 
about  that  state  of  things  which  I  found 
existent  when  I  removed  to  Halle.  To  the 
members  of  this  assembly  it  is  universally 
known,  how  a  dead  orthodoxy  had,  through- 
out the  17th  century,  been  predominant  in 
German  churches  and  universities;  how 
Spener,  that  man  of  faith  and  inward  Chris- 
tian life,  was  graced  to  recall  to  piety  a 
great  many  inhabitants  of  poor,  devastated 
Germany  that  had  been  the  miserable  thea- 
tre of  the  Thirty  Years'  War ;  how  ho  gave 
rise  to  the  celebrated  school  of  the  Pietists 
in  Halle,  whose  influence,  within  the  time 
allotted  to  one  generation,  revived  the  courts, 
the  nobility,  the  clergy,  nay,  the  whole  Chris- 


tian population.  Nor  are  you,  my  dearly 
beloved  brethren,  ignorant  of  the  fact  that 
Pietism,  wanting,  as  it  did,  a  comprehensive- 
ness of  views,  and  renouncing  the  task  of 
thoroughly  penetrating  and  reviving  the 
whole  human  life,  was  at  length  found  inad- 
equate to  stand  its  ground  against  the  fasci- 
nating influences  of  that  bold  school  which 
goes  by  the  name  of  "Aufklarung,"  and  UK; 
votaries  of  which  pretended  to  fathom  the 
mysteries  of  Christian  faith  by  what  they 
called  Common  Sense,  that  is  to  say,  by  short- 
sighted human  understanding.  Almost 
throughout  the  breadth  of  the  country  thin 
tendency  of"  Rationalism,"  as  it  was  termed 
about  the  beginning  of  the  present  century, 
had  taken  an  uncontested  possession  of  the 
pulpits  and  academical  chairs.  Only  some 
feeble  boughs  of  the  Pietism  of  an  age  gone 
by  were  still  faintly  growing,  known  by  the 
name  of  Supernaturalism ;  and  at  Halle  there 
had  been  one  single  man  who,  feebly  indeed 
and  secretly  enough,  dared  to  resist  all-pow- 
erful Rationalism.  I  allude  to  Professor 
Knapp.  Out  of  nine  hundred  students,  he 
had  found  five  who,  being  revived  by  the 
aid  of  a  Christian  craftsman,  believed  in  the 
Divinity  of  Christ.  The  body  of  the  aca- 
demical teachers,  in  agreement  with  the 
whole  mass  of  the  students,  had  sent  to  the 
Minister  of  State  for  Ecclesiastical  Affairs 
against  my  appointment  to  a  professorship 
at  Halle. 

Notwithstanding  all  the  difficulties  I  had 
to  contend  with,  by  the  blessing  of  the  Lord, 
the  number  of  the  young  believers  in  Christ 
increased  from  year  to  year.  A  new  spirit 
had  been  awakened  in  Germany.  The  af- 
flictions caused  by  the  French  war,  the  high 
example  set  by  Frederick  William  III.  and 
his  royal  house,  the  moral  bankruptcy  which 
beggarly  Rationalism  had  undergone  in  gen- 
uine and  upright  minds,  who  wanted  real 
comfort  and  no  mere  phrases,  heavenly  real- 
ities, not  earthly  reasoning :  all  these  fore- 
bodings of  a  change  contributed  to  facilitate 
my  position  in  Halle,  and  to  bring  a  constant- 
ly increasing  number  of  Christian  students 
to  the  feet  of  the  Lord.  A  colleague  of  mine, 
Professor  Wegscheider,  had  declared  in  one 
of  his  dogmatical  books,  "  in  rebus  gravissi- 
inis  ad  religionem  et  houestatem  pertiuen- 
tibus  convenire  omnes  gentes."  .  Dr.  Hase,  a 
young  theologian  of  the  University  of  Jena, 
in  his  excellent  and  most  important  book, 
"  HutterusRedivivus,"  published  in  1828,  rais- 
ed the  objection  that  no  one  well  read  in  his- 
tory and  philosophy  would  agree  with  that 
statement.  The  Halle  Rationalist,  with- 
drawing his  assertion,  changed  the  "  omues 
gentes "  into  "fere  omnes  gentes,"  a  very 
slight  alteration  indeed,  by  which,  however, 
Rationalism,  according  to  the  ideas  of  stu- 
dents of  divinity  at  Halle,  got  a  terrible,  nay 
almost  a  deadly  blow. 

Another  element   of  higher   importance 


THOLUCK  AND  WITTE :  EVANGELICAL  THEOLOGY  IN  GERMANY. 


87 


contributed  to  discredit  Rationalism,  I  mean 
tbe  theological  system  of  Schleiermacher, 
which  the  obsolete  names  of  Rationalism 
and  Super-naturalism  would  not  allow:  to  be 
subsumed  under  themselves.  A  renewed  ex- 
amination of  the  real  nature  of  religion  had 
taught  Schleiermacher  that  the  traditional 
definitions  did  not  come  up  to  it.  To  him  re- 
ligion was  the  feeling  of  an  absolute  depend- 
ence on  God  within  the  Christian  Church, 
a  consciousness  of  sin  and  of  the  redemption 
by  Christ,  which  had  not  been  put  forth 
prominently  enough  in  any  dogmatical  sys- 
tem. All  philosophical  terms  and  defini- 
tions, all  physical  investigations,  all  theses 
whatever  that  could  not  be  derived  by  strict 
inference  from  the  profound  feeling  of  sin- 
fulness  and  the  certainty  of  redemption, 
were  excluded  from  the  dogmatical  system 
of  Schleiermacher.  The  consequence  of 
which  was  that  a  great  many  were  now 
won  for  Christian  piety  of  such  as  had  felt 
an  aversion  to  the  incomprehensibilities  of 
the  old  dogmatic  system,  while  not  a  few 
among  the  orthodox  Christians,  slightly  mod- 
ifying their  creed,  began  to  take  an  inter- 
mediate position  between  the  two  contend- 
ing parties,  a  position  that  found  particu- 
lar favor  with  the  highest  circles  in  Prussia. 
Although  Schleiermacher  continued  to  have 
his  adversaries,  among  whom  in  the  outset  I 
was  counted  myself,  yet  it  is  due  to  him  to 
own  that  his  influence  gradually  made  re- 
ligion respected  by  scoffers. 

The  late  king  and  his  father,  who  both 
held  moderate  views  in  point  of  religion, 
have  likewise  contributed  not  a  little  to  re- 
vive Christian  faith  in  their  country.  Fred- 
erick William  III.  called  pious  men  into  his 
council,  and  intrusted  others  with  the  high- 
est clerical  offices.  Being  assisted  by  Alten- 
stein,  the  Prussian  Minister  of  State  for  Ec- 
clesiastical Affairs;  by  his  Adjutant,  the 
General  von  Witzleben,  and  other  men  of 
similar  religious  persuasions,  he  supported 
Christian  associations,  such  as  the  Societies 
for  the  Propagation  of  the  Gospel  among 
Jews  and  heathen,  and  the  Bible  Societies. 
He  devoted  himself  to  liturgical  studies  with 
a  view  to  reform  the  ritual  of  public  wor- 
ship, and  promoted  a  variety  of  other  inter- 
ests of  the  Church.  Still  more  countenance 
was  given  to  Christian  endeavors,  when  he 
was  succeeded  by  his  greater  and  more  tal- 
ented son,  Frederick  William  IV.  His  was 
not  a  faith  of  ancient  orthodoxy,  but  of  mod- 
ern piety,  nurtured  partly  by  philosophic- 
al speculation, partly  by  sesthetical  pursuits. 
Of  the  same  character  were  the  religious 
views  and  feelings  of  his  highest  function- 
aries, particularly  of  his  devoted  personal 
friend,  the  Minister  of  State,  Eichhorn,  who 
also  enjoyed  the  intimacy  of  Schleiermacher. 
It  was  not  the  orthodoxy  of  Heugstenberg, 
but  a  more  liberal  theology,  that  was  par- 
ticularly favored  by  the  late  king,  such  as  is 


cultivated  in  your  Congregationalist  schools. 
Ever  since  the  year  1614,  when  John  Sigis- 
rnund,  Elector  of  Brandenburg,  adopted  the 
reformed  confession  instead  of  Lutheranism, 
which  was  the  established  religion  of  his 
country,  our  Prussian  sovereigns,  with  their 
families,  have  always  professed  a  spirit 
of  toleration,  and  have,  moreover,  exerted 
themselves  to  effect  a  union  of  the  several 
denominations  of  the  Protestant  Church. 
We  may  be  allowed  to  say  that  even  among 
the  Prussian  people  the  tendency  to  union 
has  been  constantly  increasing,  since,  in 
1817,  a  "United  Evangelical  Church"  be- 
came the  established  church  of  the  country. 

A  new  epoch  may  be  dated  from  the  appear- 
ance of  Hengsteuberg,  and  the  publication 
of  his  Evangelische  Kirchenzeitung  in  1829, 
inasmuch  as  it  seems  owing  to  his  influence 
that  the  orthodox  party  of  the  Church,  who, 
up  to  that  period,  had  been  of  a  more  gently 
Biblical  character,  gradually  became  more 
polemical  and  aggressive.  Although  that 
ecclesiastical  record  often  exceeded  the  prop- 
er limits  of  justice  and  moderation,  yet  it 
must  be  avowed,  as  it  has  been  even  by  so 
liberal  a  theologian  as  Professor  Hase  in  Jena, 
that  Professor  Hengsteuberg's  eminent  tal- 
ent as  an  editor  made  his  journal  the  head 
paper  of  Germany,  that  concentrated  and 
strengthened  all  the  Christian  elements.  In 
the  beginning,  confessional  quarrels  were  ex- 
cluded altogether ;  but  when  the  waves  of 
the  Lutheran  flood  were  swelling  and  sur- 
ging, Hengstenberg  himself  yielded  to  their 
force,  and  from  1844  the  '•  Evangelische  Kir- 
chenzeitung," without  breaking  with  the 
United  Church  of  Prussia,  unfurled  the  ban- 
ner of  Lutheran  confessionalism,  yet  so  as 
to  give  at  the  same  time  a  considerable 
check  to  the  Lutheran  separation., 

I*et  me  now  turn  to  the  latter  period  of 
my  life,  some  dewy  evening. hours  of  which 
I  may  still  have  to  enjoy.  In  the  third  de- 
cennium  of  our  century,  the  dominant  power 
of  one  mind  averted  the  thoughts  of  men 
from  theology  into  the  channel  of  philoso- 
phy, substituting  for  religious  aims  philo- 
sophical problems.  In  the  year  1818,  Hegel 
was  called  to  a  chair  of  Berlin  University, 
and  began  there  his  philosophical  lectures. 
You  cmild  hardly  perceive  any  Christian 
tendencies  either  in  his  life  or  in  his  writ- 
ings before  the  Berlin  period.  It  was  the 
atmosphere  of  the  Prussian  capital,  and  the 
union  with  a  pious  wife,  that  impregnated 
both  his  mind  and  his  philosophical  system 
with  Christian  principles.  After  his  death, 
the  school  of  the  founder  divided  into  two 
distinct  parties.  A  minority,  with  Goeschei 
for  their  leader,  were  faithful  to  the  sym- 
bols of  the  Lutheran  creed;  while  others, 
imbued  as  they  were  with  the  spirit  of 
Spinoza,  were  hurried  into  downright  pan- 
theism by  Strauss.  For  some  time  conserv- 
atism in  point  of  religion  was  seconded  by 


88 


REPORTS  ON  THE  STATE  OF  RELIGION. 


political  conservatism  in  the  spirit  of  the 
Holy  Alliance  between  Russia,  Prussia,  and 
Austria ;  and  was  supported  in  addition  by 
the  political  absolution  of  France  under  the 
Bourbons,  until,  in  1830,  by  the  revolution 
of  July,  Roman  Catholic  absolutism  \vas 
broken  to  pieces.  The  victory  gained  by 
liberalism  in  politics  prepared  the  way  for 
the  radical  Hegelian  school,  first  in  Germany 
and  afterward  in  Switzerland.  But  in  the- 
ology the  effect  of  these  new  tendencies 
was  not  so  much  to  foment  an  anti-Christian 
philosophy  as  to  give  birth  to  a  new  school 
of  historical  criticism,  founded  by  Baur  in 
Tiibingen.  In  the  outset,  this  great  Wir- 
tembergian  scholar  seems  not  to  have  been 
aware  himself  of  the  destructiveness  of  his 
principles ;  but  when,  by  slow  degrees,  he 
lifted  the  veil  that  covered  his  negative  po- 
sitions, it  became  evident  that  his  system  of 
Christianity,  sweeping  off  even  the  slight- 
est traces  of  the  supernatural,  was  nothing 
more  than  a  rationalistic  product  of  dialec- 
tical deductions,  which  even  plain  history 
was  bidden  to  obey.  From  Baur  an  ar- 
bitrary, though  often  ingenuous,  criticism 
has  taken  its  rise,  that,  having  for  its  cen- 
tre now  the  University  of  Zurich,  has  spread 
widest  in  the  Swiss  and  Dutch  churches, 
and  is  more  or  less  avowed  by  the  so-called 
Protestanten-Verein  in  Germany. 

In  Prussia  the  powers  of  destruction  were 
successfully  subdued  up  to  the  day  of  the 
downfall  of  Miihler,  late  Prussian  minister 
of  public  worship.  Seldom  has  a  man  been 
so  much  depreciated  by  the  public,  or  been 
assailed  with  the  same  animosity  by  parties 
diametrically  opposed  to  each  other,  as  this 
true  and  faithful  servant  of  Christ.  Toward 
the  end  of  his  administration  both  rational- 
ists of  the  Protestanten-Verein  and  Lutheran 
confessionalists  made  a  dead  set  at  his -per- 
son ;  and  for  some  time  it  seemed  impossible 
that  the  establishment  of  the  United  Prus- 
sian Church  could  be  kept  up  any  longer  if 
ho  were  intrusted  with  the  conduct  of  pub- 
lic affairs.  What  a  great  majority  had  clam- 
ored for,  was  brought  about  at  the  beginning 
of  the  year  1872 ;  Miihler  was  dismissed.  It 
can  not  be  said  with  any  justice  that  under 
the  administration  of  his  successor  an  anti- 
Christian  or  anti-ecclesiastical  system  had 
been  substituted  for  the  one  formerly  up- 
held. But  this  much  can  not  be  denied,  that 
the  very  contrary  has  come  to  pass  of  what 
had  been  the  hope  of  the  whole  evangelical 
part  of  Germany.  The  unparalleled  victory 
which  God  granted  to  the  nation  in  the  late 
war  has  not  regenerated  us  in  faith  and  ele- 
vation of  our  souls  to  him.  On  the  contra- 
ry, the  new  epoch  that  has  been  inaugurated, 
as  far  as  human  eyes  can  see,  proves  itself  to 
be  an  ever  proceeding  dissolution  of  positive 
faith  and  Christian  interest ;  and  this  is  not 
only  the  case  in  a  few  parts  of  the  country, 
but  throughout  the  whole  of  Germany.  Yet, 


whether  what  seems  to  us  a  beginning  of  de- 
cline be  correctly  judged  to  be  so,  or  to  what 
extent  it  may  bo  carried,  we  do  not  dare  to 
assert.  The  Church,  theology,  and  Chris- 
tian life  have  had  their  progress  and  regress, 
counting  back  from  the  days  of  the  Refor- 
mation to  the  days  of  their  origin,  from  our 
times  back  to  the  sixteenth  century ;  nor 
will  it  be  otherwise  with  regard  to  the  fu- 
ture development  of  the  Church  of  Christ. 
Our  understanding  and  our  moral  state  will 
ever  alternately  move  on  and  turn  back,  and, 
opposed  to  the  Kingdom  of  the  Lord,  a  realm 
of  Antichrist  will  remain,  and  will  continue 
to  grow,  until  it  be  destroyed  by  the  last 
victory.  May  the  Lord  give  us  clear  eyes 
and  warm  hearts,  in  order  that,  from  all  the 
aberrations  that  His  Church  has  undergone 
till  now,  there  may  redound  to  us  an  ever- 
lasting gain.  Amen. 


To  this  matured  account  of  Dr.  Tholuck, 
•which  I  have  had  the  honor  to  read  to  you, 
reverend  gentlemen  and  dearly  beloved 
brethren,  I  beg  to  add  a  very  few  words. 
It  can  not  have  escaped  you  that  the  person 
of  our  beloved  and  venerated  Dr.  Tholuck 
himself  has  remained  in  the  background  of 
his  sketch,  much  more  so  than  any  of  us 
could  have  wished.  It  is  his  extreme  mod- 
esty that  has  restrained  him  from  setting 
himself  forth  in  that  place  which  is  due  to 
him.  We  know  that  in  a  great  measure 
the  wholesome  change  from  Rationalism  to 
faith  which  has  been  granted  to  our  native 
country  within  the  last  fifty  years  is,  next 
to  God's  grace,  owing  to  the  restless  zeal  of 
this  brave  "  miles  Christ!,"  a  genuine  "  good 
knight  without  fear  and  without  reproach." 
In  dark  and  dreary  days  he  has  gallantly 
borne  disgrace  for  Christ's  sake.  He,  a  sin- 
gle man,  has  won  the  field  in  the  University 
of  Halle,  and  all  his  colleagues,  one  by  one, 
have  been  forced  to  yield  to  his  superiority 
of  Christian  energy  and  knowledge.  But 
more  than  that  —  thousands  of  thousands 
call  him  their  spiritual  father,  their  father 
in  Christ.  His  firmly  clinging  love  em- 
braces young  hearts  with  heavenly  power, 
and  wrestles  with  God  for  the  peace  and 
victory  of  his  students.  He  himself,  ever 
youthful  though  gray  with  age,  and  a  hero, 
though  with  a  broken  body,  thoroughly  un- 
derstands the  striving  of  youth,  and  knows 
how  to  hit  home  conscience,  and  how  to 
drop  healing  balm  into  the  wounds  inflicted 
by  the  word  of  God.  There  is  nothing  like 
sickliuess  in  his  spiritual  life ;  Christ  and 
Christ  alone,  as  he  himself  has  borne  wit- 
ness to  you,  is  the  love  and  passion  of  his 
heart.  Not  a  theological  school  did  he 
want  to  found,  no  dogmatical  or  philosoph- 
ical thesis  does  he  wish  to  imprint  on  the 
mind  of  his  followers — the  celebrated  puz- 
zling questions  of  the  famous  doctor  show 


THOLUCK  AND  WITTE :   EVANGELICAL  THEOLOGY  IN  GERMANY. 


the  contrary — but  what  he  desires  is,  to  lead 
his  young  friends  to  Christ  the  Son  of  God, 
our  only  wisdom  and  righteousness,  our  sanc- 
tification  and  redemption.  Certainty  and 
freedom  in  Christ,  that  is  the  aim  of  his  life, 
that  has  been,  through  the  blessing  of  God, 
the  fruit  of  his  life  to  the  benefit  of  thou- 
sands on  both  sides  of  the  Atlantic.  They 
that  turn  many  to  righteousness  shall  shine 
as  the  stars  forever  and  ever.  May  the 
Eternal  God  still  for  many  a  year  grant  his 


blessing  to  his  faithful  servant,  and  may 
he  himself  who  has  spoken  to  you  through 
my  mouth  experience  the  truth  of  the  words 
of  the  Psalmist :  The  righteous  shall  flourish 
like  the  palm-tree;  ho  shall  grow  like  the 
cedar  in  Lebanon.  Those  that  be  planted 
in  the  house  of  the  Lord  shall  flourish  in  the 
courts  of  our  God.  They  shall  still  bring 
forth  fruit  in  old  age,  to  show  that  the  Lord 
is  upright ;  he  is  my  rock,  and  there  is  no 
unrighteousness  in  Him.  Amen. 


THE  RELIGIOUS  CONDITION  OF  HOLLAND. 

BY  THE  REV.  M.  COHEN  STUART,  FKOM  ROTTERDAM. 
[Born  January  23rf,  1821,  at  the  Hague.'] 


DEAR  FRIENDS, — If  any  one  here  has  a 
ground  to  expect  .an  indulgent  and  benevo- 
lent attention,  I  think,  Mr.  Chairman,  it  is  I. 

Not,  of  course,  in  my  individual  character, 
but  as  the  appointed  delegate  from  a  coun- 
try whose  name  alone  will  awaken  a  thrill 
of  generous  sympathy  in  every  thorough 
American  breast.  As  England  may  be  call- 
ed the  mother  country  of  this  great  com- 
monwealth, Holland  has  a  right  to  claim 
the  title  of  its  spiritual  fatherland.  And  as 
long  as  the  name  of  your  (why  not  say  ourf) 
Motley  finds  an  echo  on  both  sides  of  the 
Atlantic,  as  long  as  the  remembrance  of  the 
old  Pilgrim  sires,  "  auld  lang  syne  "  thougli 
it  be,  lives  in  the  hearts  of  their  children, 
Holland  is  sure  to  find  friends  on  New  En- 
gland shores.  The  mere  fact  of  my  being 
its  representative,  unworthy  though  I  may 
be,  I  regard  as  my  best  introduction  and  rec- 
ommendation among  you,  I  consider  as  my 
credentials  in  this  assembly,  as  my  patent 
of  nobility  in  this  great  American  republic. 

But  the  honor  of  which  I  boast  makes  me 
feel  the  more  the  responsibility  of  the  task 
intrusted  to  my  care.  My  first  duty  is  not 
to  waste  precious  time  in  introductory  re- 
marks. In  a  few  broad  outlines  I  shall  try 
to  draw  the  leading  features  of  Holland's  re- 
ligious condition  and  life.  I  wish  to  give 
yon  the  opportunity  of  getting,  from  the 
higher  sphere  of  Christian  intuition,  a  gen- 
eral, though  not  therefore  superficial,  bird's- 
eye  view,  discernible  to  the  keen  and  sharp 
glance  of  the  American  eagle's  eye,  of  the 
dJltant  shores  and  plains  of  my  country, 
while  I  endeavor  to  give  a  succinct  review, 
as  clearly  and  impartially  as  I  am  able 
to  do,  of  the  country,  history,  character, 
religious  life,  actual  condition,  and  future 
prospects  of  the  people  to  which  I  am  proud 
and  happy  to  belong. 

Holland,  the  name  signifying  hollow  land, 
or  more  probably  woodland,  forms  properly 
the  wealthiest  and  most  prominent  part  of 
the  Netherlands  or  Low  Countries,  a  small 
kingdom  now,  a  mighty  republic  once.  On 
the  north-western  coast  of  the  European 
continent,  from  Dunkirk  to  Denmark  and 
Mecklenburg,  stretches  a  long  reach  of  low 
alluvial  ground,  sand  and  clay,  carried  down 
by  the  rivers  of  Central  Europe.  At  the 
western  end  of  this  long  stretch  of  country, 


at  its  very  lowest  level,  the  delta  ground  of 
the  Rhine  and  Maas,  behind  the  narrow 
range  of  its  undulating  downs  or  sand  hills, 
lies  Holland,  with  the  rich  pastures  of  its 
deep  green  meadows,  under  an  often  clouded 
sky,  in  a  damp  and  misty  air,  a  country  not 
favored  by  its  clime  or  eminent  for  pictur- 
esque landscape.  But  other  features  it  has, 
well  worth  observing.  If  any  country  ever 
gave  right  to  its  inhabitants  to  boast  of  a 
laud  made  by  themselves,  it  is  this.  Riv- 
ers and  streams,  constrained  by  dikes  and 
sluices,  are  compelled  to  follow  the  road 
man  bids  them  to  go;  swamps  and  marshes 
have  been  dried  into  polders  enriched  by  the 
abundant  detritus  of  weeds  and  plants;  fields 
of  fat  and  fertile  clay  were  conquered  from 
the  sea. 

But  if  Holland,  as  it  is,  can  in  a  certain 
sense  be  said  to  have  been  formed  by  men, 
more  rightly  still  can  it  be  asserted  that  the 
country  has  made  and  formed  its  inhabit- 
ants. Its  outward  appearance  the  country 
may  owe  to  its  people ;  they  owe  to  its 
ground  and  clime  their  character  and  mind. 
In  the  struggle  for  life  with  the  mighty  ele- 
ment, their  awful  foe,  but  which  was  van- 
quished so  as  to  become  their  most  power- 
ful ally,  the  people's  character  was  hardened 
and  invigorated,  and  a  nation  was  formed 
of  bold  and  daring  men,  predestinated  by 
the  nature  and  configuration  of  their  soil  to 
navigation  and  commerce. 

Much  more,  however,  than  these  outward 
circumstances  has  history  done  to  put  its 
own  indelible  stamp  on  the  character  and 
life  of  the  people.  In  this  our  Netherland 
or  Canaan  (the  Hebrew  name  has  quite  the 
same  signification),  God  assigned  their  place 
to  a  people  which  in  many  respects  may  be 
compared  to  Israel  of  old.  Small  their  laud 
is,  but  (I  may  well  remark  this  to  Americans, 
perhaps  a  little  too  much  inclined  to  think 
highly  of  the  bigness  of  their  country)  small 
and  little  are  not  the  same  in  a  historical 
sense.  Athens  and  Jerusalem  were  towns 
of  relatively  small  dimensions.  Still,  what 
have  they  been  in  the  history  of  mankind 
and  the  world!  And  so  this  small  spot,  this 
remote  corner,  scarcely  visible  on  the  map  of 
Europe,  has  been  glorified  by  God  Almighty, 
so  that  the  name  and  fame  of  Holland  will 
outlive  that  of  the  greatest  empires. 


COHEN  STUART :   THE  RELIGIOUS  CONDITION  OF  HOLLAND. 


91 


The  obvious  reason  is  this :  no  other  peo- 
ple's history  in  modern  times  ever  was  so 
closely  connected,  so  utterly  identified,  with 
its  religion.  To  the  Gospel,  more  especial- 
ly to  the  great  Reformation  of  the  sixteenth 
century,  to  its  firm  and  solid  creed,  Hol- 
land owes  its  greatness  and  its  glory,  its 
strongly  marked  individuality.  It  is  im- 
possible rightly  to  understand  its  history, 
while  denying  or  disavowing  this  fact.  For 
others,  religion  was  a  powerful  element  of 
development ;  for  us  Dutch,  it  was  the  very 
germ  of  our  nationality,  as  it  ever  remains 
its  kernel  and  marrow.  Certainly,  we  had  a 
history  before  (the  Low  German  was  a  well- 
formed  language  and  had  a  literature,  when 
the  Prussians  and  Wends  were  mere  barba- 
rians) we  had  our  long  centuries  of  Egyptian 
bondage,  but  Holland's  true  nationality  dates 
from  that  Exod  which,  in  the  great  war  for  ex- 
istence and  liberty,  made  ns  free  from  Span- 
ish chains  and  priestly  yoke  at  once.  When 
the  voice  of  the  Reformers  reached  Holland 
from  Germany,  it  found,  it  is  true,  a  well-pre- 
pared soil  in  those  countries,  where  the  Re- 
formers before  the  Reformation  had  lived, 
where  the  Roman  clergy  itself  had  been  zeal- 
ous for  their  independence,  where  the  practi- 
cal sense  of  the  people,  of  the  strongest  and 
purest  German  type,  comb  i  n  ed  with  an  earnest 
religious  mind,  made  the  fields  white  for  the 
harvest.  But  this  especially  gave  them  such 
a  wonderful  growth  that  they  were  fructi- 
fied by  the  abundant  dew  of  martyrs'  blood, 
as  no  land  or  earth  ever  was.  The  horrors 
of  persecution  and  the  terrors  of  war  were 
the  very  means  in  God's  hand  by  which  in- 
dependence and  liberty  were  gained,  the  na- 
tionality was  born,  by  which  the  people's 
character  .was  cast  in  its  proper  mold,  and 
Holland  was  made  what  it  was  to  be  accord- 
ing to  the  will .  of  Divine  Providence — the 
stronghold  of  liberty,  the  asylum  of  the  per- 
secuted, the  pattern  of  free  nations  for  ages 
to  come,  the  prophetic  forerunner  of  your 
great  commonwealth,  the  land  that  gave 
England  its  Constitution  with  William  of 
Orange,  and  harbored  the  Pilgrim  Fathers 
to  send  them  to  the  American  shores ! 

By  this  a  national  character  was  formed, 
which,  I  think,  I  may  rightly  delineate  in 
the  following  outlines.  It  is  a  character  of 
a  somewhat  phlegmatic  nature,  serious  and 
grave,  even  rigid  and  rugged,  in  which  there 
is  more  deep  feeling  than  lively  imagination, 
more  sense  than  wit,  more  power  to  bear  and 
endure  than  rashness  to  act,  less  aptitude  to 
undertake  what  is  new  than  to  persist  in 
what  once  has  been  undertaken ;  on  the 
whole,  it  is  prudent,  tenacious,  stubborn, 
somewhat  slow  and  suspicious,  but  orderly, 
honest,  loyal,  true,  not  excelling  in  brilliant 
and  dazzling  qualities,  but  rather  in  quiet  and 
domestic  virtues — such  may  be  well  said  to 
be  the  fundamental  tone  of  the  Dutch  na- 
tional character.  And  such  is  the  key- note 


of  our  religion  too.  The  strong  and  consist- 
ent doctrine  of  Calvin,  with  its  rigid  fatal- 
ism, was  most  adapted  to  the  genius  of  the 
people.  So,  notwithstanding  that  the  Ref- 
ormation came  first  to  us  from  the  German 
and  Swiss  Reformers,  Calvin's  creed  pre- 
dominated, though  mitigated  by  the  peo- 
ple's mystic  tendency  and  practical  sense. 
And  thus  it  remains  till  now.  I  know  no 
land  where  special  and  particular  types  are 
more  completely  preserved  with  that  tenaci- 
ty proper  to  the  popular  mind,  than  they  are 
in  Holland.  The  Dutch  Reformed  Church 
is,  as  it  was  here  in  America,  essentially  and 
decidedly  Calviuistic  in  its  creed,  Presbyte- 
rian in  its  organization,  and  Puritan  in  its 
rites.  The  religion  and  worship  of  the  de- 
cided Christians  in  Holland  are  even  now, 
not  unlike  those  of  the  Scotch  Covenanters 
and  of  the  New  England  settlers  of  old. 

And  though  it  should  not  be  forgotten 
that  both  the  smalluess  and  the  commerce 
of  Holland  give  to  its  population  a  certain 
cosmopolitan  character,  and  make  its  plains 
lie  open  to  every  wind  of  learning,  to  every 
influence  from  abroad — -such  as  I  did  trace 
it,  is  even  now  the  reiguiug  spirit  of  the  Re- 
formed Church.  It  has  ceased  to  be,  since 
the  days  of  the  French  revolution,  the  Church 
of  the  State ;  the  true  National  Church  it 
always  remained.  Nearly  four-tenths,  it  is 
true,  of  the  population  belong  to  the  Roman 
Catholic  Church,  and  nowhere,  perhaps,  has 
the  Pope  more  pious  devotees  and  zealous 
adherents.  Neology,  unbelief,  and  religious 
indifference  have  sadly  served  the  cause  of- 
the  Roman  See,  its  Church  daily  increasing, 
if  not  iu  relative  numbers,  at  least  in  power, 
boldness,  .and  influence.  It  is  strong  in  its 
compact  unity,  and  there  is  no  rent  of  her- 
esy in  the  solid  mass  of  that  mediaeval  build- 
ing save  the  remarkable  schism  of  the  so- 
called  Jansenists  or  members  of  the  Old 
Catholic  clergy,  organized  till  now  iu  Hol- 
land alone,  and  awaking  to  new  life  per- 
haps, since  the  Old  Catholic  commotion  in 
Germany  took  place ;  but  this  sect,  with  its 
few  thousands  of  adherents,  is  far  more  in- 
teresting from  its  history  than  important 
from  actual  influence,  and  the  greater  part 
of  the  Roman  Catholics  are  ultrainonta- 
nists  of  the  purest  type.  Still,  however 
powerful  and  bold  the  Popish  Church  may 
be,  this  fact  does  not  annihilate  the  truth  of 
the  statement  that  the  Dutch  are  a  Protest- 
ant Calvinist  nation  in  marrow  and  bone, 
and  will  remain  such  as  long  as  there  will  bo 
health  and  vigor  in  their  national  life.  The 
Protestant  majority  not  only  outnumbers 
the  Romans,  but  still  more  it  exceeds  them 
in  social  life  by  wealth  and  influence,  by 
learning  and  science.  The  upper  ten  thou- 
sand and  the  aristocracy  of  intellect  gen- 
erally belong  to  the  Protestant  denomina- 
tions, next  to  whom  no  small  number  of 
sons  of  Israel,  by  their  wonderful  qualities 


92 


REPORTS  ON  THE  STATE  OF  RELIGION. 


and  mental  eminence,  often  occupy  a  most 
prominent  place. 

No,  it  is  not  the  Church  of  Rome,  howev- 
er daring  and  dangerous,  which  is  the  most 
dreadful  enemy  of  Christianity  in  Holland. 
There  is  a  tide  of  neology,  a  flood  of  un- 
belief, which  no  dikes  or  moles  can  resist. 
Thousands,  it  is  true,  of  the  lower  and  mid- 
dle classes,  and  these  undoubtedly  the  best 
and  soundest  part  of  the  people,  steadfastly 
and  staunchly  cling  to  their  old  Bible  faith, 
often  with  a  strongly  marked,  ultra-dogmat- 
ic tendency,  and  with  a  narrow-minded  stub- 
bornness in  some  secondary  points  (an  in- 
veterate aversion,  for  instance,  to  hymn- 
singing  and  to  vaccination),  still  with  a  pi- 
ety, on  the  whole,  solid  and  sound.  But  a 
great  many,  a  sadly  increasing  number,  are 
more  or  less  forsaking  the  Gospel  and  becom- 
ing estranged  from  Christian  truth.  Mate- 
rialism and  irreligion  are  slaying  their  tens 
of  thousands  in  the  ranks  of  so-called  Chris- 
tians. So  it  is  everywhere  in  Europe,  so  iu 
Holland  especially. 

Now,  let  us  see  what  the  Dutch  Protestant 
churches  have  to  oppose  to  this  spirit  of  the 
age.  I  speak  of  the  Protestant  churches 
collectively,  and  do  not  call  your  attention 
to  their  special  character  or  mutual  relations. 
To  say  the  truth,  all  outward  ecclesiastical 
differences  between  various  denominations, 
such  as  Reformed,  Lutherans,  Mennonites, 
Remonstrants,  Separatists,  tend  to  disap- 
pear; they  have  almost  vanished  altogeth- 
er, and  are  of  no  importance  whatever  com- 
pared with  the  vital  question  of  the  day, 
with  its  awful,  living  interest  for  the  pres- 
ent and  future  generations.  Everywhere  in 
those  churches  are  the  same  symptoms  of 
disease,  and  the  same  tokens  of  life. 

In  order  to  get  a  proper  appreciation  of 
these,  it  is  necessary  to  recall  to  your  mem- 
ory a  few  historical  facts.  We  can  never 
realize  to  ourselves  the  present  condition  of 
things  without  tracing  their  connection  with 
the  past,  and  I  think  I  may  well  describe 
the  history  of  the  Christian  reformed  religion 
in  Holland  in  the  following  words,  showing 
the  subsequent  periods  in  that  history.  The 
stream  of  religious  and  theological  life  iu 
my  country  siuce  the  days  of  the  Reforma- 
tion, was  first  ia  the  sixteenth  century  vio- 
lently moved  and  roused  .by  the  storms  of 
struggle  and  strife;  then  iu  the  seventeenth, 
after  the  struggle  had  subsided  and  the  doc- 
trine was  settled  at  the  Synod  of  Dort,  it 
was  freezing  under  the  icy  surface  of  pet- 
rifying doctrinarianism.  Afterward,  in  the 
eighteenth  century,  through  the  dissolving 
influence  of  lukewarm  rationalism,  it  waa 
brought  to  a  state  of  nearly  utter  stagnation. 
Now  again,  in  the  nineteenth,  it  is  disturbed 
by  new  agitations,  calling  to  new  strife,  and, 
as  we  hope,  to  new  life  afresh.  This  I  truly 
believe  a  tolerably  exact  resume"  of  Holland's 
religious  and  scientific  life.  On  the  latter 


especially  I  must  lay  stress.  Theology,  in- 
deed, is  nothing  but  the  more  or  less  clear 
self-consciousness  of  religion,  and  in  Holland 
theological  science  ever  was  and  is  still  ea- 
gerly cultivated,  always  in  our  own  peculiar 
way.  What  is  going  on  in  other  countries 
is  speedily  known  iu  Holland,  and  most  im- 
portant has  been,  in  former  and  later  days, 
the  influence  of  Spinoza  and  Descartes,  of 
Schleiermacher  and  Strauss,  of  the  French  en- 
cyclopedists, the  English  deists,  the  German 
philosophers,  each  in  their  turn  and  time. 
But  still  Dutch  theology,  more  excellent  in 
the  whole  from  its  philological  learning,  ex- 
egetical  accuracy,  and  sound  historical  sense 
than  from  its  critical  acuteness  or  specula- 
tive power,  kept  its  own  way  and  character, 
never  unaltered,  but  never  utterly  lost.  It 
was  always  characterized  by  a  certain  prac- 
tical, common-sense  turn  of  mind  conspicuous 
in  all  its  manifestations — in  the  Brothers  of 
Common  Life,  that  interesting  corporation 
of  laic  monks  preceding  the  Reformation ; 
in  Gansfort  and  Erasmus,  in  the  strifes  of 
Jansenists  and  Arminians,  in  the  staiinch 
orthodoxy  of  Voetius  and  the  Biblical  typol- 
ogy of  Coccejus,  in  the  opposition  of  Becker 
against  witchcraft  and  superstition,  as  well 
as  in  our  day.  And  if  the  Dutch  have  glean- 
ed much  from  foreign  countries  to  sow  it  out 
on  their  own  ground,  great  has  reciprocally 
been  the  benefit  they  have  brought  to  others. 
Wittenberg  may  be  called  the  cradle  of  the 
Reformation,  and  Geneva  its  nursery ;  Ley  den 
became  its  training-school  of  preponderating 
influence  at  a  time  when  the  people's  idiom 
was  no  obstacle  and  Latin  still  the  language 
of  the  learned  and  civilized  world. 

Since  it  has  ceased  to  be  so,  our  theology 
is  less  known  to  the  world.  Still,  what  has 
occurred  among  us  since  the  last  half  or 
quarter  of  a  century  well  deserves  the  at- 
tention and  appreciation  of  the  Christian 
world.  The  time  following  that  of  Napole- 
on's fall  and  of  the  restoration  of  1815  had 
borne  a  character  of  unusual  calmness,  not 
to  say  dullness.  It  was  an  utter  reaction 
against  revolution  and  republicanism.  The 
arrogant  levity  of  the  eighteenth  century 
had  been  utterly  confounded.  The  horrors 
of  the  French  republic  and  of  the  terrible 
continental  war  had  led  to  reflection  and 
prudence.  Men  spoke  less  presumptuously 
about  human  rights,  and  thought  a  little 
more  about  men's  duties.  People  were  wea- 
ry of  commotion,  and  yearned  for  rest.  Sus- 
picious of  hollow  theories,  they  wanted  prac- 
tical sense.  Liberty  fell  into  discredit,  quiet 
order  was  overtaxed.  This  was  the  time  of 
unbounded  tolerance  and  latitudinariauism, 
of  seeming  liberality  and  of  apathetic  aver- 
sion to  all  dogmatics — the  time  in  which  a 
fatherly  government  ruling  all  things,  even 
iu  religion  and  church  organization,  was 
hailed  as  Heaven's  most  precious  gift,  the 
people's  greatest  benefit.  A  kind  of  common- 


COHEN  STUART :   THE  RELIGIOUS  CONDITION  OF  HOLLAND. 


93 


place  utilitarian  Christianity,  adapted  to  the 
wants  of  all,  and  brought  to  a  minimum  of 
dogma,  was  to  be  the  gospel  of  the  new  era, 
and  a  lethargy  of  indifference  ensued,  worse 
perhaps,  than  the  rough  incredulity  of  the 
preceding  age.  The  few  who  dared  to  raise 
their  voice  against  it,  belonging  to  the  school 
of  the  great  poet  Bilderdyk,  the  late  Da 
Costa,  another  eminent  poet,  the  still  living 
Groen  van  Prinsterer,  and  a  few  others,  were 
dreaded  as  disturbers  of  order  and  peace, 
as  shrieking  dissonances  in  the  general  har- 
mony. In  optimistic  illusions,  religious  life 
was  softly  lulled  to  a  sleep  from  which  the 
so-called  re"veil,  a  certain  religious  revival, 
but  limited  to  some  of  the  higher  circles,  and 
bearing  from  the  beginning  too  much  a  for- 
eign character,  could  hardly  rouse  the  spirit 
of  the  people.  Dreams  of  a  new  life  were 
dreamed — it  was  not  the  true  awakening 
yet. 

But  other  times  were  coming.  Already 
the  new  Groningeu  school  had  brought  a 
new  element  into  Dutch  theological  life,  de- 
veloping in  its  own  way  the  main  ideas  of 
Schleiermacher.  In  placing  Christology  in 
the  foreground,  it  has  done  much  in  its  time 
to  show  the  Christocentric  character  of  the 
whole  sphere  of  theological  science,  though 
it  can  not  be  denied  that  in  its  exposition 
of  Soteriology  especially,  it  ought  to  rouse 
the  well-grounded  defense  of  a  more  ortho- 
dox faith.  Still,  heavy  as  the  struggle  was 
between  the  Groningen  school  and  the  or- 
thodox, it  was  a  mere  skirmish  compared  to 
the  strife  which  was  now  to  ensue.  Mean- 
time there  had  grown  up  a  younger  genera- 
tion not  satisfied  with  either  of  the  parties. 
The  well-known  Tubingen  school,  the  works 
of  Strauss  and  Baur,  had  made  their  way, 
and  the  era  of  historical  critical  examination 
was  opened.  A  passion  for  tangible  reality 
became  the  predominant  spirit.  Hence,  as 
a  child  of  the  age,  modern  theology  was  born. 

As  this  is  no  phenomenon  proper  to  Hol- 
land alone,  I  need  not  insist  much  on  its  pe- 
culiar character. 

Calling  all  supernatural  equal  to  super- 
divine,  it  acknowledges  an  all-reigning  law 
of  continuous  causality  and  development, 
which  consistently  must  lead  to  the  denial 
of  an  Almighty  and  free-willing  God,  to  the 
rejection  of  the  miracle,  of  the  Divine  char- 
acter of  Revelation,  and  the  absolute  sinless- 
ness  of  Christ,  and  even  of  the  character  of 
sin  as  guilt  toward  God,  bringing  to  a  fa- 
talism and  determinism  fatally  determined 
to  undermine  Christian  faith.  The  religion 
of  the  Nazarene  Jesus  is  its  motto ;  Renau's 
"  Father  Abyss  "  its  last  word.  A  greatly 
increasing  number  among  the  clergy  and 
laity  are  adherents  to  this  modern  view,  and 
not  seldom  are  their  opinions  unreservedly 
proclaimed  from  pulpit  and  chair,  iu  church- 
es and  universities.  Nowhere,  perhaps,  is 
modern  science,  still  pretending  a  right  to  re- 


tain its  Christian  name  and  keep  its  place  in 
the  Church,  more  reckless  in  its  negotiations 
and  assertions  than  is  Holland.  No  wonder 
that  to  this  a  most  earnest  opposition  was 
roused.  The  University  of  Leyden,  strong- 
hold of  the  modern  theology,  is  opposed  by 
that  of  Utrecht,  by  Van  Oosterzee,  Doedes, 
and  others ;  while  in  the  University  of  Gro- 
ningen the  contending  parties  are  both  rep- 
resented. Not  all  champions  of  Christian 
revelation,  however,  stand  as  opponents  of 
modern  theologians  on  quite  the  same  stand- 
point, some  of  them  being  more  "  confession- 
al," others  calling  themselves  "ethic"  by 
preference.  There,  the  authority  of  Scrip- 
ture, here,  that  of  the  Christian  conscience 
prevails ;  and  the  old  supernaturalism  is  sen- 
sibly modified  by  modern  orthodoxy.  But  in 
the  main  they  agree  in  their  contest  to  what 
they  consider  as  subversive  of  all  Christian 
and  religious  faith.  Ready  to  accept  the  duly 
acquired  results  of  really  scientific,  earnest 
investigations,  they  reject  as  arbitrary  the 
modern  aprioristic  speculations.  Not  willing 
to  curtail  any  one's  right  of  liberty  in  pro- 
fessing or  proclaiming  his  individual  opin- 
ions, they  can  not  but  deny  the  right  of 
modern  theologians  to  use  for  their  purpose 
the  ministry  in  a  Christian  church.  If  this 
is  not  utterly  to  be  dissolved,  every  opinion, 
of  course,  can  not  be  tolerated. 

It  is  evident,  indeed,  that  the  utter  con- 
fusion into  which  the  Reformed  Church  of 
Holland  has  fallen,  can  not  last  very  long, 
lest  it  should  lead  to  a  total  disorganization 
and  overthrow  of  the  whole.  How  is  this 
evil  to  be  prevented  ?  Not,  if  it  be  by  any 
means  avoidable,  by  separation  from  the 
Church,  leaving  this  to  the  antagonists  of 
what  in  our  eye  is  the  true  Gospel  of  salva- 
tion. Neither,  if  ever  the  power  is  ours,  by 
expelling  forcibly  the  opponents  of  our  faith. 
Nothing  for  this  moment  is  left  but  to  bear, 
though  not  without  earnest  protest,  a  state 
of  things  too  abnormal  and  too  absurd  to 
last — a  state  to  which  ere  long  an  end  must 
come! 

What  this  end  will  be — the  approaching 
issue  of  the  present  strife  in  the  theological 
and  social  sphere?  As  for  theological  sci- 
ence, we  do  not  fear  the  result.  Let  us  not 
endanger  our  position  by  undervaluing  our 
enemies'  strength.  They  are,  many  of  them, 
well-armed,  gifted,  learned,  serious  men. 
They  have  a  great  deal  of  truth  and  the 
reigning  spirit  of  the  age  at  their  side.  It 
is  easy  to  say  about  modern  theology,  Nc- 
lula  est;  tramibit — "It  is  a  mere  cloud,  and 
will  vanish."  This  cloud  darkening  the  sky 
is  more  than  a  damp  in  the  air ;  it  pours 
down  its  showers  and  rains.  But  we  must 
not  forget  that  the  flood  it  produces  does 
not  bring  only  devastation ;  when  the  tide 
has  fallen  again,  it  will  have  left  its  fructi- 
fying ooze  for.  the  benefit  of  the  Christian 
Church.  Theology  will  not  outlive  all  this 


94 


REPORTS  ON  THE  STATE  OF  RELIGION. 


without  improvement  and  progress,  and  the 
costly  metal  of  Christian  faith  shall  proceed 
purified  out  of  the  furnace  of  discussion,  un- 
til a  new  and  living  faith  will  bring  forth 
as  its  natural  fruit  a  new  and  true  confes- 
sion of  the  Gospel  truth. 

And  as  for  the  religious  life  of  the  people, 
certainly  it  can  not  be  denied  that  the  act- 
ual result  of  the  predominating  tendency 
can  scarcely  be  too  much  deplored.  Where 
the  wind  is  sown,  the  whirlwind  will  be 
reaped.  Modern  theology,  fostered  by  a  ra- 
tionalistic and  materialistic  spirit,  is  a  brand 
in  the  combustible  mass  of  sundry  brooding 
social  questions.  A  great  many  are  estranged 
from  Gospel  truth  and  faith,  and  virtue  with- 
out religion  can  not  stand.  Independent 
morality  is  immoral  in  its  root  and  fruits. 
It  can  not,  alas!  be  denied;  bitter  are  the 
fruits  of  the  reigning  spirit  of  the  age,  now 
already  visible  in  Holland.  Church  attend- 
ance is  fast  decreasing,  levity  and  dissipa- 
tion are  progressing,  and  the  old  Dutch  char- 
acter is  tending  to  degenerate.  But,  on  the 
other  hand,  there  are  indubitable  prognos- 
tics of  a  better  future,  too.  In  the  heat 
of  the  combat  characters  are  tested  and 
strengthened.  There  is  more  conviction, 
earnestness,  truth  now,  in  decided  Chris- 
tians than  there  was  before.  Home  and 
heathen  missions  are  more  ardently  pur- 
sued, Sunday-schools  flourish,  and  Chris- 
tian national  education  valiantly  resists  the 
so-called  neutral  school  system  of  the  State, 
in  reality  too  often  hostile  to  revelation. 
There  is  a  lively  interest  in  our  great  mis- 
sionary festivals,  these  Dutch  camp-meet- 
ings, and  in  all  that  is  going  on  in  these 
Christian  spheres.  A  new  and  better  or- 
ganization of  the  Church,  more  truly  rep- 
resenting the  Christian  people,  is  in  way 
of  preparation.  And  even  the  various  tend- 
encies, proceeding  from  the  most  opposite 
points,  are  involuntarily  tending  to  one  end, 
longing  for  one  solution,  converging  to  one 
point — more  liberty  and  more  truth! 

More  liberty  and  more  truth !  That  indeed 
ought  to  be  the  watch-word  of  all  who,  be- 
lieving in  the  ever-reigning  power  of  the  liv- 
ing Head  of  the  Church,  confidently  rely  on 
the  might  of  truth  and  the  undeniable  rights 
of  conscience,  on  the  ultimate  triumph  of  the 
Gospel.  We  Dutch  love  and  proclaim  liber- 
ty, and  we  enjoy  it  in  a  high  degree.  We  are 
as  free  as  the  freest  nation  of  Europe.  Still, 
not  enough !  We  want  to  have  the  last  ties 
loosened  that  still  bind  State  and  Church. 
We  want  theological  faculties  and  the  min- 
istry of  the  Church  freed  from  appointment 
by  Government,  and  we  want  Christian  edu- 
cation freed  from  incumbrances  that  pre- 


vent its  natural  growth,  Gospel  preaching 
in  the  colonies  set  free  without  the  slightest 
restriction. 

In  claiming  such  rights  we  are  strong, 
because  we  have  right  and  truth,  the  age 
to  come,  and  the  God  of  righteousness  and 
truth,  the  God  of  ages  wi'th  ns.  With  a 
firm  conviction,  we  can  not  despair.  De- 
spondency is  a  word  that  has  no  place  in  the 
vocabulary  of  the  Christian.  Let  only  the 
love  of  true  liberty  unceasingly  live  and  in- 
crease in  my  dear  country,  and  its  standard 
be  well  defended ;  then  Holland,  with  its 
glorious  history,  with  its  proper  type  and 
special  vocation,  its  good  and  earnest  peo- 
ple, its  wealth  and  colonies,  will  have  its  fu- 
ture still,  and,  with  the  blessing  of  God  Al- 
mighty, it  can  be  more  than  a  mere  copyist 
in  the  great  family  of  nationalities,  in  the 
holy  Evangelical  Alliance  of  the  Christian 
peoples. 

And  as  for  that,  we  have  an  eye  turned 
toward  you,  American  friends !  Where  sci- 
ence and  learning  are  concerned,  we  have  to 
look  eastward  to  our  German  neighbors. 
Where  it  concerns  liberty,  "  Westward  ho !" 
is  our  device,  and  we  look  to  you,  our  spiritu- 
al children,  who  have  outgrown  their  parents 
in  the  true  sense  and  application  of  bound- 
less liberty,  and  there  is  a  sympathetic  band, 
there  are  ties  of  recollection  and  religion, 
that  bind  us  together.  The  ocean  divides 
shores,  but  does  not  divide  our  hearts.  Xon 
ingens  nos  aeparat  mare  (The  immense  sea  does 
not  separate  us)  we  say  with  the  English 
Telegraph  Company.  To  sea-faring  Dutch 
the  ocean  is  rather  a  bridge  than  a  gulf. 
More  ties  than  the  telegraphic  wire  link  the 
two  hemispheres  together,  and  the  magnetic 
fluid  goes  between  Christians  from  one  land 
to  another,  rousing  a  thrill  of  sympathy  for 
every  emotion  and  feeling.  We  come,  dear 
friends,  we  come  from  Europe,  from  Holland, 
asking  from  young,  vigorous  American  relig- 
ion and  life  a  new  graft  on  our  old  stem, 
anew  blood  in  our  veins,  anew  seed  to  trans- 
plant in  our  soil.  Let  us  mutually,  by  Chris- 
tian intercourse,  sympathy,  congenial  feel- 
ing, interchange  what  is  wholesome  andgood, 
and  combining  what  in  each  nation  and  in- 
dividuality may  be  acceptable  to  God  in  Je- 
sus Christ  our  Lord,  in  the  unity  of  spirit 
and  mind.  That  will  be  an  Evangelical  Al- 
liance in  the  highest  sense  of  the  word — that 
the  prophecy  and  preparation  of  the  glorious 
day  when  the  chosen  from  all  nations  and 
tongues  will  be  gathered  around  the  throne 
of  God,  that  the  holiest  and  best  realization 
of  your  national  emblem,  of  the  device  adorn- 
ing your  stripes  and  stars:  E pluribus  unum! 
So  may  it  be ! 


THE  RELIGIOUS  AND  MORAL  CONDITION  OF  BEL- 

GIUM. 

BY  THE  REV.  LEONARD  ANET,  OF  BRUSSELS, 

Pastor  and  General  Secretary  of  the  Christian  Missionary  Church  in  Belgium. 


BELGIUM  contains  a  population  of  five 
millions.  The  people  are  divided  into  two 
distinct  parties,  notwithstanding  the  polit- 
ical union  of  the  kingdom. 

The  provinces  of  Brabant,  capital  Brus- 
sels; East  Flanders,  capital  Ghent;  West 
Flanders,  capital  Bruges ;  Antwerp,  capital 
Antwerp ;  and  Luxemburg,  capital  Hasselt, 
comprise  the  Flemish  population.  Their 
language  is  only  a  degenerate  and  unculti- 
vated dialect  of  the  Dutch  language. 

French  is  spoken  in  the  provinces  of  Hai- 
nault,  capital  Mons ;  Natnur,  capital  Namur; 
Luxembourg,  capital  Arlon ;  and  Liege,  capi- 
tal Li6ge.  These  are  often  designated  as 
the  Walloon  provinces,  and  the  language  of 
the  peasantry  is  the  Walloon  —  a  dialect 
sprung  from  the  old  French. 

To  understand  the  present  religious  con- 
dition of  Belgium,  we  must  keep  in  miud 
several  points  in  its  history  duriug  the  last 
three  centuries — from  1520  to  1830. 

In  the  sixteenth  century  the  Reformation 
made  great  progress  in  the  Walloon  and 
Flemish  provinces.  The  Gospel  was  preach- 
ed iu  the  principal  cities,  and  even  in  small 
towns. 

Undoubtedly,  with  some,  the  wish  to  throw 
off  the  yoke  of  sin  may  have  been  combined 
with  a  still  more  impatient  wish  to  throw 
off  the  heavy  yoke  of  Spanish  cruelty.  But 
many  sought,  above  all  things,  the  kingdom 
of  heaven  and  its  righteousness,  and  dedi- 
cated their  souls  and  bodies  to  the  Saviour 
who  had  paid  their  ransom.  To  Belgium  be- 
longs the  honor  of  having  given  the  first 
two  martyrs  to  the  Reformation.  Voes  and 
Esch,  who  had  been  Augustine  monks  at 
Antwerp,  were  burned  upon  the  square  of 
Brussels  in  front  of  the  City  Hall.  They 
glorified  God  and  his  Word  both  in  prison 
and  at  the  stake.  Those  who  have  read 
Motley  —  and  who  has  not  ? — know  how 
bloody  was  the  struggle  between  these  af- 
flicted provinces  on  one  side,  and  the  pow- 
er of  Spain  and  the  priests  on  the  other ; 
and  how  satauic  the  cruelty  shown  by  the 
Spanish  soldiery  and  Inquisition,  not  only 
under  the  Duke  of  Alva,  but  until  the  Neth- 
erlands had  regained  their  independence,  or 
the  Gospel  had  been  crushed  out  of  these 
provinces.  The  men  of  faith,  of  moral 
strength,  those  of  noble  and  independent 


character,  all  perished  or  were  exiled.  Those 
only  remained  who  were  willing  to  sacrifice 
their  eternal  to  their  temporal  welfare,  to 
give  up  the  treasures  and  joys  of  heaven 
for  those  of  earth — feeble,  superstitious,  or 
enslaved  souls.  In  the  succeeding  centuries 
every  convert  to  the  truth  of  the  Gospel 
met  a  martyr's  death  at  the  hands  of  the 
Romish  Church. 

Uutil  the  French  Revolution  Belgium  con- 
tinued under  the  dominion  of  the  clergy, 
who  did  all  in  their  power  to  maintain  ig- 
norance, superstition,  and  falsehood. 

In  1815  Belgium  and  Holland  were  united 
in  one  kingdom.  Belgium  was  divided  into 
two  political  parties,  which,  though  both 
belonging  nominally  to  the  Church  of  Rome, 
were,  in  fact,  two  religious  parties,  led  by 
the  priests  and  the  Freemasons.  The  Free- 
masons wished  to  be  independent  of  the 
clergy,  and  to  adopt  only  such  usages  of  the 
Church  as  they  liked.  A  very  unfriendly 
feeling  resulted  between  them  and  the 
priests.  They  united,  notwithstanding,  to 
take  part  in  the  revolution  of  1830,  which 
secured  the  separation  of  Belgium  from  Hol- 
land, and  its  independence  as  a  kingdom. 
The  constitution  formed  by  the  representa- 
tives of  the  nation  in  1831  was,  and  is  still, 
one  of  the  most  liberal  in  Europe.  Free- 
dom of  worship,  freedom  of  the  press,  free- 
dom of  association,  and  freedom  of  instruc- 
tion— these  four  rights,  the  only  firm  foun- 
dation for  any  social  or  political  structure, 
are  distinctly  and  entirely  guaranteed. 

Any  citizen,  any  stranger,  can  establish  a 
school  or  open  a  place  of  worship,  publish  a 
newspaper  or  form  a  society,  without  per- 
mission from  the  Government,  and  is  entitled 
to  the  protection  of  the  local  authorities  in 
the  exercise  of  these  rights.  I  have  not 
space  here  to  account  for  these  strange  facts. 
An  assembly  composed  of  Freemasons,  of  in- 
fluential priests,  and  of  men  humbly  sub- 
missive to  the  Romish  clergy  agreed  in  es- 
tablishing a  constitution  which  insures  lib- 
erties that  the  Romish  Church  hates  and 
anathematizes.  The  two  parties  soon  dis- 
agreed. The  Freemasons  call  themselves 
Liberals ;  the  priests  and  their  partisans  call 
themselves  the  Catholic,  but  their  oppo- 
nents call  them  the  Clerical  party.  Lib- 
erty ia  the  object  for  which  both  con- 


96 


REPORTS  ON  THE  STATE  OF  RELIGION. 


tend.  The  Liberals  wish  to  apply  the  prin- 
ciples and  develop  the  free  institutions  that 
the  country  has  established.  The  clerical 
party  also  struggle  for  liberty,  but  liberty 
only  for  the  Church,  that  it  may  be  free  to 
do  as  it  pleases.  Of  course  there  are  some 
among  its  members  who  do  not  go  so  far; 
but  the  leaders  have  in  view,  and  necessarily, 
the  practical  application  of  the  doctrines  of 
the  Syllabus.  To  understand  the  injurious  ef- 
fect of  the  struggle,  we  must  observe  its  dis- 
tinctive characteristics,  which  become  more 
marked  as  it  progresses.  The  clergy  show  an 
excessive  regard  for  material  interests.  They 
seem  to  consider  religion  as  a  means  of  ac- 
quiring power  and  riches.  They  confound 
politics  with  religion,  and  use  both  for  their 
own  aggrandizement.  In  their  passionate 
contest  with  Liberalism,  they  do  not  scruple 
to  resort  to  any  measures  or  to  make  use  of 
the  most  violent  language,  while  they  have 
constantly  encouraged  the  growth  of  super- 
stition, that  they  might  more  completely  in- 
thrall  the  people.  It  is  easy  to  understand 
that  the  clergy  have  done  far  more  to  de- 
stroy religion  thau  Voltaire  and  all  his  dis- 
ciples. 

Roman  Catholics  have  been  accustomed 
to  consider  Christianity  and  Romanism  as 
identical,  and  the  clergy  as  the  representa- 
tives of  religion.  The  Liberals  also,  in  the 
course  of  the  struggle,  have  confounded  re- 
ligion and  the  priests  in  their  hatred.  The 
growth  of  infidelity  has  been  incredibly  rap- 
id in  consequence,  and  there  are  men.  who 
believe  that  any  religion,  even  faith  in  a  liv- 
ing God,  is  incompatible  with  perfect  free- 
dom of  the  State.  It  is  difficult  to  estimate 
precisely  the  number  of  those  who  still  hold 
any  important  dogmas  of  the  Church  or  of 
Christianity,  as  the  clergy  belong  to  a  polit- 
ical party  of  which  it  has  the  direction  and 
is  the  soul.  There  may  be  numbers  of  men 
in  this  clerical  party  who  have  few  Catho- 
lic beliefs ;  in  fact,  it  is  easy  to  see  that  this 
is  so. 

Besides,  we  find,  among  those  who  profess 
attachment  to  Romanism,  superstitious  prac- 
tices, but  little  or  no  religious  feeling.  Con- 
science has  been  obliterated,  and  the  relig- 
ious sentiment  stifled,  by  this  hypocritical 
worship  which  materializes  every  thing, 
even  God  himself! 

There  would  be  much  to  say  on  the  chap- 
ter of  morality.  The  moral  state  of  a  peo- 
ple is  always  en  rapport  with  its  religion. 
What  bitter  fruit  does  not  Romanism  bear 
in  the  moral  as  well  as  in  the  political 
world ! 

Now,  what  prospects  does  the  future  offer 
us?  If  the  Gospel  does  not  exert  a  power- 
ful and  regenerating  influence  on  the  na- 
tion, the  future  will  belong  either  to  the 
free-thinkers  or  to  the  Papists.  It  will  be 
the  reign  of  practical  atheism  or  of  cretin- 
ism. It  would  be  easy  to  show  that  these 


two  parties,  waging  a  war  without  mercy, 
between  whom  no  compromise  is  possible, 
lead  to  one  or  the  other  of  these  two  ex- 
tremes. The  priests  will  enslave  mind,  soul, 
and  body,  and  will  not  stop  in  the  path 
which  they  follow  so  logically,  and  with  so 
much  zeal,  till  they  have  reached  the  final 
limits  of  the  most  superstitious  formalism, 
of  absolute  fetichism,  the  annihilation  of  all 
individuality.  This  is  the  necessary  end  of 
their  system. 

The  free-thinkers  tend  irresistibly  to  the 
abolition  of  all  worship  and  of  all  belief  in 
a  living  God.  In  reality,  the  priests  lead 
also  to  atheism  by  materializing  worship 
and  even  the  object  of  worship. 

To  which  of  these  two  parties  does  the 
victory  belong  I  A  very  distinguished  econ- 
omist, M.  de  Laveleye,  professor  of  the  Uni- 
versity of  Lie"ge,  has  demonstrated,  with  the 
unanswerable  argument  of  facts,  that,  if  the 
Liberal  party  does  not  modify  its  principles 
and  its  action,  Belgium  is  destined  to  become 
speedily  a  country  of  cretins,  a  veritable  Cap- 
uchin friary,  or  to  perish  in  incessant  an- 
archical straggles  like  Spain. 

I  confine  myself  to  the  notice  of  the  fol- 
lowing facts.  The  wealth  which  is  at  the 
disposal  of  the  clerical  party  is  incalculable, 
and  we  all  know  the  power  of  money  over  a 
populace  devoted  to  the  pursuit  of  material 
good  and  sensual  enjoyment,  and  whose  re- 
ligion seems  designed  principally  to  cause 
money  to  flow  into  the  hands  of  the  priests. 

The  clergy,  high  and  low,  secular  and  reg- 
ular, by  the  wealth  at  their  disposal,  and  es- 
pecially by  the  confessional  and  other  means 
which  they  have  for  intimidating  and  over- 
awing the  people,  exert  a  preponderating 
influence  over  the  elections  in  the  country 
and  in  the  small  towns.  This  is  particular- 
ly the  case  in  Flanders. 

The  laud  is  covered  with  convents  for  men 
and  women.  In  some  cities  they  occupy 
whole  districts.  In  1846,  there  were  779  con- 
vents, containing  11,968  nuns  and  monks. 
The  census  of  1866  states  that  there  were 
then  1316  convents,  with  18,162  inmates ;  178 
were  monasteries,  and  numbered  2991  indi- 
viduals ;  1138  were  nunneries.  The  value 
of  their  estates  is  estimated  at  about  28,000,- 
000  fr.  As  to  the  personal  property,  it  is  ab- 
solutely incalculable. 

Since  1866,  when  these  statistics  were  tak- 
en, the  number  of  convents  has  increased  by 
some  hundreds,  and  their  property  by  some 
millions.  By  means  of  these  convents,  the 
clergy  have  succeeded  in  controlling  all  the 
education  of  the  women,  and  an  important 
part  of  the  education  of  young  men. 

The  mass  of  the  people  in  a  nation  will 
never  consent  to  give  up  all  worship ;  they 
would  rather  adopt  the  most  degraded  fe- 
tichisra,  if  they  can  find  nothing  better.  The 
free-thinkers,  therefore,  can  never  draw 
away  the  majority  of  the  people  from  the 


ANET :  THE  RELIGIOUS  AND  MORAL  CONDITION  OF  BELGIUM. 


97 


domination  of  the  priests,  since  they  really 
desire  to  abolish  all  worship,  and  in  reject- 
ing the  Roman  worship  have  nothing  else 
to  put  in  its  place.  Besides,  the  Liberals, 
even  while  incessantly  combating  the  cler- 
gy, leave  the  women  and  the  children  under 
their  influence. 

For  these  reasons  and  some  others,  the 
clerical  party  seems  certain  to  gain  the  vic- 
tory ;  but  as  it  would  be  incomplete,  Belgium 
would  be  delivered  up  to  an  incessant  an- 
archy like  Spain,  and  like  all  other  nations 
which  do  not  succeed  in  shaking  off  the 
cursed  yoke  of  the  Papacy. 

Let  us  now  give  a  rapid  glance  at  the 
condition  of  Protestantism  thirty-five  years 
ago,  at  the  work  that  has  since  been  done 
for  the  evangelization  of  the  country,  the  re- 
sults obtained,  and  its  prospects  for  the  future. 

Thirty -five  years  ago  there  were  seven 
Protestant  congregations  in  the  kingdom. 
They  were  supported  by  the  State.  Four 
of  these  were  composed  of  strangers,  mostly 
Germans,  residing  in  the  cities  of  Brussels, 
Antwerp,  Li6ge,  and  Verviers.  The  three 
others  were  composed  of  Belgians,  but  they 
were  situated  in  three  villages ;  one  in  Flan- 
ders, at  Maria  Hoorbeck,  and  two  on  the 
frontiers  of  France,  at  Rongy  and  at  Dour. 
These  three  did  not  comprise  more  than  sev- 
en hundred  and  fifty  souls.  In  a  spiritual 
point  'of  view,  all  these  congregations  were 
dead.  Three  of  the  pastors,  at  Brussels, 
Lie"ge,  and  Verviers,  were  rationalists,  and 
bitterly  opposed  to  the  distribution  of  the 
Bible  and  the  evangelization  of  the  Roman 
Catholics;  the  other  four  were  pious  men. 
There  were  also  Christians  among  some  of 
the  strangers  residing  at  Brussels,  and  a 
group  of  converted  Roman  Catholics  in  a 
village  of  colliers,  near  Mons.  There  were, 
besides,  a  few  Anglican  churches,  but  with- 
out much  spiritual  vitality,  and  having  no 
relations  with  the  country. 

Let  us  turn  from  this  to  what  is  before  us 
now.  We  have  two  church  organizations  : 
one  supported  by  the  State,  and  the  other 
comprising  the  free  churches  established  by 
the  Evangelical  Society.  Besides  the  seven 
mentioned  above,  there  are  five  others,  mak- 
ing, in  all,  twelve  churches,  and  fourteen 
pastors,  receiving  their  support  from  the 
State.  The  Church  of  Brussels  has  three 
pastors — one  French,  one  German,  and  one 
Dutch.  That  of  Antwerp  two — one  French, 
and  the  other  German.  At  Ghent  there  is 
a  Dutch  pastor ;  at  Seraing,  in  the  province 
of  Li6ge,  there  is  a  German  pastor.  The 
churches  of  Paturages  and  of  La  Bouverie, 
in  the  district  of  Mons,  are  entirely  com- 
posed of  Roman  Catholic  converts,  and  there 
are  some  in  several  other  churches.  Among 
these  fourteen  pastors,  two  or  three  only  ai%e 
rationalists.  These  churches  have,  besides, 
three  evangelists.  The  one  at  Maliues,  where 
there  is  a  small  Dutch  congregation,  with  a 
7 


few  converted  Catholics,  is  very  zealous  in 
visiting  the  Protestant  prisoners  in  the  pen- 
itentiaries of  Lonvain  and  Le  Vilvorde. 

The  two  other  evangelists  work  at  Cues- 
mes  and  Douvrain,  district  of  Mons.  The 
flock  at  Douvrain,  which  as  a  whole  has 
just  left  the  Roman  Catholic  Church, is  quite 
numerous.  Most  of  these  twelve  churches 
have  schools.  Those  of  Brussels  and  Ant- 
werp are  important.  They  have  also  an 
asylum  at  Brussels  for  aged  people  and  or- 
phans. 

In  1837-38  an  association  was  formed  of 
some  Christians,  among  whom  were  three 
of  the  pastors  mentioned  above.  They  were 
all  foreigners.  One,  an  Englishman,  was  the 
agent  of  the  British  Foreign  Bible  Society. 
Two  others  were  French  (one  from  Alsace), 
two  were  German,  and  one  Dutch.  This  as- 
sociation called  itself  the  Evangelical  Soci- 
ety of  Belgium.  It  had  at  first  one  evangel- 
ist, then  two,  then  three.  For  many  years 
it  employed  only  one  colporteur  for  Bibles 
and  tracts.  Its  work  grew  slowly  but  sure- 
ly. The  churches  which  it  founded,  and 
which  were  composed  of  Roman  Catholic 
converts,  in  1848-49  were  organized  on  the 
Presbyterian  plan,  with  synods,  and  adopt- 
ed the  Belgian  confession  of  faith  of  the  six- 
teenth century.  It  took  the  title  of  Chris- 
tian Missionary  Church  of  Belgium,  while  it 
continued  to  call  itself  the  Evangelical  So- 
ciety. It  has  twenty-four  congregations, 
scattered  through  the  country,  in  all  the 
great  centres  of  population  and  in  most  of 
the  important  towns.  It  has  two  in  Brus- 
sels— one  French  and  one  Flemish ;  one  at 
Ghent,  at  Antwerp,  at  Lie"ge,  at  Verviers,  at 
Seraing,  at  Namur,  at  Charleroi,  at  Jumets, 
in  the  manufacturing  towns,  in  Borinage, 
district  of  Mons,  etc.,  etc.  In  several  places 
elders  preside  over  the  meetings,  and  pastors 
visit  them  as  often  as  possible. 

Some  of  these  congregations  are  small, 
and  some  quite  numerous.  In  the  majori- 
ty you  find  with  difficulty  a  Protestant  ori- 
gin. They  have  all  come  out  of  the  Roman 
Church.  The  Church  of  Charleroi  numbers 
one  thousand  members,  comprising  the  chil- 
dren, with  perhaps  only  one  of  Protestant 
origin.  It  is  the  same  at  Lize- Seraing, 
where  the  Church  numbers  between  six  and 
seven  hundred  members. 

Presently  I  will  estimate  the  religious  and 
moral  character  of  this  awakening. 

The  different  means  employed  since  the 
beginning  to  spread  abroad  the  knowledge 
of  the  Gospel  are  the  publications,  colpor- 
teurs, depositories  of  books  and  tracts,  the 
gratuitous  distribution  of  tracts,  primary 
schools,  Sunday-schools,  and  the  preaching 
of  the  Gospel  in  houses,  in  halls  hired  for 
this  purpose — later  in  chapels,  where  there 
were  any  (wo  have  built  sixteen) — in  the 
cemeteries  at  funerals  (these  sermons  have 
always  been  greatly  blessed),  and  often,  be- 


REPORTS  ON  THE  STATE  OF  RELIGION. 


sides,  in  tbo  open  air,  in  orchards,  or  on  the 
public  squares.  Hundreds  of  thousands  of 
souls  have  thus  heard  tho  invitation  of  the 
love  of  God  in  Christ  Jesus. 

The  Christian  Missionary  Church  of  Bel- 
gium has  printed  and  distributed  more  than 
a  million  and  a  half  of  tracts  and  other  vol- 
umes. She  gives  gratuitously  tracts  only, 
but  she  distributes  thus  from  one  hundred 
to  one  hundred  and  twenty  thousand  a  year. 
She  has  a  public  depository  at  Brussels  of 
all  tho  Evangelical  works  published  in  the 
French  language.  There  is  also  in  the  same 
establishment  a  dep6t  of  Dutch  and  Flemish 
publications. 

She  publishes  two  reviews,  one — a  month- 
ly, in  French — "  The  Belgian  Christian" — and 
one  semi-monthly,  in  Flemish.  She  employs 
constantly  nine  or  ten  colporteurs  and  Bible- 
readers,  who  travel  through  the  country. 
They  sell  the  Bible  and  religious  books; 
they  engage  in  conversations,  read  the  gos- 
pels, explain  the  principal  truths  of  salva- 
tion, and  pray  whenever  they  are  permitted 
to  do  so. 

A  great  work  has  been  accomplished;  a 
great  Avork  is  in  progress;  but  is  it  thor- 
ough, and  what  is  to  be  its  future  ?  These 
churches  are  not  formed  of  persons  who,  by 
a  simple  change  of  opinion  or  in  obedience 
to  an  intellectual  persuasion,  have  passed 
from  Roman  Catholicism  to  Protestantism. 
They  are  composed  principally  of  persons 
heartily  converted  to  God,  or  who  feel  the  ne- 
cessity of  earnestly  seeking  the  way  of  sal- 
vation. It  can  not  be  otherwise ;  we  shall 
see  wherefore. 

They  are  alive ;  and  to  be  true  and  exact, 
perhaps  I  ought  to  say  that,  generally,  they 
have  an  intense  life,  in  the  midst  of  many 
miseries  and  struggles.  They  are  full  of  zeal 
for  the  advancement  of  the  kingdom  of  God. 
They  have  their  gatherings  for  prayer,  gen- 
erally well  attended  and  edifying. 

Everywhere  there  are  brethren  who  pre- 
side over  the  weekly  assemblies,  and  on  Sun- 
*.  days  there  are  lay  men  who  habitually  preach. 
They  take  care  of  their  poor,  of  their  widows 
and  orphans.*  They  make  sacrifices  to  car- 
ry on  the  work.  It  is  certainly  right  to  say 
that  they  are  generous.  Except  those  in 
Brussels  and  Antwerp,  they  are  all  laboring 
men ;  and  one  may  see  from  the  annual  re- 
ports which  we  publish  that  the  sums  gath- 
ered in  our  field  are  not  small. 

It  is  evident  that  this  Church  is  founded 
on  the  Corner-stone,  and,  as  far  as  men  can 
judge,  it  has  a  future.  It  is  hardly  neces- 
sary to  call  attention  to  the  fact  that  the 
Evangelical  Society,  or  Christian  Missionary 
Church  of  Belgium,  needs  laborers  and  mon- 
ey to  respond  to  the  demands  made  upon  it. 
There  are  live  millions  of  souls  to  evangel- 
ize. The  number  of  laborers  who  are  al- 
ready  working  is  still  insignificant,  in  com- 


*  They  have  an  orphan  asylum  at  Brussels. 


parison  with  tho  field  which  is  to  bo  culti- 
vated, to  be  sowed,  and  even  to  be  reaped. 

Tho  work  needs  to  be  thoroughly  under- 
stood and  efficiently  sustained  by  foreign 
Christians.  If  it  is  desirable  that  it  should 
prosper,  it  is  necessary  that  it  should  receive 
from  without  more  effectual  aid  than  during 
the  past. 

I  know  not  God's  plans  for  the  future.  I 
perceive  that  unbelief,  and  a  tendency  to 
entire  preoccupation  in  tho  worldly  and 
sensual — practical  materialism,  in  fact,  un- 
der all  its  forms — is  increasing  with  fright- 
ful rapidity,  and  hence  results  an  excessive 
indifference  to  all  that  concerns  the  future 
life. 

It  does  not  seem  to  me  possible  that  the 
present  generation  should  be  brought  under 
the  influence  of  a  religion  so  serious  and  so 
holy  as  true  Christianity.  Nevertheless,  the 
following  facts  remain  incontestable  and  ev- 
ident. I  only  mention  them  briefly,  although 
they  perhaps  deserve  to  be  more  fully  de- 
veloped. 

Religious  tracts  are  well  received  by  the 
majority  of  the  people.  They  are  spoken 
of  and  regarded  as  useful  writings. 

If,  generally,  only  seriously  minded  per- 
sons attend  the  services,  yet  wo  can  occa- 
sionally collect  larger  audiences  at  funerals 
or  at  conferences.  These  audiences  are  al- 
ways very  attentive,  and  sometimes  very 
sympathetic.  And  one  may  hear  often  from 
many  of  the  auditors  such  remarks  as  these : 
"  That  is  very  beautiful ;"  or,  better,  "  This 
is  the  true  religion ;"  or,  better  still,  "  If 
I  wanted  religion,  this  is  the  one  I  would 
choose." 

Great  numbers  of  all  classes  desire  that 
Belgium  should  become  Protestant,  at  least 
that  the  mass  of  the  people  might  be  de- 
livered from  the  priests.  "  Because,"  they 
say,  "the  Protestant  religion  is  beneficent, 
and  the  friend  of  progress." 

The  morality  taught  by  the  Gospel,  and 
shown  in  the  lives  of  its  disciples,  is  held  in 
high  estimation  wherever  we  have  a  congre- 
gation, and  even  elsewhere.  It  is  acknowl- 
edged that  those  Avho  obey  tho  Gospel  change 
their  conduct,  and  lead  sedate  and  laborious 
lives,  fulfilling  conscientiously  all  their  ob- 
ligations. It  is  understood  everywhere  that 
to  be  an  Evangelical  Christian  the  life  must 
be  governed  by  the  Gospel.  For  this  reason, 
only  those  who  are  really  thoughtful,  earnest 
souls  join  themselves  to  our  churches. 

The  revival  has  not  been  arrested,  and 
it  has  lately  borne  remarkable  fruits  in 
three  or  four  different  localities.  It  seems 
to  me  that  we  have  every  reason  to  believe 
that  the  revival  which  we  have  had  thus 
far  is  only  the  forerunner  of  the  awakening 
which  God  in  his  goodness  is  preparing  for 
the  future,  and  that,  up  to  this  day,  wre  have 
only  gathered  in  the  first-fruits  of  the  harvest- 
So  may  it  be ! 


STATE  OF  RELIGION  IN  SWITZERLAND. 


BY  THE  REV.  EUGENE  EEICHEL,  MOXTMIRAIL,  SWITZERLAND. 

[Born  December  19th,  1831,  at  Finn,  Estland.] 


CALLED  upon  to  address  you  briefly  in  ref- 
erence to  the  present  religious  condition  of 
Switzerland,  I  feel  sensibly  how  difficult  it 
is  to  portray  contemporaneous  history  with 
any  satisfactory  degree  of  exactness.  This 
perplexity  is  materially  increased  by  the 
crisis  which  at  present  exists  in  our  Swiss 
churches,  and  which  up  to  this  time  has 
not  fotind  its  proper  solution.  We  have  in 
Switzerland  two  powerful  forces  in  oppo- 
sition to  the  Evangelical  Church.  On  the 
one  hand  is  the  Church  of  Rome.  Among 
our  Alps,  as  elsewhere,  the  Papacy  is  mak- 
ing prodigious  efforts  to  foist  her  despotic 
dogmas  upon  all  our  cantons — a  movement, 
however,  in  which  she  is  most  vigorously 
opposed — as  well  as  to  hold  in  proper  sub- 
jection those  of  her  children  who  continue 
faithful  to  her  communion,  while  out  and 
out  repudiating  the  dogma  of  infallibility. 
Of  this  latter  number  is  the  Old  Catholic 
party,  which  has  become  a  power  indeed, 
under  the  impulse  given  it  by  one  of  its 
most  distinguished  representatives,  Pere  Hy- 
acinthe  Loyson.  An  auspicious  future,  I 
venture  to  say,  lies  before  the  organization  I 
have  just  alluded  to,  provided  its  members 
allow  themselves  to  be  swayed  more  fully 
by  the  spirit  of  this  leader,  and  remain  on 
the  alert  against  entanglement  in  a  false  al- 
liance with  infidelity. 

On  the  other  hand,  we  have  to  contend 
with  a  rank  infidelity  —  a  second  mighty 
source  of  evil  in  Switzerland.  It  is  not  a 
thing  of  yesterday.  For  a  long  time  already 
a  deplorable  unbelief  has  led  captive  the 
masses  of  the  people.  They  have  left  their 
churches  to  ingulf  themselves  in  the  vortex 
of  business  and  worldly  pleasure.  This  state 
of  things  in  a  measure  paralyzes  the  efforts 
of  the  servants  of  Jesus.  On  every  side  in- 
fidelity is  become  rampant  and  much  more 
aggressive  than  in  former  years.  Better  or- 
ganized than  once,  and  finding  an  efficient 
support  both  in  the  indifference  of  the  peo- 
ple and  the  countenance  afforded  by  Gov- 
ernment, this  insidious  foe,  closing  up  its 
ranks,  is  not  slow  to  assail  the  truth.  The 
first  great  attack  was  repulsed.  The  lec- 
tures delivered  by  Professor  Buisson  in  all 
the  French  cantons  revived  in  a  measure 
the  dying  attachment  of  the  people  to  the 
faith  of  their  ancestors.  The  enemies  of  the 


Church  of  Christ  then  changed  their  tactics. 
Strong  in  the  patronage  of  the  Government, 
they  aimed  to  implant  within  the  bosom  of 
the  National  Church  the  seeds  of  a  soi-disant 
"  Liberal  Christianity ;"  and  very  persistent 
still  are  their  efforts  to  undermine  and  de- 
stroy her  influence  by  the  passage  of  unjust 
and  iniquitous  ecclesiastical  laws. 

But,  brethren  beloved,  the  friends  of 
Christ's  cause  have  not  lost  courage  on 
either  score,  as  I  stand  ready  if  necessary 
to  establish.  They  have  followed  the  ex- 
ample of  the  enemy,  and  are  in  turn  the 
aggressors.  They  have  marshaled  their 
strength  and  organized  their  forces.  The 
"Evangelical  National  Union,"  as  their  as- 
sociation is  called,  has  arisen  out  of  the  very 
midst  of  these  complicated  dangers.  Each 
canton  has  its  own  special  union,  all  the  as- 
sociations being  united  under  one  common 
confederation.  This  General  Union  is  both 
prayerful  and  active.  It  is  preparing  the 
elements  of  a  regenerated  condition  of 
things;  and  should  the  State  Church  be 
forced  to  succumb  before  the  power  of  the 
tempest,  such  an  ecclesiastical  revolution 
will  not  put  an  end  to  the  people  of  God  in 
Switzerland ;  the  Church  of  the  living  God 
will  only  emerge  from  her  trial  in  purer  and 
more  glorious  form. 

With  heart-felt  satisfaction  we  are  able  to 
declare  at  this  time  that  the  great  ideas 
of  the  Evangelical  Alliance  are  making  de- 
cided progress  amidst  the  crisis  that  now  agi- 
tates the  laud.  The  partition  walls  which 
ignorance  and  bigotry  have  set  up  are  in  a 
fair  way  of  being  pulled  down.  A  common 
danger  has  caused  ancient  rivalries  to  be 
forgotten,  and  all  the  children  of  God  — 
whatever  shades  of  difference  their  training 
or  creed  may  present  —  feel  themselves  in- 
creasingly drawn  by  the  solo  ties  of  a  mutu- 
al love  and  a  mutual  thankfulness  toward 
Him  who  died  for  us  all. 

A  similar  condition  of  things  prevails  in 
German  Switzerland,  a  brief  report  of  which 
cantons  I  am  also  charged  to  present  to  this 
meeting.  In  this  portion  of  our  country  re- 
ligious questions  are  in  like  manner  the  or- 
der of  the  day.  On  every  side — in  the  pub- 
lic journals,  in  popular  assemblies,  in  the  bo- 
som of  our  families,  on  our  very  streets — top- 
ics are  agitated  which  were  once  deemed  the 


REPORTS  ON  THE  STATE  OF  RELIGION. 


100 

exclusive  prerogative  of  pulpits  and  church 
papers.  lu  every  direction  are  heard  con- 
fused shouts  of  "  Hie,  Old  Catholic !  Hie, 
Ultramontane !"  while  loud  above  all  is  the 
cry, "Hie, Reform!  Hie,  Orthodoxy!"  When, 
however,  we  eagerly  draw  near  to  inquire 
into  the  spirit  of  this  "Reform,"  we  discover 
at  once  that  all  its  parade  is  but  the  flimsy 
disguise  of  a  deadly  hostility  to  the  Gospel, 
and  that  its  rallying  watch-word  is  only  a 
reiteration  of  the  ancient  enmity  to  Christ, 
so  expressively  set  forth  in  the  language  of 
the  parable :  "  We  will  not  have  this  man  to 
reign  over  us!"  Such,  alas!  is  the  utter- 
ance of  the  lower  classes,  of  the  public  press, 
of  the  legislature,  and,  I  am  sorry  to  be 
obliged  to  add,  even  of  the  pulpit  itself. 

But  here,  also,  in  German  Switzerland  we 
find  a  decided  reaction,  in  the  form  of  an 
earnest,  resolute  striving  for  the  name  of  the 
Lord  Jesus.  The  friends  of  the  kingdom  of 
God  are  stirring.  Would  that  they  were 
energetic  and  united !  We  find  an  Orthodox 
party  and  a  party  of  "Mediation,"  as  it  is 
termed,  which  stands  between  the  former 
and  infidelity.  This  party  of  Mediation  de- 
rives some  justification  for  its  existence  from 
the  narrow-minded  spirit  of  the  first-men- 
tioned, yet  we  can  not  but  deplore  the  di- 
vision which  it  produces.  In  addition  to 
these  is  an  "Evangelical  Church  Union," 
similar  to  that  in  French  Switzerland,  be- 
sides other  truly  Christian  associations. 
May  the  Lord  speedily  unite  his  people  into 
closest  bonds  of  fellowship ! 

Thank  God  we  can  discern  a  bright  flush 
of  red  in  this  respect  upon  the  horizon,  as 
the  following  statement  will  show.  For 
more  than  twenty  years  a  band  of  brethren 
from  among  the  seven  thousand  that  have 
not  bowed  their  knees  to  Baal  has  met  every 
spring  in  Christian  fellowship,  in  the  town 
of  Baden  (Canton  Argau),  for  the  purpose  of 
mutual  edification  and  furtherance  of  the 
work  of  the  Lord. 

Few  in  number  at  first,  this  Baden  Con- 
ference gradually  grew  to  be  a  power  in  the 
laud.  The  question  of  such  occasions  is  not, 
"  Do  yon  belong  to  the  National  or  to  the 
Free  Church  ?  Are  you  Baptists  or  Method- 


ists?" but,  "Do  yon  love  the  Lord  Jesus 
Christ  and  his  kingdom  T" 

Long  time  already  has  this  Baden  Con- 
ference been  an  Evangelical  Alliance,  with- 
out such  distinctive  title  before  the  world ; 
perhaps  without  even  being  personally  con- 
scious of  the  fact.  It  was  only  last  spring 
that  this  body  assumed  the  actual  appella- 
tion, and  now  it  commissions  its  delegate 
to  convey  a  heart-felt  greeting  from  "  little 
Benjamin  "  to  his  mother  and  to  his  numer- 
ous brethren  here  assembled. 

But  I  must  endeavor  to  make  these  good 
wishes  intelligible  in  the  language  spoken 
by  the  majority  of  this  respected  audience. 

Brethren,  allow  me  to  present  to  you  the 
most  cordial  love  of  the  several  branches 
of  the  Evangelical  Alliance  in  Switzerland, 
whose  representative  I  am,  having  been  re- 
quested by  the  Associations  of  Neuchatel, 
Lausanne,  and  German  Switzerland  to  ap- 
pear as  their  delegate  on  this  important 
and  happy  occasion.  We  rejoice  in  the 
thought  that  we  who  live  in  among  the 
towering  Alps  are  so  closely  bound  to  you 
by  the  ties  of  Christian  love  and  fellowship. 
It  is  an  unspeakable  comfort  to  us  to  be  per- 
mitted, under  God,  to  possess  such  a  strong 
moral  support  in  this  universal  alliance  of 
Christians.  We  are  the  more  encouraged 
by  this  consideration  since  the  churches  of 
our  country  are  at  present  engaged  in  a  pe- 
culiarly difiicult  struggle  with  the  enemies 
of  Christ.  These  foes  of  the  Gospel  are 
straining  every  nerve  to  extinguish  the 
light  of  the  Gospel.  They  would  make  the 
Church  the  slave  of  the  state.  We  consider 
it  our  bounden  duty,  therefore,  not  only  to 
maintain  with  energy  the  preaching  of  the 
Cross  and  of  the  death  of  Jesus  Christ,  the 
Only-begotten  of  God,  as  the  sole  ground  of 
our  salvation,  but  also  to  aim  at  the  thor- 
ough deliverance  of  our  Church  from  every 
secular  chain. 

Dear  Brethren,  all  they  of  Switzerland 
who  love  our  Lord  Jesus  Christ  in  sincerity 
are  most  deeply  interested  in  the  success  of 
these  meetings,  and  unite  in  prayer  that  our 
mutual  Lord  and  Master  may  be  present  in  our 
midst  to  say  unto  us,  "  Lo !  I  am  with  you." 


STATE  OF  KELIGION   IN  SCANDINAVIA. 


BY  THE  REV.  C.  H.  A.  KALKAR,  D.D.,  COPENHAGEN. 


I.  THE  state  of  the  Danish  Church,  though 
it  does  not  materially  differ  from  evangel- 
ical bodies  in  other  countries,  presents,  nev- 
ertheless, some  peculiar  forms  and  phases, 
\vhich  are  a  natural  consequence  of  the  spir- 
itual and  national  development  of  the  Dan- 
ish people.  The  radical  attacks  on  Church 
and  clergy  by  the  Press  and  Parliament ;  the 
wish  that  the  national,  or  so-called  Folke- 
kirke,  should  be  dissolved;  that  all  church 
property  be  confiscated,  and  the  clergy  paid 
by  the  State ;  that  tithes  should  be  abolish- 
ed, and  the  power  of  choosing  their  own  min- 
isters be  granted  to  the  people — all  these 
things  are  repeated  here  as  elsewhere.  The 
people  take  but  little  part  in  these  reforms, 
and  are,  on  the  whole,  well  pleased  with  the 
present  state  of  affairs.  Conflicts  between 
ministers  and  their  congregations  occur  sel- 
dom. The  moral  state  of  the  clergy  has  great- 
ly improved,  ministers  who  do  not  meet  their 
pastoral  responsibilities  being  the  exception. 

All  the  above-mentioned  propositions, 
however,  are  urged  so  persistently  in  popu- 
lar mass  meetings  and  by  the  radical  press 
that  they  can  not  fail  to  make  an  impression 
on  the  people.  "  Much  good,"  they  are  told, 
"could  be  accomplished  by  such  reforms." 
The  so-called  "  Party  of  the  Left "  proposes 
these  ever-increasing  demands.  This  party 
consists,  in  Scandinavia,  mostly  of  persons 
who,  having  turned  their  backs  on  the  true 
Christian  faith,  have  adopted  some  sort  of 
humanitarianism,  as  taught  by  the  Ration- 
alists. It  deserves  to  be  mentioned,  how- 
ever, that  not  a  few  of  the  Grundtwig  party, 
who  are  true  believers  and  friends  of  the 
Church,  uphold  these  attempts  at  disintegra- 
tion, only  because  they  have  raised  the  word 
"Liberty"  as  their  shibboleth,  though  the 
end  at  which  the  radical  party  is  aiming 
has  nothing  in  common  with  their  own. 
Some  of  the  members  of  the  Grundtwig  party 
have  uttered  words  of  warning  against  this 
false  alliance,  among  others  the  well-known 
preacher,  Birkedahl. 

The  Secretary  of  Public  Worship,  who 
should  protect  the  rights  of  the  Church,  does 
not  represent  an  ecclesiastical,  but  politi- 
cal power ;  and  many  sacrifices,  hurtful  to 
the  Church,  have  to  be  made  for  political 
ends.  Since  Denmark  has  entered  the  list 
of  constitutional  States,  ecclesiastical  affairs 
have  to  be  transacted  in  the  Eigsdag,  i.  e., 
the  Danish  Parliament,  which  is  not  a  relig- 
ious body.  The  Folkcthing — a  part  of  the 


Eigsdag — is  always  striving  to  increase  its 
power;  and  as  the  Church  has  no  organ 
through  which  it  could  make  its  voice  heard, 
most  measures  are  proposed  merely  from 
worldly  motives,  and  treated  of  in  the  same 
spirit. 

Sweden  has  been  more  cautious  in  this  re- 
spect. When  the  representation  of  the  sev- 
eral orders  was  abolished  by  the  new  con- 
stitution in  1865,  so  that  the  clergy  had  no 
longer  a  seat  in  the  Eigsdag,  it  was  ordained 
that  every  fifth  year  a  synod — Kirkembde,  con- 
sisting of  thirty  ministers  and  thirty  laymen, 
should  be  called ;  and  no  new  law  relating  to 
ecclesiastical  affairs  can  be  sanctioned  by  the 
Eigsdag  without  consent  of  the  synod.  The 
twelve  bishops  of  Sweden,  the  First  Pastor 
— "Pastor  Primarius" — of  Stockholm,  and 
two  theological  professors  (two  from  each 
university)  are  ex-oflficio  members  of  the 
synod;  and  there  is  at  least  some  chance 
that  questions  which  enter  deeply  into  the 
life  of  the  Church  are  not  at  the  mercy  of  a 
political  faction,  as  is  the  case  in  Denmark. 
It  is  a  convincing  proof  of  the  indestructible 
power  of  the  Gospel,  and  of  the  discretion 
of  the  people,  that,  while  the  waves  of  pub- 
lic discussion  beat  higli  in  the  Eigsdag  and 
in  the  press,  the  church  services  and  the 
spiritual  life  of  the  people  flow  on  calmly, 
losing  but  little  of  their  beneficent  influence, 
notwithstanding  the  furious  attacks  of  the 
radicals. 

Up  to  the  present  time,  we  know  but  lit- 
tle of  denominational  disputes,  most  of  us 
being  Lutherans.  Other  sects  and  creeds, 
tolerated  in  consequence  of  religious  free- 
dom, are  few  in  numbers,  and  almost  at  a 
stand-still.  The  Methodists,  in  spite  of  their 
elegant  church  in  Copenhagen,  built  with 
American  money,  have  no  great  increase. 
The  Baptists  have  lost  their  popularity  since 
the  law  enforcing  baptism  has  been  abolish- 
ed, comprising  but  a  few  members,  who  con- 
vene in  a  little  church  in  the  suburbs. 

The  Irvingites,  supported  by  England, 
have  also  but  a  small  congregation,  which 
meets  in  a  little  church  in  the  same  suburb. 
They  make  no  ostentatious  display.  Besides 
the  sects  enumerated,  a  few  others  lead  a 
precarious  existence,  and  are  gradually  dis- 
appearing. Even  Mormonism  has  lost  its 
power,  as  frequent  news  comes  from  Utah 
that  the  "  Paradise  "  is  not  situated  near  Salt 
Lake.  By  wise  moderation  the  Government 
has  succeeded  in  preventing  all  disputes  be- 


102 


REPORTS  ON  THE  STATE  OF  RELIGION. 


tween  members  of  different  denominations. 
None  of  the  sects  are  aggressive,  each  keep- 
ing vrithin  its  own  limits. 

The  Roman  Catholic  Church  is  the  only 
body  seriously  endangering  the  Lutherans. 
Up  to  1840  there  was  only  one  Romish 
chapel  in  Copenhagen.  This  stood  under 
the  protection  of  the  Austrian  embassy. 
Only  in  Fridericia  and  Friedrichstadt  the 
Romanists  were  permitted  free  exercise  of 
their  religion.  The  former  laws  against 
proselytism  were  exceedingly  strict,  but 
were  hardly  ever  enforced.  As  soon  as  re- 
ligious freedom  had  been  proclaimed  by  the 
fundamental  law  of  1849,  the  Roman  Catho- 
lic Church  hastened  to  take  advantage  of  it. 
A  stately  church-building,  numerous  priests, 
the  introduction  of  nuns,  the  establishment 
of  a  Roman  Catholic  Church  paper,  and  of 
free  schools  for  poor  children,  were  the  first 
signs  that  Romanism  stood  no  longer  on  the 
basis  of  simple  toleration.  Its  power  soon 
showed  itself  more  freely  in  its  attempts  to 
make  converts,  by  proving  to  the  various 
classes  of  the  population  that  the  politically 
desperate  condition  of  the  country  was  at- 
tributable to  the  withdrawal  of  the  people 
from  the  mother  church.  Denmark,  in  or- 
der to  rise  to  its  former  splendor  and  impor- 
tance, would  have  to  return  to  the  bosom  of 
the  Church  of  Rome.  The  Romanists  at- 
tempted to  make  this  bait  more  palatable 
by  the  publication  of  a  Danish  church  his- 
tory, in  which  the  facts  were  often  gross- 
ly misrepresented.  The  disputes  caused  by 
these  unpopular  publications  were  epheme- 
ral. In  the  year  1853  the  so-called  Profectura 
dpostolica  was  founded  for  the  propagation 
of  Romanism  in  Iceland,  the  Faroe  Islands, 
and  the  extreme  north.  The  Profedux  Apos- 
tolicus  Bernard  applied  to  the  Danish  Gov- 
ernment for  permission  to  place  the  Roman 
Catholic  congregation  in  Denmark  under  the 
control  of  that  body,  and  to  allow  the  Pro- 
fectus  to  take  up  his  abode  in  Copenhagen. 
The  Government  recognized  the  true  intent 
and  purpose  of  these  requests  at  once.  Rome 
desired  a  dignitary  at  Copenhagen  Avho  should 
have  an  official  and  powerful  position  in  the 
kingdom,  controlling  all  the  Roman  Catholic 
affairs.  With  great  wisdom  the  Secretary 
of  Public  Worship  represented  to  the  king 
the  dangers  and  complications  which  might 
arise  with  foreign  powers  from  such  a  step, 
and  the  king  accordingly  resolved  that  the 
Danish  Government  would  neither  refuse 
nor  agree  to  the  annexation  of  the  Romish 
congregations  to  the  so-called  Profectura.  As 
this  was  a  purely  internal  matter  of  the  Ro- 
man Catholic  Church,  the  State,  it  was  ar- 
gued, could  not  enter  into  official  arrange- 
ments with  the  Profcctus,  whose  residence,  of 
course,  would  have  to  bo  permitted.  This 
fact,  however,  could  make  no  difference  in 
the  relations  between  the  Danish  Govern- 
ment and  the  priests  of  the  Roman  Catholic 


Church  residing  in  that  country,  and  thus 
this  plan  of  obtaining  an  official  position  for 
an  ecclesiastical  dignitary  was  frustrated. 
The  matter,  however,  did  not  rest  here. 
Frequent  reports  were  heard  that  the  Ro- 
manists were  making  proselytes  both  among 
the  very  highest  and  lowest  classes  of  so- 
ciety, and  that  these  people  were  exceeding- 
ly zealous  for  their  new  belief.  The  ven- 
erable Bishop  Mynster  almost  with  his  last 
breath  warned  the  people  against  the  dan- 
gers which  were  threatening  from  the  Rom- 
ish Church. 

Among  the  above-mentioned  proselytes, 
the  youug  and  finely  educated  Count  Hoi- 
stein  Ledrebog,  heir  to  a  large  estate  in 
Zealand,  ranks  foremost  as  an  unscrupulous 
partisan  of  Romanism.  Partly  on  account 
of  his  social  influence,  and  partly  in  conse- 
quence of  his  culture,  he  occupies  the  posi- 
tion of  champion  of  the  Romish  Church  in 
Denmark.  He  is  the  indefatigable  defender 
of  papal  infallibility.  When  Mr.  Scheppelern 
had  called  attention  to  the  many  erroneous 
doctrines  contained  in  Deharbe's  "  School- 
book  for  Children,"  Count  Holsteiu  answered 
him  in  a  pretty  sharp  pamphlet,  which  pro- 
voked a  reply,  moderate  in  tone,  from  Herr 
Scheppelern,  while  Herr  Knudsen,  a  clergy- 
man of  the  old  Lutheran  Church,  attacked 
the  many  weak  points  of  Romanism  and  Jesu- 
itism in  a  very  decided  manner.  The  answer 
was  a  well-written  book  by  Count  Holstein, 
entitled  "Evangelical  Lutheranism:  a  Nega- 
tive Idea."  The  Count  not  only  repaid  his 
adversaries  with  heavy  interest,  but  strenu- 
ously attacked  the  Lutheran  Church  itself  by 
declaring  that  it  had  no  belief  at  all,  only  the 
Grundtwig  party  having  a  slight  semblance 
of  real  faith.  Any  one,  therefore,  wishing  to 
preserve  the  true  faith  would  have  to  seek 
refuge  in  the  true — i.  e.,  the  Roman  Catholic 
— Church.  The  writings  of  Count  Holsteiu 
created  great  sensation,  and  called  forth  nu- 
merous replies.  This  literary  quarrel  would 
have  soon  died  out,  except  for  the  practical 
results  which  the  Romanists  attempted  to 
bring  about.  A  rich  widow,  for  instance, 
built  a  fine  Roman  Catholic  church  near 
Copenhagen,  close  to  the  summer  residence 
of  the  royal  family  and  a  much  frequented 
park,  attaching  to  it  a  scholastic  institu- 
tion in  which  young  men  are  prepared  for 
a  clerical  career.  In  many  other  towns 
churches  are  also  being  built,  congregations 
have  been  collected,  and  Roman  Catholic 
books  are  printed.  As  the  Jesuits  have  re- 
cently been  expelled  from  the  German  em- 
pire, they  will  probably  make  their  home  in 
Denmark,  on  account  of  our  unlimited  relig- 
ious freedom.  It  is,  therefore,  of  great  im- 
portance that  the  Danish  clergy  should  work 
strenuously  and  zealously ;  for,  though  we  do 
not  fear  that  Romanism  will  ever  take  a  firm 
hold  on  our  people,  Northern  public  opinion 
being  utterly  opposed  to  Romanism,  yet  we 


KALKAR :  RELIGION  IN  SCANDINAVIA. 


103 


must  be  prepared  for  the  inevitable  conflict, 
and  our  spiritual  weapons  must  not  be  blunt. 
More  Biblical  and  historical  knowledge  and 
more  personal  purity  are  urgently  required. 

It  was  thought  that  the  controversy  which 
waged  for  nearly  fifty  years  between  the  fol- 
lowers of  Grundtwig  and  the  old  Lutherans 
— the  so-called  Skrifttheologer — would  have 
terminated  long  ere  this,  the  founder  hav- 
ing declared  that  "the  Apostolic  creed  is 
the  true,  life-creating  word  of  God."  This 
expectation,  however,  has  not  been  fulfilled. 
In  the  last  year  of  his  life  Grundtwig  pub- 
lished a  curious  book,  called  "  The  Mirror 
of  the  Church  " — Kirkespell,  being  a  review 
of  church  history,  containing,  besides  many 
striking  remarks  and  clear  views,  many 
false  conclusions.  In  this  book  he  portrays 
himself  as  the  centre  of  all  discoveries  in 
church  history,  and  as  the  ultimate  accom- 
plishment of  the  Lutheran  Reformation.  In 
the  lectures  which  he  delivered  to  a  small 
circle  of  admirers,  many  ill-advised  words 
escaped  him ;  but  the  old  gentleman  should 
never  have  been  permitted  to  publish  these 
extreme  views.  His  adherents,  among  whom 
are  many  talented  men,  praised  this  work  to 
the  skies,  asserting  that  since  the  days  of 
the  apostles  there  had  not  been  written  so 
excellent  a  church  history.  Upon  others 
who  did  not  belong  to  Grundt wig's  party 
the  book  made  a  very  unfavorable  impres- 
sion; its  many  weaknesses  and  contradic- 
tions were  easily  exposed ;  and  thus  a  fierce 
dispute  arose.  In  the  mean  time  this  great 
man  died,  at  the  age  of  eighty-seven  years, 
on  Sept.  7, 1872 ;  a  rare  character,  whose  in- 
lluence  as  poet,  churchman,  aud  patriot  can 
never  be  forgotten.  His  burial,  to  which 
his  friends  and  opponents  flocked  from  all 
the  provinces  of  Denmark,  was  imposing; 
every  one  felt  that  "  a  prince  had  fallen  in 
Israel."  As  his  successor,  Rev.  Mr.  Brandt,  of 
Rounebcek,  was  chosen,  under  whose  teach- 
ings the  congregation  has  greatly  increased. 

Soon  after  Grundt  wig's  death  another 
dispute  about  his  views  arose,  which  is  wa- 
ging still.  It  was  occasioned  by  the  inqui- 
ry of  a  Norwegian  divine  in  America,  wheth- 
er Grundtwig's  teachings  were  the  doctrines 
of  the  Danish  Church,  as  had  been  pretend- 
ed by  some  young  and  hot-headed  Danish 
clergymen  in  North  America,  who  consider 
themselves  the  living  congregation  par  excel- 
lence. The  answer  which  was  given  by  Pro- 
fessor Clausseu,  an  old  antagonist  to  Gruiidt- 
wig,  and  the  Reverend  Messrs.  Bliidel  and 
Frimodt,  evidently  overreaches  the  mark, 
stating  that  "the  Danish  Church  did  not 
recognize  Grundtwig's  theory,  having  noth- 
ing whatever  to  do  with  it."  These  incau- 
tious remarks,  which  were  probably  not  in- 
tended to  be  taken  literally,  created  a  great 
commotion,  as  the  followers  of  Grundtwig 
deemed  themselves  excommunicated  there- 
by. Pastor  Bliidel  attempted,  in  a  moder- 


ate and  well  -  written  pamphlet,  entitled 
"  Grundtwigism  and  the  National  Church," 
to  define  his  position,  but  merely  exposed 
himself  to  still  greater  attacks,  having  laid 
open  his  weak  points.  He  gave  great  offense 
by  his  inaccurate  quotations,  and  by  the  as- 
sertion that  the  National  Church  only  toler- 
ated Gruudtwigism  as  formerly  it  had  toler- 
ated Rationalism,  which  assertion  placed  be- 
lievers and  unbelievers  in  the  same  cate- 
gory. 

Another  result  of  Grundtwigism  is  the  es- 
tablishment of  the  so-called  Popular  High 
Schools,  which  are  found  throughout  all 
Denmark,  and  which,  in  some  places,  have 
displayed  a  healthy  usefulness.  The  funda- 
mental idea  of  these  schools  —  to  give  the 
youths  in  the  rural  districts  a  thorough 
moral  and  scientific  education  —  was  uu- 
doubtedy  a  noble  one,  especially  as  their 
training  is  only  too  often  entirely  neglected; 
neither  can  it  be  denied  that  these  schools 
have  accomplished  a  great  deal  of  good. 
But  if  the  young  generation  is  fed  princi- 
pally with  the  old  Northern  legends  of  hea- 
then mythology,  as  if  these  were  the  main- 
spring of  all  patriotism ;  if  the  only  means 
of  creating  a  sound  national  feeling  is  sought 
in  popular  ballads ;  if  these  High  Schools 
pretend  to  be  capable  of  educating  a  young 
man  into  a  missionary  or  preacher  within 
the  short  space  of  six  months  or  a  year ;  if 
even  clergymen  cast  contempt  on  classical 
culture  and  learned  schools,  preferring  the 
superficial  teachings  of  these  Popular  High 
Schools,  then  all  these  symptoms  become 
pregnant  with  danger,  giving  proof  how 
partisan  views  can  distort  even  an  uncloud- 
ed mind.  Many  of  the  young  scholars  of 
these  institutes  have  undoubtedly  acquired 
better  aud  more  enlarged  views ;  but  there 
are  also  numerous  students  who,  in  conse- 
quence of  their  unscientific  and  indifferent 
education,  show  the  usual  defects  of  me- 
diocrity, having  conceived  a  horror  to  the 
laborious  agricultural  life,  and  preferring  an 
easier  mode  of  city  living. 

On  the  other  hand,  the  ever-growing  so- 
cieties for  Christian  life  and  work  are  labor- 
ing earnestly,  aud  in  the  last  few  years  a 
union  between  them  and  the  Grundtwig  par- 
ty has  been  effected.  The  Society  for  For- 
eign Missions,  which  has  re-occupied  the  East 
Indies,  its  former  field  of  activity ;  the  So- 
ciety of  Deaconesses ;  the  Society  for  released 
Convicts;  the  Societies  for  Prison  Reform ;  the 
different  societies  for  infant  schools ;  the  Mis- 
sion for  Sailors,  which  has  established  stations 
at  London,  Hull,  and  Newcastle;  the  Socie- 
ty for  sending  Preachers  to  the  Danish  Set- 
tlements in  America ;  the  different  charita- 
ble societies  and  hospitals  for  the  blind,  the 
maimed,  and  insane  —  all  these,  and  rnany 
others,  are  doing  a  noble  work.  The  income 
of  these  societies  is  considerable,  giving  am- 
ple proof  of  Christian  liberality,  though  it 


104 


REPORTS  ON  THE  STATE  OF  RELIGION. 


must  bo  admitted  that  the  contributions  for 
Christ  inn  objects  do  not  correspond  to  the 
general  prosperity  of  the  people.  This  is 
especially  true  in  regard  to  the  rural  popu- 
lation. 

The  system  of  preaching  has  greatly  im- 
proved, though  some  young  preachers  strive 
for  popularity  by  affecting  a  coarse  and  vul- 
gar delivery.  These,  however,  are  excep- 
tional cases.  As  a  rule,  the  sermons  are  live- 
ly, intellectual,  and  present  the  vital  truths 
of  Christianity.  Martensen,  Fog,  Blade], 
Frimodt, Anderson, P.  Rordam,  Monrad  (who 
for  many  years  was  Prime  Minister),  are  the 
only  great  preachers  we  can  mention  here, 
though  there  are  numerous  others  just  as 
deserving.  The  last  few  years  have  brought 
us  a  great  number  of  printed  sermons,  some 
of  which  are  indifferent.  The  "  Homiletical 
Cyclopaedia  of  Living  Preachers "  contains 
many  sermons  of  average  ability,  besides 
many  really  good  ones.  Impartial  readers 
will  find  a  high-toned  stylo  in  these  ser- 
mons, all  of  them  teachiug  the  truth  as  it 
is  in  Jesus.  Rationalistic  opinions,  being 
opposed  to  Protestantism,  shun  the  light  of 
publicity. 

A  small  number  of  young  men  are  making 
an  attempt  to  import  the  enfeebled  rational- 
ism of  Germany,  Franco,  and  Switzerland  in 
a  new  shape.  A  young  man  by  the  name  of 
Brandes,  who  has  attracted  some  attention 
by  his  lectures  on  "  Modern  French  Litera- 
ture "  and  his  abuse  of  every  known  creed, 
is  the  founder  of  a  so-called  literary  society, 
which  has  not  only  favored  us  with  a  trans- 
lation of  the  essays  of  Lang,  Reville,  and 
others,  but  is  publishing  its  own  negative 
views  also.  The  New  Danish  Monthly,  edited 
by  Lie.  Moller,  is  another  organ  of  rational- 
ism, all  sorts  of  pantheistic  and  atheistic 
views  being  published  in  it.  Unfortunate- 
ly, these  attempts  are  encouraged  by  the 
professors  of  the  philosophical  faculty  of 
the  University,  who  have  more  than  once 
placed  themselves  in  opposition  to  the  Chris- 
tian faith.  Candidate  Larsen  is  another 
champion  of  this  school,  having  made  sev- 
eral attacks  on  the  miracles  of  the  Bible, 
and  on  other  religions  doctrines.  He  is, 
however,  wanting  in  originality,  as  many 
refuted  arguments  are  urged  by  him  anew, 
both  in  his  essays  and  in  his  commentary 
on  St.  Paul.  The  theological  faculty  neither 
encourages  nor  resists  these  destructive  tend- 
encies. The  literary  influence  of  the  Univer- 
sity theologians  is  very  small,  which  may 
perhaps  be  accounted  for  by  the  fact  that 
most  of  its  members  are  well  advanced  in 
years.  Professor  Claussen,  Avho  ranks  fore- 
most among  them,  has  already  passed  his 
eightieth  year;  Professor  F.Hammerich  has 
published  a  church  history  in  three  volumes, 
an  interesting  work,  though  written  in  a  pe- 
culiar style ;  young  Professor  H.  SchaiTmg 
(father  and  sou  are  members  of  the  faculty) 


has  published  the  first  part  of  a  religio-phil- 
osophic  work,  in  which  Heathenism  and  Ju- 
daism are  considered  in  contradistinction  to 
Christianity  and  modern  Humauitarianism. 

Otherwise,  theological  literature  has  pro- 
duced several  strong  works,  the  principal  of 
which  is  Marteuseu's  "Ethics,"  which  ap- 
peared in  three  editions.  In  Germany  the 
first  edition  was  sold  within  a  few  mouths. 
Dean  Paludan  Miiller  has  made  some  search- 
ing investigations  in  regard  to  the  agree- 
ment between  the  written  Word  of  God  and 
the  traditions  —  an  attempt  to  reconcile 
Grundtwigism  with  its  opponents.  Rev.  Mr. 
Claussen,  son  of  Professor  ClansseH,has  writ- 
ten a  very  interesting  account  of  the  views 
of  Agricola,  the  antiuomist,  reviewing  also 
the  modern  opinions  of  the  same  stamp.  Sev- 
eral theological  and  ecclesiastical  treatises 
have  appeared  in  the  religious  newspaper 
published,  since  1871,  under  my  auspices. 
Much  that  is  excellent  in  German  theology 
has  been  transplanted  to  Denmark  by  the 
Paper  on  Foreign  Theology,  published  by 
Professor  Claussen,  and  now  containing  for- 
ty volumes.  Besides  these,  there  are  several 
religious  newspapers,  occupying  themselves 
with  religious  life  at  home  and  abroad.  A 
revision  of  the  Old  Testament,  the  Danish 
translation  of  which  had  become  almost  un- 
intelligible, because  its  language  was  obso- 
lete, has  been  completed,  thus  doing  a  great 
deal  for  the  advancement  of  Hebrew  philol- 
ogy. The  work  was  intrusted  to  the  care 
of  Dean  Rot  he,  who,  with  the  assistance 
of  Professor  Hermansen,  concluded  the  on- 
erous task  within  the  space  of  six  years, 
thereby  giving  the  nation  a  readable  Bible. 
The  edition  has  been  received  with  univers- 
al favor. 

The  Church  of  Greenland  has  also  been 
placed  on  a  better  footing.  For  many  years 
the  desire  had  been  expressed  that  the  preach- 
ers of  that  country  should  be  natives.  The 
candidates  who  were  sent  thither  from  Den- 
mark seldom  learned  the  difficult  language 
thoroughly.  They  regarded  their  position 
in  the  barren  laud  only  as  a  stepping-stone 
to  a  better  one  at  home.  A  commission 
appointed  by  the  Government  studied  the 
whole  condition  of  Greenland,  making  a  re- 
port as  to  the  education  of  native  pastors 
and  the  elevation  of  the  people  generally. 
A  good  beginning  has  been  made,  Mr.  J. 
M6rch,  a  native  of  the  northernmost  colony, 
Upernivik,  having  been  called  to  Copenha- 
gen, in  order  to  be  ordained  by  the  Bishop 
of  Zealand. 

Thus  the  kingdom  of  God  is  steadily  ad- 
vancing in  Denmark ;  and  though  dark  shad- 
ows may  sometimes  pass  over  the  Church, 
Socinianism  on  one  side,  and  indifferentism 
on  the  other,  attempting  to  undermine  its 
foundations,  yet  it  can  not  be  denied  that 
the  powers  of  the  Gospel  are  displaying 
great  activity,  and,  with  the  assistance  of  the 


KALKAR :  RELIGION  IN  SCANDINAVIA. 


105 


Holy  Ghost,  will  create  a  new  life  in  the  dif- 
ferent districts  of  our  little  country.  Its 
worst  enemies  are  often  found  in  the  bosom 
of  the  Evangelical  Church  itself;  strife  and 
division  are  maiming  the  life  of  the  Church. 
May  the  Evangelical  Alliance  be  able  to 
heal  this  sore ! 

II.  We  will  now  cast  a  glance  at  the  neigh- 
boring countries.  The  Swedish  Church  was 
formerly,  even  more  than  at  present,  a  State 
Church,  in  which  the  king  was,  ex  offlcio, 
summus  episcopus,  and  the  priests  members 
of  the  Diet.  It  has  been  mentioned  already 
that  in  1865  a  great  change  was  made  in  this 
respect.  Sweden  is  the  only  Protestant  na- 
tion on  the  Continent  which  has  an  arch- 
bishop. Some  believe  that  the  apostolic 
succession  is  still  preserved  there.  The 
clergy  are  educated  in  the  two  universities 
of  Upsala  and  Lund,  but  the  instruction 
might  be  more  thorough.  Propositions  for 
reform  have  been  made.  The  theological 
chairs  have  been  frequently  filled  by  non- 
theologians.  This,  however,  has  rarely  oc- 
curred within  the  last  few  years.  The 
deans  have,  besides  their  positions,  a  pre- 
bend, from  which  they  draw  their  income. 
The  pastoral  care  of  the  congregation  is 
confided  to  a  vicar.  That  this  must  be 
wrong  is  evident.  The  priests  are  either 
appointed  by  the  canons,  or  elected  by  the 
congregations  and  confirmed  by  the  king. 
Sweden,  after  having  refused  longer  than 
any  other  nation  to  promulgate  religions 
freedom,  has  at  last  given  way  to  the  neces- 
sities of  the  age,  but  the  number  of  dissent- 
ers is  extremely  small — about  one  thousand 
persons,  not  quite  one  per  cent.  A  distinc- 
tion is  made  between  the  acknowledged  and 
non-acknowledged  religious  societies.  Un- 
belief has  spread  among  the  people,  espe- 
cially among  the  educated  classes,  and  is 
fed  in  several  papers  by  translations  from 
German  and  French  essayists. 

On  the  other  hand,  a  pietistic  movement 
is  spreading  throughout  the  country,  its 
members  being  known  as  Readers,  because 
they  read  the  works  of  Luther  to  a  great 
extent.  They  preach  to  conventions  and 
religious  assemblies.  This  movement  meets 
with  a  sharp  and  unjustifiable  resistance 
from  many  believing  clergymen,  whereas 
others  endeavor  to  lead  it  in  the  right  di- 
rection. 

A  good  example  is  given  by  the  Tract 
Society  in  Christianstadt,  the  celebrated 
preacher  Dr.Bergmann  taking  a  prominent 
part  in  it.  The  name  of  the  society  does  not 
indicate  its  character.  The  society  aims  at 
an  effectual  publication  and  distribution  of 
religious  works.  The  National  Foundation 
Society — the  Fosto-landstiftelse  —  is  doing  a 
great  work.  Several  years  ago  it  started 
some  heathen  missions,  sending  a  large  num- 
ber of  missionaries  to  the  Kumans  in  North- 
east Africa.  This  mission,  however,  proved 


a  total  failure.  The  Swedish  Missionary  So- 
ciety, which  for  a  long  time  only  aided  oth- 
er societies,  sending  a  few  missionaries  to 
Leipsic,  to  find  from  thence  a  field  of  labor, 
has  lately  reorganized  itself,  having  obtain- 
ed a  very  efficient  head  in  the  Rev.  A.  H. 
Zweitbergk,  a  young  but  very  talented  min- 
ister. 

Swedish  Church  matters  form  the  topic 
of  much  discussion.  The  Upsala  Tlieological 
Journal,  the  Lutheran  paper,  the  Forsamm- 
llngs  Wdnnen,  and  others,  are  some  of  the 
best-known  religious  papers,  each  serving 
its  own  party.  A  political  paper,  the  Vak- 
taren,  comments  also  occasionally  on  relig- 
ious and  ecclesiastical  affairs.  The  church- 
es in  Sweden  are,  as  a  rule,  well  attended, 
yet  the  moral  condition  of  the  people  is 
rather  low,  as  is  evident  from  the  many 
crimes  which  Swedish  emigrants  commit 
in  Denmark,  though  it  must  be  taken  into 
consideration  that,  since  the  abolition  of 
passports  and  other  means  of  proscription, 
only  the  worst  classes  emigrate. 

III.  Church  matters  in  Norway  are  about 
the  same  as  those  in  Denmark,  with  which 
country  it  was  allied  for  four  hundred  years. 
Here  the  bishops  have  been  retained,  but 
are  simply  superintendents  of  the  ecclesi- 
astical revenues.  In  Norway  there  are  no 
elections.  Clergymen  are  appointed  by  the 
king  himself.  The  culture  is  higher  than 
in  Sweden.  In  the  University  of  Christi- 
ana they  have  capable  professors,  who  hold 
fast  to  the  tenets  of  Lutherauism.  They 
have  not,  however,  been  able  to  prevent 
Grundtwigism  from  gaining  ground,  espe- 
cially among  the  younger  portion  of  the 
clergy.  This  lias  resulted  in  many  literary 
feuds.  The  Church  is  not  represented  in 
the  Diet  (Storthing) ;  some  meetings  which 
were  held,  with  a  view  of  influencing  the 
political  representatives,  were,  on  the  whole, 
unsuccessful.  The  people  are  more  serious, 
and  infidelity  is  less  common  than  in  Swe- 
den ;  but  the  Norwegians  are  quarrelsome,  a 
quality  they  carry  with  them  to  America,  as 
may  be  seen  by  a  study  of  the  history  of 
their  synods.  The  earnestness  of  the  peo- 
ple is  shown  in  the  liberal  support  they 
give  to  every  Christian  mission.  The  Mis- 
sion to  the  Jews  began  at  a  time  when  not 
a  single  Jew  was  permitted  to  live  in  the 
country.  The  other  missions  are,  the  Mis- 
sion to  the  Heathen,  the  Sailors'  Society, 
and  like  organizations.  The  Mission  to  the 
Heathen  has  for  many  years  worked  to 
great  disadvantage  among  the  Zulus  of 
South  Africa,  and  has  lately  sought  a  new 
field  in  Madagascar.  The  Sailors'  Mission 
has  stations  in  different  cities  in  England, 
at  Antwerp,  and  other  places.  The  other 
missions  receive  also  generous  aid,  especially 
the  so-called  Luther  Foundation  Society — 
Luther  Stifteise — which  intends  to  organize 
home  missions. 


THE  STATE  OF  RELIGION  IN  ITALY. 

BY  TIIE  REV.  MATTEO  PROCHET,  GENOA,  ITALY. 
[Born  September  28,  183G,  at  San  Giovanni  Pellice,  Piedmont.] 


I  HAD  prepared  two  or  three  heads  for  my 
discourse,  each  one  of  them  too  tall  to  go 
under  the  line  of  half  an  hour ;  but,  desirous 
as  I  am  to  comply  with  established  rules 
and  to  obey  orders,  I  cut  them  off,  and  -with- 
out any  introduction  I  shall  at  once  enter 
into  my  subject : 

THE  STATE  OF  RELIGIOX  ix  ITALY. 

A  very  complicated  state  indeed  it  has 
been  for  some  years  past,  and  is  now  so 
more  than  ever.  The  Roman  Catholic  re- 
ligion is  the  religion  of  the  state,  says  the 
first  article  of  the  Italian  Constitution,  and, 
in  fact,  twenty-five  millions  of  Italians  have 
been  baptized  by  the  priests,  are  on  the 
priests'  rolls,  and  entitle  Italy  to  the  name 
of  a  Roman  Catholic  country.  But  the  shades 
of  Romanism  are  so  many  with  us  that  I  feel 
it  impossible  to  treat  of  them  under  one  head. 
On  the  other  hand,  the  Protestant  efforts  in 
Italy  are  so  divided,  also,  that  to  be  truly 
impartial,  and  give  you  as  accurate  an  idea 
as  possible  of  the  state  of  things,  I  must  be 
satisfied  with  a  series  of  panoramic  views  or 
tableaux,  to  which  I  take  the  liberty  of  call- 
ing your  indulgent  attention,  begging  you 
would  bear  in  mind  that  oversqueezed  things 
become  rather  dry. 

I.  First  comes  the  venerable-looking  old 
man  whom  his  adherents  call  the  Angelical 
Vicar  of  Christ,  the  infallible  representa- 
tive of  God  on  earth.  Whatever  he  may  be 
as  a  man,  as  a  pope  Pius  IX.  is  the  worthy 
successor  of  Innocent  III.  or  Gregory  VII. 
He  is  conscious,  however,  of  the  diminution 
of  his  power  and  influence,  and  his  words 
from  time  to  time  betray  the  bitterness  of 
his  feelings  as  ho  sees  his  children  turning 
their  backs  upon  him.  Yet  he  has  his  faith- 
ful band,  who  do  their  best  to  make  up  for 
the  deserters  by  a  redoubled  activity,  and 
by  their  hyperbolical  praises. 

The  clergy,  as  such,  -with  few  exceptions, 
have  gathered  themselves  more  closely  around 
the  Holy  See,  determined  to  stand  or  fall  with 
it.  You  would  say  they  feel  the  wreck  is  fast 
approaching ;  and  as  sailors  who,  in  the  mo- 
ment of  impending  danger,  cluster  round  the 
captain,  ready  to  obey  all  his  orders,  they 
cling  to  the  Pope ;  they  take  in  Syllabus  and 
Infallibility,  and  seem  to  sacrifice  more  com- 
pletely their  own  liberties,  minds,  and  con- 


sciences upon  the  altar  of  the  Church  than 
they  did  even  in  the  dark  ages  of  the  past. 
The  old  rivalries  between  regular  and  secu- 
lar orders,  between  this  and  that  monastic 
rule,  are  hushed  to  silence.  One  common 
foe  is  before  them — light;  they  must  put 
it  out,  and  they  are  determined  upon  do- 
ing so. 

Does  this  mean  that  all  the  priests  believe 
really  all  that  Rome  teaches  ?  I  do  not  think 
so.  Some  years  ago  nine  thousand  priests 
signed  a  petition  to  Pius  IX.  begging  him 
for  the  sake  of  the  country,  for  the  sake  of 
religion,  to  throw  off  the  temporal  power. 
The  Pope  refused,  and  the  nine  thousand 
priests  teach  that  the  temporal  power  is 
from  God.  When  Garibaldi  entered  Naples 
in  1861,  hundreds  of  priests  joined  the  lib- 
eral party,  and,  with  little  or  no  connection 
with  Rome,  said  masses  in  churches  assign- 
ed to  them.  Two  years  after,  the  cardinal 
bishop  of  Naples,  reinstalled  by  Ricasoli, 
suspended  a  divine,  and  they  all  disappear- 
ed. Last  spring  I  was  offered,  through  a 
Mend,  eight  priests  at  a  time,  willing  to 
throw  away  the  collar  if  I  would  give  them 
a  position.  I  refused,  and  those  priests  say 
masses  to-day. 

What  does  this  prove  ?  That  the  race  of 
the  Savonarolas  is  extinct  in  Italy ;  that  we 
can  not  expect  a  reformation  from  the  Ital- 
ian priests.  Where  is  the  Dollinger  of  Italy  ? 
Where  is  the  bishop,  nay,  the  priests  of  some 
standing,  who  now  oppose  the  infallibili- 
ty ?  Even  France  had  her  Father  Hyaciuthe. 
Italy  had  none.  Father  Hyaciuthe  lectured 
in  Rome,  created  a  momentary  excitement 
among  the  people,  but  the  clergy  left  him 
alone,  or  the  few  adherents  were  such  that 
nothing  of  any  importance  could  be  done  by 
them.  Yet,  convinced  or  not,  they  work,  and 
how  they  do  work !  You  may  disapprove 
of  the  end,  you  may  condemn  the  means,  but 
you  must  bow  before  the  devoted  activity, 
the  relentless  energy  displayed. 

Whether  they  bo  discouraged  or  not  by 
their  repeated  misfortunes,  does  not  tran- 
spire ;  they  defend  their  ground,  and  try  to 
reconquer  what  they  have  lost  with  a  courage 
and  a  perseverance  worthy  of  a  better  cause. 
The  confessional,  that  powerful  weapon  of 
Rome,  spreads  its  influence  throughout  the 
country,  from  the  stops  of  the  throne  to  the 


PROCHET :  RELIGION  IN  ITALY. 


107 


shattered  shanty.  Societies  of  all  kinds, 
made  to  suit  the  taste  of  every  class,  have 
been  formed,  and,  like  a  spider's  web,  cover 
the  whole  nation.  "Salvation  of  souls — 
Beneficence,"  is  the  motto,  in  golden  letters, 
on  the  banner  floating  outside.  To  bring 
the  people  back  to  the  good  old  times  is  the 
object  which  the  initiated  have  in  view. 
Competition  schools  are  opened  whenever 
they  can  not  have  the  whole  management 
of  the  public  ones,  and  in  them  they  offer 
better  instruction  and  better  education. 

Their  reasoning  is  a  simple  and  a  compre- 
hensive one :  Let  us  have  the  women  through 
the  confessional,  and  the  children  through 
the  schools,  and  the  nation  will  be  ours. 
We  will  still  see  better  days  for  us.  And 
they  would  see  them,  it  is  my  full  convic- 
tion, if  they  had  only  to  fight  against  hu- 
man agencies.  But  there  is  a  power  might- 
ier than  theirs  at  work.  The  Mene,  Tekel, 
Peres  has  been  pronounced  upon  their  sys- 
tem, the  day  in  which  an  old  man  made  the 
impious  attempt  to  snatch  with  a  trembling 
hand  a  jewel  from  God's  own  crown.  Yet 
the  struggle  may  be  a  long  one,  and  will 
certainly  be  a  terrible  one ;  let  us  not  forget 
it,  nor  neglect  our  part  iu  the  battle. 

Clustered  around  the  priests  are  the  good 
Roman  Catholics,  the  convinced,  the  bigot- 
ed, and  fanatics,  recruited  unequally  from 
the  different  classes.  The  nobility  and  the 
peasantry  are  largely  represented  iu  their 
ranks,  and  the  women  occupy  quite  a  prom- 
inent position,  while  they  are  the  most  use- 
ful instruments. 

There  are  many  earnest  souls,  I  have  no 
doubt,  among  them — souls  that  have  deep 
religious  wants,  and  though,  perhaps,  not 
wholly  satisfied  with  the  Romish  teaching 
and  practice,  yet  they  cling  to  them  as  the 
only  anchor  of  salvation  they  know  of.  But 
how  many  also  who,  alas !  are  superstitious, 
without  religion,  fanatics  who  would  repeat 
to-moiTow  the  St.  Bartholomew  if  they  had 
the  power  to  do  it. 

Following  these  we  find  an  euormons  pro- 
portion of  the  population,  which,  while  it  re- 
mains outwardly  Roman  Catholic,  belongs 
really  to  the  religion  of  "I  don't  care,"  or 
that  is  no  religion  at  all,  if  by  religion  we 
mean  a  personal  knowledge  of  God,  and  a 
personal  communion  with  him.  They  are 
Roman  Catholics  by  birth,  and  they  consider 
it  their  duty  to  belong  to  the  Church  of  their 
fathers.  Habit,  indifference,  are  sufficient 
chains  to  bind  them.  They  would  by  no 
means  erect  the  stakes,  but  they  would  not 
ascend  them  either,  were  they  called  upon  to 
do  so  as  a  seal  of  their  religious  belief.  Ask 
any  of  them  if  he  believes  in  the  infallibility 
of  the  Pope,  and  he  will  laugh  at  your  sim- 
plicity ;  but  if  you  want  to  draw  the  natural 
inference  of  his  unbelief  that  he  must  come 
out  of  the  Church  of  the  Pope,  he  does  not 
understand  you.  He  is  so  well  as  he  is.  He 


does  not  see  how  he  ought  to  give  a  place  to 
religion  in  his  life. 

The  religious  question  has  been  for  many 
years  entirely  laid  aside  by  the  great  bulk 
of  the  Italian  nation,  especially  by  those  who 
more  actively  and  energetically  wrought  out 
her  freedom  and  unity.  The  thought  of  free- 
ing their  country  from  civil  bondage  was  so 
absorbing  that  they  could  not  think  of  any 
thing  else. 

Italy  is  now  free  and  united,  and  the  higher 
question  begins  to  force  itself  upon  the  atten- 
tion of  many  a  thoughtful  mind.  Carlo  Can- 
toni,  in  a  very  elaborate  article  in  one  of  the 
best  periodical  publications  of  Italy,  says : 
"When  a  people  has  obtained  full  liberty 
of  conscience,  it  has  not  completed  its  work ; 
it  has  merely  acquired  the  means  of  comply- 
ing with  and  giving  satisfaction  to  its  mor- 
al and  religious  exigencies.  And  insomuch 
as  by  neglecting  these  a  people  declines  and 
goes  back  to  barbarism,  or  loses  itself  in  an 
unnerved  and  corrupted  civilization,  so  we 
(Italians)  ought  not  to  make  a  mere  nega- 
tive use  of  our  religious  liberty  by  throwing 
ourselves  into  the  arms  of  skepticism  or  of 
indifference.  Our  political  regeneration  ivould 
l>e  of  no  value  were  it  not  followed  l>y  a  moral 
and  a  religious  one."  These  very  significant 
words — healthy  symptoms  of  the  moral  re- 
covery of  Italy — do  not  stand  alone,  thanks 
to  God.  Another  distinguished  writer,  the 
Roman  Count,  Ferengio  Mamiani,  discours- 
ing upon  what  he  calls  the  Religiosity  in  Italy 
and  France,  states  the  fact  that  the  former 
begins  to  feel  uneasy  under  her  mantle  of 
religious  indifference,  and  almost  instinct- 
ively is  looking  for  something  that  would 
save  her  from  the  tyranny  of  Rome  on  one 
side,  and  the  comfortless  doctrines  of  infi- 
delity on  the  other. 

Other  voices  have  been  and  are  heard 
from  different  parts  of  the  Peuiusula  trying 
to  draw  the  attention  of  the  people  to  such 
an  important  subject.  It  is  true,  nothing 
determined  is  offered  to  the  people  by  their 
advisers ;  perhaps  they  do  not  know  it  them- 
selves, but  an  immense  step  would  be  made 
the  day  in  which  the  Italian  people  would  rise 
and  say,  "  We  will  have  a  religion  in  which 
we  can  believe  with  our  hearts  and  souls." 

Here  I  ought  to  speak  of  the  New  Catho- 
lics— of  the  liberal  Catholics — and  it  would 
be  very  interesting  to  follow  them  in  their 
attempt  to  conciliate  the  exigencies  of  their 
more  enlightened  consciences  with  the  re- 
quirements of  a  religion  which  has  always 
baffled  them;  to  see  some  of  them  by  a 
slow  process  separating  gradually  from  the 
Church  of  Rome;  others  keeping  in  their 
inner  heart  the  belief  in  one  living  God,  and 
suffering  the,  for  them,  meaningless  ceremo- 
nies as  necessary  for  the  ignorant  mob ;  oth- 
ers severing  the  evangelical  moral  from  all 
doctrine,  keeping  the  former  and  making 
very  light  of  the  latter. 


108 


REPORTS  ON  THE  STATE  OF  RELIGION. 


But  time  will  not  permit,  as  we  have  still 
to  look  at  a  party  which  is  making  awful 
progress  in  Italy,  I  mean  the  unbelievers. 

The  number  of  those  who  have  come  to 
the  rejection  of  all  religion  by  a  more  or  less 
philosophical  and  logical  inference  from  as- 
sumed principles  is  comparatively  small ; 
but  their  influence  is  every  day  more  grow- 
ing and  pervading  the  masses. 

Whether  their  name  be  free-thinkers,  pos- 
itiviste,  or  materialists,  they  all  find  them- 
selves on  the  same  platform.  No  personal 
God,  either  creator  or  judge ;  man's  conscience 
his  only  rule ;  the  religion  of  humanity  the 
common  bond  that  will  one  day  bind  togeth- 
er all  nations  in  one  family. 

Confounding  Romanism  with  Christiani- 
ty, it  is  an  easy  work  for  them  to  show  the 
former  in  complete  opposition  to  every  free- 
dom, and  to  find  adherents  among  a  people 
which  is  the  more  eager  for  liberty  that  it 
has  been  longer  deprived  of  it.  Add  to  this 
the  natural  tendency  of  man  to  say  in  his 
heart,  "  There  is  no  God,"  and  you  will  easi- 
ly realize  the  importance  of  the  impending 
danger,  more  dreadful  than  superstition  it- 
self. 

II.  Let  me  now  come  to  the  smallest  part  of 
the  population,  which,  however,  is  the  part 
I  represent  here.  I  am  sorry  to  say  I  have 
no  commission  from  the  Pope ;  the  only  com- 
munication wo  have  together  being  a  fresh 
excommunication  I  get  every  year  from  him. 
Let  me  come  to  the  Protestants  of  Italy. 

And  first  of  all,  our  guests.  I  call  our 
guests  the  foreign  Protestants,  who  come  to 
Italy  for  the  sake  of  art,  of  business,  of 
health,  and  settle  themselves  among  us  for 
a  period  of  time.  They  have  about  thirty- 
five  congregations,  especially  in  the  large 
cities,  as  Rome,  Florence,  Naples,  Leghorn, 
Genoa,  etc. ;  but  the  language  of  their  wor- 
ship being  either  French,  English,  or  Ger- 
man, it  will  bo  easily  understood  that  their 
influence  might  not  amount  to  much  upon 
a  people  that  does  not  understand  those  lan- 
guages. Yet  many  of  their  ministers  and 
some  of  their  laymen  have  paid,  and  pay, 
the  hospitality  they  enjoy  in  a  very  honora- 
ble and  Christian  way,  by  trying  to  bene- 
fit the  people  among  which  they  live.  Time 
does  not  permit  me  to  do  more  than  barely 
name  some  of  them :  Rev.  Dr.  Miller,  who 
started  "  The  Genoa  Harbor  Mission,"  which 
has  yielded  good  fruits  already,  and  prom- 
ises to  surrender  more  for  the  future ;  the 
venerable  Dr.  Stewart,  of  Leghorn,  who  has 
done  more  for  the  evangelization  of  Italy 
than  any  other  foreigner  now  living ;  Rev. 
Messieurs  Buscarlet  and  Pater,  of  Naples ; 
Mr.  Wallace,  of  Venice ;  Dr.  Van  Nest,  the 
chief  supporter  of  an  orphan  asylum  in  Flor- 
ence ;  Rev.  M'Dongall,  Waite,  etc.  I  must 
also,  and  do  it  with  great  pleasure,  tender 
my  sincere  thanks  to  Mrs.  E.  B.  Gould,  Avhose 
I talo- American  schools  in  Rome  are  well- 


known  here,  and  much  appreciated  iu  Italy, 
and  Mrs.  Boyce,  who  founded  in  Vallecrosia 
(Liguria)  an  orphanage,  where  fifty  girls 
and  boys  receive  food,  garments,  instruction, 
and  education. 

Of  the  native  churches,  allow  me  to  speak 
first  of  the  Waldensian  Church  ;  not  because 
I  belong  to  her,  but  because  she  comes  first 
chronologically.  Long  before  were  born 
the  great  reformers  to  whose  praises,  recited 
last  night,  I  said  "  Amen"  with  all  my  heart ; 
the  Waldensiau  Church,  iu  the  Alpine  val- 
leys of  Northern  Italy,  was  bearing  her  tes- 
timony to  Gospel  truth,  and  sealing  it  with 
the  blood  of  her  children.  She  is  there  still, 
a  remnant  of  thirty-three  bloody  persecu- 
tions, a  token  of  God's  wonderful  dealings ; 
with  her  six  or  seven  thousand  communi- 
cants, four  thousand  one  hundred  pupils  in 
the  primary  schools,  eighty  in  her  classical 
college,  sixty  in  her  high  school  for  girls,  and 
thirty  in  the  normal  school.  But,  thanks  to 
God,  she  is  no  more  there  only.  The  bound- 
ary line  drawn  by  superstition  has  been  can- 
celed by  liberty,  and  the  Waldensian  Church' 
has  resumed  her  wrork  of  evangelization. 
Here  I  take  the  liberty  of  calling  your  at- 
tention to  a  fact  which  I  deem  worthy  of  it. 

Though  perfectly  convinced  that  her  form 
of  church  government  and  her  confession  of 
faith  are  thoroughly  evangelical,  the  Walden- 
sian Church  declared,  through  her  eynodical 
assembly  of  1855,  that  she  would  not  Walden- 
siauize,  but  take  her  share  in  the  work  of 
christianizing  Italy.  The  only  instructions 
given  to  the  evangelists  were  these:  "Go 
preach  the  Gospel  of  Jesus  Christ,  be  faith- 
ful to  the  Master,  and  may  God  bless  you !" 
The  result  was  that  the  congregations  gath- 
ered in  thirty-seven  different  cities  were  as 
free  as  the  birds  that  fly  above  your  heads, 
and  whose  only  law  is  God's  law.  The  rep- 
resentatives of  these  congregations  (scatter- 
ed from  the  Alps  to  Sicily)  met,  in  number 
sixty  or  seventy,  in  the  spring  of  1873,  in 
Florence ;  and  while  rejoicing  in  their  num- 
bering nearly  two  thousand  communicants, 
one  thousand  six  hundred  children  in  their 
schools,  and  one  thousand  two  hundred  in 
their  Sabbath-schools,  they  unanimously  de- 
clared they  would  bind  themselves  in  one 
body,  and  present  a  more  compact  front  to 
the  enemy. 

It  does  not  behoove  me  to  say  a  single 
word  in  favor  of  that  Church ;  but  I  think 
I  may  be  allowed,  without  any  impropriety, 
to  summon  before  you  three  different  par- 
ties, and  to  let  them  speak :  1.  The  presbytery 
of  Italy,  in  connection  with  the  well-known 
and  rightly  honored  Free  Church  of  Scot- 
land, composed  of  men  who  have  lived  many 
years  in  Italy,  voluntarily  and  unanimous- 
ly published  a  pamphlet,  in  which  they  de- 
clared their  deep  sympathy  for  and  full 
confidence  in  the  Waldensian  Church  as  a 
means  of  evangelizing  Italy.  2.  Numbers  of 


PROCHET:  RELIGION  IN  ITALY. 


109 


citizens  of  different  towns  apply  to  the  pres- 
ident of  the  Waldensian  Board  of  Missions 
for  evangelists.  3.  But  the  third  of  the  three 
parties  is  the  most  remarkable  one.  It  is  the 
Jesuit  Perrone,  the  great  controversialist. 
In  a  book  of  two  hundred  pages  he  has,  not 
long  ago,  heaped  against  the  Waldeusians  all 
the  calumnies  he  could  find  in  the  books  of 
his  predecessors  and  in  his  own  brain,  warn- 
ing Italians  against  their  heresies.  I  value 
that  testimony  exceedingly. 

One  word  more,  to  illustrate  the  unsecta- 
rianism  of  the  Waldensian  Church.  Her  the- 
ological seminary  in  Florence  is  open  to  stu- 
dents of  all  denominations  free  of  charge, 
where  they  can  study  without  ever  being 
asked  to  abandon  their  own  denomination. 

Very  soon  after  the  Waldensiau  Church 
had  begun  her  work  in  1850,  Christians  of 
Switzerland,  France,  England,  America,  felt 
it  their  duty  to  take  a  part  iu  the  work  of 
carrying  the  Gospel  to  Italy.  To  that  effect 
they  took  some  of  the  first  converts,  and  em- 
ployed them  as  evangelists  under  their  own 
responsibility.  Though  many  of  these  evan- 
gelists were  without  any  theological  train- 
ing, they  succeeded,  by  the  power  that  the 
Gospel  has  iu  itself,  to  gather  a  good  num- 
ber of  congregations,  varying  very  much  in 
size.  Up  to  the  year  1870  no  bond  of  union 
existed  among  them — I  mean,  organic  union. 
In  that  year  some  of  them  met  in  Milan,  and 
laid  the  foundations  of  the  "  Union  of  the 
Free  Christian  Churches  of  Italy,"  better 
known  in  this  country  as  the  Free  Italian 
Church.  A  Committee  of  Evangelization  was 
appointed  by  them,  having  as  president  Rev. 
Dr.  Van  Nest,  American  minister  in  Florence, 
and  as  treasurer  Rev.  J.R.M'Dougall,  Scotch 
minister  in  the  same  city.  The  celebrated 
ex-monk,  Father  Gavazzi,  belongs  also  to  that 
committee.  In  1872  twenty-eight  evangel- 
ists of  that  denomination  met  again  iu  as- 
sembly in  Rome,  and,  among  other  resolu- 
tions, voted  a  confession  of  faith  in  twelve 
articles.  No  ruling  elder  was  convened  to 
this  assembly;  so  that  it  seems  that  the 
congregationalist  form  of  church  govern- 
ment is  the  form  likely  to  prevail  among 
them.  They  number  about  a  thousand 
communicants.  Some  of  the  congregations 
have  schools  connected  with  them.  The 
American  Board  has  recently  undertaken 
to  support  the  third  of  their  evangelists. 
About  the  half  of  the  Free  Church,  howev- 
er, did  not  join  the  Union,  and  continued,  as 
in  former  years,  to  be  entirely  independent 
from  each  other ;  meeting,  however,  once  a 
year  to  confer  between  themselves  specially 
upon  matters  relating  to  edification.  As  no 
report  has  ever  been  printed  by  them  that  I 
am  aware  of,  it  is  impossible  for  me  to  give 
their  number.  At  their  last  meeting  of  La 
Spinetta  there  were  thirty  ministers  and  eld- 
ers present,  representing  thirty-three  congre- 
gations. Among  their  prominent  men  let 


me  name  the  Count  Guicciardiui,  of  Flor- 
ence, and  Signer  Bonaventura  Mazzarella, 
deputy  to  the  House  of  Parliament.  They 
call  themselves  "Free  Christian  Churches 
of  Italy." 

The  Methodists  have  made  good  progress 
in  Italy,  owing  to  the  energy  and  activity 
displayed  by  Rev.  Henry  Piggott  and  Rev. 
Jones  directing  the  two  sections,  northern 
and  southern. 

The  Northern  Synod  numbers  twelve  con- 
gregations and  six  hundred  communicants ; 
the  Southern  Synod,  seven  congregations 
and  three  hundred  communicants. 

Good  schools  are  in  connection  with  some 
of  the  Methodist  congregations ;  and  quite 
worthy  of  notice  is  the  international  school 
of  Padua,  started  by  the  Rev.  Mr.  Piggott. 

The  Baptists  have  concentrated  their  ef- 
forts more  specially  in  Rome,  where  three 
foreigners  are  working  among  natives,  name- 
ly, Messieurs  Wall,  Cote,  and  Van  Meter.  Mr. 
Clark  had  also  started  a  small  congregation 
in  La  Spezia. 

The  American  Methodist  Episcopal  Church 
of  America  have  begun  this  year  a  mis- 
sion in  Bologna,  where  they  have  sent  two 
clergymen,  Rev.  Dr.  Leroy  Vernon  and  Mr. 
Spencer. 

I  wish  I  had  more  time  to  speak  at  length 
of  some  other  private  efforts  besides  those 
already  mentioned  previously  of  Mesdames 
Boyce  and  Gould.  I  will  not,  however,  let 
go  unnoticed  the  work  of  Miss  Burton  among 
the  soldiers  —  work  accompanied  by  many 
encouragements,  and  which  seems  now  more 
than  ever  to  yield  fruit  to  the  glory  of  God. 

I  fear  that  every  one  of  my  hearers  has 
been  sadly  impressed  by  the  contrast  be- 
tween the  union  of  the  Roman  Catholic 
party  and  the  divisions  of  the  Evangelical 
one.  Alas !  Italy  has  not  been  spared  that 
weakness  of  Protestantism.  It  is  my  duty 
to  tell  things  as  they  are.  May  God  so  act 
by  his  Holy  Ghost  that  these  different  de- 
nominations will  work  together  harmoni- 
ously ! 

An  attempt  has  been  made  by  the  Wal- 
deusiau  Church  to  bring  all  the  denomina- 
tions into  closer  contact  and  more  brotherly 
terms,  but  the  attempt  has  hitherto  proved 
hardly  a  half  success. 

A  few  words  about  the  evangelical  lit- 
erature of  Italy — The  Book  of  life.  The 
Bible  is  now  freely  circulated  throughout 
the  length  and  the  breadth  of  the  country. 
Thousands  of  copies  are  sold  every  year  by 
colporteurs  employed  by  the  British  and 
Scotch  Bible  Societies,  and  carry  into  every 
home  the  Gospel  light.  Unfortunately  the 
priests  are  on  their  guard,  and  burn  as  many 
copies  as  they  can  get. 

An  Italian  Bible  Society  has  been  formed 
in  Rome,  numbering  now  about  four  thou- 
sand associates  scattered  through  the  wholo 
of  Italy. 


REPORTS  ON  THE  STATE  OF  RELIGION. 


110 

A  Tract  Society  in  Florence,  assisted  by 
the  London  Tract  Society,  has  issued  a  good 
number  of  books  and  tracts,  which,  with 
God'a  blessing,  may  awaken  some  souls  and 
lead  them  to  the  true  fountain  of  life. 

La  Rwista  Crutiana  (The  Christian  Re- 
view), a  monthly  paper,  edited  in  Florence 
by  the  professors  of  the  Waldensian  Semi- 
nary, has  met  with  great  approval  by  all  de- 
nominations, and  even  by  Roman  Catholics 
themselves.  It  treats  of  all  questions  in  a 
religious  point  of  view  and  in  a  thoroughly 
catholic  spirit. 

The  Eco  delta  Verita,  the  veteran  of  the 
evangelical  papers  of  Italy,  is  issued  weekly, 
to  the  number  of  three  thousand  copies. 

The  Amico  del  Fandulli  (Children's  Friend), 
illustrated  weekly  paper,  numbers  about  ten 
thousand  subscribers. 

L'Amico  di  Casa,  a  good  almanac,  is  so 
well  received  by  Roman  Catholics  them- 
selves that  last  year  sixty  thousand  copies 
were  sold  in  a  few  months. 

La  Strenna  del  Fandulli  and  La  Siblioteca 
del  Fandulli  have  lately  made  their  appear- 
ance, and  seem  to  be  well  received. 

Fede  e  Stienza  (weekly),  II  Corriere  Evan- 
gclico,  and  La  Vedetta  (both  monthly)  are  pub- 
lished hi  connection  with  the  Union  of  Free 
Churches,  the  Methodists,  and  the  Free  Chris- 
tian Churches. 

La  Eoma  Evangelica  comes  out  weekly  in 
Rome,  and  is  in  connection  with  no  denom- 
ination so  far  as  I  am  aware  of. 

Compared  to  what  we  had  but  a  few  years 
ago,  this  array  of  books  and  periodicals  is 
quite  encouraging,  but  compared  to  the 
wants  of  a  population  of  twenty-six  million 
souls  it  appears  very  small.  We  had,  not 
long  ago,  seventeen  millions  of  people  who 
could  not  read.  We  shall  reduce  that  by 
one  half,  the  next  generation.  But  when 
these  people  shall  be  able  to  read,  what  shall 
they  read?  Will  stories  of  saints  or  ro- 
mances be  their  only  food  ? 

3.  And  now,  reducing  to  three  words  what 
has  already  been  too  much  condensed,  at  least 
according  to  my  taste,  Italy  is  worked  upon 
by  three  parties — Papists,  infidels,  evangel- 
icals. The  former  have  to  aid  them  habit 
and  ignorance,  the  second  the  natural  tend- 
ency of  human  hearts,  the  last  the  Gospel — 
which  of  the  three  shall  have  it  ?  I  shall 
not  play  the  prophet :  let  me  only  say  that 
there  are  thousands  in  Italy  now  hoping, 
praying,  working  for  the  installment  in  ev- 
ery house  and  heart  of  the  Gospel  of  light, 
of  peace,  of  salvation. 

There  is  a  fact  not  sufficiently  thought  of, 
to  which  I  wish  to  draw  your  attention.  It 
is  this: 

An  American  may  bo  a  good  Roman  Cath- 
olic and  a  good  citizen ;  an  Italian  can  not. 
He  must  choose  between  his  religion  and  his 
country.  Let  him  be  devoted  to  the  Pope, 
and  he  must,  with  his  holy  father,  pray  and 


work  for  the  overthrow  of  Italian  unity  and 
freedom,  for  the  re-installment  of  the  pope- 
king  and  of  all  other  petty  kings  or  dukes. 
Let  him  be  a  good  citizen,  and  he  is  obliged 
to  see  in  the  Pope  the  greatest  enemy  of  his 
mother  country ;  the  man  who  curses  it  ev- 
ery year,  and  is  urging  the  Roman  Catholics 
of  the  world  to  come  to  Italy  to  flood  it 
with  blood,  in  order  to  grasp  again  the  earth- 
ly sceptre  which  liberty  snatched  out  of  his 
hands. 

I  do  not  require  to  say  more  to  make  you 
sympathize  with  my  countrymen — you  who 
have  shown  to  the  world  in  what  high  de- 
gree you  loved  your  religion  and  your  coun- 
try. Shall  Italians  have  no  other  choice  but 
to  be  good  Roman  Catholics  and  bad  citi- 
zens, or  good  citizens  and  infidels  ?  Will  not 
God  make  manifest  to  them  that  His  religion 
has  never  been,  and  shall  never  be,  in  oppo- 
sition to  one  of  the  noblest  feelings  that 
still  adorns  the  human  heart — the  love  of  the 
mother  country  f 

Here  comes  an  objection  I  desire  to  meet. 
The  aesthetical  feeling  is  so  much  developed 
in  Italy  that  it  has  killed  the  moral  and  re- 
ligious one,  some  people  say,  and  they  add : 
"  The  Gospel  and  the  plain  evangelical  wor- 
ship will  never  be  received  and  appreciated 
by  them." 

I  grant  the  fact,  I  deny  the  inference.  Yes, 
it  is  true,  the  aesthetic  feeling  is  developed 
at  the  expense  of  the  religious  one.  But  is 
the  blame  to  be  thrown  on  the  people  alone  ? 
From  the  moment,  a  child  still,  he  is  con- 
firmed by  the  bishop  in  gorgeous  attire, 
amidst  smoking  incense,  burning  candles, 
and  splendid  music,  to  the  day  when,  a  dying 
man,  he  receives  the  wafer  from  a  priest  still 
surrounded  with  candles,  religion  is  repre- 
sented to  an  Italian  clouded  in  misty  cere- 
monies. Italians  do  not  know  what  close 
communion  with  God  is !  But  how  can  they 
see  God  at  the  extremity  of  a  long  lino  of 
intermediary  beings,  beginning  with  the  Vir- 
gin Mary  and  terminating  at  the  priest  sit- 
ting behind  the  grate  of  the  confessional  ? 
How  can  they  feel  His  love,  and  give  theirs 
in  return  ? 

Ah !  let  the  mighty  breath  of  God  blow 
away  all  that  superstitious  rubbish ;  let  those 
hearts  now  kept  by  hirelings  in  the  outskirts 
of  God's  palace  come  into  the  inner  cham- 
ber; let  them  feel  loving  arms  around  them ; 
let  them  hear  a  fatherly  voice,  saying,  My 
son,  My  daughter ;  let  them  feel  the  throb- 
bing of  God's  own  heart  beating  against 
them,  and  I  venture  to  say  that,  no  matter 
what  they  may  be  naturally,  Italian  hearts 
will  respond,  will  bo  lifted  up  into  a  higher 
sphere,  and  give  love  for  love.  I  have  still 
to  learn  that  there  is  a  single  heart  in  the 
whole  world  incapable  of  receiving  the  grace 
of  God  applied  by  the  Holy  Ghost. 

Will  the  Italian  nation  become  Protestant 
like  England  or  North  America  ?  /  do  not 


PROCHET:  RELIGION  IN  ITALY. 


Ill 


know ;  the  Lord  knows,  and  that  is  enough 
for  me.  When  I  was  a  soldier  during  the 
Italian  war  of  independence,  I  never  trou- 
bled myself  about  the  plans  of  the  general-in- 
chief.  I  have  changed  army,  and  the  Gener- 
al I  have  the  high  privilege  of  now  serving 
under  has  my  full  confidence,  ten  thousand 
times  more  than  Lamarmora  or  Garibaldi 
himself.  In  other  words,  God  deals  with  na- 
tions; we  men  have  to  deal  with  individuals ; 
and  it  is  because  the  Church  in  the  third 
century  forgot  that  rule  that  we  have  had 
the  sad  spectacle  of  Christian  nations  whose 
Christianity  consisted  simply  in  a  mere  var- 


nish covering  the  rottenness  of  superstition 
and  corruption. 

Do  you  ask,  What  is,  then,  the  object  of 
our  work  in  Italy  ?  Simply  this :  to  bring 
down  into  all  the  Italian  cities,  towns,  vil- 
lages, hamlets,  the  Gospel  light  which  God 
so  providentially  preserved  for  centuries  on 
the  Italian  mountains.  When  there  will  not 
be  a  corner  of  my  dear  fatherland  without  a 
pure,  shining  light,  we  will  wait  patiently, 
working  and  watching  for  the  "own  good 
time  "  of  that  gracious  and  merciful  God  who 
wills  not  the  death  of  the  sinner,  but  his 
conversion  and  his  life. 


KEPORT  ON  THE  STATE  OF  RELIGION  IN  SPAIN. 

BY  THE  REV.  ANTONIO  CARRASCO,  MADRID. 

[Born  at  Malaga,  Spain,  January  IQth,  1843.] 


BELOVED  BRETHREN  ix  THE  LORD  JESUS, 
— When,  six  years  ago,  I  had  the  honor  to 
attend  the  Conferences  of  the  Evangelical 
Alliance,  I  closed  my  report  with  these 
•words:  "Spiritually  speaking,  Spain  is  at 
the  present  moment  in  a  transition  state ; 
belongs  to  no  one  in  reality.  The  Govern- 
ment and  the  clergy  strive  to  keep  her  in 
bonds,  bnt  they  can  not  realize  their  pur- 
pose ;  no  matter  how  elevated  the  barriers 
they  raise,  they  will  never  be  so  high  that 
the  truth  can  not  rise  above  them,  for  truth 
is  eternal,  and  sooner  or  later  will  effect  the 
conquest  of  the  world.  We  believe  that 
Spain's  salvation  is  at  hand.  God  grant  that 
this  assembly  may  be  able  to  accelerate  the 
rising  of  the  Sun  of  Justice,  which  shall  flood 
the  country  with  its  divine  light !" 

The  event  which  was  expected  by  all  who 
were  acquainted  with  what  was  passing  in 
Spain  took  place  in  September,  1868.  The 
people  and  the  army,  Democrats  and  Prog- 
ressists, the  laborers  of  the  fields  and  of  the 
cities,  all  joined  hands  to  overthrow  a  dy- 
nasty which  was  far  from  realizing  the  as- 
pirations of  Spain  of  the  nineteenth  century. 
Since  then,  great  have  been  the  convulsions, 
and  still  greater  the  changes,  that  we  have 
witnessed  in  our  country.  The  disunion  of 
the  parties  which  united  in  accomplishing 
the  revolution,  the  assembly  of  two  Constitu- 
ting Cortes,  the  Regency  of  General  Serrano, 
the  cowardly  assassination  of  General  Prim, 
the  reign  of  Don  Amadeo  of  Savoya,  the  proc- 
lamation of  the  Republic,  the  Carlist  risings, 
the  Republican  insurrections,  bloodshed  in 
almost  all  the  cities  of  the  Peninsula,  the  ill- 
concealed  ambition  of  many,  want  of  patri- 
otism in  almost  all,  the  best  institutions  ill 
managed,  the  most  eminent  statesmen  worn 
out — this  is  the  history  of  these  last  five 
years  in  Spain,  to  the  great  sorrow  of  all 
who  had  formed  the  hope  that  the  advent 
of  liberty  would  bring  peace  and  progress 
with  it.  Still,  in  the  midst  of  so  many  dis- 
asters, we  have  preserved  intact  the  religious 
liberty  inscribed  in  the  programmes  by  the 
Juntas  of  all  the  cities  in  the  early  days  of 
the  revolution ;  and  had  we  acquired  nothing 
besides  this  sole  liberty,  we  should  still  have 
the  deepest  reason  of  gratitude  to  the  Lord, 
who  with  his  strong  arm  ftas  throivn  down  the 
brazen  gates,  and  crumbled  the  bolts  of  iron. 

It  is  not  a  small  thing,  my  dear  hearers, 


for  me,  a  Spaniard,  born  in  the  land  of  Philip 
the  Second,  and  of  Isabella  the  Second,  to  be 
able  to  appear  on  this  platform,  and  from  it 
tell  the  whole  world  of  the  Protestant  church- 
es of  Spain,  of  the  Protestant  Bibles  printed 
in  Madrid,  and  distributed  throughout  Spain, 
read  by  so  many  families,  ivlien  it  is  their  for- 
tune to  know  liow  to  read — for  me  to  be  able  to 
communicate  to  you  my  fears,  my  hopes,  and 
my  plans,  and  then  to  return  tranquilly  to 
my  Madera  Baja  Church,  in  the  confidence 
that  I  shall  not  be  assailed  by  the  myrmi- 
dons of  the  law,  that  six  years  ago  would 
have  seized  me  on  crossing  the  frontier,  and 
thrown  me  into  prison  for  the  crime  of  cher- 
ishing a  faith  different  from  that  of  the 
Church  of  Rome. 

In  order  to  appreciate  this  privilege  at  its 
full  value  one  must  have  known  what  was 
the  state  of  affairs  in  her  days  of  intolerance, 
have  seen  one's  self  condemned  to  nine  years 
of  imprisonment  for  the  sole  crime  of  read- 
ing the  Holy  Scriptures  without  the  notes 
of  the  church.  That  which  costs  us  most  is 
what  we  most  appreciate,  and  for  this  rea- 
son we,  who  have  suffered  for  religious  lib- 
erty, can  never  consider  the  revolution  fruit- 
less which  has  given  it  to  us. 

So  far  my  introduction,  and  after  cordial- 
ly greeting  you,  dear  hearers,  in  the  name  of 
the  Spanish  Protestant  Church,  I  shall  enter 
immediately  into  the  subject  assigned  to  me, 
termed  "  Spain  and  the  Gospel."  And  since  I 
do  not  believe  that  your  intention  was  that 
I  should  speak  to  you  only  about  the  church- 
es in  Spain,  but  also  that  you  desire  to  learn 
what  work  is  done,  how  it  is  done,  the  faults 
we  commit,  the  dangers  we  should  avoid,  my 
impressions  of  the  past,  and  my  hopes  for  the 
future,  I  will  commence  by  a  brief  review  of 
the  state  of  the  Spanish  people,  of  their  char- 
acter and  aspirations,  which  will  enable  yon 
to  judge  whether  they  have  been  well  or  ill 
evangelized,  and  whether  the  manner  of 
evangelization  adopted  up  to  the  present 
day  is  the  one  most  fit  to  meet  the  wants  of 
the  future. 

It  is  an  axiom,  my  hearers,  that  the  truth 
is  one  and  the  same  everywhere ;  but  it  is 
none  the  less  true  that  each  nation  has  a  dis- 
tinct character  of  its  own,  and  requires  a 
particular  form  of  evangelization.  Let  us 
consider  the  different  features  of  the  charac- 
ter of  the  Spanish  people. 


CAERASCO:  RELIGION  IN  SPAIN. 


1.  Tbe  Spaniards  are  a  peculiar  people. 
Those  who  have  studied  their  history  and 
customs  may  say  that  their  customs  are  more 
or  less  rough,  their  history  more  or  less  il- 
lustrious; but  surely  none  have  ever  said 
that  the  nation  of  Padilla  and  Lauuza,  of 
Murillo  and  Cervantes,  does  not  bear  the 
seal  of  a  powerful  originality.  A  strong  and 
energetic  race,  endowed  with  an  indestruc- 
tible instinct  of  preservation,  the  ardent 
blood  that  fills  the  veins  of  its  sons  is  ever 
ready  to  flow  for  whatever  cause  is  dear  to 
them.  The  iudepeudence  of  their  country 
is  dearer  to  the  Spaniards  than  a  religion ; 
it  is  fanatism,  never  once  belied  during  the 
course  of  its  history. 

Next  to  their  country,  their  religion  has 
always  been  pre-eminent  in  the  hearts  of 
the  Spaniards — their  religion,  which,  has  so 
deeply  influenced  their  customs,  their  laws, 
their  literature,  and  their  arts. 

The  clergy  were  acknowledged  from  a 
very  remote  period  (since  the  conversion  of 
Ricaredo  to  the  Catholic  religion)  as  one  of 
the  public  authorities,  and  perhaps  that 
which  most  predominated.  Their  educa- 
tion, the  moderation  with  which,  they  used 
their  influence,  and  their  austere  life  soon 
gave  them  a  notable  ascendency,  observable 
in  the  numerous  and  benevolent  laws  with 
which  the  people  were  endowed  by  the  Coun- 
cils of  Toledo.  The  king  reigned  in  Spain, 
btit  the  councils  governed.  The  traces  of 
this  early  religion  are  still  to  be  found  in  all 
Spanish  customs,  impregnated  with  the  Cath- 
olic spirit,  and  the  same  traces  are  found  in 
the  laws,  in  the  character  of  the  Spaniard, 
in  their  aspirations,  and  in  their  enterprises. 
Great  dangers,  knightly  feats  of  arms,  pos- 
sessed powerful  attractions  for  the  Spaniard. 
To  die  fighting  the  Moslem  in  defense  of 
their  country  and  their  religion  was  the 
highest  ideal  of  death  conceivable  to  them. 
To  return  from  the  war,  and,  still  covered 
with  the  dust  of  the  combat,  present  the  tro- 
phies to  the  lady  of  their  love,  was  their 
only  poetry ;  and  their  old  romancers  have 
preserved  the  memory  of  the  poetical  wor- 
ship rendered  to  woman  in  the  Middle  Ages. 

In  lieu  of  instruction,  the  Spaniards  pos- 
sessed an  eminent  degree  of  integrity,  amia- 
ble simplicity,  love  for  their  families,  and 
the  highest  respect  for  their  word  of  honor. 
This,  my  hearers,  was  the  Spain  of  the  olden  time. 

But  the  day  arrived  fatal  in  the  annals  of 
its  history,  when  an  absolute  monarchy  was 
established,  and,  together  with  absolutism, 
the  sinister  Inquisition.  Liberty  of  con- 
science, as  well  as  that  of  thought,  vanished 
from  our  soil,  and  intolerance  soon  began  to 
bear  its  bitter  death  fruits.  It  is  true  that 
at  previous  periods  some  of  the  clergy,  eager 
to  possess  the  wealth  of  the  Jews,  iiad  insti- 
gated the  people  against  them ;  but  it  is  none 
the  less  true  that  certain  kings  protected 
the  Jews  from  the  fury  of  their  accusers. 
8 


Yet,  when  at  last  the  Inquisition  was  estab- 
lished in  Spain  without  the  consent  of  tho 
Cortes,  and  notwithstanding  the  protests  oi' 
the  most  enlightened  men  of  that  period, 
Heruando  del  Pulgar,  and,  in  the  next  reign, 
Hernando  de  Talavera,  then  perished  the  Cas- 
tilian  liberties  on  the  field  of  Villalar — and 
Mallorca  and  Valencia  lost  theirs  too,  with 
Juan  Odon  Colon — and  there  remained  no 
more  hope  of  the  existence  of  any  of  those 
liberties  that  exalt  a  nation. 

Catholic  writers  are  not  wanting  who  exalt 
the  power  and  wealth  of  Spain  in  the  days 
of  Philip  II.,  the  great  champion-in-arms  of 
intolerance ;  but  they  forget  that  the  pros- 
tration of  nations  is  a  slow  work,  that  in 
their  history  punishment  does  not  succeed 
crime  immediately,  and,  when  the  great  mor- 
al laws  are  trampled  and  crushed  under  the 
dazzling  veil  of  high  prosperity,  the  skeleton 
of  death  underneath  is  hidden  from  sight. 
There  is  no  greater  proof  of  this  truth  than 
the  grandeur  of  Spain  in  the  sixteenth  cen- 
tury, under  the  reign  of  Philip  II. 

This  monarch  possessed,  besides  Spain, 
Naples,  Sicily,  Sardinia,  the  Duchy  of  Mi- 
lan, Rosellin,  the  Low  Countries,  and  the 
Franco  Condado.  On  the  Western  coasts 
of  Africa,  he  owned  the  Canary  Islands,  Fer- 
nando Po,  Annobon,  and  St.  Helena.  In 
America,  he  reigned  in  Peru,  in  Mexico,  in 
Tierra  Firme,  New  Granada,  Cuba,  St.  Do- 
mingo, Martinique,  Guadalupe,  and  Jamai- 
ca. In  the  Indian  Seas,  the  Philippine  Isl- 
and also  belonged  to  Spain,  and  afterward 
the  conquest  of  Portugal  largely  augmented 
his  already  vast  dominions. 

Spain  saw  her  kingdom  strong  and  united, 
while  all  else  declined  around  her :  her  sol- 
diers were  the  first  in  the  world,  and  her 
navy  then  was  unequaled. 

At  the  same  time  that  Spain  predominated 
in  the  outer  world  by  her  strength,  she  flour- 
ished within  her  boundaries  through  her  ag- 
riculture, industries,  and  commerce. 

But,  alas,  all  this  prosperity  was  but  as 
when  a  fair  and  beautiful  plant  in  all  the 
glory  of  broad  leaves  and  rich  fruit  has  a 
canker-worm  gnawing  at  its  roots,  which 
will  blast  it  in  its  prime  ere  its  fruit  has 
ripened.  All  this  grandeur  was  being  slow- 
ly but  only  too  surely  undermined  by  an  in- 
fluence as  devastating  as  the  simoom  of  the 
desert,  as  deadly  as  those  miasmas  that  poi- 
son the  air  to  the  breather — the  terrible  and 
deleterious  religious  intolerance,  the  opposi- 
tion full  of  hatred  to  tho  Gospel  and  to  lib- 
erty of  conscience.  Philip  II.  accepted  and 
re-enforced  the  politics  inherited  by  him  from 
the  Catholic  monarchs  Ferdinand  and  Isa- 
bella, and  from  his  father  Charles  V.,  to  the 
detriment  of  all  the  moral  and  material  in- 
terests of  his  people.  Tho  same  system  was 
adopted  by  his  son  Philip  III.,  which  is  to 
say  that  the  Church  and  Crown  united  to 
consummate  the  ruin  of  Spain. 


114 


REPORTS  ON  THE  STATE  OF  RELIGION. 


The  Jews,  who  had  lent  large  sums  of 
money  to  Ferdinand  and  Isabella  for  the 
taking  of  Granada,  received  as  recompense 
the  edict  for  their  expulsion  and  the  loss  of 
all  their  wealth. 

The  Inquisition  condemned  criticism  and 
philosophy  hi  the  works  of  Antonio  Lebrija, 
which  were  devoured  by  the  flames.  It  con- 
demned liberty  of  conscience,  and  a  great 
number  of  Protestants— all  learned  and  pi- 
ous men — died  at  the  stake  in  Valladolid 
and  in  Seville. 

Philip  II.  provoked  the  rebellion  of  the 
Moors  only  to  conquer  them  and  seize  their 
properties;  and  Philip  III.  banished  more 
than  a  million  of  them,  having  the  same 
object  in  view.  The  riches  of  the  nation 
•lowed  into  the  convents,  falling  into  dead 
hands — to  use  the  energetic  language  of  the 
Middle  Ages ;  the  number  of  artisans  dimin- 
ished, and  the  friars  increased ;  agriculture 
received  its  death-blow,  and  the  friars  mul- 
tiplied ;  commerce  was  paralyzed,  and  the 
friars  enlarged  their  convents  to  admit  new 
inmates ;  those  who  accepted  the  Gospel, 
and  who  would  have  been  the  salt  of  the 
<>arth,  were  all  burned  or  banished,  and  still 
the  friars  grew  in  number  and  prospered. 
The  Spanish  were  obliged,  in  order  to  live 
in  peace,  either  to  go  into  the  convents,  or, 
becoming  mere  adventurers,  go  to  America 
in  search  of  the  accursed  gold  which  has 
not  a  little  contributed  to  the  prostration 
of  my  country.  The  only  faculty  left  free 
in  Spain  was  the  imagination,  and  that  only 
so  long  as  it  was  employed  in  chanting  or 
delineating  the  glories  of  the  Church  or  the 
bounties  of  the  reigning  monarch.  The  re- 
sult of  so  much  oppression  was  that,  when 
Charles  II.  came  to  reign,  Spain  had  neither 
army,  navy,  nor  generals ;  no  men  of  science, 
no  industries,  no  manufactures,  no  commerce, 
nor  money;  an  immense  corpse  stretched  out 
in  its  immense  sepulchre;  it,  from  time  to 
time,  seemed  to  return  to  life  long  enough 
to  hold  an  auto-da-fe  to  prove  to  the  world 
that  it  still  existed  under  the  yoke  of  abso- 
lutism and  theocracy. 

And  is  it  strange,  then,  that  Spain  should 
at  this  present  period  find  herself  in  the 
state  of  an  invalid,  still  suffering  the  effects 
of  a  long  and  terrible  disease?  For  my 
part,  I  only  wonder,  not  at  its  wretched  con- 
dition, but  at  its  existence  after  having  en- 
dnred  for  three  centuries  the  system  inher- 
ited by  the  successors  of  Philip  II.,  seconded 
by  the  religious  ideas  of  a  Torquemada. 

The  state  of  my  country,  as  I  am  about  to 
present  it  to  you,  is  sad  indeed  ;  but  I  believe 
that  those  who  love  their  country  point  out 
itsevils  and  then  propose  the  remedy.  And,  if 
this  manuscript  should  be  read  by  any  Span- 
iards who  think  that  I  have  done  wrong  in 
saying  aught  but  praises  of  every  thing  con- 
nected with  Spain,  I  will  answer  them  in  these 
few  words :  "  Cara  Patria,  carior  Veritas." 


The  religious  state  of  Spain  is  indeed  dis- 
couraging, and  it  can  not  but  be  so,  consider- 
ing the  intolerance  which  has  reigned  there 
for  so  many  ages  np  to  September,  1868. 
For  a  long  time  back  the  inhabitants  of  the 
Peninsula  have  only  been  Catholics  in  name  ; 
and  Rome,  although  aware  of  this,  has  made 
no  effort  to  recover  her  dominion  over  the 
souls  she  has  lost.  She  knew  that  she 
reigned  in  an  official  sense  and  in  public 
life,  and  that  the  laws  permitted  no  compe- 
tition with  her  priests.  Sad  satisfaction  to 
have  acquired  so  much  with  the  loss  of  so 
many  souls!  For  it  is  not  possible  to  sup- 
pose that  Rome  deludes  herself  into  the  be- 
lief that  those  manifestations,  proceeding 
from  routine,  are  manifestations  of  piety. 

One  of  the  consequences  of  the  revolution 
has  been  to  reveal  this  vacuum  in  the  hearts 
of  the  Spanish.  Few  Liberals,  and  hardly 
any  Republicans,  in  certain  provinces,  will 
hearken  to  a  word  of  religion.  The  reason 
is  obvious:  Religion,  for  those  who  have 
had  no  opportunity  for  knowing  a  better 
one,  means  oppression  of  thought  and  con- 
science; privileges  granted  to  a  certain 
class;  processions  where  they  see  captain- 
generals  and  skeptic  ministers  carrying 
wax -lights;  it  means  nuns  and  bishops, 
who  make  and  unmake  cabinets;  it  means 
superstition  and  materialism.  I  myself  con- 
fess that,  if  I  knew  no  other  religion  but 
that  practiced  among  Spaniards  in  the  lat- 
ter ages,  I  would  prefer  regulating  my  life 
by  the  maxims  of  a  high  moral  code  rather 
than  admit  so  much  deceit  and  such  odious 
privileges.  I  am  told,  in  answer  to  this  af- 
firmation, that  the  numerous  hosts  of  the 
Carlists  belie  me,  and  that  they  maintain 
well  aloft  the  standard  of  their  faith.  It  is 
true  that  their  banner  bears  their  device,  but 
I  can  not  say  that  they  bear  in  their  souls 
the  device  of  their  banners.  It  may  be  that 
the  peasants,  for  their  religion's  sake,  obey 
the  orders  of  their  curates  to  take  arms ;  but 
can  Ave  say  the  same  of  the  leaders  of  the 
factions  who  often  boast  of  their  increduli- 
ty— of  those  who  shoot  their  prisoners  with- 
out mercy,  or  assassinate  the  Liberals,  beat- 
ing out  children's  brains  against  the  walls 
because  their  fathers  are  not  Carlists,  as  oc- 
curred in  Berga?  Can  we  say  that  there 
was  any  religion  in  the  hearts  of  those  who, 
in  Segorbe,  killed  a  priest  merely  because  ho 
was  not  an  absolutist,  and  who  rob,  sack, 
and  set  lire  to  villages  after  praying  over 
their  rosary  ?  Can  wo  ascribe  to  religious 
influence  the  exploits  of  the  famous  priest, 
Santa  Cruz,  who  has  distanced  the  greatest 
miscreants  with  his  crimes,  and  those  of  his 
innumerable  colleagues  in  the  ministry  who, 
with  the  same  hand  with  which  they  bless 
and  grasp  the  crucifix,  murder  with  the  gun  ; 
or  the  conduct  of  the  bishops,  ever  ready  to 
hurl  anathemas  against  all  who  would  cur- 
tail their  privileges,  and  who  under  the  pres- 


CAERASCO:   RELIGION  IN  SPAIN. 


115 


ent  circumstances  Lave  uttered  no  word  of 
censure  against  their  subordinates  who  so 
ignore  their  sacred  duties  ?  No ;  these  meu 
follow  a  political  standard,  aud  use  the  name 
of  religion  as  they  would  any  other  name 
convenient  for  their  plans. 

It  is  n6t  necessary  for  me  to  stop  and  prove 
that  the  moral  state  of  the  country  is  the  di- 
rect consequence  of  its  religious  condition. 
There  is  no  profound  conviction  of  sin,  no 
anguish  of  a  soul  seeking  to  free  itself  from 
its  burden.  The  moral  grade  has  gone  so 
low,  public  opinion  is  so  indulgent,  that  it 
forms  no  curb  for  any  one.  The  greatest 
wickedness,  the  vilest  actions,  are  committed 
without  scandalizing  any  one.  Infractions 
of  the  law  are  so  common  here  that  nowhere 
is  it  more  truly  said  that  "  laws  were  made 
to  be  evaded."  There  is  no  confidence  in 
any  one,  and  this  want  of  faith  in  men  ex- 
tends, unfortunately,  to  principles ;  hence 
the  disturbances,  the  riots,  the  rapid  change 
of  cabinets  and  of  government  officials,  as 
well  as  of  laws — this  constant  seeking  for 
that  which  they  never  will  find,  as  long  as 
they  do  not  feel  their  moral  degradation, 
and  fall  humbled  at  the  feet  of  Him  who 
pardons  and  raises  those  who  humble  them- 
selves, and  who  gives,  together  with  sorrow 
for  sin,  the  complete  moral  rehabilitation. 

There  does  exist  in  Spain,  howeArer,  a  group 
of  enlightened  men,  of  irreproachable  lives 
and  pure  morals,  who  unite  great  simplicity 
with  exquisite  affability,  and  a  real  interest 
for  the  ignorant  classes.  I  refer  to  such  as 
Fernando  de  Castro,  Garcia  Blanco,  Fernan- 
do Gonzalez,  Ruiz  de  Quevedo,  Gabriel  Rod- 
rigues,  aud  many  others  whose  names  I  have 
not  space  to  mention.  They  are  a  chosen 
band  with  their  officers  aud  chiefs ;  but  I  do 
not  know  the  soldiers  that  follow  them,  and 
this  is  Avhy  I  doubt  whether  they  will  ever 
obtain  any  very  brilliant  victories  over  the 
all-pervading  evil.  They,  united,  form  the 
aristocracy  of  intelligence  here  ;  but  I  doubt 
whether  their  principles  form  that  leaven 
that  raises  a  whole  people.  These  men,  so 
worthy  of  respect  on  many  accounts,  are 
wanting  in  the  profession  of  historical  Chris- 
tiauism,  in  the  concrete  affirmation  of  the 
dogma,  without  which  moral  has  no  base, 
in  one  of  the  two  elements  which  form  the 
individual  and  the  people,  in  the  one  great 
necessity  of  our  life — the  Christian  doctrine. 
Without  this  fault,  they  would  be  a  powerful 
agent,  and  would  accomplish  what  they  nev- 
er will  so  long  as  they  consider  instruction 
the  universal  panacea.  Their  principles  are 
those  professed  by  Socrates,  and  with  those 
alone  Greece  certainly  would  never  have 
been  regenerated.  The  corning  of  Christ  to 
shed  his  blood  for  the  remission  of  sins  was 
necessary  to  regenerate  both  Greeks  and  bar- 
barians. 

The  literature  of  the  country  is  on  a  par 
with  its  moral  state.  I  would  here  make 


one  observation.  In  speaking  of  literature 
it  is  not  my  intention  to  treat  of  all  the 
contemporary  literary  productions,  some  of 
which  are  pronounced  master -works  both 
at  home  and  abroad.  I  would  speak  of  the 
people's  literature,  that  most  in  vogue  among 
them,  of  the  two  potentates  of  the  age — the 
novel  and  the  newspaper.  How  great  an 
influence  for. good  works  of  fiction  exercise, 
and  how  great,  too,  for  evil !  How  immense 
the  responsibility  of  the  novelist !  History, 
politics,  morals,  religion,  and  philosophy  are 
all  taught  to  the  people  by  the  novelist ;  and 
what  a  man  of  the  lower  classes  learns  in 
fiction  is  what  he  best  remembers.  But  why 
enhance  the  influence  of  the  novel  here  in 
the  native  country  of  the  authoress  of  "  Un- 
cle Tom's  Cabin  ?"  You,  still  better  than  I, 
know  how  much  such  a  novel  can  do  toward 
accomplishing  the  triumph  of  a  great  cause. 
The  productions  in  this  line  most  popular  in 
Spain  and  sought  for  with  avidity  are  those 
which  are  distributed  in  sheets  of  four  or 
eight  pages  at  a  time,  and  whose  subjects 
are  generally  the  worst  human  passions,  pre- 
sented not  as  odious,  but  iu  their  most  at- 
tractive form. 

The  newspaper  in  Spain  has  generally  for 
its  object  completely  to  ignore  principles, 
and  attack  only  persons.  There  is  no  char- 
acter so  pure  but  it  will  be  dragged  through 
the  mire  if  taking  part  in  political  matters. 
Libelous  insinuations,  direct  accusations, 
downright  falsehoods,  which,  even  if  next 
day  contradicted,  have  already  produced 
their  effect  —  these  are  the  arms  used  by 
the  different  political  parties  against  each 
other.  In  addition,  there  is  always  a  re- 
luctance to  tell  the  people  the  real  truth ; 
they  are  flattered  and  deceived,  but  never 
told  their  defects.  This  is  journalism  in 
Spain,  where,  on  different  footing  corre- 
sponding to  its  high  mission,  it  could  lend 
such  signal  service  to  the  cause  of  justice 
aud  truth. 

This,  my  hearers,  is  the  picture  I  have 
had  to  show  you.  My  heart  aches  at  seeing 
how  deep  its  shadows  are.  I  am  a  Spaniard, 
and  can  not  but  feel  deep  sorrow  at  the  mor- 
al sufferings  of  my  people.  Still  it  consoles 
me  to  think  that  there  is  good  in  them  yet. 
I  can  not  but  attribute  their  skepticism  to 
the  ignorance  in  which  they  have  lived  till 
now  of  the  pure  Gospel  of  Christ.  The  ob- 
livion of  their  state  of  sin  is  due  to  those 
who  have  taught  them  to  consider  sin  as 
only  a  series  of  acts  as  easily  effaced  as  com- 
mitted. But  their  defects  are  counterbal- 
anced by  many  excellent  qualities.  The 
Spanish  are  naturally  kind,  intelligent,  and 
endowed  with  great  intuitiveness.  Their 
bravery  is  as  notorious  as  is  their  sobriety. 
The  Spaniard,  ready  to  shed  blood  in  a  mo- 
ment of  wrath,  has  no  equal  in  generosity 
after  a  victory.  Who  does  not  remember 
the  days  following  the  fall  of  the  throne 


116 


REPORTS  ON  THE  STATE  OF  RELIGION. 


of  the  Bourbons,  during  which  tho  people, 
•without  government  or  authorities,  were 
left  completely  to  their  own  instincts,  and, 
with  so  many  injuries  and  wrongs  to  avenge, 
they  demonstrated  a  gentleness  and  a  gen- 
erosity unparalleled  in  the  annals  of  histo- 
ry t  All  their  enemies  were  either  in  prison 
or  disarmed ;  they  had  at  their  mercy  those 
who  so  shortly  before  had  condemned  not 
only  journalists  to  death,  but  even  those 
who  were  engaged  on  the  material  work 
of  certain  newspapers ;  and  all  these  per- 
sons were  quietly  allowed  to  go  where  they 
chose.  The  Spanish  are  easily  moved  to 
acts  of  generosity.  Ah!  how  great  a  na- 
tion Spain  could  yet  become,  how  high 
might  her  aspirations  be,  if  she  could  only 
be  brought  to  the  feet  of  Him  who  alone 
can  give  prosperity  to  a  people !  How  soon 
would  many  of  their  defects  disappear  if 
the  Spanish  would  turn  their  backs  011  er- 
ror and  resolutely  enter  the  path  of  truth ! 
There  are  still  elements  iu  the  Spanish  peo- 
ple capable  of  making  them  a  great  nation ; 
but  it  must  be  repeated  and  reiterated.  This 
miracle  will  never  be  realized  through  re- 
forms in  its  laws,  nor  with  the  establish- 
ment of  new  institutions;  it  will  only  be 
effected  by  the  acceptance  of  Christ,  who 
reforms  the  hearts  of  men  through  the  Holy 
Spirit. 

2.  We  will  now  treat  of  what  Christians 
have  done  here  toward  obtaining  this  most 
enviable  result.  What  class  of  work  has 
been  accomplished  in  Spain,  and  what 
means  have  been  employed  to  make  the 
Gospel  known  in  Spain  T  This  is  the  ques- 
tion which  I  will  now  take  into  considera- 
tion, and,  as  it  is  a  momentous  one  in  itself, 
I  have  prayed  God  to  inspire  me  with  the 
truth  alone,  free  from  the  biasings  of  sym- 
pathy or  of  prejudice  of  any  kind. 

Long  before  religious  liberty  was  a  fact 
and  a  legal  right  in  Spain,  some  work  had 
already  been  done  toward  giving  Spaniards 
a  knowledge  of  the  true  doctrine  of  Christ. 
Travelers,  for  the  most  part  English,  when 
they  were  coming  to  Spain,  provided  them- 
selves with  Testaments  and  tracts,  and  then 
improved  every  opportunity  for  distributing 
them  among  their  acquaintances  and  among 
their  traveling  companions,  or  they  left  them 
in  the  wardrobes  of  their  rooms  in  the  ho- 
tels, hoping  that  those  who  found  them 
would  read  them,  and  perchance  profit 
thereby,  finding  the  conviction  of  the  truth 
in  their  pages. 

Other  Christians  came  purposely  to  evan- 
gelize, but  these  reduced  their  operations 
to  familiar  conversations,  sustained  in  a  lan- 
guage their  imperfect  knowledge  of  which 
made  it  impossible  to  understand  them,  or 
they  would  leave  packages  of  tracts  in  the 
chairs  of  the  public  walks  for  those  who 
came  to  occupy  the  seats  after  them.  I  con- 
sider this  desultory  mode  of  evangelizing 


unfruitful.  I  am  not  unaware  that  the  ac- 
tion of  the  Holy  Spirit  is  subject  to  no  par- 
ticular form,  and  that  the  Lord  in  his  infinite 
wisdom  makes  use  of  ways  and  means  un- 
known to  man  for  his  mysterious  teachings. 
I  have  heard  of  wonderful  conversions  which 
produced  many  others,  all  duo  to  the  read- 
ing of  a  tract,  or  to  a  word  uttered  by  a 
child.  I  have  read  of  such  instances  in  re- 
ligious papers,  and  I  believe  them,  for  I  be- 
lieve iu  the  power  of  God ;  still,  I  know  that 
these  are  not  tho  means  usually  employed 
by  God  to  bring  sinners  into  the  way  of  life. 
Our  Maker  has  been  pleased  to  use  the  min- 
istry of  men  to  announce  the  glad  tidings. 
He  has  willed  that  the  Word  read  shall  bo 
accompanied  by  the  Word  spoken,  so  that 
the  text  may  be  verified  by  the  living  com- 
mentary of  the  preacher. 

Tho  work,  as  carried  out  by  Mr.  William 
Green,  many  years  before  tho  revolution  of 
1888,  has  appeared  to  me  the  most  success- 
ful of  all  those  undertaken  by  foreign  breth- 
ren. Many  of  our  ideas  differ  on  certain 
theological  points;  his  views  and  mine  on 
ecclesiastical  organization  are  entirely  op- 
posed to  each  other ;  we  are  divided  also  on 
the  question  of  baptism ;  and,  withal,  the 
love  of  truth  obliges  me  to  render  public 
testimony  to  the  value  of  Mr.  Green's  serv- 
ices. He  had  lived  many  years  in  Spain, 
and  his  profession  as  engineer  had  placed 
him  in  contact  with  thousands  of  laborers. 
Thus  he  was  able  to  follow  step  by  step  tho 
effects  produced  on  the  souls  of  those  who 
listened  to  his  words  or  read  the  books  ho 
distributed.  He  has  left  deep  traces  of  his 
teachings  at  every  place  where  he  remained 
for  any  length  of  time. 

Among  the  Spaniards,  Don  Luis  Usoz  y  Rio 
has  been  the  most  efficient  in  the  good  cause. 
The  clandestine  reprinting  of  the  works  of 
the  old  Spanish  reformers,  more  than  four 
years  ago,  and  his  own  original  works,  will 
testify  to  my  assertion  in  his  favor. 

Next  in  turn  came  a  Christian  Committee 
of  Edinburgh.  The  gentlemen  who  com- 
posed it  understood  that  a  different  means 
of  evangelization  from  those  hitherto  em- 
ployed must  be  used.  So,  instead  of  send- 
ing foreigners  to  preach  the  Gospel  here, 
they  selected  Spaniards  for  their  purpose. 
One  of  these  was  Don  Jos6  Vasquez,  who 
now,  very  aged  and  retired  from  active  life, 
resides  at  Seville ;  another  was  Don  Joso" 
Gonzalez,  at  present  engaged  in  evangeliz- 
ing in  Madrid ;  another,  Don  Pablo  Sanchez, 
who  preached  in  Gibraltar ;  and,  I  think,  also 
Don  Francisco  de  Paula  Ruet,  pastor  of  a 
Spanish  congregation  in  Gibraltar.  About 
this  time,  the  Committee  in  Paris  employed 
Don  Manuel  Matamoros,  and  tho  work  then 
assumed  a  greater  consistency.  Congrega- 
tions were  organized ;  private  and  secret 
worship  was  observed  at  the  houses  of  Prot- 
estants ;  those  who  separated  from  the  Church 


CARRASCO :  RELIGION  IN  SPAIN. 


117 


of  Rome  began  to  be  known ;  the  tracts 
"Andres  Dnun"  and  "Preservative  against 
Rome,"  the  Avritiugs  of  Luis  Desauctis,  sev- 
eral numbers  of  the  paper  El  Alba,  the  gos- 
pels with  Dr.  Rule's  commentaries,  and  oth- 
er religious  works,  were  distributed  with 
due  discrimination,  and  prepared  the  way 
for  a  new  era.  I  am  aware  that  those  con- 
gregations were  wanting  in  religious  in- 
struction ;  I  will  confess,  too,  that  the  mem- 
bers who  composed  them  were  not  as  spir- 
itual as  could  have  been  desired ;  but,  with- 
al, I  recall  with  deep  emotion  those  days  of 
a  new  love,  of  great  illusions,  and  of  vast 
projects — those  days  of  the  secret  gatherings 
to  hear  the  preaching  of  the  Word  of  God, 
always  expecting  the  arrival  of  the  agents 
of  the  law  to  conduct  us  to  the  dungeons  of 
a  common  prison. 

The  persecution  which  we  had  foreseen 
came  in  1861,  and  Matamoros,  Alhama,Trigo, 
Gonzalez,  Marin,  and  he  who  has  the  honor 
of  addressing  you  at  this  moment,  were  con- 
demned to  prison.  This  imprisonment  was 
productive  of  great  good  to  us,  and  of  great 
good  to  all  Spain,  for  the  matter  was  taken 
up  by  the  press,  and  people  became  accus- 
tomed to  hearing  of  the  Protestants,  and 
learned  thereby  that  Protestants  were  men 
like  their  other  fellow-beings,  and  they  dis- 
covered, too,  that  there  were  six  Spaniards 
who  preferred  imprisonment  to  liberty  ob- 
tained through  abjurement  of  their  faith. 
After  the  imprisonment  came  our  exile,  and 
it  must  be  confessed  that  with  the  exile  al- 
most all  that  had  existed  disappeared.  But 
the  seed  had  been  planted,  and  would  some 
day  germinate. 

The  tyrannical  system  under  which  Spain 
continued  up  to  the  year  1868  produced  a 
state  of  tension  impossible  of  continuance 
for  any  length  of  time.  This  was  under- 
stood by  all  who  watched  the  course  of 
events,  and  who  saw  what  ground  ideas  of 
tolerance  were  gaining ;  and  Matamoros,  with 
the  peculiar  intuition  with  which  he  was 
endowed,  felt  this  movement,  and  thencefor- 
ward allowed  himself  no  rest  in  the  prepara- 
tion at  Lausanne  of  several  Spanish  youths 
for  pastors.  There  was  a  school  opened 
there  at  the  same  time  for  girls  to  train 
them  for  teachers  in  Spain,  and  a  lady  from 
the  United  States,  named  Mrs.  Mac  Euen, 
founded  also  a  preparatory  theological  school 
in  the  vicinity  of  Pan. 

At  last,  the  long-desired  day  of  religious 
liberty  in  Spain  arrived,  and  all  who  were 
prepared  to  take  a  part  in  the  work  hastened 
to  come  from  abroad  and  established  them- 
selves where  each  thought  fit.  The  French 
pastor,  M.  Curie,  who  had  preached  for  sev- 
eral years  at  the  Prussian  Embassy,  conceived 
and  realized  the  idea  of  forming  a  commit- 
tee in  Madrid  which  should  give  unity  to  the 
work.  A  centre  was  also  formed  in  Seville 
by  Messrs.  Cabrera,  Albania,  and  Sanchez. 


Mr.  Green  returned  from  the  Balearic  Islands. 
Mr.  Armstrong  came  from  England,  and  has 
been  from  that  time  the  representative  of 
the  London  Tract  Society.  Lawrence,  Gould, 
and  Faithful!  came.  Mr.  Knapp,  an  Ameri- 
can, also  arrived  from  Paris,  Senor  Ruet  from 
Algiers,  Seiior  Trigo  from  Oran,  your  speaker 
from  Geneva,  and  Mr.  Gladstone,  who  had 
already  lived  for  some  years  in  Spain ;  all 
without  distinction  of  sect,  oblivious  of  their 
different  religious  opinions,  commenced  dis- 
tributing books,  holding  worship,  and  an- 
nouncing the  joyful  news,  by  all  the  means 
within  our  reach.  The  chapels  were  always 
rilled  with  multitudes  anxious  to  hear  the 
new  doctrines.  Bibles  were  sold  by  thou- 
sands ;  the  tracts  printed  were  all  too  few  to 
satisfy  the  universal  curiosity.  It  is  much 
to  be  lamented  that  in  those  days  there  were 
not  laborers  and  funds  enough  to  have  open- 
ed a  chapel  in  every  city  and  town  of  impor- 
tance throughout  Spain,  for,  had  this  been 
done  then,  there  would  this  day  exist  as 
many  congregations  as  there  were  chapels 
opened  to  the  public.  The  Christians  had 
not  faith  enough  to  labor  for  the  future;  they 
undoubtedly  believed  that  Spain  was  con- 
demned to  live  always  under  an  iron  rule. 
They  only  afterwrard  discovered  that  success 
might  yet  crown  their  efforts,  and  they  then 
employed  more  laborers,  some  of  them,  un- 
fortunately, ill  qualified  for  their  high  mis- 
sion. Then  happened  what  could  not  but 
ensue,  and  at  the  same  time  what  never 
should  have  taken  place.  The  first  was 
that,  after  the  first  moments  of  unity  and 
concord  among  the  laborers  in  this  great 
and  holy  work,  the  different  religious  tend- 
encies of  each  of  the  directors  became  appar- 
ent. Some  declared  their  adoption  of  the 
Presbyterian  form,  others  manifested  their 
Baptist  proclivities,  while  others  declared 
their  adherence  to  the  Plymouthites.  And 
that  which  never  should  have  taken  place 
was  that  there  arose  a  discordance  among 
the  foreign  brethren,  to  whom  we  so  natu- 
rally looked  up  as  our  models.  This  Avant 
of  harmony  among  the  laborers  excited  not 
a  little  comment  amidst  the  new  converts, 
much  to  the  discredit  of  all. 

This  evil  might  have  been  avoided  had  a 
little  more  abnegation  been  exercised,  and  a 
closer  study  made  of  things  and  persons.  If 
the  foreign  brethren  had  been  content  to 
preach  Christ  alone  to  the  Spanish,  leaviug 
them  afterward  to  decide  among  themselves 
as  to  the  minor  points  of  form,  and  consti- 
tute themselves  according  to  their  own  lik- 
iug;  if  those  friends  had  only  laid  aside  their 
particular  opinions  as  to  baptism,  ecclesias- 
tical organization,  and  other  doctrinal  points ; 
if  they  had  not  been  so  anxious  to  appear 
in  the  first  rank,  only  careful  to  assist  those 
who  are  but  children  in  the  faith  with  their 
counsels  and  suggestions,  events  would  not 
have  been  precipitated,  aud  many  churches 


118 


REPORTS  ON  THE  STATE  OF  RELIGION. 


which  gave  promise  of  rich  fruits  for  eternal 
life  would  not  have  been  closed. 

The  entire  responsibility  of  what  has  oc- 
curred must  not  rest  solely  on  the  laborers 
iu  Spain  ;  it  also  devolves  on  the  committees, 
churches,  and  private  individuals  who  are 
interested  iu  the  Spanish  work  of  evangeli- 
zation. When  there  is  not  perfect  union 
among  these  committees  or  churches,  even 
when  they  belong  to  the  same  country,  how 
can  it  exist  between  their  representatives  in 
Spain  T  It  would  seem  as  though  each  one 
of  these  were  only  intent  on  communicating 
his  particular  ideas,  forgetting  that  Spain 
must  of  necessity  stamp  her  religious  ref- 
ormation with  her  own  particular  national- 
ity. And  while  this  obvious  truth  is  ignored, 
it  must  not  be  believed  that  aught  will  be 
accomplished  beyond  factitious  results  that 
will  disappear  of  themselves  iu  the  natural 
course  of  things. 

I  ask  myself  repeatedly,  Why  is  it,  what 
is  the  cause  that  produces  the  fact  that  al- 
most all  the  churches  or  groups  of  individuals 
who  have  taken  part  in  the  evangelization 
of  Spain  send  representatives  here  from  their 
own  country?  Have  they  no  confidence  in 
Spaniards  for  the  direction  of  the  Christian 
labors?  Do  they  consider  their  agents  so 
much  more  capable  of  directing  a  congrega- 
tion than  we  are  ?  Can  they  not  see  that 
the  salary  of  one  of  these  agents  would 
suffice  to  defray  the  expenses  of  a  new  work 
in  another  town  ?  Are  they  not  aware  that 
their  agents  are  in  danger  of  exaggerating 
the  tendencies  or  ideas  of  those  who  send 
them  to  justify  their  participation  in  the 
management  of  the  churches,  as  well  as  of 
mistaking  their  wishes  for  realities,  leading 
them  into  errors  in  their  reports  of  their 
works,  resulting  in  the  creation  of  hopes 
which  are  completely  defrauded  by  exit? 
And  if,  when  facts  come  to  demonstrate  the 
truth,  they  would  only  frankly  confess  their 
mistake,  the  evil  would  not  be  so  great ;  but 
no,  the  want  of  success  is  attributed  by  them 
to  a  lack  of  inclination  on  the  part  of  the 
Spanish  to  receive  the  Gospel;  and  it  is  ob- 
vious to  all  how  much  the  work  of  evangel- 
ization sufters  from  these  errors. 

The  fact  tinat  each  foreign  pastor  is  pro- 
vided with  an  attendant  Spanish  pastor  is 
in  itself  a  proof  that  the  former  can  not 
alone  attend  to  the  management  of  a  work, 
nor  sustain  it  alone  among  Spaniards.  Why, 
then,  such  a  plethora  of  directors?  I  may 
be  told  that  the  work  acquires  greater  so- 
lidity under  their  direction,  arrives  at  a 
higher  state  of  spiritual  prosperity;  but 
facts  prove  the  contrary.  The  most  flour- 
ishing churches  are  those  which  are  under 
exclusive  Spanish  direction.  The  reason  of 
this,  to  some,  singular  phenomenon  is  clear. 
The  history  of  the  Spanish,  their  topograph- 
ical situation,  and  many  other  causes  lead 
them  to  view  every  thing  foreign  with  dis- 


trust. They  mistrust  that  the  predominating 
idea  in  the  foreign  propaganda  is  mere  spec- 
ulation ;  that  there  is  a  material  interest  in 
leading  them  to  change  their  religion  ;  and 
many  other  absurdities  enter  their  minds 
which  it  is  far  easier  to  censure  than  to  de- 
stroy. Then,  it  must  be  remembered  that 
the  Spanish  are  a  highly  artistic  people,  pas- 
sionately fond  of  and  accustomed  to  the 
finest  oratory ;  and  it  is  an  arduous  task, 
next  to  impossible,  for  a  foreigner  to  acquire 
such  command  of  our  harmonious  and  sono- 
rous Castilianas  to  be  able  to  move  the  mul- 
titudes by  his  word.  If  I  should  commence 
preaching  here  in  your  city,  in  your  lan- 
guage, I  might,  the  first  day,  please  my  au- 
dience by  my  naive  attempts  to  make  my- 
self understood  in  your  language ;  but  after 
a  while  my  faults  and  incorrectness  would 
become  tiresome  and  insupportable,  and  my 
audience  would  leave  me  and  go  elsewhere 
to  hear  one  of  their  own  nation.  This  is 
what  happens  in  Spain,  the  more  so  from 
their  great  appreciation  of  eloquence.  I 
well  know  that  in  treating  of  the  salvation 
of  the  soul  the  truth  is  of  far  more  impor- 
tance than  eloquence,  but  I  can  not  be  per- 
suaded that  the  Word  imperfectly  expressed 
can  exercise  more  influence  over  souls  than 
when  well  and  intelligibly  uttered. 

There  is  yet  another  error  to  be  corrected. 
The  characteristics  of  the  Anglo-Saxon  na- 
tion, their  rigidity  of  manner,  their  habits, 
and  their  nature,  so  far  less  expansive  than 
ours,  are  all  so  many  obstacles  to  prevent 
the  establishment  of  that  sympathy  between 
pastor  and  congregation  eo  necessary  when 
treating  of  the  saving  of  souls.  This,  my 
hearers,  constitutes  a  serious  impediment  to 
the  onward  march  of  the  Christian  work. 
If  the  foreign  churches  and  committees  had 
began  by  a  judicious  selection  of  Spanish 
pastors  and  preachers  to  direct  their  con- 
gregations, and  then,  instead  of  sending  a 
foreign  pastor  as  director  for  each  Spanish 
pastor,  they  had  by  common  consent  agreed 
to  appoint  one  agent,  eminently  Christian, 
whose  age,  experience,  and  knowledge,  to 
some  extent,  of  the  Spanish  people  would 
enable  him  to  assist  us  with  sound  and  salu- 
tary advice,  who  would  give  account  to  those 
committees  of  all  occurring  here,  and  inter- 
pret to  us  their  sentiments  and  wishes  with 
regard  to  our  work,  then  evangelical  chris- 
tianizing would  indeed  have  made  rapid 
progress  iu  the  Peninsula.  When  there  arc- 
many  persons  in  one  place,  each  represent- 
ing a  different  sect  or  persuasion,  a  miracle 
alone  could  prevent  the  divergencies  and 
want  of  harmony  which  I  condemn. 

After  what  I  have  just  made  manifest,  I 
would  make  a  declaration  to  dissipate  any 
suspicion  that  may  have  been  formed.  I 
have  no  private  cause  of  resentment  against 
any  of  the  foreign  pastors  engaged  in  the 
work  in  Spain,  and,  if  I  have  ever  had  any 


CARRASCO :  RELIGION  IN  SPAIN. 


119 


such  cause,  I  have  loug  ago  forgotten  it. 
have  lived  in  the  most  perfect  peace  with  all 
of  them,  and  have  never  committed  any  act 
that  could  in  any  way  injure  the  work  un- 
der their  charge;  on  the  contrary,  I  have 
assisted  as  far  as  possible  in  building  them 
up,  and  whenever  requested  have  always 
lent  them  my  assistance  in  preaching,  how- 
ever little  my  words  may  value ;  I  have  al- 
ways endeavored  to  scatter  the  clouds  which 
have  at  times  gathered  over  them;  but  I 
have  become  convinced  that,  when  treating 
of  the  advancement  of  the  kingdom  of  God, 
we  must  completely  lay  aside  our  natural 
affections  and  affinities,  and  tell  the  whole 
truth  without  hesitation  or  deviation ;  and  I 
consider  what  I  have  communicated  on  this 
point  as  the  truth.  I  should  regret  having 
offended  any  by  my  frankness.  I  hardly 
think  that  any  offense  will  be  taken,  for  I 
have  heard  these  very  ideas  from  the  lips  of 
foreigners  themselves  in  Spain,  wrho,  if  they 
continue  in  the  work,  do  so  in  obedience  to 
the  commands  of  their  church.  Nor  would 
I  by  any  means  discourage  those  who  with 
so  much  affection  and  constancy  assist  us 
with  their  prayers  and  with  their  money, 
both  so  necessary  to  us.  I  only  request 
them  to  reflect  on  the  means  employed  up  to 
the  present  day  in  relation  to  the  result,  and 
would  urge  them  to  proceed  with  new  vigor, 
but  on  a  different  plan,  in  this  greatly  need- 
ed and  greatly  beneficial  work. 

The  evangelical  labors  in  Spain  are  car- 
ried on  in  three  forms.  One,  the  printing 
and  distribution  of  Bibles,  another  that  of 
religious  tracts,  and  the  remaining  form  is 
the  preaching  of  the  Word. 

The  mission  of  the  London  Tract  Society 
is  well  known  to  all.  The  agent  of  this  so- 
ciety in  Spain  is  Mr.  Richard  Cortield,  a 
Christian  who  has  passed  part  of  his  life  in 
the  exercise  of  this  charge  in  South  Ameri- 
ca. Solicitous  in  the  performance  of  his 
duty,  without  taking  any  other  part  in  our 
ecclesiastical  labors,  except  by  assisting  us 
with  his  prayers,  Mr.  Cortield  is  closely  de- 
voted to  the  supervision  of  the  printing  and 
distribution  of  the  Holy  Bible.  His  corps 
of  colporteurs  seems  to  me  to  be  in  perfect 
order,  and  the  sale  of  the  Scriptures  satis- 
factory. I  do  not  know  whether  the  Carl- 
ist  insurrection,  which  now  devastates  some 
of  our  finest  provinces,  has  unfavorably  af- 
fected the  distribution  of  the  Bible,  but, 
generally  speaking,  I  can  say  with  certainty 
that  the  demand  for  it  with  the  people  at 
large  has  not  diminished.  This  fact  con- 
soles me,  for  I  can  not  believe  that  the  Word 
of  God,  so  abundantly  spread  through  the 
land,  can  fail  to  give  some  day  blessed  fruit. 

From  time  to  time,  large  remittances  of 
Bibles  are  sent  from  Madrid  to  Mexico  and 
to  other  republics  in  Central  South  America. 
I  have  seen  in  the  Madrid  Deposit  those 
great  cases  filled  with  the  Word  of  God,  and 


I  have  been  moved  at  the  sight  to  the  depths 
of  my  soul,  giving  thanks  to  the  Lord  for 
having  permitted  me  to  witness  the  day 
when  Spain  should  send  not  soldiers  to  con- 
quer America,  nor  fanatical  monks  to  spread 
there  the  sinister  Inquisition  flames,  nor  gov- 
ernment officials  to  devour  her  riches,  but 
the  blessed  Bible,  the  Book  of  books,  that 
tells  of  the  Author  of  all  grace,  goodness,  and 
of  every  perfect  gift ;  the  book  of  light  and 
life,  the  pioneer  of  civilization,  the  only 
teacher  of  true  progress  to  a  people ! 

The  religious  tract  work  is  under  the 
care  of  a  committee,  whose  agent  and  corre- 
spondent is  my  friend,  Mr.  Legh  Armstrong. 
It  is  to  be  regretted  that  there  has  not  been 
some  arrangement  made  between  tjie  Amer- 
ican Tract  Society  and  that  of  London,  or 
that  the  former  should  not  have  taken  meas- 
ures to  distribute  their  tracts  on  a  wider 
scale  among  us,  for,  in  my  judgment,  those 
of  its  publications  that  I  have  seen  are  well 
adapted  to  the  character  and  necessities  of 
our  people.  The  London  Society  sustains  a 
religious  weekly  paper  entitled  El  Cristiano, 
and  assists  in  sustaining  the  semi-monthly 
La  Luz.  We  are  deeply  indebted  to  and  pro- 
foundly grateful  for  the  services  of  the  Lou- 
don  Tract  Society  aud  of  the  London  Bible 
Society,  not  only  for  their  generous  sacri- 
fices in  the  service  of  our  cause,  but  for  the 
liberality  Avith  which  they  provide  reading 
matter  adapted  to  the  tastes  of  all. 

There  now  only  remains  to  be  taken  under 
consideration  that  form  of  the  work  carried 
out  by  preaching.  During  the  period  im- 
mediately following  the  revolution,  every 
place  of  worship  that  was  opened  was  in- 
vaded by  an  immense  crowd  of  both  sexes, 
all  eager  to  witness  what  they  never  before 
had  seen — the  Protestant  worship.  From 
among  these  inquisitive  crowds  were  form- 
ed our  churches.  The  first  congregations 
that  were  constituted  under  a  defined  eccle- 
siastical form — the  Presbyterian  form — were 
those  of  Andalusia,  sustained  by  a  Commit- 
tee in  Edinburgh.  In  Madrid,  we  thought 
it  premature  to  give  any  fixed  organization 
to  our  churches  until  we  were  sure  that  they 
were  composed  of  true  Christians.  When 
we  considered  the  proper  moment  arrived, 
we  constituted  the  Church  of  La  Madera 
Baja  of  Madrid,  on  the  27th  of  September, 
1870,  and  our  example  was  followed  by  the 
Church  of  La  Plaza  del  Limon  in  Madrid, 
and  by  that  of  Saragossa  and  that  of  Ca- 
munas.  These  two  groups,  the  most  impor- 
tant of  the  Peninsula,  united  in  the  Assembly 
of  Seville,  in  April,  1871,  preserving  each  its 
own  Confession  of  Faith,  until  a  general  one 
for  all  the  churches  should  bo  agreed  upon. 
A  confession  of  faith  was  discussed  and  ap- 
proved in  the  Assembly  of  Madrid  in  1872, 
which  has  been  highly  eulogized  by  many 
of  the  European  churches.  The  name  adopt- 
ed for  this  confederation  of  churches  is  "  The 


120 


REPORTS  ON  THE  STATE  OF  RELIGION. 


Span  Mi  Christian  Church."  In  the  late  June 
Assembly  of  this  year  the  Presbyteries  were 
appointed,  these  being  for  the  present  four 
in  number:  that  of  Madrid  North  is  com- 
posed of  the  Church  of  Jesus,  the  Church  of 
the  Saviour,  Las  Penuelas  de  Madrid,  the 
Church  of  Valladolid,  and  that  of  Sautan- 
dcr ;  that  of  Madrid  South  is  composed  of  the 
churches  of  La  Madera  Baja,  Bellas  Vistas, 
Camuftas,  Alicante,  and  Carthagena;  the 
Presbytery  of  Seville  includes  the  churches 
of  Seville,  Cordova,  Granada,  Huelva,  Jerez, 
Cadiz,  and  Malaga ;  and  lastly,  that  of  Bar- 
celona, composed  of  the  churches  of  Barce- 
lona, Saragossa,  and  Mahon.  The  Church  is 
governed  by  its  Assemblies,  which  unite  an- 
nually, and  from  these  are  formed  the  per- 
manent committees,  which  direct  the  spirit- 
ual matters  of  each  church  during  the  year. 

There  exist,  besides  the  churches  I  have 
named, an  Episcopal  church  in  Seville;  two 
Baptist  churches,  one  in  Madrid,  and  anoth- 
er in  Alicante,  sustained  by  Americans ;  and 
another  in  Barcelona,  which  I  do  not  know 
how  to  classify,  either  because  it  belongs  to 
no  class,  or  because  its  English  directors  do 
not  wish  to  organize  themselves.  There  is 
another  mission  of  this  same  kind  in  a  sub- 
urb of  Madrid  called  Chamberi,  also  under 
the  direction  of  an  English  brother. 

These  churches  have  not  all  attained  the 
same  degree  of  religious  spirit  and  Christian 
life.  There  are  those  where  these  elements 
are  easily  recognized,  and  there  are  others 
where  they  are  very  little  developed.  But, 
in  general,  we  have  great  reason  to  praise 
God  with  all  our  souls  for  what  has  been  ac- 
complished, for  the  bounties  which  in  his 
mercy  he  has  granted  us ;  and  there  is  also 
reason  why  the  laborers  should  humble  them- 
selves for  their  want  of  zeal,  for  their  lack 
of  judgment,  and  for  all  kinds  of  weakness- 
es. There  has  not  been  enough  harmony 
and  fraternity  among  ns.  We  have  often 
forgotten  that  our  work  is  one  of  prayer 
and  faith.  No,  the  Spanish  evangelical 
work  has  not  given  the  fruit  which  at  its 
beginning  we  had  reason  to  expect  from  it ; 
but  it  may  give  it  later,  if  the  proper  means 
are  employed,  which  are  the  following : 

3.  There  exist  in  the  life  of  nations  two 
moments  especially  favorable  for  the  lead- 
ing of  souls  to  consider  the  nnsceu  things 
which  are  eternal.  The  one  is  that  in  which 
a  doctrine  opposed  and  persecuted  through 
long  years  is  for  the  first  time  announced. 
The  curiosity  natural  to  all  men,  the  sym- 
pathy ever  aroused  by  causes  or  principles 
that  have  been  proscribed,  and  the  anxious 
avidity  with  which  the  needy  grasp  at  what- 
ever is  new  in  the  hope  to  lind  some  relief 
lor  the  woes  of  life,  are  advantages  which 
those  interested  in  the  spread  of  the  Gospel 
ought  to  turn  to  account.  For  Spain  this 
moment  has  already  passed,  and  it  is  need- 
less to  repeat  that  its  advent  found  us  un- 


|  prepared,  and  that  as  a  consequence  we  have 
not  profited  by  it  as  we  might. 

The  second  moment  to  which  I  refer  is 
that  which  succeeds  all  great  social  commo- 
tions, that  which  follows  those  periods  of 
strife  and  tears  and  blood  with  which  God 
from  time  to  time  is  wont  to  chastise  the 
nations.  When  men  have  suffered  much 
and  variously  from  the  instability  of  human 
affairs;  when  war,  terrible  and  devastating 
war,  has  desolated  fields  and  cities,  leaving 
behind  its  mournful  train  of  orphans  and 
widows;  when  the  earthly  ideal  wo  have 
long  cherished  has  passed  into  the  realm  of 
facts,  and  in  place  of  the  expected  flowers 
yields  thorns  and  thistles  that  only  lacerate, 
then  it  is  that  the  soul,  disappointed  in  its 
fond  hopes,  comes  to  expect  less  from  men 
and  things,  and  instinctively  turns  its  con- 
templation toward  a  better  world,  where 
there  is  neither  grief  nor  tears ;  then  it  is 
that  the  soul  turns  its  thoughts  Godward. 
It  has  needed,  in  order  to  do  this,  to  pass 
through  the  stern  school  of  misfortune ;  but 
so  it  is,  sorroAV  (as  all  admit)  is  one  of  the 
great  means  by  which  God  draws  us  toward 
himself. 

Let  it  be  observed,  also,  that  the  reaction 
is  always  proportionate  to  the  action  itself; 
the  more  intense  the  disappointments  expe- 
rienced on  the  earth,  the  more  completely 
does  the  soul  abstract  itself  from  all  that 
is  earthly,  and  seek  consolation  turning  in 
npon  itself.  What  is  mysticism  but  the 
heart's  protest  against  the  rude  realities  of 
life  f  What  is  mysticism  but  the  exaggera- 
tion of  a  true  and  legitimate  sentiment — an 
exaggeration  which  carries  the  soul,  in  its 
anxiety  to  rise  above  human  miseries,  to 
those  heights  whence  all  that  interests  hu- 
manity is  lost  to  view  ? 

In  support  of  what  has  been  stated,  let 
history  bear  its  testimony,  and  it  will  be 
seen  that  the  great  religious  movements 
have  been  commonly  preceded  by  great  na- 
tional catastrophes.  When  was  the  relig- 
ions revival  of  our  own  century  brought 
about,  if  not  after  the  French  Revolution 
and  the  great  wars  of  the  First  Empire  had 
deluged  Europe  with  blood,  and  carried 
mourning  and  woe  to  millions  of  hearts  ? 
When  did  mysticism  appear  in  Spain,  the 
great  religious  movement  of  Santa  Theresa, 
of  Louis  de  Granada,  of  Louis  dc  Leon,  and 
others  no  less  illustrious,  unless  after  the 
mad  attempts  at  universal  dominion  of 
Charles  V.  and  Philip  II.  had  carried  off 
the  flower  of  Spain's  youth  to  perish  on  the 
battle-field  ?  When  did  the  recent  great  re- 
ligious revival  burst  forth  in  America,  if  not 
after  that  gigantic  struggle  of  four  years 
which  laid  in  the  grave  so  many  thousands 
of  Americans  f  When  have  the  French  in 
our  own  time  listened  with  most  readiness 
to  the  Gospel,  except  after  the,  for  them, 
disastrous  war  with  Prussia  ?  Yes,  it  is  un- 


CAERASCO:  RELIGION  IN  SPAIN. 


121 


questionable,  the  periods  of  trial  and  mis- 
fortune are  times  favorable  for  the  exten- 
sion of  the  kingdom  of  God. 

Let  it  not  be  forgotten,  however,  that  the 
means  to  announce  the  Gospel  should  not  be 
sought  in  these  moments  of  extremity.  It 
is  needful  to  have  all  prepared,  otherwise 
the  risk  is  run  of  the  nation  returning  to  its 
old  ways,  to  that  which  had  been  abandoned 
as  unable  to  satisfy«its  longing  aspirations. 

And  now,  having  said  this,  is  it  necessary 
to  prove  that  Spain  is  at  the  present  time  in 
such  a  period  anticipative  and  preparatory 
of  religious  fervor  ?  Is  not  proof  enough  to 
be  seen  in  those  Basque  Provinces,  in  Na- 
varre, and  Catalonia,  desolated  by  the  sav- 
age hosts  of  absolutism  and  theocracy  ?  Is 
not  the  proof  seen  as  we  look  around  upon 
those  cantonal  or  internationalist  insurrec- 
tions, upon  the  city  of  Valencia  bombarded, 
Alcoy  burned,  Carthageua  entirely  ruined, 
Granada  and  Malaga  the  prey  of  anarchy, 
Seville  and  Cadiz  dyed  with  Spanish  blood  ? 
Is  it  not  proved  as  we  witness  the  ills  on 
every  side,  the  paralyzation  of  commerce, 
men  whom  all  looked  up  to  with  confidence 
swept  away  by  the  wave  of  revolution,  the 
army  disorganized,  new  institutions  and  new 
liberties  clamored  for  before  those  already 
gained  have  been  put  into  exercise  ?  I  know 
not  how  you  may  regard  these  facts ;  to  me 
they  seem  to  say  that  soon,  very  soon,  we 
shall  see  the  men  whom  earth  can  not  satis- 
fy seeking  the  things  of  heaven  to  fill  the 
conscious  void  within  their  hearts. 

The  separation  of  Church  and  State — al- 
ready on  more  than  one  occasion  announced, 
and  which  there  is  every  reason  to  hope  will 
be  carried  into  effect — should  also  contrib- 
ute to  hasten  the  advent  of  the  day  for 
which  we  sigh.  When  Spaniards  have  to 
pay  directly,  and  not  through  the  medium 
of  the  state,  to  support  a  religion  which 
they  do  not  believe,  and  the  ministers  of 
Avhich  are  seen  fighting  in  the  ranks  of  ab- 
solutism, carrying  destruction  wheresoever 
they  are  able,  dragging  off  the  deluded  peo- 
ple, and  seizing  even  the  objects  consecra- 
ted to  the  service  in  their  churches  in  order 
to  secure  the  triumph  of  a  political  cause, 
they  will  assuredly  reflect  deeply  upon  the 
.subject,  and  many  will  abandon  such  a  re- 
ligion, to  seek  that  which  alone  is  able  to 
regenerate  the  human  soul  and  impart  to  it 
the  true  peace  of  which  it  stands  in  need. 

Let  us  glance  now  at  the  means  which 
can  be  adopted,  with  a  view  to  bo  ready  for 
the  contest  and  secure  a  victory,  whenso- 
ever the  things  above  indicated  arc  realized. 
I  will  notice  them  summarily,  the  propor- 
tions of  this  report  not  permitting  me  to 
claim  from  you  a  more  lengthy  attention. 

It  would  be  advisable  to  reform  the  ex- 
isting religions  work  in  Spain  in  the  man- 
ner I  have  before  noticed  in  this  paper.  If 
the  different  committees  or  churches  in  anv 


given  country  agreed  among  themselves  to 
send,  in  place  of  numerous  representatives, 
one  alone,  of  living  faith,  of  great  Christian 
experience,  of  ideas  the  reverse  of  narrow, 
who  should  love  this  Spanish  people  whom 
it  is  sought  to  evangelize,  and  who,  instead 
of  imposing  his  own  views  and  directing 
according  to  his  own  caprice,  should  hear 
the  opinion  of  the  Spaniards,  should  consult 
them  with  regard  to  the  laborers  to  be  em- 
ployed, and  leave  to  them  the  work  of 
preaching — a  man  who  would  seek  to  be 
our  sympathizing  guide,  and  not  our  despot 
— the  work  would  gain  in  spirituality ;  and 
with  the  economy  that  would  result  from 
the  suspension  of  various  agents  new  works 
of  evangelization  might  be  commenced  in 
important  towns  where  as  yet  the  Gospel 
has  not  been  announced,  as,  for  example,  in 
Cornnna,  Ferrol,  Salamanca,  Oviedo,  Alcala, 
Guadalajara,  etc. 

The  preachers  should  be  natives  of  the 
country,  Christian,  and,  as  far  as  possible, 
educated  men.  It  is  necessary  to  know 
how  to  discern  among  the  many  that  aspire 
to  take  part  in  our  labors.  It  has  been  un- 
fortunate that  in  many  instances  the  prefer- 
ence has  been  obtained  by  those  who  have 
been  astute  enough  to  divine  the  favorite 
ideas  of  persons  directing,  and  these,  seeing 
their  ideas  understood,  have  thought  they 
had  in  their  presence  converted  men,  when 
in  reality  they  were  nothing  but  charlatans 
who  abused  the  credulity  of  persons  more 
Christian  than  prudent. 

The  preaching  ought  to  bo  always  the 
same  in  substance,  and  ever  varied  in  the 
form  of  presentation.  It  is  necessary  to  an- 
nounce Christ,  the  only  name  under  heaven 
given  among  men  whereby  they  can  be 
saved;  but  the  Christ  of  the  Gospels,  all 
spirit,  all  life,  and  all  love.  It  is  necessary 
that  the  preaching  be  such  as  shall  teach  the 
Spanish  people  that  the  Christian  religion  is 
not  indifferent  or  hostile  to  any  one  of  the 
legitimate  manifestations  of  human  life ; 
that  science,  industry,  and  art  have  their 
end  in  God's  plan ;  in  a  word,  that  the  Oos- 
pel  condemns  nothing  except  sin. 

The  instruction  and  education  of  the 
young,  the  laborers  of  a  future  day,  is  a 
matter  which  should  engage  earnest  atten- 
tion. To  develop  the  understanding  and 
the  conscience,  at  the  same  time  that  Christ 
is  formed  in  the  heart,  how  beautiful  a  work 
for  a  Christian !  But  it  is  needful  that  the 
schools  be  established  with  intelligent  fore- 
thought, that  .1  plan  be  followed  giving  the 
best  results ;  that  one  should  not  be  satisfied 
with  teaching  the  first  elements  and  making 
the  pupils  learn  by  rote  a  catechism  they  do 
not  understand;  that  masters  feel  the  im- 
portance of  their  mission,  and  the  grave  re- 
sponsibility Avhich  they  assume  before  God. 
To  have  such  masters  it  is  necessary  to  make 
them,  and  such  masters  will  be  made  by 


REPORTS  ON  THE  STATE  OF  RELIGION. 


the  creation  of  a  good  Christian  normal 
school.  „ 

The  adults,  also,  ought  to  take  their  seat 
in  the  festival  of  instruction  and  religion. 
Interest  should  be  taken  in  the  Spanish  ar- 
tisan, and  he  ought  to  be  made  to  see  that 
Protestantism  has  done  for  him  more  than 
the  Catholic  religion;  for,  if  the  latter  has 
givi-n  him  soup  at  the  convent  door,  it  has 
always  sought  to  keep  him  in  ignorance  and 
degradation ;  while  the  former  has  raised 
him  morally  and  intellectually,  permitting 
htm  thus  to  earn  with  dignity  his  daily 
bread.  The  children  of  this  world,  it  must 
bo  confessed,  have  been  wiser  than  the  chil- 
dren of  light.  They  have  founded  classes 
of  instruction  for  -workmen,  and  societies 
like  the  "Fornento  de  las  Artes,"  where  the 
laboring  man  can  find  books,  papers,  and 
magazines,  can  hear  lectures,  or  attend  class- 
es of  every  description.  Why  should  we  not 
do  the  like  f  Why  allow  others  to  gain  over 
these  working  classes,  which,  well  instruct- 
ed, would  be  one  of  the  firmest  supports  of 
our  work  T 

I  have  already  stated  my  opinion  as  to 
the  literary  productions,  that  are  now  being 
published  in  Spain.  Let  us  create  an  evan- 
gelical literature.  What  we  have  at  the 
present  is  confined  to  the  pamphlets  issued 
by  the  Religious  Tract  Society  of  London. 
But  something  more  than  this  is  needed. 
We  need  books  of  history,  of  moral  philoso- 
phy, of  Christian  apologetics,  of  controversy,' 
all  animated  by  a  religious  spirit.  We  need, 
also,  the  religious  novel,  by  which  I  do  not 
mean  the  novel  filled  with  texts  of  the  Bi- 
ble, which  few  would  read,  but  that  which 
sheds  the  radiance  of  Christianity  upon  its 
pages,  which  brings  great  characters  and 
great  virtues  into  deserved  relief,  which  ex- 
alts and  makes  lovely  all  that  is  good,  and 
holds  up  to  reprobation  whatsoever  God  con- 
demns. I  believe  that  the  novel,  well  ma- 
tured and  well  written,  would  be  a  powerful 
auxiliary  in  our  work. 

Besides  this,  a  journal  is  needed.  There 
already  exist  two  or  three  periodicals,  the 
Criatiano,  the  Luz,  the  Evangelista  ;  but  these 
are  not  of  a  kind  to  realize  the  end  I  propose. 
I  refer  to  a  daily  paper,  which  should  occu- 


py itself  with  political  questions  without  be- 
longing to  any  specific  party,  which  should 
defend  all  liberal  solutions  without  regard 
to  the  source  from  which  they  emanate, 
which  should  preach  respect  to  the  law  and 
the  necessity  of  obedience,  which  should 
anathematize  the  employment  of  arms  for 
the  attainment  of  the  ends  of  men  and  of 
party,  which  should  defend  the  abolition  of 
slavery  and  penal  reform*,  and,  finally,  which 
should  proclaim  the  evangelical  religion  as 
the  only  one  that  can  save  Spain.  The  Ro- 
manists have  well  understood  the  power  of 
such  an  instrumentality,  and  have  many  or- 
gans of  their  ideas  in  the  Spanish  press. 

Such,  my  dear  brethren,  are  the  means 
which  appear  to  me  best  adapted  for  the 
evangelization  of  my  country.  I  know  that 
all  will  be  useless  and  vain,  unless  God  pro- 
nounce his  sovereign  fiat  lux,  that  shall 
awake  souls  from  the  sleep  of  death ;  but, 
peradveuture,  God  is  waiting  to  pronounce 
it  until  we  labor  as  if  all  depended  on  our 
efforts.  My  brethren  from  all  nations  that 
listen  to  me,  I  address  you  all,  while  I  entreat 
by  the  mercies  of  God  that  you  do  not  forget 
us  in  our  work.  Think  how  noble  it  is  to 
extend  the  hand  to  the  fallen,  to  raise  them 
up.  Spain  is  fallen  ;  but  she  may  yet  arise; 
and  occupy  the  position  which  belongs  to  her 
by  right  among  Christian  nations.  Brethren 
of  America,  who  are  engaged  in  proclaiming 
Christ  in  the  republics  which  once  were 
Spanish  colonies,  reflect  that,  working  in 
Spain,  you  work  for  them,  because,  great  as 
is  the  abyss  which  our  political  mistakes 
have  opened  between  them  and  us,  they  can 
not  deny,  without  denying  themselves,  that 
they  are  blood  of  our  blood,  and  bone  of  our 
bone.  Let  each  one  place  his  stone  with 
faith  in  the  great  edifice  we  are  engaged  in 
raisiug,  that  the  Lord  may  have  compassion 
on  my  unhappy  country,  and  many  souls 
therein  cast  themselves  at  the  feet  of  our 
Saviour,  confessing  that  he  is  the  Christ, 
the  Son  of  the  living  God,  who  alone  hath 
the  words  of  eternal  life.* 


*  [Mr.  Carraaco  having  arrived  too  late  to  present 
his  paper  on  the  day  set  apart  for  the  "Reports  on 
the  State  of  Religion,"  delivered  the  substance  of  it 
iu  Spanish  on  Friday,  the  10th  of  October.— w.] 


THE  EVANGELIZATION  OF  SPAIN. 


BY  THE  KEV.  FRITZ  FLIEDNER,  OF  MADRID.* 


THE  greatest  boast  of  the  Spanish  nation, 
the  advantage  which  it  is  believed  to  pos- 
sess before  all  Roman  Catholic  countries,  the 
object  for  which  it  spent  all  its  intellectual 
and  material  strength  during  centuries,  is 
its  religious  unity.  Neither  Jew  nor  Moor 
might  dwell  in  this  Catholic  country ;  and 
when  more  than  800,000  Jews  and  afterward 
innumerable  Moors  liad  to  emigrate  from 
beautiful  Andalusia,  leaving  all  their  goods 
behind,  and  going  God  only  knew  whither, 
it  was  so  far  from  being  looked  upon  by 
Spaniards  as  a  cruelty  that  their  most  fa- 
mous author,  Cervantes,  not  only  excused 
but  praised  this  proscription.  The  tribunal 
of  the  Inquisition  was  established  to  guard 
the  unity  and  purity  of  the  Catholic  faith, 
and  members  of  the  first  families  of  Spain 
counted  it  their  greatest  honor  to  be  the 
helpers  and  the  officers  of  the  Inquisition. 
And  when  they  had  cleared  their  own  land 
by  crusades  against  the  Moors,  had  forced 
their  Jewish  neighbor,  to  perjure  himself  by 
a  public  profession  of  Christianity  which 
found  no  echo  in  his  heart,  they  turned  to 
the  task  of  gaining  the  victory  for  the  unity 
of  the  Romish  Church  in  foreign  countries, 
to  subdue  by  the  power  of  their  weapons 
and  the  weight  of  politics,  the  heretical  Re- 
formers. And  for  a  time  it  actually  seemed 
as  though  the  struggle  might  turn  in  favor 
of  the  Papal  host.  It  is  chiefly  to  be  attrib- 
uted to  the  efforts  of  Spain  that  the  evan- 
gelical movement  in  France  was  hampered, 
and  almost  destroyed  in  the  southern  prov- 
inces of  the  Netherlands,  in  Bavaria,  Italy, 
Austria,  and  Poland.  But,  for  these  services 
rendered  to  the  Romish  Church,  Spain  was 
called  upon,  afterward,  to  do  frightful  pen- 
ance. When  the  Westphalian  peace  put  an 
end  to  the  fiercest  raging  of  the  religious 
war,  not  only  was  the  object  of  the  war 
unattained,  but  Spain's  foreign  power  was 
stricken  to  death,  its  inward  strength  van- 
quished, the  country  impoverished,  and  towns 
ruined.  On  the  other  hand,  the  monaster- 
ies and  chapels  were  counted  by  thousands, 
and  the  priests  and  monks  by  hundreds  of 
thousands;  and  yet  withal,  to  this  day,  the 


*  [As  the  Rev.  A.  Carrasco  did  not  arrive  till  sever- 
al days  after  the  opening  of  the  Conference,  the  Rev. 
Fritz  Fliedner,  a  eon  of  the  founder  of  the  Deaconess's 
Institute  at  Kaiserswerth,  delivered  the  following  ad- 
dress on  Spain,  where  he  has  been  laboring  for  sever- 
al years  as  an  evangelist,  pent  by  the  German  society 
for  the  evangelization  of  that  country.— Kd.] 


pride  of  the  Spaniard  remains  unshaken  in 
the  unity  of  his  faith.  Even  in  the  last  rev- 
olution (1868)  the  Romish  Church  Avas  for 
this  reason  retained  as  the  State  Church.  It 
was  not  religious  freedom,  it  was  merely  re- 
ligious toleration  which  was  granted,  and  that 
because  "  a  Spaniard  might  possibly  wish 
to  confess  another  faith."  This  was  looked 
upon,  however,  only  more  as  a  possibility 
than  a  probability. 

Future  events  will  reveal  the  mistakes  of 
Romish  Spain  in  the  first  half  of  the  nine- 
teenth century.  It  will  be  manifest  hereaf- 
ter, if  the  light  is  not  dawning  already,  that 
many  Protestant  hearts  are  beating  in  Spain 
to-day,  and  that  the  Christian  martyrs  whose 
blood  was  shed  in  preceding  centuries  are 
still  represented  by  their  successors.  It  will 
also  become  manifest,  and  that  very  soon, 
that  the  testimony  to  the  truth  which  was 
given  by  Spanish  Protestants  at  the  stake 
or  in  the  prison,  and  which  Rome  supposed 
crushed  to  earth,  has  risen  again,  and  that 
its  fruits  have  not  been  lost. 

The  knowledge  of  the  efforts  made  by  the 
evangelical  Spaniards,  and  their  cruel  per- 
secution and  suppression,  was  the  occasion 
of  freeing  other  countries  from  the  Romish 
yoke ;  and,  thank  God,  this  testimony  of  the 
martyrs  was  not  in  vain  for  Spain  either. 
After  three  hundred  years,  the  fetters  of  re- 
ligious tyranny  are  at  last  broken,  and  wo 
see  at  once  the  seed  of  the  Gospel  falling  on 
good  ground,  germinating,  taking  root,  and 
growing.  The  complaints  of  the  priests 
against  the  present  evangelical  movement 
are  directed  chiefly  against  this  point,  that 
it  is  sought  to  tarnish  the  ancient  fame  of 
Spain.  Their  prudence  requires  that  the 
new  life  should  be  ignored  or  looked  upon 
as  artificially  called  forth  from  without. 
Their  efforts  are  directed  to  prove  that 
Spain  still  has  the  right  to  bear  the  name 
of  a  Romish  country,  and  retain  its  allegi- 
ance to  the  Romish  Church,  whose  head  is 
the  Pope. 

But,  if  it  is  not  now  manifest,  it  will  soon 
be  that,  even  years  before  the  last  catastro- 
phe which  gave  back  freedom  to  Spain,  ev- 
ery thing  was  prepared  for  a  new  propaga- 
tion of  the  Gospel.  Neither  English  money, 
distribution  of  the  Bible,  nor  political  lib- 
eralism colled  forth  the  present  interest  in 
Protestantism ;  these  merely  took  away  the 
last  bars,  which  sooner  or  later  must  have 
yielded  to  the  spiritual  development,  as  cer- 


124 


REPORTS  ON  THE  STATE  OF  RELIGION. 


tiiinly  na  the  husk  to  the  growing  corn. 
When  Isabella  was  driven  away,  the  Prot- 
estant Spaniards,  who  had  been  banished 
for  their  faith,  retnmcd.  As  soon  as  Spain 
was  open,  the  workers  stood  ready  to  sow 
and  gather  in  the  harvest  in  their  beloved 
country,  which  they  had  been  compelled  to 
leave  for  the  sake  of  the  Word  of  God. 

Spain,  then — a  field,  in  part  at  least,  al- 
ready white  with  the  harvest — is  a  country 
inviting  to  all  laborers  in  Christ's  cause, 
and  we  who  have  been  called  to  it  ask  our 
Protestant  brethren  to  rejoice  with  us  in 
the  prospects  before  us.  Wo  do  not  share 
the  extravagant  hopes  of  those  who  expect 
to  see  the  whole  of  Spain  Protestant  in  a 
few  years.  A  nation  that  has  been  held 
for  three  centuries  under  such  an  intellect- 
ual and  such  an  idolatrous  servitude  to 
Rome,  can  not  all  at  ouce  be  freed  from  this 
sad  state  and  its  consequences.  But  that, 
along  with  all  this  superstition  and  infidel- 
ity, a  new  spirit  of  faith  is  moving — that 
even  on  this  seemingly  stony  ground  the 
seed  of  the  Word  has  not  lost  its  power — is 
a  proof  that  this  new  era  of  religious  free- 
dom is  not  offered  to  the  Spaniards  in  vain. 
Many  congregations  are  already  formed 
throughout  the  whole  country,  and  the 
evangelical  movement  is  a  living  reality, 
and  worthy  the  support  of  Christian  breth- 
ren. The  work  of  evangelization  of  Spain 
has  been  hitherto  very  little  known  with 
regard  to  its  inward  nature  and  its  extent. 
V7ith  a  few  outlines,  we  will  endeavor  to 
sketch  the  field  of  work,  the  Christian  work- 
e*rs,  the  hinderances,  and  the  hopes  for  the 
future,  and  we  trust  it  will  become  more 
and  more  evident  not  only  how  welcome, 
but  how  necessary  the  help  of  Protestant 
Christendom  is  in  Spain. 

Entering  the  Peninsula  from  France,  we 
pass  through  the  Basque  Provinces,  the 
residence  of  the  Carlists,  where,  up  to  this 
day,  very  little  has  been  done  on  account 
of  the  civil  war,  which  has  there  its  centre. 
The  Basque  Provinces  are  recorded  as  the 
most  bigoted  ;  the  majority  of  their  inhab- 
itants are  partisans  of  Don  Carlos.  How- 
ever, as  often  as  one  of  our  colporteurs  has 
succeeded  in  penetrating  this  region,  he  has 
had  a  successful  sale  of  Bibles ;  and,  though 
called  upon  to  suffer  greatly  from  enmity, 
has,  nevertheless,  come  back  with  much  en- 
couragement. It  should  never  be  forgotten 
that,  while  the  Carlist  cause  is  political,  it 
has  also  a  religions  bearing,  as  with  the  re- 
establishment  of  the  Carlists  may  come  the 
expulsion  of  Protestantism.  The  neighbor- 
ing province  of  Aragon  is  famous  through 
the  Virgin  of  the  Pillar,  whose  worship  re- 
minds us  of  the  Ephesian  Diana.  But  as  it 
was  said  there  in  the  time  of  Paul  that  the 
Word  of  the  Lord  grew  mightily  and  pre- 
vailed, so  also  in  Zarragoza  the  Word  has 
fonnd  soil  and  made  growth.  Not  only  has 


a  small  Protestant  congregation  been  form- 
ed, but  the  place  of  worship  belonging  to  it, 
situated  in  the  principal  street  of  the  town, 
and  in  the  neighborhood  of  a  Romish  church, 
is  always  crowded  at  the  hour  of  service. 
Of  course  the  priests  have  tried  every  thin/; 
to  hinder  the  work.  They  have  appointed 
special  prayers  and  processions  against  the 
Protestants,  but,  as  always  happens,  they 
have  only  become  instruments  of  directing 
general  attention  and  interest  to  the  Protest- 
ants. A  school  is  connected  with  the  church. 
Then  in  Barcelona,  the  capital  of  Catalonia, 
we  find  already  six  different  places  of  wor- 
ship, with  eight  schools,  with  hundreds  of 
children  in  attendance.  In  the  neighboring 
island  of  Minorca  there  is  a  congregation 
and  a  school.  Some  mission  stations  are  in 
the  surroundings  of  Barcelona,  and  the  work 
among  the  Catalans  would  have  been  un- 
bounded but  for  the  want  of  workers  and 
the  Carlist  war.  That  is  the  condition  of 
Protestant  affairs  in  the  East  of  the  Penin- 
sula. 

In  the  North  little  has  yet  been  done,  al- 
though this  part  deserves  special  atten- 
tion. The  inhabitants  of  Old  Castile  are 
the  proud  descendants  of  Spanish  chivalry, 
among  whom  fidelity,  honor,  frankness,  and 
constancy  have  maintained  themselves  bet- 
ter than  in  the  South.  In  Valladolid  we 
are  reminded  of  the  history  of  the  Spanish 
Reformation;  immediately  on  entering  the 
town,  one  sees  at  the  side  the  field  where 
the  first  public  auto-da-fe  of  the  Protestants 
took  place,  in  1559.  There  Antonio  Here- 
zuelo  and  Francis  de  Vibero  Cazalla  joyfully 
sealed  their  faith  in  the  Redeemer  by  death 
in  the  flames.  As  the  Romanists  feared  the 
eloquence  of  the  former,  he  was  gagged ; 
but  his  glance  was  enough  to  move  his 
young  wife,  Leaner,  who,  from  fear  of  mar- 
tyrdom, had  denied  her  faith,  to  recall  her 
word  and  to  give  her  strength  to  follow 
him,  later,  with  the  same  courage.  In  tho 
same  Valladolid  the  Gospel  is  now  preach- 
ed ;  the  people  eagerly  listen  to  the  Word ; 
a  small  congregation  has  been  gathered,  and 
a  school  begun.  Farther  north,  in  Sautan- 
der,  the  American  Board  has  lately  opened 
a  new  station,  and  we  hope  that  its  work 
will  continue  to  spread  in  this  direction. 

In  Madrid  itself  are  four  chapels — two  of 
them  with  audiences  of  from  three  hundred 
to  five  hundred  each,  one  an  English  mission 
station,  and  one  a  Baptist  chapel.  Then 
farther  south  are  the  stations  in  Camunas, 
Alicante,  Cartagena,  Granada,  Cordoba,  Se- 
ville, Icrez,  Ca"diz,  Huelva.  The  centre  of 
the  South  is  Sevilla,  the  capital  of  Andalu- 
sia, once  the  head-quarters  of  the  Inquisi- 
tion, and  witness  of  the  death  of  many 
martyrs.  Nearly  three  years  ago,  the  first 
meeting  of  the  General  Synod  of  the  evan- 
gelical congregations  of  Spain  was  held  in 
what  was  formerly  a  Jesuit  church,  now 


FLIEDNER :   THE  EVANGELIZATION  OF  SPAIN. 


125 


bought  by  the  Scotch  brethren  to  be  an 
evangelical  church.  What  a  contrast  be- 
tween then  and  now!  There  is  also  an 
Episcopal  mission  in  this  town,  and  schools 
are,  as  in  most  of  these  places,  connected 
with  the  work  of  preaching. 

Surely,  the  field  is  large,  and  few  are  those 
who  work.  The  first  Spaniard  who  preach- 
ed the  Word  of  God  in  this  century  was 
Francisco  Ruet,  born  in  Barcelona.  On  a 
journey  through  Italy,  as  early  as  1854,  he 
was  converted  by  the  work  of  Luigi  di  Sanc- 
tis ;  he  came  back  to  his  country,  preached 
the  Gospel  there,  was  imprisoned,  and  con- 
demned to  be  banished  for  life.  He  went 
to  Gibraltar,  where  he  gathered  a  small  con- 
gregation, and,  through  his  instrumentali- 
ty a  few  years  afterward,  Matamoros  was 
brought  to  the  knowledge  of  the  Gospel.  Be- 
sides Ruet,  there  is  at  work  in  Madrid  a  young- 
er Spaniard  (whom,  though  he  has  been  de- 
layed en,  route  hither,  we  still  hope  to  see 
in  this  Conference  before  its  adjournment) — 
Siguor  Carrasco — who  received  a  good  theo- 
logical education  at  Geneva,  and  was  about 
to  finish  his  studies  in  Germany,  when  the 
opening  of  his  country  called  him  back  for 
immediate  labor.  Cabrera,  formerly  a  Span- 
ish priest,  learned  the  first  word  of  Protest- 
ant doctrine  through  a  Spanish  catechism 
for  children,  printed  in  New  York.  He  was 
for  a  time  minister  of  the  Spanish  Church  in 
Gibraltar,  while  Ruet  was  gathering  a  con- 
gregation in  Algiers,  and  is  now  working 
with  great  zeal  and  talent  in  Seville.  Fi- 
nally, I  must  mention  our  Spanish  mission- 
ary in  Granada,  Jose"  Alhama,  formerly  a  hat- 
inaker,  but  one  of  the  sincerest  and  most 
trustworthy  Spanish  laborers.  He  was  in 
prison  with  Matamoros ;  then  lived  in  Gib- 
raltar, on  the  work  of  his  hands,  till  the 
way  opened  to  his  country.  His  well-edu- 
cated daughter  conducts  a  girls'  school,  in 
connection  with  herfather's  chapel,  andnight 
schools.  Every  year  some  new  Spanish 
workers  enter  the  field,  part  of  them  pre- 
pared in  the  schools  at  Lausanne,  and  in  the 
school  of  an  American  lady  in  France.  But 
we  want  far  more  native  teachers  and  preach- 
ers. From  foreign  countries  we  have  at 
work  in  Spain  two  missionaries  of  the  United 
Presbyterian  Church  of  Scotland,  two  of  the 
Presbyterian  Church  of  Ireland,  one  Amer- 
ican Baptist,  three  missionaries  from  the 
American  Board,  one  from  Switzerland,  one 
English  Methodist,  several  Plymouthists,  the 
English  agents  for  the  Bible  and  Tract  So- 
cieties, and  one  German  missionary. 

This  variety  of  workers  presents  in  itself 
a  great  difficulty  in  the  work ;  still,  I  am 
glad  to  say  that  not  only  the  union  among 
them  is  becoming  more  and  more  a  reality, 
but  that  also  the  different  mission  boards  or 
societies  working  in  Spain  take  much  notice 
of  each  other,  and  acknowledge  the  strength 
which  Christian  union  gives  to  the  work  of 


evangelization.  We  have  the  enemy  before 
us;  our  colporteurs  and  our  schools  meet 
occasionally  with  strong  opposition  from  the 
Romish  clergy,  who  excite  the  people  against 
the  Gospel  messengers.  But  stronger  than 
this  enemy  is  another  one  fighting  against 
the  truth,  that  is,  the  religious  indifferent- 
ism,  always  and  everywhere  the  consequence 
of  a  long  unrivaled  Romish  Church  dominion. 
The  higher  classes  are,  to  a  great  extent,  in- 
fidels ;  they  look  on  true  religion  as  on  an 
old-fashioned  curiosity.  Therefore,  almost 
all  members  of  our  congregations  are  gath- 
ered from  the  poor.  This  presents  another 
difficulty  in  sustaining  the  churches  and 
preachers.  The  aid  of  our  foreign  brethren 
has  done  a  great  deal ;  still,  it  ought  to  be 
recognized  more  fully  as  a  principle  that 
the  Spaniards  themselves,  however  poor  they 
might  be,  must  contribute  according  to  their 
strength  toward  their  own  church  expenses. 
A  great  deal  of  money  has  been,  so  to  speak, 
wasted,  for  it  has  broken  down  the  princi- 
ple of  independence,  rather  than  nourished 
it ;  and  great  caution  should  be  taken  by 
Christian  friends  who  administer  any  gifts. 
But  we  are  glad  to  say,  also,  that  the  young 
Spanish  Church  is  now  gradually,  though 
slowly,  moving  toward  the  principle  of  self- 
support.  Some  churches  have  begun  to 
make  it  a  condition  of  membership ;  even 
some  paying  schools  have  been  commenced, 
and  it  is  to  be  hoped  that  this  system  will 
be  accepted  more  generally. 

The  greatest  difficulty  lies,  perhaps,  with 
the  youth  of  our  Spanish  Church,  and  the 
weakness  of  its  spiritual  life.  The  difference 
between  those  who  have  embraced  the  truth 
for  a  life-long  period  and  those  who  are  young 
children  in  the  faith  makes  itself  very  often 
felt.  But  every  day  of  Christian  experience 
helps  to  diminish  this  defect ;  and  we  all 
know  that  the  Lord,  through  weak  instru- 
ments, builds  up  his  mighty  kingdom.  We 
trust  that  these  young  Christian  soldiers 
will  learn  to  fight  for  their  king,  and  to  con- 
quer for  him  yet  many  souls  in  their  native 
country.  For  the  field  is  certainly  a  large 
one,  and  I  add,  in  the  honest  conviction  of 
my  heart,  a  promising  one. 

I  have  found  among  the  common  people 
in  Spain  a  great  deal  more  of  religious  sen- 
timent and  a  greater  desire  for  religion,  a 
greater  hunger  and  thirst  for  righteousness, 
than  I  have  found  in  Austria  or  Italy.  Af- 
rica, it  has  been  said,  begins  with  the  Pyr- 
enees ;  it  may  not  be  true  but  in  a  very  lim- 
ited sense.  But  perhaps  this  standing  afar 
from  the  current  of  European  civilization 
has  preserved  to  the  Spanish  nations  the 
natural  warmth  of  their  religious  sentiment. 
If  we  had  only  the  men  to  send  forth  through- 
out the  whole  country  proclaiming  the  Gos- 
pel, in  each  town,  in  every  village,  ten,  twen- 
ty, hundreds  would  listen  to  them  with  ea- 
gerness and  rejoicing. 


126 


REPORTS  ON  THE  STATE  OF  RELIGION. 


It  is  tnio  the  political  changes  have  af- 
fected the  work,  but  hitherto  only  to  a  very 
limited  extent.  The  Carlist  war  has  closed 
the  Northern  provinces  before  the  political 
revolutions  have  drawn  the  general  atten- 
tion from  religious  to  political  matters.  The 
general  uncertainty  hinders  a  good  many 
friends  from  helping,  as  they  would  do  un- 
der other  circumstances ;  but  these  nearly 
five  years  of  religious  liberty  have  not  been 
fruitless.  To  a  large  extent  Protestantism 
has  made  itself  known  in  Spain.  The  Span- 
iards have  learned  to  look  on  Protestants  not 
as  "terrible  monsters,  but  as  good,  earnest, 
zealous  meu"  —  "who,  perhaps,"  it  is  some- 
times heard,  "are  better  Christians  than  we 
ourselves"  —  and  who  care  for  the  educa- 
tion of  the  children,  it  might  be  added,  more 
than  they  themselves  ever  cared  for  it.  Sal- 
meron,  the  last  president,  protested  against 
Spain  being  still  called  a  Catholic  country ; 
and  it  is  true  that  not  only  a  great  part  of 
the  country  is  indifferent  to  religion,  but  that 
there  exists  also  among  the  lower  classes  a 
bitter  hatred  against  the  Church  of  Rome. 
In  the  last  revolution  in  the  South  they  put 
the  Archbishop  of  Granada  in  prison,  destroy- 
ed some  churches  and  nunneries,  and  the  fa- 
mous processions  of  the  Holy  Week  they  did 
not  dare  to  bring  forward.  Only  in  Val- 
ladolid  the  people  said,  "Our  Holy  Virgin 
is  republican  too."  They  adorned  her  with 
the  red  cap,  and  carried  her  about.  We  do 
not  require  to  enlarge  on  the  harm  which 
such  exercises  must  do  to  religion  in  gener- 
al and  to  the  evangelical  movement  in  par- 
ticular. But  we  would  do  wrong  to  judge 
of  the  state  of  the  country  merely  by  these 
manifestations.  The  unsettled  state  is  not 
simply  the  fault  of  the  Republic ;  it  received 
that,  along  with  the  financial  troubles  and 
the  Carlist  rebellion,  as  a  sad  inheritance 
from  its  predecessors.  It  was  to  be  expect- 
ed that  the  pride  of  the  Carlists  wonld  swell 
on  the  departure  of  the  king,  and  also  that 
their  means  would  be  increased.  But,  if 
they  had  any  real  strength,  they  would  long 
ere  this  have  been  at  the  gates  of  Madrid. 
We  will  not  forecast  the  future,  and  less  still 
of  that  strange  country  where,  as  the  great 
English  statesman,  Pitt,  said,  two  times  two 
is  not  always  four — that  is,  where  the  most 
accurate  calculations  prove  to  be  false.  But 
we  must  confess  that  all  the  disturbances 
hitherto  have  not  hindered  the  work  of 
evangelization  nor  affected  it  in  a  serious 
manner;  and  therefore  we  are  justified  in 
not  waiting  for  the  political  or  social  condi- 


tion of  the  country  to  become  settled  before 
we  go  on  with  our  evangelization  work. 
Whatever  government  be  established,  it  does 
not  seem  probable  that  religious  liberty,  al- 
ready won,  can  ever  be  withdrawn  again. 

The  whole  tendency  of  Spanish  politics 
has  been  toward  a  separation  between 
Church  and  State — i.  e.,  a  disestablishment 
of  the  Church  of  Rome.  Wheu  the  Govern- 
ment made  the  religious  tolerance  in  regard 
to  the  church-yards  a  reality,  it  extended 
the  same  to  the  hospitals,  infirmaries,  and 
benevolent  institutions.  So  now  not  only 
are  these  sometimes  well-endowed  hospitals 
thrown  open  to  our  needy  brethren  in  the 
faith,  but  they  may  enter  without  fear  of 
being  tormented  on  their  death-beds  by  the 
religions  fanaticism  of  those  who  compass 
land  and  sea  to  make  one  proselyte,  as  was 
formerly  so  often  the  case.  Measures  are 
also  taken  to  prevent  extreme  unction  be- 
ing administered  to  any  one  against  his  own 
will  when  in  an  unconscious  state.  The 
clergyman  has  free  admittance  to  the  mem- 
bers of  his  congregation,  and  when  necessa- 
ry can,  with  their  consent,  remove  them,  and 
place  them  under  other  care.  That  is  cer- 
tainly all  we  can  wish,  and  more  than  we 
ever  hoped  to  attain.  It  is  true  we  have  in 
Spain  as  yet  very  few  churches  or  chapels, 
and  only  two  in  Seville  and  one  in  Terez  are 
our  property. 

Our  field  of  labor  in  Spain  is  newer  than 
that  of  our  brethren  in  Italy,  the  Wal- 
denses,  who  haA'e  found  helping  hands  to 
build  them  churches,  and  who  possess  a  the- 
ological seminary.  But,  as  we  are  younger, 
I  trust  we  will  grow  faster,  for  our  field  of 
labor  is  a  most  hopeful  one. 

We  are,  therefore,  very  thankful  that  from 
America  has  come  an  offer  of  help  in  the  foun- 
dation of  a  seminary  for  Protestant  preachers 
in  Spain.  What  Spain  most  needs  is  earnest, 
well-educated  evangelical  preachers.  Asemi- 
nary  is  an  urgent  necessity,  and  the  sooner 
it  can  be  established  the  better.  Perhaps 
none  of  those  who  attend  this  meeting  feel 
so  much  the  want  of  Christian  union  among 
the  evangelical  brethren  as  we  in  isolated 
Spain — the  extreme  of  Europe.  We  return 
gladdened  to  our  lonely  missionary  posts, 
strengthened  by  the  sight  and  the  enjoy- 
ment God  has  given  us  here ;  but  we  ear- 
nestly hope  that  all  of  you  will  accompany 
us  with  ardent  prayers,  remembering  us  at 
the  mercy-seat,  as  we,  in  our  young  church- 
es, remember  you,  and  petition  for  your  con- 
tinued prosperity. 


RELIGION  IN  GREECE. 


BY  THE  REV.  MICHAEL  D.  KALOPOTHAKES,  M.D.,  ATHEXS. 


Ix  attempting  to  speak  of  Greece  after  the 
delegates  of  great  nations,  I  feel  quite  ein- 
barrassetl  by  the  thought  of  how  small  a 
country  Greece  is,  in  comparison  with  the 
extensive  countries  of  France,  England,  Ger- 
many, and  Italy,  and  the  small  importance 
placed  upon  her  on  this  account. 

Yet  importance  and  influence  do  not  al- 
ways depend  on  the  great  and  the  rich  of 
this  world.  Greece  has  demonstrated  it  in 
old  times,  and  I  hope  that  in  time  to  come, 
also,  she  will  not  be  unimportant  iii  the 
world. 

If  we  believe  in  Providence,  we  can  not 
but  see  that  Greece  is  destined  to  play  some 
important  part  in  the  destinies  of  nations. 
The  fact  that  she  alone  is  permitted  as  a 
nation  to  survive  the  mighty  revolutions,  vi- 
cissitudes, and  trials  of  more  than  two  thou- 
sand years — revolutions  which  swept  away 
the  mighty  empires  of  Assyria,  Persia,  Egypt, 
and  Koine  from  the  face  of  the  earth — and 
the  other  fact,  which  has  no  parallel  in  the 
world's  history,  viz.,  that  her  language  from 
the  time  of  Homer  to  the  present  day — a 
period  of  more  than  three  thousand  years — 
never  ceased  to  be  a  living,  spoken  language, 
in  hues  adapted  to  times  and  circumstances, 
can  not  fail  to  impress  every  thoughtful  mind 
with  the  idea  that  even  Greece,  abused  and 
misrepresented  as  she  has  been  by  all  as 
the  nest  of  brigands  and  the  source  of  vice, 
has  yet  a  mission  to  perform  on  the  earth. 

With  the  Greeks  you  can  not  dispense  as 
long  as  you  continue  to  study  the  writings 
of  their  immortal  ancestors,  and  they  con- 
tinue to  exist  as  a  nation.  They  are  like 
the  blood  npon  the  key :  you  may  scrub  it, 
you  may  wash  it,  yet  you  can  not  obliterate 
it — it  is  there.  The  only  thing  you  can  do 
is  to  help  those  who  are  laboring  for  their 
spiritual  regeneration,  to  bring  them  back 
to  the  simplicity  of  the  Gospel,  from  which 
they  have  departed,  to  the  faith  which  you 
profess. 

In  reference  to  the  state  of  religion  in 
Greece,  I  say  what  my  brother  from  Italy  has 
said,  viz.,  that  it  is  very  low,  even  among 
the  best  of  its  adherents;  and  that  the  Evan- 
gelicals have  to  contend  not  only  against  er- 
ror, ignorance,  and  infidelity,  as  is  the  case 
in  other  nominally  Christian  lands,  but  also 
against  a  greater  obstacle — the  strong  feel- 
ing of  union  of  church  and  nationality,  or, 
rather,  race. 


This  feeling  is  so  strong  that  both  those 
who  believe  in  all  the  doctrines  and  prac- 
tices of  the  Church,  and  those  who  care 
nothing  about  either,  unite  hand  in  hand  in 
upholding  the  Church. 

Consequently,  he  who  departs  from  this 
form  of  faith  is  regarded  as  an  outcast, 
worse  than  Judas  himself.  If  he  is  an  of- 
ficer under  the  Government,  he  has  to  lose 
his  situation ;  if  he  is  a  teacher,  he  can  not 
hold  his  place.  If  it  happens  to  be  an  un- 
married female,  she  runs  the  risk  of  re- 
maining so  all  her  life.  And  so  in  all  other 
spheres  of  life.  Yon  have  no  idea  of  the 
influence  this  false  notion  exerts  among  the 
Greeks. 

Yet,  great  as  are  these  obstacles  against 
which  the  Evangelical  Greeks  have  to  con- 
tend, light  is  spreading  among  the  people 
from  various  quarters  and  through  various 
channels  ;  and  I  wish  here  to  thank  Dr.  An- 
derson for  sending  missionaries  to  my  coun- 
try, and  to  assure  him  that  the  money  and 
labor  which  have  been  expended  in  that  mis- 
sion field  for  years,  with  apparently  small  or 
no  results  at  all,  have  not  been  without  some 
fruit. 

Few  and  despised  as  the  Evangelical  Greek 
citizens  are,  they  have  not  shrunk  from  this 
noble  combat,  but  entered  upon  it  deter- 
mined not  to  allow  any  thing  to  interfere 
Avith  their  object — determined  to  fight  the 
good  fight  of  the  Gospel  till  they  see  its  glo- 
rious light  shine  in  its  full  splendor  over 
the  whole  land. 

God  has  thus  far  enabled  thorn  to  estab- 
lish only  one  church — a  church  which,  in 
spite  of  its  emallness  and  insignificance,  has 
caused  the  Mother  Church  a  great  deal  of 
anxiety,  and  made  her  cry  out  and  demand 
its  extermination. 

Thanks  to  God  for  the  liberal,  enlighten- 
ed, and  high-minded  men  who  have  govern- 
ed the  country  for  the  last  ten  years — men 
who  are  able  to  discern  the  signs  of  the  times 
in  which  wo  live,  and  the  true  interests  of 
our  nation.  To  them,  as  well  as  to  the 
healthy  tone  of  some  of  the  press  and  of 
the  enlightened  portion  of  the  people,  the 
Evangelicals  are  indebted  for  the  enjoyment 
of  their  religious  rights  in  spite  of  the  de- 
mands of  a  persecuting  Church.  To  them 
we  are  indebted,  under  God,  for  all  the  good 
that  we  have  been  enabled  to  do  through 
our  various  publications  and  the  distribution 


128 


REPORTS  ON  THE  STATE  OF  RELIGION. 


of  the  Bible  throughout  the  land.  Through 
our  newspapers  we  are  enabled  to  visit  more 
than  four  thousand  homes,  and  our  Bible 
colporteurs  place  the  Bible  in  the  hands  of 
many  thousands  more. 

When  I  think  over  the  past,  and  remem- 
ber that  iu  1858  few  or  no  copies  of  the 
Word  of  God  were  sold,  and  see  now  that 
more  than  three  thousand  are  disposed  of 
in  various  forms  among  the  Greeks,  I  take 


courage  in  the  midst  of  my  trials,  and  hope 
that  the  time  is  not  far  off  when  the  Greeks 
too  will  return  to  their  old  allegiance  — 
even  to  their  primitive  Christianity. 

We  have  many  merchant  princes  all  over 
the  world  —  many  educated  and  scholarly 
men — many  thrifty  and  enterprising  youth  ; 
but  we  want  pious  merchants,  pious  schol- 
ars, pious  young  men,  and  then  you  will  see 
what  the  Greeks  can  do. 


THE  BRITISH  PROVINCES  OF  NORTH  AMERICA. 


BY  THE  KEV.  ROBERT  MURRAY,  HAIJFAX,  NOVA  SCOTIA. 


WHAT  are  we  doing  for  Christ  in  the  Brit- 
ish North  American  Provinces  ?  The  coun- 
tries comprehended  under  this  designation 
extend  from  the  cold  and  stormy  banks  of 
Newfoundland  to  the  sunny  slopes  and  pic- 
turesque fiords  of  British  Columbia,  and  in- 
clude a  region  grand  enough  to  be  the  seat 
of  a  great  empire.  But  though  we  have  ter- 
ritory vast  as  that  of  the  "Great  Republic" 
itself,  we  can  as  yet  boast  of  only  one-tenth 
of  your  population. 

But  what  thiuk  our  four  millions  of  Christ, 
or  what  are  they  doing  for  Christ  ?  What  is 
their  attitude  toward  him  and  his  Gospel  ? 

1.  There  are  at  least  fifty  thousand  In- 
dians, who  are  nominally  as  well  as  really 
heathen,  who  do  not  pretend  to  be  Chris- 
tian. 

2.  There  are  one  million  seven  hundred 
thousand,  or  over  one-third  of  our  popula- 
tion, who  are  Roman  Catholics. 

3.  Unitarians     and    Universalists,    who, 
among  us,  are  practically  identical,  number 
eight  thousand. 

4.  Persons  professing  to  be  Deists,  Infi- 
dels, Atheists,  or  without  creed,  number  six 
thousand. 

5.  Evangelical  Christians   number   two 
milliou  fifty-six  thousand,  and  are  subdi- 
vided as  follows : 

Methodists 590,000 

Presbyterians 584,000 

Church  of  England 565,000 

Baptists 245,000 

Lutherans 40,000 

Congregatioualists 24,000 

Nearly  two-thirds,  then,  of  our  population 
are  at  least  nominally  on  the  side  of  Christ 
as  opposed  to  Antichrist  and  to  heathenism 
and  infidelity. 

Our  clergy  of  all  denominations  number 
four  thousand  seven  hundred.  Would  that 
all  were  true  soldiers  of  the  Cross  —  true 
successors  of  the  Apostles !  Alas !  one-third 
look  to  the  Pope  as  their  Head  and  Lord, 
'  while  others,  of  whom  better  things  might 
be  expected,  reject  the  name  "  Protestant," 
and  turn  their  faces  in  the  direction  of  the 
great  apostasy. 

In  one  province,  that  of  Quebec,  the  Ro- 
man Catholic  Church  is  overwhelmingly 
dominant,  and  intrenched  in  the  hearts  and 
traditions  of  the  people.  In  three  other 
provinces — Newfoundland,  Prince  Edward's 
Island,  and  Manitoba — she  is  so  strong  as 
to  occasion  anxiety  to  the  friends  of  liberty 
9 


and  education.  In  Quebec,  Romanism  is 
practically  if  not  legally  "  the  Established 
Church."  The  French  mind  seems  to  be  al- 
most wholly  in  the  hands  of  the  priest,  to  be 
directed,  molded,  or  frozen  up  as  he  wills. 
The  land  is  taxed  to  build  and  keep  up  par- 
ish churches  all  over  the  country  —  huge 
structures,  at  nine  miles  distance  from  each 
other ;  the  clergy  are  paid  by  a  compulsory 
tax ;  and  Romanism  is  also  taught  at  the 
public  expense  in  the  public  schools.  It  is 
estimated  that  nearly  one-third  of  the  land- 
ed property  in  the  great  Province  of  Quebec 
is  in  the  hands  of  the  clergy  of  Rome,  and 
their  accumulations  are  going  on  with  in- 
creasing rapidity.  Hence,  the  political  and 
social  power  of  Rome  in  Lower  Canada  is 
enormous.  Politicians  have  found  out  that 
it  is  profitable  to  do  the  bidding  of  an  or- 
ganization thus  great  and  strong,  and  that 
at  least  promises  to  give  the  kingdoms  of 
this  world  to  those  that  fall  down  and  wor- 
ship it. 

Happily,  there  are  signs  of  day -break 
in  this  long-benighted  province.  The  old 
world -wide  struggle  between  Gallicanism 
and  Ultramontanism  has  raged  with  ex- 
treme bitterness  in  the  bosom  of  the  Church 
for  many  years.  Bishop  against  bishop  and 
priest  against  priest  is  a  spectacle  not  often 
witnessed  on  this  continent.  How  the  bat- 
tle is  to  end  we  can  not  yet  say ;  but  it  is 
noteworthy  that  the  latest  victories  have 
been  achieved  by  the  Gallicaus.  Neverthe- 
less, as  the  development  of  Romanism  all 
over  the  world  is  in  the  direction  of  Ultra- 
montanism, it  seems  most  probable  that, 
sooner  or  later,  the  Jesuits  of  Montreal  will 
overcome  the  Archbishop  of  the  Seminarists 
of  Quebec.  It  must  be  recorded  that  Gallic- 
an  and  Ultramontane  alike  make  common 
cause  in  Canada  against  the  Gospel,  against 
all  evangelistic  efforts. 

Mission  work  among  the  French  Roman 
Catholics  has  been  attended  with  marked 
success.  Home  missionaries  and  colporteurs, 
evangelists  and  catechists,  traverse  the  coun- 
try, scattering  the  Word  of  Life.  Seldom  a 
week  passes  without  some  result  being  noted. 
Sometimes  they  come  in  tens  and  twenties 
to  join  the  Evangelical  Church.  Converts, 
however,  very  often  seek  to  escape  from  the 
petty  but  malignant  and  trying  persecutions 
of  their  old  friends  and  neighbors,  by  fleeing 
for  refuge  under  the  ample  folds  of  the  "  Stars 
and  Stripes."  This  accounts,  to  an  apprecia- 


REPORTS  ON  THE  STATE  OF  RELIGION. 


130 

ble  extent,  for  the  very  large  emigration  of 
French  Canadians  to  the  United  States. 

In  Ontario, as  in  New  Brunswick  and  Nova 
Scotia,  the  Romish  Church  is  less  strong  and 
formidable.  Her  adherents  are  largely  Irish 
or  of  Irish  descent,  and  they  clingto  theirfaith 
with  characteristic  tenacity.  The  priesthood 
have  secured  separate  schools  for  their  adher- 
ents in  Ontario,  Manitoba,  and  Newfound- 
land ;  and  they  are  pressing  for  similar  priv- 
ileges in  Nova  Scotia,  New  Brunswick,  and 
Prince  Edward's  Island— as  they  are  in  these 
United  States.  The  world-wide  battle  of 
Rome  against  popular  education  is  fought 
among  us  with  unrelenting  determination. 
But  the  efforts  of  the  foe  tend  powerfully  to 
unite  Protestants  of  all  shades  in  closer  bonds 
of  unity. 

In  all  the  Provinces  there  are  missionary 
operations  carried  on  among  the  Roman  Cath- 
olics, with  some  measure  of  success.  Viewed 
as  a  whole,  the  Church  of  Rome  is  not  making 
progress  among  us.  Her  influence  is  rather 
on  the  wane.  She  boasts  of  occasional  con- 
verts from  Protestantism ;  but  her  losses  are 
tenfold  greater  than  her  gains.  Her  political 
influence — a  sort  of  power  in  which  she  traf- 
fics, and  for  which  she  eagerly  plots  and  plans 
— is  not  increasing ;  though  it  must  be  con- 
fessed that  the  united  action  which  she  can 
secure  on  the  part  of  her  voters  sometimes 
renders  her  dangerous  to  the  liberty  of  the 
country. 

The  most  numerous  group  of  the  great 
Protestant  family  are  the  Methodists.  On- 
tario and  Newfoundland  have  been  the  chief 
scenes  of  their  evangelistic  triumphs,  while 
they  have  been  active  and  successful  in  all 
the  Provinces.  True  to  its  genius  and  his- 
tory, Methodism  has  gone  forth  among  the 
poor  and  the  outcast,  and  has  gathered  a 
noble  harvest  of  souls.  Once  the  Church 
of  the  poor,  it  is  now  rich,  and  strong,  and 
influential,  as  any  other  denomination ;  and 
its  evangelistic  efforts  are  carried  on  with 
unflagging  zeal.  It  has  well-endowed  and 
well-equippedinstitutions  for  training  young 
ministers.  Its  membership  is  increasing  in 
numbers,  and  in  the  grace  of  liberality. 

The  Presbyterians  are  almost  equally  nu- 
merous with  the  Methodists.  They  have 
five  institutions  for  training  the  rising  min- 
istry, and  there  are  about  eight  hundred  pas- 
toral charges,  supplied  by  about  six  hundred 
ministers.  For  many  years  they  have  been 
engaged  in  foreign  missions,  aud  at  present 
they  support  missions  in  China,  in  the  New 
Hebrides,  and  in  Trinidad. 

The  Protestant  Episcopal  Church  among 
us  is  still  called  the  "  Church  of  England," 
and  is  in  close  sympathy  with  the  parent 
Church.  At  one  time  it  was  the  "Estab- 
lished Church"  in  nearly  all  the  Provinces, 
and,  though  now  free  from  state  connection, 
its  influence  and  power  are  not  by  any  means 
lessened.  Ritualism  widely  prevails  within 


its  pale,  and  is  diligently  fostered  by  some 
of  the  bishops.  Still  there  are  faithful  evan- 
gelical bishops;  aud  many  of  the  clergy,  with 
a  largo  majority  of  the  laity,  abhor  the  mock- 
popery  of  the  Ritualists.  In  spite  of  Ritual- 
ism, in  spite  of  efforts  to  introduce  "  Confes- 
sion," and  to  draw  closer  to  the  Church  of 
Rome,  there  can  nowhere  be  found  firmer 
Protestants,  more  zealous  evangelists,  or 
more  consistent  advocates  and  supporters 
of  the  principles  of  the  Evangelical  Alliance 
than  in  our  branch  of  the  Church  of  England. 
The  worst  omen  is  that  the  official  propa- 
gaudism  is  mainly  on  the  side  of  error.  All 
or  nearly  all  the  recruits  of  whom  Rome  can 
boast  pass  downward  through  the  "easy  de- 
scent "  of  Ritualism. 

The  Baptists  are  numenras  in  Ontario  and 
Nova  Scotia.  Throughout  the  whole  of  their 
history  they  have  been  distinctly  evangelical 
and  evangelistic.  They  are  energetically  en- 
gaged in  equipping  their  higher  educational 
institutions  and  in  adding  to  the  number  of 
their  missionaries  at  home  and  abroad.  With- 
in the  past  few  days  the  Baptists  of  the  mar- 
itime Provinces  have  sent  forth  nine  mission- 
aries to  establish  a  new  mission  in  South- 
eastern Asia. 

The  Lutherans  and  Congregationalists 
have  their  chief  strength  in  Ontario.  The 
former,  for  obvious  reasons,  do  not  increase 
very  rapidly,  German  immigration  not  be- 
ing large  in  our  direction.  The  Congrega- 
tionalists are  always  found  ready  for  every 
good  work  in  connection  with  their  evangel- 
ical brethren  of  other  denominations. 

Unitarianism  and  Uuiversalism  are  among 
us  but  feeble  and  stunted  exotics,  drawing 
life  mainly  from  New  England.  We  have 
eight  hundred  Swedenborgians,  and  a  few 
Deists,  Atheists,  Mormons,  and  Mohammed- 
ans ;  but  they  wield  no  influence,  and  are 
not  increasing. 

The  most  formidable  foe  of  living  Chris- 
tianity among  us  is  not  Deism  or  Atheism, 
or  any  form  of  infidelity,  but  the  nominally 
Christian  Church  of  Rome.  All  the  leading 
Protestant  denominations,  recognizing  thLs 
fact,  have  established  special  missions  for 
the  benefit  of  Romanists.  These  missions 
are  to  be  found  in  Nova  Scotia,  New  Bruns- 
wick, and  Ontario,  but  chiefly  in  Quebec, 
where  the  power  of  Rome  is  greatest — where, 
in  fact,  we  have  a  new  France,  without  the 
Revolution  of  1789. 

The  French  Canadian  Missionary  Society, 
supported  by  all  evangelical  denominations 
throughout  Canada,  is  doing  a  remarkable 
work  in  Quebec,  gathering  together,  in  scores 
of  different  places,  the  nuclei  of  evangelical 
French  churches,  scattering  precious  seed 
over  the  length  and  breadth  of  the  field,  and 
reaping  here  and  there  a  bounteous  harvest. 
Educational  institutions  are  also  kept  up  for 
the  special  benefit  of  French  Canadian  youth, 
and  these  have  been  productive  of  valuable 


ROBERT  MURRAY :  THE  BRITISH  PROVINCES  OF  NORTH  AMERICA.     131 


results,  chiefly  in  the  way  of  breaking  down 
the  inveterate  prejudices  of  the  people,  and 
thus  preparing  a  way  for  the  Gospel  message. 
A  French  Canadian  Church  is  being  formed 
— a  not  unworthy  daughter  of  the  Evangel- 
ical Church  of  France.  All  the  churches 
have  home  mission  enterprises,  to  which  they 
devote  much  attention ;  they  follow  their 
children  to  the  lonely  forests,  to  the  fertile 
prairies,  to  the  fishing-stations  on  the  shores 
of  the  stormy  sea.  Your  hardy  fishermen, 
your  adventurers,  miners,  and  foresters,  reap 
with  us  the  benefit  of  these  enterprises. 

Missions  to  the  Indians  are  sustained  by 
all  the  leading  denominations.  Only  a  few 
weeks  ago  one  hundred  and  fifty  converts 
were  baptized  in  the  far  West.  These  In- 
dian missions  have  existed  for  many  years 
in  nearly  all  the  Provinces,  and  with  hope- 
ful results.  We  live  on  friendly  terms  with 
our  Indians,  and  they  are  thus  more  favor- 
ably disposed  toward  Christianity.  It  is 
only  fair  to  say  that  the  Jesuit  missionaries 
were  pioneers  in  this  work.  There  is,  how- 
ever, in  their  case  this  drawback,  that  their 
teaching  of  the  Indians  has  been  of  extreme- 
ly little  value,  the  Jesuits  leaving  the  wild 
roving  children  of  the  forest  as  they  found 
them.  Protestant  missionaries  uniformly 
carry  with  them  the  blessings  of  civilization, 
instruction  in  Bible  knowledge,  and  in  the 
arts  of  life.  They  endeavor  to  make  their 
converts  good  citizens  as  well  as  good  Chris- 
tians ;  in  truth,  the  one  implies  the  other. 

Missions  to  the  heathen  in  foreign  lands 
have  been  established,  as  we  have  noted,  by 
the  Presbyterians  and  Baptists.  The  Wes- 
leyans,  and  Episcopalians,  and  Independents 
send  aid  to  missionary  societies  in  Great 
Britain.  Sixteen  missionaries  sent  forth  to 
heathen  lands  are  supported  by  the  Presby- 
terians, and  nine  by  the  Baptists. 

Methodists,  Baptists,  Congregationalists, 
Evangelical  Episcopalians,  and  Presbyteri- 
ans are  ever  ready  to  unite  in  every  good 
work,  in  city  missions,  home  missions,  col- 
portage,  and  tract  distribution.  In  efforts 
to  disseminate  a  pure  religious  literature  we 
follow  the  example  of  Great  Britain  and  the 
United  States. 

The  great  and  good  men  teach  at  our  fire- 
sides who  preach  and  teach  in  New  York 
and  in  London.  The  printed  page  carries 
its  message  to  our  loneliest  hamlets.  And  if 
we  receive  from  the  United  States  our  Uni- 
versalism  and  Uuitarianism,  our  Swedenbor- 
gianism  and  our  Spiritualism,  our  shreds  of 
Mormouismand  rags  of  Materialism,  we  also 
share  far  more  abundantly  in  the  mighty 
and  beneficent  flood  of  Christian  literature 
issuing  from  your  great  tract  societies  and 
from  many  of  your  private  publishing  houses. 
We  can  not  live  without  you ;  there  is  no 
religious  movement  among  you  but  tells 
upon  us  for  good  or  for  evil — mainly,  I  be- 
lieve, for  good. 


Our  religious  and  ecclesiastical  life,  like 
our  political  and  social  life,  is  powerfully 
!  affected  by  currents  of  thought  and  influ- 
ence that  come  upon  us  every  hour  from  the 
United  States  on  the  one  hand,  and  from 
Great  Britain  on  the  other.  We  are  a 
strongly  conservative  people,  and  to  some 
extent  we  assimilate  the  food  that  comes 
from  abroad.  In  all  things  we  are  not  quite 
so  American  as  the  United  States,  nor  are 
we  quite  so  English  and  Scottish  as  our  fa- 
therland. May  we  not  yet  be  recognized — 
or,  let  me  say,  may  we  not  justify  for  our- 
selves a  place  as  intermediary  and  eclectic, 
standing  between  the  Old  World  and  the 
New,  endeavoring  to  choose  and  seize  what 
is  best  on  both  sides  of  the  sea  ?  Our  dream 
runs  in  this  direction. 

Within  the  last  four  years  nearly  the 
whole  of  Nova  Scotia,  and  many  other  parts 
of  the  Dominion,  were  visited  with  revivals 
of  very  great  power.  In  Cape  Breton  whole 
counties  were  swept  over  as  by  a  blessed 
gale  from  heaven,  and  for  a  time  every  thing 
was  forgotten  but  the  one  thing  needful. 
Multitudes  were  added  to  the  Church,  and 
sufficient  time  has  elapsed  to  prove  that  the 
conversions  were  genuine,  and  that  much 
fruit  has  been  gathered  for  God.  Refresh- 
ing and  copious  showers  have  fallen,  and 
are  falling  still,  in  Newfoundland  and  oth- 
er Provinces.  Whenever  a  revival  throbs 
the  hearts  of  your  churches,  we  feel  the 
quickened  pulsations ;  we  share  the  ben- 
efit. 

The  mass  of  our  population  treat  with  re- 
spect the  ordinances  and  ministers  of  relig- 
ion, and  attend  public  worship  of  some  kind. 
Few,  if  any,  of  our  cities  are  large  enough  to 
present  the  deplorable  scenes  of  home  hea- 
thenism and  wretchedness  which  are  wit- 
nessed elsewhere.  Nearly  the  whole  of  our 
population  is  nominally  connected  with 
some  religious  denomination.  In  some  of 
the  leading  Protestant  churches  family  wor- 
ship is  almost  universal.  The  sanctity  of 
the  Lord's  day  is  guarded  with  care  in  all 
Protestant  sections  of  the  country. 

Nearly  all  Protestant  denominations  have 
kept  pace,  within  the  past  ten  years,  with 
the  increase  of  the  population  of  the  coun- 
try ;  and  in  all  there  has  been  a  remarkable 
increase  in  the  spirit  of  responsibility  and 
self-reliance.  The  average  of  contributions 
for  religions  objects  has  increased  more  than 
fifty  per  cent,  in  ten  years. 

The  several  branches  of  the  Methodist 
family  and  of  the  Presbyterian  family  are 
hopefully  negotiating  for  union.  The  Church 
of  England,  also,  is  consolidating  her  forces 
in  the  different  provinces  under  a  central 
authority.  Thus  it  will  appear  that  our 
people  are  alive  to  the  redintegrating  tend- 
encies of  the  time.  All  the  Evangelical 
Churches  live  side  by  side  in  peace  and 
brotherly  love.  Rarely,  indeed,  do  we  hear 


132 


REPORTS  ON  THE  STATE  OF  RELIGION. 


tho  harsh  notes  of  internecine  strife.  De- 
nominational jealousies  and  bitterness  are 
giving  -way  to  Christian  courtesy  and  help- 
lulnfss.  The  power  of  the  Church  of  Rome 
is  so  great,  tho  craft  of  her  agents  is  so 
marked,  her  aims  are  so  destructive  of  all 
that  is  good,  her  spirit  is  so  coldly  and  inso- 
lently isolative,  that  tho  followers  of  Christ 
feel  constrained  to  draw  more  closely  to- 
gether, and  to  save  their  strength  to  repel 
the  assaults  of  a  common  foe. 

We  have  before  ns  problems  which  you 
have  solved,  or  are  successfully  solving.  We 
have  a  mighty  citadel  of  superstition  among 
us ;  we  have  a  vast  country  to  reclaim  and 
possess  for  our  Master.  In  order  to  success 
we  need  all  the  inimitable  good  qualities  of 
our  friends  in  Christ  on  both  sides  of  the 
sea ;  we  need  the  conservatism  and  sobriety 


of  the  Old,  with  the  amazing  energy,  enter- 
prise, and  adaptability  of  the  New  World. 
Every  year  a  parable  is  acted  under  our 
eyes  which  may  soon  bo  realized  in  our  re- 
ligious history.  In  early  spring- time  our 
great  rivers  are  bound  in  mighty  fetters  of 
ice  — cold,  remorseless,  invulnerable.  How 
vain  all  human  agency  to  undo  those  fet- 
ters! Tho  warm  south  wind  comes;  the 
breath  of  heaven  comes,  and  with  it  the 
day  of  liberation.  The  -waters  waken,  rise, 
swell,  rush  with  ever-increasing  force  till 
they  become  irresistible.  What  no  power  on 
earth  could  accomplish,  no  power  on  earth 
can  now  withstand.  The  fetters  forged  in 
the  chill  darkness  of  a  past  winter  are  all 
burst  asunder  and  swept  out  into  the  sea. 
This  parable  is,  we  hope  about  to  be  acted 
in  our  history. 


CHRISTIANITY  IN  THE  WEST  INDIES. 


BY  THE  REV.  WILLIAM  MURRAY,  FALMOUTH,  JAMAICA. 


THERE  are  special  reasons  why  the  state 
of  religion  in  the  West  Indies  should  deep- 
ly interest  the  Christian  people  both  of  En- 
rope  and  America.  The  great  bulk  of  the 
property,  landed  and  personal,  of  those  rich 
and  beautiful  islands,  is  owned  by  men  rep- 
resenting almost  every  race  and  language 
of  both  continents — Roman,  Celtic,  Teuton- 
ic, Scandinavian,  Anglo-Saxon,  and  Anglo- 
American.  They  are  your  brethren,  attract- 
ed thither  by  the  spirit  of  legitimate  enter- 
prise, the  love  of  gain,  or  the  nobler  desire 
to  do  good  and  be  a  blessing  to  their  much- 
suffering  fellow-men.  The  vast  majority  of 
the  inhabitants  of  all  those  islands,  however, 
are  people  imported  from  the  realm  of  hea- 
thendom— Africans  and  Asiatics,  and  their 
descendants  —  men,  women,  and  little  chil- 
dren, whose  unrequited  toil  for  generations 
had  gone  to  enrich  the  superior  races  that 
held  them  in  bondage,  but  who  are  now, 
with,  one  important  exception,  iii  the  full  en- 
joyment of  civil  freedom ;  and,  better  still, 
the  number  is  daily  increasing  of  those  who 
are  made  free  with  the  liberty  wherewith 
Christ  makes  his  people  free. 

Cuba  and  Jamaica  may  be  taken  as  rep- 
resentatives of  the  West  Indies  as  a  whole, 
as  regards  the  possession  of  civil  and  relig- 
ions liberty  and  the  progress  of  evangelical 
religion — the  former  representing  the  scan- 
tiest amount  of  liberty  and  the  lowest  type 
of  religion ;  the  latter,  the  amplest  liberty, 
both  civil  and  religious,  with  the  greatest 
progress  in  the  knowledge  and  practice  of 
the  religion  of  Christ.  Under  the  first  class 
may  be  placed  with  Cuba,  Hayti,  Sail  Do- 
mingo, and  the  smaller  French  and  Spanish 
islands ;  under  the  second  with  Jamaica, 
Barbados,  Antigua,  Trinidad,  the  remaining 
British  islands,  the  Dutch  islands,  and  St. 
Thomas. 

In  all  the  islands,  except  Cuba,  some  evan- 
gelical missionaries  are  laboring  among  the 
population. 

Cuba,  with  an  area  of  over  50,000  square 
miles,  a  population  of  nearly  2,000,000,  the 
wealthiest,  and  in  other  respects  the  most 
important  of  all  the  West  Indian  islands, 
is  without  a  single  evangelical  missionary. 
Romanism  is  the  only  religion  tolerated.  No 
one  can  hold  property  there  without  first 
acknowledging  in  writing  that  he  is  an 
"  Apostolical  Roman  Catholic."  Men  of  ten- 
der consciences  often  leave  out  the  word  Ro- 
man, and  the  omission  is  readily  winked  at 


if  the  person  in  question  be  wealthy  and  in 
favor  with  those  in  authority. 

There  is  not  a  Sabbath-school  in  the  whole 
island,  and  the  week-day  schools  are  few 
and  far  between.  While  the  number  of  free 
children  between  the  age  of  5  and  15  yearn 
is  over  100,000,  only  about  9082  attend 
school,  and  of  this  small  number  only  about 
1000  are  colored  or  black.  Morality  and  re- 
ligion, like  education,  are  at  a  very  low  ebb 
indeed.  Unbelief,  immorality  of  the  grosn- 
est  kind,  with  injustice,  corruption,  and 
cruelty,  unchallenged  and  uurebuked,  uni- 
versally abound  and  dominate  the  whole  isl- 
and. The  only  sign  of  Christianity  in  this 
so-called  Christian  island  is  the  cross  on  the 
churches,  and  the  mass  irreverently  hurried 
over  by  priests  who  are  impatient  to  get 
through  their  irksome  task,  that  they  may 
hasten  to  the  more  congenial  cock-fight,  or 
some  other  low  and  brutal  pastime.  During 
public  worship  all  seem  intent  on  showing, 
by  their  undisguised  levity  and  disrespect, 
that  they  have  neither  faith  nor  reverence, 
no  fear  of  God,  or  any  respect  for  those  who 
profess  to  be  the  successors  of  Christ's  apos- 
tles. And  no  wonder ;  the  priests  themselves, 
with  hardly  an  exception,  exhibit  the  most 
painful  picture  of  all  -  prevailing  demorali- 
zing unbelief.  The  country  curates  can  only 
be  matched  by  those  of  mediaeval  times,  and 
may,  as  a  class,  be  set  down  as  examples  of 
all  that  is  corrupt  and  disgusting  in  low  and 
brutal  vice. 

There  arc  one  hundred  and  forty -nine 
churches  on  the  island,  with  a  church  reve- 
nue of  £130,000  sterling;  but  with  all  this 
outward  show  and  expenditure  there  is  no  ex- 
pounding of  the  Word  of  God,  no  preaching 
or  even  reading  of  the  Gospel,  no  attempts 
to  check  the  course  of  vice  or  lead  the  per- 
ishing into  the  way  of  life,  no  attempts  to 
administer  the  consolations  of  the  religion 
of  Christ  to  the  sick  and  the  dying,  as  is 
I  done  in  Protestant,  or  even  in  other  Roman 
Catholic  countries.  Wide-spread,  indeed  al- 
most universal,  unbelief  is  the  result.  The 
educated  Cubans  are  better  acquainted  with 
the  "Life  of  Jesus  Christ," by  M.Renan,than 
with  the  inimitable  record  of  the  same  glo- 
rious life  by  the  inspired  evangelists. 

The  notion,  however,  that  the  Cubans  aiv 
naturally  Avorse,  more  skeptical  or  ignoblr 
than  other  races  or  peoples,  is  not  to  bo 
entertained  for  a  moment.  They  are  only 
what  the  malign  monster  of  tyranny,  civil, 


134 


REPORTS  ON  THE  STATE  OF  RELIGION. 


religious,  and  social,  has  niado  them.  The 
political  despotism  of  once  powerful,  always 
fanatical  aud  cruel,  and  now  decrepit,  old 
Spain ;  the  still  more  relentless  tyranny  of 
papal  Rome,  which — herself  unable  to  sup- 
ply the  healing  balm,  the  life-sustaining  ali- 
ment, the  living,  refreshing,  renovating  spir- 
itual drink,  for  the  lack  of  which  genera- 
tion after  generation  of  the  poor  Cubans  inis- 
orably  perished — evermore  has  stood  a  jeal- 
ous, watchful  sentinel,  guarding  every  ave- 
nue by  which  others,  more  enlightened  and 
more  pitiful,  might  convey  to  the  famishing 
sons  aud  daughters  of  the  fair  Quecu  of  the 
Antilles  the  light,  the  nourishment,  and  the 
healing  they  so  sorely  needed  ;  and  the  sys- 
tem of  compulsory,  uurecompensed  servi- 
tude, which  held  aud  still  holds  one-half  of 
the  entire  population  to  be  the  property,  the 
goods  and  chattels  of  the  other  half,  which 
forbids  the  education,  religious  or  secular, 
of  the  servile  race,  which  discourages  the 
divine  institution  of  marriage,  aud  treats  the 
sanctities  of  the  family  relationship  with 
cold  and  cruel  contempt,  have  had  a  mighty 
influence  in  destroying  the  highest  and  best 
aspirations  of  the  whole  people — in  degrad- 
ing, demoralizing,  and  imbruting  alike  both 
rulers  and  ruled,  priest  aud  people,  master 
and  slave.  This  is  the  triple  tyrant  that 
has  been  lordiug  it  over  Cuba  for  centuries, 
and  which  has  caused  a  race,  naturally  no- 
ble and  brave,  contentedly  to  grope  in  spir- 
itual ignorance,  wallow  in  moral  tilth,  and 
too  often  to  delight  themselves  iii  horrid 
cruelties  and  hideous  crimes. 

But  that  better  things  arc  in  store  for 
Cuba,  and  that  the  day  of  her  redemption 
is  drawing  nigh,  is  indicated  by  unmistaka- 
ble providential  signs.  The  bitter  and  pro- 
tracted conflict  for  independence  and  liberty 
maintained  by  the  white  and  colored  Creole 
population  against  the  dominion  bf  Spain, 
their  readiness  to  abolish  slavery,  their  per- 
severance in  the  face  of  great  *  difficulties, 
privations,  and  disappointments,  their  en- 
thusiasm for  civil  freedom  aud  religious  lib- 
erty, their  readiness  to  receive  the  Word  of 
God,  to  hear  it  preached  in  Jamaica,  where 
thousands  of  them  have  taken  refuge,  where 
the  wives  and  little  ones  of  hundreds  who 
are  now  in  the  tented  field  with  President 
Cespedes,  and  the  destitute  widows  and  or- 
phans of  many  who  have  fallen  in  the  day 
of  conflict,  are  residing  and  cared  for  by 
Christian  people  in  the  land  of  their  exile 
—  these  are  so  many  tokens  for  good,  so 
many  signs  that  the  Lord  himself,  in  judg- 
ment and  in  mercy,  is  coming  forth  for  their 
deliverance. 

In  the  city  of  Kingston,  Jamaica,  we  have 
established  for  those  exiles  what  is  called  the 

CUBAN  MISSION. 

It  was  begun  early  in  the  year  1871.  The 
missionary  is  the  Rev.  RAMON  MONSAL- 


VATGE.  He  is  a  born  Spaniard,  but  an  Amer- 
ican citizen.  He  was  trained  for  a  monk 
in  a  Spanish  monastery,  aud  for  a  Romish 
priest  in  a  French  seminary.  He  was  con- 
verted to  the  truth  from  studying  the  Vul- 
gate, and  was  trained  for  the  Evangelical 
Christian  ministry  under  the  care  of  Dr. 
Merle  d'Aubigu6,  whose  great  work,  "The 
History  of  the  Reformation,"  he  has  trans- 
lated into  Spanish.  He  was  taken  up  by 
the  late  Dr.  Baird  of  America,  sent  by  a  so- 
ciety of  which  the  doctor  was  secretary  to 
Oran,  in  Algeria,  where  ho  labored  for  a 
number  of  years  with  much  success;  was 
transferred  by  the  same  society  to  Cartha- 
gena,  South  America,  where  he  gathered  a 
large  congregation,  but  when  the  priest 
party  got  into  power  there  he  was  deprived 
of  his  church  and  school,  could  preach  only 
in  his  own  hired  house,  and  was  subjected 
to  much  persecution.  He  knew  of  the  trou- 
bles in  Cuba,  and  also  that  many  of  the  Cu- 
bans had  taken  refuge  in  Jamaica.  He  felt 
irresistibly  drawn  toward  them.  But  how- 
can  he  get  there?  Who  will  support  him 
in  the  work  should  he  get  thither  ?  For  no 
society  that  he  can  get  access  to  will  take 
hold  of  this  new  Christian  enterprise.  A 
New  York  merchant,  who  knew  something 
of  his  labors,  his  worth,  his  trials,  and  his 
need,  solved  the  first  difficulty  by  landing 
the  missionary  and  his  family,  free  of  ex- 
pense, in  the  city  of  Kingston,  Jamaica. 

When  he  proposed  to  begin  evangelistic 
labors  among  the  Cubans  in  Kingston,  al- 
most every  one  either  assured  him  with  re- 
gret that  the  thing  was  hopeless  or  laughed 
the  very  suggestion  to  scorn.  Why,  the  Cu- 
bans are  dead,  twice  dead,  to  all  religious  in- 
fluences! They  care  for  nothing  that  bears 
the  name  of  religion.  They  never  go  near 
the  Roman  Catholic  churches,  and  the  priests 
of  Rome  never  look  after  them.  At  length 
he  came  to  one  who  listened  with  deep  in- 
terest to  his  proposal,  entered  heartily  into 
his  plans,  put  his  church  and  school-room  at 
his  disposal  for  certain  hours  of  every  Sun- 
day, raised  what  funds  he  could  for  him  per- 
sonally, and  at  the  earliest  possible  opportu- 
nity brought  the  case  before  the  Synod  of 
his  Church. 

The  BESULT  is  the  formation,  in  Kingston, 
of  a  Cuban  Evangelical  congregation,  two 
Sunday-schools,two  week-day  schools,  and  a 
Beneficence  Society  for  the  relief  of  the  wid- 
ows and  orphans  who  are  cast  on  our  shores, 
sometimes  literally  starving  and  naked.  Up 
to  the  middle  of  July  of  this  current  year 
(1873)  four  hundred  Cubans  have  declared 
themselves  Protestants.  Among  these  are  gen- 
erals and  other  military  officers,  lawyers,  not- 
aries, merchants,  planters,  engineers,  and  art- 
isans. As  they  leave,  some  to  fight  the  bat- 
tle of  freedom  in  their  native  land,  and  others 
to  go  to  various  foreign  countries,  they  take 
with  them  a  copy  of  the  Word  of  Life,  with, 


WILLIAM  MURRAY :  CHRISTIANITY  IN  THE  WEST  INDIES. 


135 


it  is  humbly  trusted,  a  strong  determination 
to  be  henceforth  guided  by  the  spiritual  light 
it  affords.  The  Jesuits  of  Kingston  have  or- 
ganized a  vehement  opposition  to  this  good 
work.  They  perceive  in  this  humble  begin- 
ning an  outwork  which  may  eventually  de- 
stroy their  whole  dominion  in  Cuba.  We, 
too,  see  in  it  the  beginning  of  the  end,  the 
promise,  the  prelude,  and  the  earnest  of  what 
shall  be — the  "handful  of  corn  in  the  earth  on 
the  top  of  the  mountain,"  the  fruit  whereof 
shall  in  due  time  shake  like  Lebanon.  It  is 
this  assured  belief  that  has  caused  some  of 
the  best  men  and  women  in  Jamaica  to  &&- 
vote  much  of  their  time  and  means  to  the 
support  of  this  mission.  It  is  in  this  firm 
confidence,  also,  that  I  have  ventured  to 
bring  its  claims  before  this  great  Confer- 
ence. I  commend  it  to  your  faith,  to  your 
prayers,  to  your  liberality. 

Let  us  now  look  for  a  moment  at 

JAMAICA. 

Jamaica,  the  "  Isle  of  Springs,"  the  "Land 
of  Wood  and  Water,"  as  the  name  signifies, 
was  won  from  Spain  to  Great  Britain  by  an 
expedition  sent  out  by  Oliver  Cromwell, 
about  the  middle  of  the  seventeenth  centu- 
ry. From  that  time  onward  the  island  has 
been  nominally  Christian  and  Protestant. 
It  was  not,  however,  till  the  first  quarter  of 
the  present  century  that  evangelical  relig- 
ion made  any  marked  progress  among  the 
people.  Evangelical  religion,  like  educa- 
tion, was  a  forbidden  thing  to  the  vast  ma- 
jority of  the  people  for  over  a  century  and 
a  half  after  the  island  had  become  a  British 
possession.  The  Church  of  England,  it  is 
true,  was  established  by  law  and  supported 
by  the  state  during  the  whole  of  that  peri- 
od ;  but  it  was  only  the  Church  of  the  dom- 
inant few,  and  had  little  or  no  sympathy 
with  the  wants  and  woes,  the  earnest  grop- 
ings  for  light  and  aspirations  for  liberty  of 
the  vast  majority  of  the  population. 

Early  in  the  present  century  devoted  men 
from  Moravian,  Methodist,  Baptist,  and  Pres- 
byterian Missionary  Societies,  in  the  face  of 
much  obloquy  and  severe  persecution,  be- 
gan, in  good  earnest,  to  preach  Jesus  Christ 
and  him  crucified,  and  to  teach  the  way  of 
life  to  all  whom  they  could  reach  of  every 
class  and  color.  The  result  was  happy  and 
glorious.  New  light  broke  forth,  and  new 
life  sprang  up,  in  every  parish  of  the  island, 
save  one,  where  heretofore  deadness  and 
darkness  had  reigned  supreme.  In  this 
exceptional  parish  the  men  of  wealth  and 
power  formed  themselves  into  an  Anti-Gos- 
pel Club,  dedicated  to  Satan !  At  their  so- 
cial meetings  the  health  of  the  prince  of 
darkness,  under  one  or  other  of  his  titles, 
was  regularly  druuk.  This  club  existed  in 
the  early  years  of  the  present  century.  One 
of  its  members  still  survives  in  great  pover- 
ty and  misery.  It  consisted  of  over  thirty 


members,  all  men  of  wealth  and  influence, 
but  every  one  of  them  became  impoverished, 
and  nearly  all  of  them  died  in  most  painful 
circumstances.  The  very  district  where  they 
lived  seems  to  have  been  cursed  for  their 
sake.  This  parish,  St.  Thomas  in  the  East, 
was  the  scene  of  the  insurrection  and  the 
atrocities  of  the  year  1865. 

From  the  time  of  the  abolition  of  slavery, 
in  spite  of  all  hinderances,  the  progress  of 
gospel  life  and  gospel  light  has  been  like 
the  morning  light,  which  shineth  more  and 
more  unto  the  perfect  day.  The  population 
of  the  island,  at  the  last  census  (1873),  was 
506,154.  Of  these  13,101  are  white,  100,346 
are  colored,  and  392,707  are  black.  One  out 
of  every  seven  of  the  whole  population  can 
read  and  write,  while  the  number  who  can 
read  is  over  152,000,  or  very  nearly  one  out  of 
every  three  of  the  entire  population.  About 
45,000  children  are  in  attendance  on  week- 
day schools,  while  a  still  larger  number  at- 
tend Sunday-schools.  The  number  of  Sun- 
day-school teachers  is  close  on  three  thou- 
sand; the  Protestant  evangelical  mission- 
aries, 205.  There  are  also  seven  Roman  Cath- 
olic priests,  and  one  Jewish  rabbi. 

The  several  evangelical  denominations  are 
represented  as  follows : 

Episcopalians 13  ministers. 

Baptists 40 

Wesleyans 28 

Presbyterians 23 

Moravians 15 

United  Methodists 11 

Congregationalists 6 

American  missionaries,  Congregation-)  (1 

al  and  Presbyterian ) 

The  Church  membership  of  the  several  de- 
nominations is  over  51,000  communicants,  so 
that  we  have  an  average  of  250  members 
to  every  missionary,  exclusive  of  ordinary 
hearers  and  children  who  are  not  commu- 
nicants. 

One  hundred  and  nine  thousand  eight 
hundred  and  forty  of  the  existing  popula- 
tion have  entered  into  the  married  state. 
Those  who  know  what  Jamaica  was  seventy, 
or  even  forty  years  ago,  in  respect  to  this  di- 
vine institution,  will  be  able  to  form  some 
approximate  idea  of  the  moral  and  spiritual 
progress  made  since  that  period. 

The  missionary  cause  in  Jamaica  is  still 
largely  indebted  for  the  means  of  its  support 
— for  the  sinews  of  war — men  and  money,  to 
the  liberality  of  churches  and  societies  in 
Great  Britain  and  America.  The  Episcopal 
Church,  though  now  disestablished,  and 
prospect! vely  disendowed,  is  still  mainly 
supported  from  the  public  revenues.  She  is, 
however,  putting  forth  vigorous  efforts  in 
preparing  for  the  time  when  she  must  de- 
pend entirely  on  the  free-will  offerings  of 
her  people.  The  Baptists  are  the  nearest  to 
independence  in  this  respect  of  all  Christian 
bodies  on  the  island.  They  have  to  get  a 


13G 


REPORTS  ON  THE  STATE  OF  RELIGION. 


good  many  ministers  from  England  still, 
but  they  are  almost  wholly  supported  by  the 
givings  of  their  congregations.  The  Mora- 
vians, Wesleyans,  Presbyterians,  and  Con- 
gregationalists  are  making  very  steady  and 
healthful  progress  in  the  same  direction.  In 
one  respect  their  policy  differs  from  that  of 
the  Baptists.  They  assign  smaller  charges 
to  their  missionaries,  and  the  result  is,  that 
although  self-support  does  not  come  so  soon, 
yet  the  work,  when  it  is  done,  is  more  thor- 
ough and  enduring. 

The  Baptists  are  projecting  a  mission  to 
Hayti.  The  Presbyterians  have,  for  the  last 
three  years,  supported  the  Rev.  Ramon  Mon- 
salvatge  in  his  mission  among  the  Cuban 
exiles.  They  are  also  taking  steps  to  estab- 
lish a  mission  among  the  Coolies,  of  whom 
there  are  over  ten  thousand  in  Jamaica,  and 
for  whose  evangelization  no  effort  has  yet 
been  made. 

Thus  the  colored  and  black  people  of  Ja- 
maica, having  themselves  become  partakers 
of  the  blessings,  political,  social,  and  relig- 
ious, which  the  Gospel  of  Christ  brings  to 
all  who  receive  it,  are  as  ready  to  support 
it  at  home,  and  as  eager  to  send  it  to  those 
who  are  perishing  for  the  lack  of  it,  as  any 
people  on  the  face  of  the  earth.  Much  has 
been  done ;  a  great  deal  yet  remains  to  be 
accomplished.  Life  and  property  are  as 
safe  in  Jamaica  as  in  England  or  America. 


Drunkenness  does  not  largely  prevail.  The 
Lord's  day  is  well  observed.  Industry  and 
thrift  among  the  natives  are  steadily  in- 
creasing. They  are  also  ambitious  to  learn 
to  read  and  write;  but  it  is  difficult  to  in- 
duce them  to  buy  books  aud  periodicals. 
Generations  must  come  and  pass  away  be- 
fore the  evil  habits  of  the  days  of  slavery 
are  rooted  out.  Chief  among  these  is  the 
vile  custom  of  concubinage,  which  eats  as  a 
canker  into  the  moral  and  physical  life  of 
the  people.  It  is  now  disreputable  socially, 
but  it  still  prevails  to  a  lamentable  extent 
among  certain  classes  of  the  population. 

It  is  exceedingly  encouraging,  however, 
to  find  that  where  the  Gospel  has  been  long- 
est preached  with  earnestness,  simplicity, 
and  power,  and  diligent  attention  given  to 
the  training  of  the  young,  this  evil  too  is 
conquered,  if  not  wholly  rooted  out.  There 
are  whole  districts  of  black  and  colored 
people  in  Jamaica  where  the  women  are  as 
chaste  and  the  men  as  correct  in  this  re- 
spect as  iu  any  European  Christian  coun- 
try. 

But  I  must  not  further  illustrate  or  en- 
large. The  time  and  space  allotted  forbid. 
I  have  simply  presented  to  you  two  speci- 
mens of  the  state  of  religion  in  the  West 
Indies.  You  have  before  you  substantially 
the  best  aud  the  worst,  the  highest  aud  the 
lowest ;  from  these  judge  all. 


II. 
CHRISTIAN    UNION. 

Saturday,  October  4th,  1873. 


DIVISION  II.— CONTENTS, 


PAGE 

1.  HODGE  :    The   Unity  of  the   Church  t 139 

2.  SMITH  (R.  P.) :   Christian  Union  and  Denominational  Distinctions  145 

3.  BEDELL  :    Spiritual   Unity  not  Organic   Union 150 

4.  POTTER  and  LEWIS  :    Communion  of  Saints 154 

5.  MAKSTON  :    Communion  of  Saints 160 

6.  CROOKS:    Christian  Love  the  Bond  of  Christian   Union 167 

7.  COOK:    Christian  Union  and  the  Alliance  in  France 169 

« 

8.  COXRAD  :  Interchange  of  Pulpits 1 74 

9.  M UHLEXBERG :    The  Lord's  Supper  in  .Relation  to  Christian  Union.  180 

10.  STOUGHTON:   Eccl.  &  Spiritual  Relations  of  America  to  England.  184 

11.  DAVIS:  Evangelical  Alliance — its  Origin,  Objects,  and  Operations.  189 

12.  NOEL:  Evangelical  Alliance — its  Objects  and  Influence 197 


THE  UNITY  OF  THE  CHURCH  BASED  ON  PERSONAL 
UNION  WITH  CHRIST. 

BY  THE  REV.  CHARLES  HODGE,  D.D.,  LL.D., 

Professor  of  Theology  iu  the  Theological  Seminary  at  Princeton,  New  Jersey. 


THE  Church  of  Christ  is  one.  There  is 
one  fold  and  one  Shepherd;  one  King  and 
one  kingdom;  one  Father  and  one  family. 
In  this  sense  the  Church  includes  all  the  re- 
deemed—  those  now  in  heaven,  those  now 
on  earth,  and  those  who  are  hereafter  to  be 
born. 

Our  present  concern,  however,  is  with  the 
Church  as  it  now  exists  in  the  world.  The 
unity  of  the  Church  on  earth  may  be  viewed 
under  three  aspects :  first,  in  reference  to  in- 
dividual believers ;  secondly,  in  reference  to 
local  congregations  or  churches ;  and,  third- 
ly, in  reference  to  national  and  denomina- 
tional churches.  Under  all  these  aspects 
the  Church  is  one,  and  its  unity  in  all  its 
forms  depends  on  union  with  Christ,  its  Head. 
As  to  these  two  points  there  is,  and  can  be, 
no  difference  of  opinion. 

I.  Tlie  Unity  of  Individual  Believers. 
The  question,  What  constitutes  union  with 
Christ  ?  can  not  be  categorically  answered, 
because  that  union  is  manifold.  In  the  first 
place,  wo  were  in  him  before  the  foundation 
of  the  world.  As  we  were  in  Adam  before 
we  were  born,  so  we  were  in  Christ  before 
we  came  into  this  world.  This  is  a  union 
in  idea  and  in  purpose  which  antedates  all 
that  is  real  or  actual.  Secondly,  those  thus 
in  Christ  come  into  the  world,  as  the  Church 
universal  believes,  in  a  state  of  sin  and  con- 
demnation, and  remain  in  that  state  until 
they  are  renewed  by  the  Holy  Ghost,  and  be- 
come the  dwelling-place  of  the  Spirit  of  God. 
God  is  everywhere,  and  everywhere  equally 
present.  He  fills  heaven  and  earth,  but  he 
is  said  to  dvrcll  wherever  he  permanently 
manifests  his  presence,  as  he  does  now  iu 
heaven,  as  he  did  of  old  in  the  Temple,  and 
as  he  does  in  all  ages  and  places  iu  the  hearts 
of  his  people.  As  God  is  immanent  in  the 
world,  and  is  the  source  of  all  the  manifes- 
tations of  intelligence  in  the  operations  of 
nature,  so  he  is  immanent  iu  the  sonls  of  the 
regenerated,  and  is  the  source  of  their  spirit- 
ual life  and  of  all  its  manifestations ;  and  as 
the  Spirit  is  given  without  measure  to  Christ, 
and  is  from  him  communicated  to  his  peo- 
ple, it  follows  that  ho  and  they  are  one,  aud 
that  they  are  all  members  one  of  another. 
The  illustration  which  our  Lord  gives  of  the 


nature  of  this  union  is  drawn  from  the  vine 
and  its  branches.  As  every  fibre  of  the  root, 
the  stem,  the  branches,  the  foliage,  and  the 
fruit  are  one  organic,  living  whole,  so  are 
Christ  and  his  people.  St.  Paul  says  Christ 
is  the  head,  we  are  his  body.  As  the  life  of 
the  head  pervades  the  whole  body  in  all  its 
parts  and  makes  them  one,  so  the  life  of 
Christ  pervades  his  people  and  makes  them 
one.  This  is  the  mystical  union.  It  is  a 
vital,  permanent,  and  everlasting  bond  of 
connection  between  Christ  and  his  people, 
and  of  his  people  one  with  another.  They 
are  as  truly  one  as  the  vine  and  its  branches, 
and  the  head  and  members  of  the  human 
body  are  one.  There  is  no  doctrine  of  the 
Bible  more  clearly,  frequently,  or  variously 
taught  than  this. 

This  is  a  union  which,  so  to  speak,  lies  be- 
low our  consciousness.  An  infant  may  be  in 
Christ  not  only  in  the  foreknowledge  and 
purpose  of  God,  but  by  the  iudwelling  of 
the  Spirit,  aud  be  no  more  aware  of  it  than 
that  he  is  a  child  of  Adam.  There  is,  there- 
fore, a  third  bond  of  union  between  Christ 
and  his  people,  and  that  is  faith.  As  soon  as 
a  new-born  soul  opens  its  eyes,  it  sees  the 
glory  of  God  iu  the  face  of  Jesus  Christ.  He 
believes  the  record  which  God  has  given  of 
his  Son.  He  receives  him  as  God  manifest 
in  the  flesh,  because  he  sees  in  him  the  glory 
of  the  Only-begotten  of  the  Father,  full  of 
grace  and  truth.  This  is  faith.  Faith,  there- 
fore, is  the  willing,  conscious  bond  of  union 
between  the  soul  and  Christ.  Hence  it  is 
said  that  Christ  dwells  in  our  heart  by  faith ; 
and  that  it  is  not  wo  that  live,  but  Christ 
liveth  in  us,  and  that  the  life  that  we  now 
live  is  by  faith  of  the  Son  of  God,  who  loveth 
us,  aud  gave  himself  for  us.  Hence,  also,  all 
that  is  said  of  those  who  are  iu  Christ  is 
said  of  those  who  believe.  There  is  no  con- 
demnation to  those  who  are  in  Christ  Jesus ; 
but  he  that  believeth  is  not  condemned.  By 
faith  we  are  the  sons  of  God ;  but  those  who 
are  in  Christ  are  sous  and  heirs  according  to 
the  promise.  So  far,  therefore,  as  adults  are 
concerned,  believers,  and  believers  only,  are 
iu  Christ.  But  faith  is  a  fruit  of  the  Spirit, 
and  an  evidence  of  his  indwelling  in  the 
heart;  and  therefore  it  is  that  indwelling 
of  the  Spirit  which  is  the  real  and  efficacious 


140 


CHRISTIAN  UNION. 


bond  of  mi ii  .n  between  us  and  Christ.  From 
this  two  things  follow  :  First,  that  any  man 
in  whom  the  Spirit  dwells  is  in  Christ,  and  is 
a  member  of  his  mystical  body,  which  is  the 
Church ;  and,  second,  that  all  the  normal  or 
legitimate  manifestations  of  the  unity  of  the 
Church  are  duo  to  the  indwelling  of  the 
Spirit ;  in  other  words,  nothing,  whether  in- 
ward or  outward,  is  essential  to  the  unity  of 
the  Church  which  is  not  a  fruit  of  the  Spirit. 
It  is  here  as  with  the  human  frame ;  nothing 
is  essential  to  the  unity  of  the  body  which  is 
not  due  to  the  common  life  which  pervades 
the  whole. 

The  first  manifestation  of  the  unity  of  the 
Church,  considered  as  consisting  of  scattered 
believers,  is  the  unity  of  faith.  The  promise 
of  Christ  that  he  would  send  the  Spirit  to 
guide  his  people  into  the  knowledge  of  the 
truth  was  not  confined  to  the  apostles  or  the 
officers  of  the  Church.  It  was  given  to  all 
believers ;  for  the  Spirit  dwells  in  all,  aud  is 
in  all  the  Spirit  of  truth.  Hence  our  Lord 
says  of  his  people, "  They  shall  all  be  taught 
of  God ;"  and  St.  John  tells  believers,  "  Ye 
have  an  unction  from  the  Holy  One,  and 

know  all  things The  anointing  which  ye 

have  received  of  him  abideth  in  you,  and  ye 
have  no  need  that  any  man  teach  you,  but 
•the  same  anointing  teacheth  you  all  things." 
St.  Paul  says, "  The  natural  man  receiveth 
not  the  things  of  the  Spirit  of  God,  neither 

can  he  know  them but  the  spiritual  man 

discerneth  all  things."  The  Spirit  does  not 
reveal  new  truths,  but  leads  to  the  right  ap- 
prehension and  cordial  belief,  as  the  apostle 
expresses  it,  of"  the  things  freely  given  us  of 
God ;"  i.  e.,  "  of  the  things  clearly  revealed  to 
us  in  his  word."  As  this  inward  teaching  of 
the  Spirit  is  common  to  all  believers,  it  must 
be  the  same  in  all.  So  far,  therefore,  as  they 
are  taught  by  the  Spirit  they  must  agree  in 
doctrine.  The  apostle,  therefore,  says  that 
as  there  is  one  body  and  one  Spirit,  so  there 
is  one  faith,  as  well  as  one  Lord  and  one  bap- 
tism. What  is  thus  taught  in  Scripture  is 
found  to  be  historically  true.  All  Christians 
believe  in  the  Apostles'  Creed ;  they  all  ac- 
cept the  doctrinal  decisions  of  the  first  six 
Ecumenical  Councils  concerning  the  nature 
of  God  and  the  person  of  Christ.  They,  there- 
fore, all  believe  in  the  doctrine  of  the  Trinity 
and  of  the  perfect  Godhead  and  perfect  hu- 
manity of  our  Lord  Jesus  Christ.  They  adore 
him  as  God  manifest  in  the  flesh.  They  re- 
ceive him  as  the  only  Saviour  of  men.  They 
believe  that  he  saves  us  by  his  blood,  by  bear- 
ing our  sins  in  his  own  body  on  the  tree. 
They  believe  that  all  power  in  heaven  and 
earth  is  committed  to  his  hands,  and  that  to 
him  every  knee  shall  bow,  and  every  tongue 
confess  that  he  is  Lord,  to  the  glory  of  God 
the  Father.  They  all  believe  in  the  Holy 
Ghost,  and  the  absolute  necessity  of  regen- 
eration and  sanctification  by  the  power  of 
his  grace.  They  believe  in  the  Holy  Cath- 


olic Church,  the  communion  of  saints,  the 
forgiveness  of  sins,  the  resurrection  of  the 
body,  and  the  life  everlasting.  This  is  the 
confession  that  has  been  made  in  all  ages,  in 
all  languages,  and  in  all  places  where  Chris- 
tians have  existed. 

As,  however,  the  promise  of  God  to  sanc- 
tify his  people  is  not  a  promise  to  render 
them  perfectly  holy  in  this  life,  and  as  his 
promise  to  bless  them  is  not  a  promise  to 
render  them  at  once  perfectly  happy,  so  nei- 
ther is  the  promise  to  lead  them  to  the  knowl- 
edge of  the  truth  a  promise  that  they  shall 
be  perfect  in  knowledge.  Perfect  knowl- 
edge, however,  is  the  condition  of  perfect 
unity.  So  long  as  we  know  in  part,  we  can 
only  believe  in  part.  Perfect  unity  is  the 
goal  toward  which  the  Church  tends.  God 
has  given,  the  ministry  until  we  all  come  to 
the  unity  of  the  faith  and  knowledge  of  the 
Son  of  God.  Diversity  of  doctrine,  therefore, 
among  believers  is  unavoidable  in  our  im- 
perfect state.  In  despite,  however,  of  this 
diversity,  aud  of  the  denunciations  and  sep- 
arations to  which  it  gives  rise,  the  true 
Church  emerges  from  the  dust  and  tumult 
of  conflict  as  one  body,  having  one  Lord,  and 
marshaled  under  one  standard. 

The  second  effect  of  the  indwelling  of  the 
Spirit  by  which  all  believers  are  united  is 
the  sameness  of  their  spiritual  life,  or  relig- 
ious experience.  All  are  convinced  of  their 
guilt  and  of  their  need  of  expiation  by  the 
blood  of  Christ.  All  are  convinced  of  their 
need  of  the  renewing  of  the  Holy  Ghost. 
The  Spirit  convinces  all  of  the  sin  of  not  be- 
lieving in  Christ.  It  convinces  all  of  the 
righteousness  of  his  claim  to  be  the  Son  of 
God,  and  that  he  has  wrought  out  an  ever- 
lasting righteousness  for  us  sinners.  Christ, 
therefore,  is  to  all  the  object  of  adoration, 
love,  confidence,  and  devotion.  Their  relig- 
ious life  is  consequently  the  same.  As  the 
physiology  of  the  Caucasian  is  the  physiol- 
ogy °f  *ue  Mongolian  and  of  the  African, 
so  does  the  Christian  experience  of  one  be- 
liever answer  to  that  of  all  his  fellow-be- 
lievers. Hence  the  people  of  God  of  all 
ages  and  nations  find  in  the  sacred  Scrip- 
tures the  true  expressions  of  their  love,  rev- 
erence, gratitude,  of  their  penitence,  faith, 
and  joy.  Hence  also  the  prayers  and  hymns 
of  one  age  answer  for  all  other  ages.  We 
all  sing  the  hymns  of  the  Greek  fathers,  of 
the  Latin  saints,  of  Luther  aud  Gerhard,  of 
Watts,  Toplady,  and  Wesley.  The  world 
over,  therefore,  the  heart  of  one  Christian 
beats  in  unison  with  that  of  every  other 
Christian. 

Thirdly,  all  believers  are  united  by  their 
mutual  love,  which  the  apostle  calls  the 
bond  of  perfectness.  This  love  is  the  test 
of  discipleship.  "Hereby  shall  all  men 
know  that  ye  are  my  disciples,  if  ye  have 
love  one  to  another."  "  If  a  man  love  not 
his  brother  whom  he  hath  seen,  how  can. 


HODGE :  THE  UNITY  OF  THE  CHURCH. 


141 


he  love  God  whom  he  hath  not  seen  ?"  It 
is  just  as  unnatural,  arid,  according  to  the 
ajiostle,  just  as  impossible,  that  one  Chris- 
tian should  hate  another,  as  that  the  hands 
should  hate  the  feet,  or  the  feet  the  hands. 

This  love  is  founded,  first,  on  congeniality. 
All  believers  have  the  same  views  and  feel- 
ings, the  same  objects  of  affection  and  pur- 
suit. Secondly,  it  is  founded  on  relation- 
ship. They  belong  to  the  same  Master,  who 
has  bought  them  with  his  own  precious 
blood ;  they  are  subjects  of  the  same  King, 
and  children  of  the  same  Father ;  and,  more 
intimately  still,  they  are  related  as  members 
of  the  same  body,  pervaded  by  the  same  life, 
so  that,  if  one  member  suffer,  all  the  mem- 
bers must  suffer  with  it,  and  if  one  member 
rejoice,  all  the  members  must  rejoice  with  it. 

This  brotherly  love  manifests  itself,  first, 
in  mutual  recognition.  Christians  know 
and  acknowledge  each  other  as  brethren. 
Oue  may  be  rich,  the  other  poor ;  one  may 
be  bond,  the  other  free ;  one  a  Greek,  an- 
other a  barbarian ;  one  a  Jew,  another  a 
Gentile.  It  makes  no  difference.  They  are 
all  one  in  Christ  Jesus.  They  instinctively 
love,  honor,  and  confide  in  each  other  as 
children  of  a  common  father.  They  recog- 
nize the  dignity  and  equality  of  being  the 
sons  and  daughters  of  the  Lord  Almighty. 
They  know  that  the  time  is  at  hand  when 
each  and  all  shall  experience  such  an  exal- 
tation in  knowledge,  in  power,  in  holiness 
and  glory,  that  all  earthly  distinctions  will 
be  utterly  obliterated.  When  one  believer, 
therefore,  meets  another  believer,  it  matters 
not  of  what  rank  or  of  what  denomination, 
his  heart  goes  out  to  him,  and  he  can  not 
help  giving  him  the  right  hand  of  fellow- 
ship. He  will  pray  with  him,  worship  with 
him,  and  sit  with  him  at  the  table  of  their 
common  Lord. 

Secondly,  Christian  love  manifests  itself 
in  a  disposition  to  bear  each  other's  burdens 
and  to  supply  each  other's  wants.  The 
Christian  does  not  regard  his  possessions  as 
exclusively  his  own,  but  as  a  trust  commit- 
ted to  him  for  the  benefit  of  his  fellow-be- 
lievers. Christianity,  however,  is  not  agra- 
rianism.  It  enjoins  no  community  of  goods. 
It  teaches  the  two  fundamental  principles 
of  social  science:  first,  if  a  man  will  not 
work,  neither  shall  he  eat ;  and,  secondly, 
those  who  can  not  work  should  be  comfort- 
ably supported  by  those  who  can.  Even  in 
Christian  families  there  is  often  a  great  dis- 
parity in  the  wealth  and  social  position  of 
its  members.  Nevertheless,  they  all  regard 
and  treat  each  other  as  brethren.  Thus  it 
should  be,  and  thus  it  will  be  among  Chris- 
tians. 

So  much  for  the  unity  of  believers  con- 
sidered as  individuals  scattered  over  the 
world.  They  are  one  body  in  Christ  Jesus, 
in  virtue  of  their  union  with  him  by  the 
indwelling  of  his  Spirit.  This  renders  them 


one  in  faith,  one  in  their  inward  spiritual 
life,  and  one  in  love.  They  therefore  rec- 
ognize each  other  as  brethren,  and  are  ever 
ready  to  minister  to  each  other's  wants. 

II.  The  Unity  of  Individual  Churches  or  Con- 
gregations. 

The  Spirit  as  he  dwells  in  the  hearts  of 
believers  is  an  organizing  principle.  As 
men  in  virtue  of  their  social  nature  form 
themselves  into  societies,  so  believers  in  vir- 
tue of  their  new  nature  as  Christians  form 
themselves  into  local  churches  or  congrega- 
tions. Social  organizations  among  men  is 
necessary  for  the  well-being  of  the  individu- 
als of  which  they  are  composed  and  of  the 
society  as  a  whole.  A  hermit  is  only  half  a 
man.  Half  his  nature  lies  dormant.  So  an 
isolated  Christian  is  only  half  a  Christian. 
Believers  have  graces  to  exercise,  exigencies 
to  meet,  and  duties  to  meet  which  demand 
organic  nuiou  with  their  fellow -believers. 
They  have  not  only  a  mutual  interest  in 
each  other's  welfare,  but  a  mutual  responsi- 
bility for  each  other's  conduct.  They  are 
jointly  intrusted  with  their  Master's  honor, 
and  therefore  are  bound  to  decide  who  are 
and  who  are  not  to  be  recognized  as  Chris- 
tians. Being  essentially  a  communion,  they 
have  a  right  to  determine  who  are  to  be 
admitted  to  their  fellowship.  All  this  sup- 
poses external  organization.  In  all  ages, 
therefore,  believers  living  in  the  same  neigh- 
borhood have  united  in  forming  these  local 
churches. 

As  believers  in  their  individual  capacity 
scattered  over  the  world  constitute  the  mys- 
tical body  of  Christ  on  earth,  so  these  local 
churches  constitute  one  body,  which  is  the 
visible  church  in  ejich  successive  a  ge.  These 
churches  are  one  body,  first,  spiritually. 
They  have  one  God  and  Saviour.  They  are 
united  in  one  spiritual  life.  They  have  one 
faith  and  one  baptism.  They  are  all  one 
family.  As  of  old  the  patriarch,  surrounded 
by  his  sons  and  their  families,  constituted 
one  great  household,  so  it  is  now  with  these 
local  churches,  they  are  all  children  of  the 
Father  of  our  Lord  Jesus  Christ,  of  whom 
every  family  in  heaven  and  earth  is  named. 

They  are  one  body  also  externally  and 
visibly.  First,  because  they  recognize  each 
other  as  churches.  This  involves  the  ac- 
knowledgment that  each  has  all  the  pre- 
rogatives and  privileges  which  by  the  law 
of  Christ  belong  to  such  organizations :  the 
right  to  conduct  public  worship,  to  preach 
the  Gospel,  to  administer  the  sacrament,  and 
to  exercise  discipline.  Secondly,  they  are 
one  body,  because  membership  in  one  of 
these  local  churches  involves  the  right  to 
membership  in  every  other  such  church. 
The  terms  of  church  membership  are  pre- 
scribed by  Christ,  and  can  not  be  altered. 
We  are  bound  to  receive  those  whom  he  re- 
ceives. A  Christian  in  one  place  is  a  Chris- 


142 


CHRISTIAN  UNION. 


tian  in  all  other  places,  and  is  entitled  to  bo 
so  regarded  and  treated.  His  prerogatives 
arise  out  of  his  character  and  his  relation  to 
Christ,  and,  therefore,  go  with  him  wherever 
he  goes.  Hence,  in  the  beginning,  a  mem- 
ber of  the  Church  of  Jerusalem  was  of  right 
a  member  of  the  Church  of  Antioch  or  of 
Corinth,  if  he  removed  to  either  of  those 
places.  Of  course,  if  one  church  should  vio- 
late the  law  of  Christ  in  admitting  mem- 
bers whom  it  ought  not  to  admit,  or  in  ex- 
cluding those  whom  it  ought  not  to  exclude, 
other  churches  are  not  bound  to  imitate  them 
in  this  act  of  disobedience.  But  we  are  now 
speaking  of  the  principle,  and  not  of  its  nec- 
essary limitations  iu  practice  owing  to  our 
manifold  infirmities.  The  fact  remains  that 
the  member  of  one  local  Christian  church 
is  normally  and  of  right  a  member  of  every 
other  such  church,  makes  them  all  one  great 
communion,  one  visible  body  here  on  earth. 

Thirdly,  these  separate  congregations  are 
one  church  because  they  are  subject  to  one 
tribunal.  The  various  tribes  and  races  con- 
stituting the  Russian  empire  are  one  body 
because  they  are  all  subject  to  the  same  em- 
peror. In  like  manner,  all  the  scattered  in- 
dividual local  churches  or  congregations  on 
earth  are  one,  not  only  spiritually  because 
they  are  all  subject  to  Christ,  their  invisible 
head  in  heaven,  but  they  are  externally  one 
because  they  are  subject  to  the  same  visible 
authority  on  earth.  During  the  apostolic 
age  that  authority  was  the  apostles.  Their 
jurisdiction  was  not  diocesan,  but  universal, 
because  it  arose  out  of  their  personal  gifts 
of  plenary  knowledge  and  infallibility  in 
teaching.  All  be-lievers  and  all  local  churches 
were  bound  to  submit  to  those  whose  infal- 
libility was  authenticated  by  Christ  himself, 
by  signs  and  wonders,  and  miracles,  and  gifts 
of  the  Holy  Ghost.  We  therefore  find  Paul 
writing  with  full  apostolical  authority  to 
the  Church  in  Rome  before  he  had  ever  vis- 
ited that  city ;  and  Peter  addressed  his  epis- 
tles to  believers  in  Pontns,  Galatia,  Cappa- 
docia,  Asia,  and  Bithyuia,  the  very  centre  of 
Paul's  sphere  of  labor.  All  the  churches  of 
that  age  and  of  every  age  bowred  to  the  de- 
cisions of  the  council  of  Jerusalem. 

Since  the  age  of  the  apostles  the  common 
tribunal  to  which  all  local  churches  are  sub- 
ject is  the  Word  of  God.  They  all  acknowl- 
edge the  Scriptures  to  be  the  infallible  rule 
of  faith  and  practice.  To  this  they  all  pro- 
fess to  bow.  The  ultimate  appeal  of  each 
and  all  is  the  written  Word.  And,  secondly, 
each  local  church  is  subject  to  other  church- 
es to  which  it  has  access.  As  no  individual 
believer  is  isolated  and  independent  of  all 
other  believers,  so  no  individual  church  is  iso- 
lated and  independent  of  all  other  churches. 
The  law  of  Christ  is  that  of  mutual  subjec- 
tion. The  ground  of  that  subjection  is  not 
any  social  compact,  so  that  the  obligation  to 
obedience  is  limited  to  those  who  are  parties 


|  of  such  compact.  The  command  is  that  we 
should  be  subject  to  our  brethren  in  the 
Lord,  because  they  are  our  brethren  and  tbf> 
temples  and  organs  of  the  Holy  Ghost.  It, 
therefore,  refers  to  all  our  brethren.  All 
history  proves  that  this  is  the  law  of  the 
Spirit.  Every  plant  and  animal  has  its  «i- 
8ii8  formatirus,  an  inward  law,  in  virtue  of 
which  it  strives  to  attain  its  normal  condi- 
tion. Adverse  circumstances  may  prevent 
that  form  being  fully  assumed.  Neverthe- 
less, the  effort  always  reveals  itself.  So  it 
is  with  the  Church.  It  has  always  striven 
after  external  unity.  This  gave  rise  to  the 
ideas  of  heresy  and  schism.  It  was  this  ef- 
fort which  led  to  the  convocation  of  provin- 
cial and  ecumenical  councils,  to  whose  decis- 
ions all  individual  churches  were  expected 
to  bow.  At  the  time  of  the  Reformation  the 
same  impulse  revealed  itself.  The  church- 
es then  formed  ran  together  as  naturally  as 
drops  of  quicksilver.  When  this  union  was 
prevented,  it  was  by  unavoidable  hinderances 
which  counteracted  an  obvious  and  admitted 
tendency.  It  can,  therefore,  scarcely  be  doubt- 
ed that  in  the  normal  state  of  the  Church  a 
smaller  part  is  subject  to  a  larger,  and  ev- 
ery part  to  the  whole.  The  fact  that  the 
visible  Churcli  has  never  fully  reached  its 
ideal  form  is  no  proof  either  that  the  ideal 
is  false  or  that  the  actual- is  not  bound  to 
strive  to  be  conformed  to  the  ideal. 

It  need  hardly  be  said  that  the  Bible 
teaches  no  such  doctrine  as  passive  obedi- 
ence either  to  the  Church  or  the  State. 
The  Magna  Charta  of  civil  and  religious 
liberty  given  us  from  heaven  is,  that  it  is 
right  to  obey  God  rather  than  men.  Even 
the  command  to  children  to  obey  their  par- 
ents in  all  things  is  of  necessity  limited  by 
their  allegiance  to  God.  The  obligation  of 
Christians  to  obey  each  other  is  subject 
to  the  same  limitation.  Nevertheless,  one 
church  is  bound  to  be  subject  to  other 
churches  for  the  same  reason  and  in  the 
same  measure  that  a  believer  is  bound  to 
be  subject  to  his  brethren. 

The  idea  of  the  Church,  therefore,  as  pre- 
sented in  the  Bible,  is  that  believers  scatter- 
ed over  the  world  are  a  band  of  brethren, 
children  of  the  same  Father,  subjects  of  the 
same  Lord,  forming  one  body  by  the  indwell- 
ing of  the  Holy  Ghost,  uniting  all  to  Christ 
as  their  living  head.  This  indwelling  of  the 
Spirit  makes  all  believers  one  iu  faith,  one 
in  their  religious  life,  one  in  love.  Hence 
they  acknowledge  each  other  as  brethren, 
and  are  ready  to  bear  each  other's  burden. 
This  is  the  communion  of  saints.  The 
Church,  in  this  view,  is  the  mystical  body 
of  Christ. 

But,  by  a  law  of  the  Spirit,  believers  living 
in  the  same  neighborhood  unite  as  church- 
es for  public  worship  and  for  mutual  watch 
and  care.  These  local  churches  constitute 
one  body,  first,  spiritually,  because  they  are 


HODGE :  THE  UNITY  OF  THE  CHURCH. 


143 


all  subject  to  the  same  Lord,  are  animated 
by  the  same  Holy  Spirit,  profess  the  same 
faith,  and  are  bound  together  by  the  bond 
of  Christian  love.  Secondly,  they  are  ex- 
ternally one  body,  because  they  acknowl- 
edge each  other  as  churches  of  Christ,  and 
recognize  each  other's  members,  ordinances, 
ministers,  and  acts  of  discipline ;  and  also 
because  they  are  all  subject  to  the  same 
tribunal.  That  tribunal,  in  the  beginning, 
was  the  apostles;  now  it  is  the  Bible  and 
the  mind  of  the  Church,  expressed  some- 
times in  one  way  and  sometimes  in  another. 
That  this  normal  state  of  the  Church  has 
never  been  fully  realized  is  to  be  referred 
partly  to  unavoidable  circumstances,  and 
partly  to  the  imperfections  of  believers.  It 
is  natural  that  Christians  speaking  the  same 
language,  and  constituting  one  nationality, 
should  be  more  intimately  united  than  those 
geographically  separated.  It  is  no  violation 
of  the  unity  of  the  Church  that  there  should 
be  an  Episcopal  Church  in  England  and  an- 
other in  America,  partially  independent  of 
each  other.  But  apart  from  such  considera- 
tions, true  Christians  often  conscientiously 
differ  so  much  in  matters  of  doctrine  and  or- 
der as  to  render  their  harmonious  action  in 
the  same  ecclesiastical  organization  impossi- 
ble. Under  such  circumstances  it  is  better 
that  they  should  separate.  Two  can  not 
walk  together  unless  they  be  agreed.  Ex- 
ternal union  is  the  product  and  expression 
of  internal  unity.  The  former  should  not 
be  pressed  beyond  the  latter.  One  of  the 
greatest  evils  in  the  history  of  the  Church 
has  been  the  constantly  recurring  effort  to 
keep  men  united  externally  who  were  iu- 
Avardly  at  variance.  All  forced  unions  are 
to  be  deprecated.  They  lead  on  the  one 
hand  to  hypocrisy,  and  on  the  other  to  per- 
secution. We  may  lament  over  such  differ- 
ences and  endeavor  to  remove  them,  but  as 
long  as  they  exist  they  can  not  be  wisely 
ignored.  In  the  present  state  of  the  world 
denominational  churches  are  therefore  rela- 
tively a  good.  The  practical  question  is, 
What  is  their  relation  to  each  other  ?t  What 
are  their  relative  duties  ?  How  may  their 
real  Tinity  be  manifested  in  the  midst  of 
these  diversities  ? 

III.  Denominational  Churches. 

1.  The  first  duty  of  denominational  churches 
to  each  other  is  mutual  recognition.  As  we 
are  bound  to  recognize  every  Christian  as  a 
Christian,  and  to  treat  him  accordingly ;  so 
we  are  bound  to  recognize  every  church  as  a 
church,  and  to  treat  it  accordingly.  And  as 
we  are  not  at  liberty  to  give  any  definition 
of  a  Christian  which  shall  exclude  any  of  the 
true  followers  of  Christ;  so  we  are  not  at  lib- 
erty to  give  any  definition  of  a  church  which 
shall  exclude  any  body  which  Christ  recog- 
nizes as  a  church  by  his  presence.  A  Chris- 
tian is  a  man  united  to  Christ  by  the  in- 


dwelling of  the  Holy  Spirit ;  and  a  church 
is  a  body  of  men,  really  or  by  a  credible  pro- 
fession, thus  united  to  Christ,  organized  for 
the  purposes  of  Christian  worship,  the  proc- 
lamation of  the  Gospel,  and  for  mutual  watch 
and  care.  If  this  be  the  Scriptural  definition 
of  a  church,  we  are  not  at  liberty  to  alter  it. 
The  Church  consists  of  the  called,  and  every- 
body of  the  called  organized  for  church  pur- 
poses is  a  church,  whether  local  or  denomi- 
national. Everywhere  in  the  New  Testa- 
ment the  word  tic/cXjjo-ia  is  used  as  a  collec- 
tive term  for  the  cXqroi.  As  a  man's  being 
a  Christian  does  not  depend  upon  any  thing 
external;  upon  circumcision  or  uncircumcis- 
ion,  upon  stature,  color,  or  nationality;  so 
whether  a  body  of  Christians  be  a  church 
can  not  depend  upon  any  thing  external. 
A  nation  is  a  nation,  whether  its  government 
be  monarchical,  aristocratic,  or  republican. 
So  a  church  is  a  church,  whatever  be  the 
form  of  its  external  organization.  Nothing 
can  be  essential  to  the  being  of  a  church 
that  is  not  essential  to  the  Christianity  of 
its  members.  "  Ubi  Spiritus  Dei,  ibi  Eccle- 
sia,"  has  in  all  ages  been  a  motto  and  an 
axiom. 

There  is,  indeed,  a  theory  of  the  Church 
which  makes  the  form  every  thing.  Ro- 
mauists  hold  that  Christ  gave  the  apostles 
power  to  communicate  the  Holy  Spirit  by 
the  imposition  of  hands.  This  power  the 
apostles  transmitted  to  their  official  succes- 
sors, and  they  again  to  theirs,  in  unbroken 
succession  to  the  present  day.  It  is  in  the 
line  of  this  succession  that  the  Spirit  oper- 
ates. His  saving  influences  are  imparted  to 
those  only  who  receive  the  sacraments  from 
men  having  the  supernatural  power  to  ren- 
der them  efficacious.  As,  therefore,  no  man 
can  be  a  Christian  who  is  not  subject  to 
those  thus  empowered  to  communicate  the 
Holy  Spirit,  of  course  no  body  of  men  can 
be  a  church  unless  subject  to  these  exclusive 
dispensers  of  salvation.  With  this  theory 
we  have  at  present  nothing  to  do.  A  man 
who  confines  Christianity  to  any  one  exter- 
nal organization  must  shut  his  eyes  to  the 
plainest  facts  of  history  and  of  daily  obser- 
vation. Apart,  therefore,  from  this  Romish 
theory,  it  is  hard  to  see  how,  on  Scriptural 
principles,  we  can  deny  a  body  of  believers, 
in  their  collective  capacity,  to  be  a  church, 
whose  members  as  individuals  we  are  forced 
to  regard  as  true  Christians. 

2.  A  second  duty  which  denominational 
churches  owe  each  other  is  that  of  inter- 
communion. The  terms  of  Christian  fellow- 
ship, as  before  stated,  are  prescribed  by 
Christ,  and  are  the  same  for  all  churches. 
No  particular  church  has  the  right  to  re- 
quire any  thing  as  a  term  of  communion 
which  Christ  has  not  made  a  condition  of 
salvation.  How  can  "we  refuse  to  receive 
those  whom  Christ  has  received?  If  men 
can  not  alter  the  conditions  of  salvation, 


144 


CHRISTIAN  UNION. 


they  can  not  alter  tlio  terms  of  Christian 
communion. 

3.  A    third    duty     of    denominational 
churches  is  the  recognition  of  each  other's 
sacraments  and  orders.     If  the  validity  of 
the  sacraments  depends  on  some  virtue  in 
him  who  administers  them,  then  those  only 
are  valid  which  are  administered  by  those 
having  that  virtue.     But  if  their  validity 
depends,  first,  on  that  being  done  which 
Christ  has  enjoined ;   second,  on  its  being 
done  by  a  church  or  by  its  authority ;  third, 
on  its  being  done  with  the  serious  intention 
of  obeying  the  command  of  Christ,  then  the 
sacraments  of  one  church  are  just  as  valid 
as  those  of  another.     And  by  their  validity 
is  meant  that  they  accomplish  the  ends  for 
which  they  were  appointed. 

So  also  of  orders.  If  ordination  be  the 
communication  of  supernatural  power,  call- 
od  the  grace  of  orders,  by  those  to  whom 
the  ability  to  confer  that  grace  exclusively 
belongs,  then  those  only  are  true  ministers 
who  have  been  ordained  by  that  specially 
gifted  class  of  men.  Or,  if  ordination  be 
the  act  of  conferring  authority,  as  when  the 
executive  of  a  nation  grants  a  commission 
in  the  navy  or  army,  then  no  man  is  a  min- 
ister who  has  not  been  commissioned  by  the 
competent  authority.  But  if,  as  all  Protest- 
ants believe,  the  call  to  the  ministry  is  by 
the  Holy  Ghost,  then  the  office  of  the  Church 
in  the  matter  is  simply  to  authenticate  that 
call,  and  testify  it  to  the  churches.  As  it 
is  the  office  of  the  Church  to  judge  whether 
a  man  has  the  scriptural  qualifications  for 
admission  to  sealing  ordinances,  so  it  is  its 
office  to  decide  whether  he  has  the  qualifica- 
tions for  the  ministry  and  is  called  of  God  to 
preach  the  Gospel.  In  neither  case  does  the 
Church  confer  any  thing.  It  can  no  more 
make  a  man  a  minister  than  it  can  make 
him  a  Christian.  If,  then,  we  recognize  a 
body  of  men  as  Christians,  we  must  recog- 
nize them  in  their  organized  capacity  as 
a  church ;  and  if  we  recognize  them  as  a 
church,  we  must  recognize  their  ministers. 
It  does  not  follow  from  this,  however,  that 
we  are  bound  to  receive  them  into  our  pul- 
pits. We  may  recognize  a  man  as  a  profess- 
or of  mathematics  or  of  music,  and  yet  not 
see  fit  to  set  him  to  teach  our  children. 

4.  A  fourth  duty  of  such  churches  is  that 
of  non-interference.    The  field  is  the  world ; 
and  it  is  wide  enough  for  all.    It  is  a  breach 


of  courtesy  and  of  the  principles  of  church 
unity  for  one  church  to  intrude  into  the 
appropriated  field  of  another  church,  and  to 
spend  its  strength  in  endeavoring  to  prose- 
lyte men  from  one  denomination  of  Chris- 
tians to  another,  instead  of  laboring  to  con- 
vert souls  to  Christ. 

5.  Finally,  there  is  the  duty  of  co-opera- 
tion. In  union  is  strength.  All  Christians 
and  all  churches  are  engaged  in  the  same 
work.  They  are  servants  of  the  same  Mas- 
ter, soldiers  of  the  same  Great  Captain  of 
their  salvation.  If  the  several  corps  of  an 
army  should  refuse  to  co-operate  against 
the  common  foe,  defeat  would  be  the  inevi- 
table result.  What,  then,  is  to  be  expected 
if  the  different  denominations  into  which 
Christians  are  divided  keep  contending  with 
each  other  instead  of  combining  their  efforts 
for  the  overthrow  of  the  kingdom  of  dark- 
ness? 

If  the  principles  above  stated  be  correct, 
it  is  of  the  last  importance  that  they  should 
be  practically  recognized.  If  all  Christians 
really  believe  that  they  constitute  the  mys- 
tical body  of  Christ  on  earth,  they  would 
sympathize  with  each  other  as  readily  as 
the  hands  sympathize  with  the  feet  or  the 
feet  with  the  hands.  If  all  churches,  wheth- 
er local  or  denominational,  believed  that 
they  too  are  one  body  in  Christ  Jesus,  then 
instead  of  conflict  we  should  have  concord  ; 
instead  of  mutual  criminations  we  should 
have  mutual  respect  and  confidence;  in- 
stead of  rivalry  and  opposition  we  should 
have  cordial  co-operation.  The  whole  vis- 
ible Church  Avould  then  present  an  undi- 
vided front  against  infidelity  and  every  form 
of  Antichristian  error,  and  the  sacramental 
host  of  God,  though  divided  into  different 
corps,  would  constitute  one  army  glorious 
and  invincible.* 


*  No  speaker  on  the  floor  of  the  Alliance  was  under- 
stood to  speak  for  any  one  but  himself.  The  Alliance 
was  in  no  wise  committed  by  any  thing  he  said.  Dr. 
Hodge  was  called  upon  to  express  his  views  on  the 
Unity  of  the  Church.  This  he  did  freely,  although 
fully  awauB  that  many  Episcopalians,  Presbyterians, 
Congregationalists,  and  Baptists  dissented  more  or 
less  from  some  of  the  principles  which  he  advanced. 
In  thus  acting,  he  did  what  was  done  by  every  other 
speaker,  from  the  beginning  to  the  end  of  the  meet- 
ings of  the  Alliance.  It  is  with  surprise,  therefore,  as 
well  as  with  regret,  that  he  learns  that  some  of  his 
brethren  were  grieved  by  what  he  said,  especially  on 
the  subject  of  Christian  communion. 


CHRISTIAN  UNION  CONSISTENT  WITH  DENOMINA- 
TIONAL DISTINCTIONS. 

BY  THE  VERY  EEV.  R.  PAYNE  SMITH,  D.D., 

Dean  of  Canterbury. 


Ix  venturing  to  address  the  members  of 
this  great  Alliance  upon  the  subject  of  Chris- 
tian Union,  I  can  not  do  so  without  express- 
ing my  grateful  sense  of  the  privilege  grant- 
ed me  in  being  allowed  to  speak  upon  a 
theme  at  once  so  important  and  so  dear  to 
my  own  heart ;  while  at  the  same  time,  the 
consciousness  of  personal  uuworthiness  and 
inability  to  treat  such,  a  subject  fittingly 
is  painfully  present  to  my  mind.  I  caii 
only  pray  that  He  who  gave  us  the  new 
commandment,  "to  love  one  another,"  will 
strengthen  my  weakness,  and  enable  me  to 
speak  to  his  honor.  It  was  his  own  prayer 
for  his  believing  people, "  That  they  all  may 
be  one :  as  Thou,  Father,  art  in  me  and  I  in 
Thee,  that  they  also  may  be  one  in  us."  And 
this  oneness  of  his  disciples  he  describes  as 
the  proof  which  would  convince  the  world 
of  his  divine  mission,  "  that  the  world  may 
believe  that  Thou  hast  sent  me"  (John 
xvii.,  21). 

Now  in  what  does  this  oneness  consist? 
Does  it  consist  in  uniformity  ?  in  the  accept- 
ance of  a  formula  of  doctrine  fixed  for  us  by 
others  ?  or  even  in  our  speaking  and  believ- 
ing all  of  us  exactly  the  same  thing  ?  Let 
us  look  boldly  at  the  facts,  and  putting  aside 
for  the  present  the  consideration  of  what 
ought  to  be,  let  us  examine  what  really  is. 
We  find,  then,  that  the  great  Christian  com- 
munity is  broken  up  into  many  and  opposing 
sects,  just  in  proportion  as  it  is  in  earnest 
about  Christianity.  Wherever  belief  is  ear- 
nest, and  men  are  alive  to  the  value  of  the 
Gospel,  there  differences  of  opinion  arise, 
and  men  hold  varying  views,  and  debate 
them.  And  this  too  often  they  do  with  bit- 
terness. The  bitterness  with  which  dis- 
putes have  been  carried  on  among  Christians 
has  passed  into  a  very  by-word.  Even  in 
the  present  day,  there  are  those  who  consider 
differences  of  belief  from  their  own  standard 
of  orthodoxy  as  worse,  and  more  criminal, 
than  the  violation  of  the  moral  law.  Our 
Lord  forewarned  us  of  all  this ;  he  came, 
he  said,  to  place  a  sword  in  men's  hands ; 
and  men  have  known  only  too  well  how  to 
wield  it.  He  came  to  make  a  man's  foes 
those  of  his  own  household :  and  men,  in 
exact  accordance  with  this  prophecy,  have 
deemed  that  they  were  obeying  a  higher 
10 


law  in  violating  the  fifth  commandment, 
and  rejecting  all  that  express  teaching  of 
our  religion  which  has  made  gentleness, 
love,  peace,  mildness,  the  proper  fruit  of  the 
Spirit,  and  the  seal  and  earnest  of  the  work 
of  divine  grace  upon  our  hearts. 

And  this  bitterness  has  in  no  way  less- 
ened the  tendency  of  men  to  stand  apart, 
but,  on  the  contrary,  has  aggravated  it. 
Every  controversy  has  left  its  mark  on  the 
Church  in  the  way  of  some  new  schism  and 
division.  Even  if  we  turn  back  to  primi- 
tive times,  to  those  great  Ecumenical  Coun- 
cils which  have  so  important  an  influence 
upon  us,  and  whose  office,  as  it  seems  to  us, 
was  to  settle  the  main  outlines  of  the  Chris- 
tian faith,  yet  every  one  of  them  was  mark- 
ed also  by  the  founding  of  a  great  heresy. 
The  minority  in  no  single  instance  gave  way. 
The  numerous  vote,  the  loud  acclamation  of 
the  orthodox  party,  and  the  weight  of  im- 
perial authority,  carried  no  conviction  to  the 
minds  of  the  rest.  So  far  from  settling  the 
dispute,  it  was  constantly  fought  out  after- 
ward in  the  cities  with  sword  and  spear; 
and  Church  History  is  full  of  records  of  the 
bloodshed  and  persecution,  the  fraud  and 
duplicity,  the  knavery  and  violence  with 
which  the  rival  parties  struggled,  not  mere- 
ly to  uphold  their  own  views,  but  to  destroy 
the  opposite  view  and  its  maintaiuers.  I 
know  of  no  greater  authority  in  the  Church 
than  that  of  the  early  councils ;  and  yet  at 
the  time  they  carried  with  them  no  persua- 
siveness. Men  fearlessly  maintained  their 
own  views  against  their  whole  weight  and 
influence,  and  would  yield  their  opinions 
neither  to  numbers,  nor  authority,  nor  pow- 
er. It  is  a  sign  of  better  things  in  our  own 
day,  that  the  last  so-called  Ecumenical  Coun- 
cil, though  it  has  caused  a  schism,  is  at  all 
events  only  met  by  fair  argument  and  an 
appeal  to  history. 

In  fact,  the  whole  history  of  the  Church  is 
that  of  a  struggle,  not  only  against  sin,  and 
ignorance,  and  unbelief  outside  of  her,  but 
also  for  supremacy  of  doctrine  within.  The 
outward  struggle  is  that  which  ennobles 
Christianity.  Had  it  not  battled  for  holi- 
ness, and  purity,  and  light  with  the  dark 
outer  world,  there  would  have  been  no  bright 
side,  no  triumphs  of  the  faith,  nothing  on 


14G 


CHRISTIAN  UNION. 


which  the  Christian  conscience  could  have 
rested  content.  But  now,  while  there  is  a 
deep  feeling  of  disappointment  often  pres- 
ent in  onr  minds  at  the  thought  that  Chris- 
tianity has  not  accomplished  all  that  we 
could  have  hoped,  yet  there  is  also  much  to 
comfort  us. 

It  has  not  accomplished  as  much  as  we 
might  have  expected;  it  is  not  yet  triumph- 
ant ;  it  still  has  to  struggle  against  ration- 
alism and  superstition;  and  yet  a  broad 
line  of  demarcation  does  separate  the  mod- 
ern from  the  ancient  world,  and  that  line 
was  drawn  by  Christ.  His  words  have  been 
a  light,  not  merely  illuminating  many  an 
individual  conscience, but  also  shedding  its 
beams  broadcast  over  the  whole  world,  and 
making  it  feel  something  of  the  warm  and 
purifying  glow  of  holy  love,  of  self-denial, 
of  high  hope,  and  heavenly  devotion.  If  the 
teaching  of  Christ  has  not  gained  so  com- 
plete an  ascendency  over  the  human  mind 
as  we  might  have  hoped,  yet  its  influence 
has  been  great,  and  we  owe  to  it  whatever 
is  best,  and  most  permanent  and  true  in 
modern  civilization.  But  when  we  turn  to 
its  internal  history,  to  the  manner  in  which 
rival  parties  have  struggled  within  it  for 
supremacy,  to  the  unchristian  arts  they  have 
used,  the  manner  in  which  all  things  have 
been  held  lawful  against  those  who  put  an 
unorthodox  interpretation  upon  the  words 
of  Holy  Scripture,  the  persecutions  inflicted 
on  men  who  were  acting  upon  conscientious 
convictions,  even  if  mistaken,  it  is  with  a 
deep  sense  of  shame  that  one  reflects  upon 
the  evil  uses  to  which  men  have  put  God's 
best  and  greatest  gift. 

It  is  the  object  of  the  Evangelical  Alli- 
ance to  soften  and  abate  this  internal  strug- 
gle, that  we  may  combine  in  a  more  united 
attack  upon  Christ's  enemies  outside  the 
Church.  We  waste  our  strength  too  much 
now  in  debating  matters,  important  it  may 
be,  and  necessary  for  the  full  manifestation 
of  the  faith,  yet  not  essential  -to  the  salva- 
tion of  the  soul;  and  meanwhile,  unbelief 
stalks  abroad  in  growing  strength,  and  the 
masses  are  left  the  prey  of  sin  and  ignorance. 
Poverty  and  misery  herd  together  close  by 
the  abodes  of  luxury ;  and  error  and  hea- 
thenism still  possess  lands  which  are  the 
heritage  of  the  Son  of  God.  It  is  to  this 
battle  that  the  Evangelical  Alliance  calls 
us,  and  bids  us  unite  our  strength,  not  re- 
quiring ns  to  abandon  our  beliefs,  or  be  in- 
different about  the  truth,  but  pointing  ns 
to  a  nobler  struggle,  which  is  our  common 
duty,  and  in  which  we  may  all  take  our 
part,  and  praying  us,  for  the  sake  of  our 
common  Lord,  to  hold  our  varying  views 
in  the  bond  of  love.  For,  whether  we  ap- 
prove of  it  or  not,  evidently  a  diversity  of 
opinions  is  a  necessity  of  man's  present  con- 
dition— I  say  of  man's  present  condition,  be- 
cause I  regard  this  diversity  of  opinion  as 


belonging  only  to  our  present  fallen  and  im- 
perfect state.  I  can  not  imagine  the  exist- 
ence of  dispntings  and  controversies,  or 
even  of  differences  of  opinion,  in  a  perfect 
state.  In  heaven  there  may  be  degrees  of 
knowledge,  and  men  may  advance  from  one 
height  of  contemplation  to  another,  but 
whatever  they  know  they  will  know  accu- 
rately. There  can  not  be  there  that  uncer- 
tainty and  confusion  of  thought,  and  that 
iudefiniteuess  of  language,  which  so  clouds 
all  our  ideas  and  speculations  now.  But  we 
are  not  living  in  a  perfect  state,  and  in  our 
present  state  diversity  seems  to  be  the  law 
of  nature.  Underneath  the  outward  diver- 
sity of  nature  there  are,  I  grant,  grand  gen- 
eral lines,  and  a  real  and  substantial  uniform- 
ity ;  yet  the  individual  has  always  his  own 
points  of  difference.  Though  working  upon 
typical  forms,  yet  nature  bestows  something 
of  individuality  npon  every  one  of  its  units. 
And  civilization  tends  to  increase  this  di- 
vergency. In  a  wild  state  the  animals  are 
very  similar  to  one  another.  No  sooner  do 
we  domesticate  them  than  differences  of  size 
and  color  develop  themselves,  and  we  find, 
also,  that  every  one  has  its  own  peculiar 
character  and  disposition.  Probably  there 
is  a  similar  difference  in  wild  animals,  only 
we  have  not  the  same  opportunities  of  study- 
ing them.  But  at  all  events,  God's  works  in 
nature  are  marked  not  by  uniformity,  but 
by  variety.  The  charm  of  the  landscape 
consists  in  its  endless  diversity  of  form  and 
color.  The  changing  conditions  of  the  at- 
mosphere make  no  two  days  alike.  Music 
is  not  the  monotony  pf  one  sound,  but  the 
harmonizing  of  many,  and  in  it  discords 
sometimes  add  to  the  exquisite  charm  of 
the  whole.  The  pure  light  \vhich  gilds  the 
whole  world  around  is  not  a  colorless,  nor 
even  a  one-colored  ray,  but  is  the  blending 
of  all  the  prismatic  hues;  and  every  sub- 
stance absorbs  aud  rejects  these  hues  in 
varying  degrees,  and  hence  the  manifold 
beauty  which  surrounds  us  on  every  side. 
Search  where  we  will,  every  climate  has  its 
own  varieties  of  flora  and  fauna,  its  own  pe- 
culiarities of  soil  and  vegetation,  its  own 
development  of  life.  And  the  geologist  has 
disclosed  to  us  vast  ages  of  by-gone  time 
teeming  with  active  existence — animals  as 
perfect  as  those  of  the  present  day,  and  as 
well  fitted  to  perform  their  part  in  the  world's 
great  drama,  aud  yet  filling  us  with  aston- 
ishment as  we  notice  how  unlike  they  are 
to  every  thing  which  exists  now.  And  the 
vast  and  gigantic  vegetation  among  which 
they  roamed  is  of  forms  which,  if  they  now 
exist  at  all,  do  so  only  in  dwarfed  and  stunt- 
ed growth.  Wherever  we  look  we  feel  that 
variety  is  the  law  of  creation.  In  the  words 
of  the  Psalmist,  we  exclaim,  "  O  Lord,  how 
manifold  are  thy  works!  in  wisdom  hast 
thou  made  them  all!  the  earth  is  full  of 
thy  riches"  (Psa.  civ., 24). 


R.  P.  SMITH:  CHRISTIAN  UNION  AND  DENOMINATIONAL  DISTINCTIONS.  147 


And  when  we  rise  up  to  man,  this  raani- 
folduess  takes  a  higher  form,  iu  proportion 
to  his  nobler  gifts.  His  animal  nature  is 
as  much  influenced  by  differences  of  soil  and 
food  and  climate  and  modes  of  living  as 
that  of  any  of  the  inferior  creatures.  Bnt 
civilization  has  upon  him  a  tenfold  greater 
effect  than  domestication  has  upon  them, 
because  it  develops  tastes  and  pleasures  and 
motives  and  objects  of  pursuit  of  a  men- 
tal kind,  and  rising,  therefore,  to  a  far  high- 
er elevation  than  the  gifts  of  mere  physical 
existence. 

At  the  very  entrance  of  life  we  start,  each 
one,  with  varying  bodily  and  mental  powers, 
and  all  through  life  the  very  greatness  of  our 
endowments  obliges  us  constantly  to  choose. 
For  man  is  a  moral  agent.  He  is  not  sway- 
ed by  instincts  which  leave  the  individual 
but  scant  room  for  free  play.  Reason  and 
will  are  the  two  powers  which  regulate  his 
conduct,  the  latter  deciding  for  him  what  he 
will  be  and  what  ho  will  choose  for  himself 
as  his  objects  of  pursuit,  while  reason  directs 
him  iu  his  selection  of  the  means  whereby  he 
can  attain  to  the  ends  which  he  covets.  But 
reason  is  full  of  diversity  in  its  operations. 
Instinct  has  but  one  way  of  accomplishing 
its  object,  and  that  way  always  the  same,  al- 
ways successful,  but  never  improving.  Rea- 
son is  tentative :  it  tries  and  fails ;  and  tries 
again,  and  improves  its  methods  and  suc- 
ceeds partially,  and  so  advances  indefinitely 
onward,  and,  it  may  be,  at  times  falls  back, 
but  never  becomes  perfect.  The  lower  gift 
of  instinct  is  perfect  in  its  lower  field,  and 
produces  uniformity.  Reason  is  ever  diver- 
sified in  its  operations,  never  perfect,  always 
incomplete,  aiming  at  more  than  it  can  ac- 
complish, struggling  perpetually  forward, 
but  always  beset  with  imperfection. 

Add  that  reason  and  will  are  themselves 
modified  by  a  thousand  other  things.  Man 
has  other  great  gifts;  his  imagination,  his 
memory,  his  affections,  his  conscience,  all  in- 
fluence his  development.  You,  in  this  New 
World,  can  not  but  be  powerfully  affected 
by  that  which  so  strikes  a  stranger  coming 
among  you — the  vastness  of  your  country. 
You  have  a  mighty  continent  to  conquer,  and  [ 
within  the  memory  of  living  men  you  have 
peopled  regions  compared  with  which  our 
land  is  in  size  but  as  nothing.  We  in  the  Old 
World  are  influenced  by  its  memories.  One 
who,  like  myself,  ministers  where  a  church 
stood  when  the  Romans  were  masters  of  Brit- 
ain ;  where  again,  on  Ethelbert's  conversion, 
the  Saxons  again  raised  a  temple  to  God's  ' 
honor,  and  where  the  very  building  iu  which  | 
we  meet  daily  for  prayer  was  completed  in  all ; 
substantial  points  as  it  stands  now,  just  sev- 
en hundred  years  ago,  can  not  but  look  back 
sometimes  and  muse  on  by-gone  times.  You 
look  forward ;  the  grand  future  before  you 
fills  you  with  anxiety  to  realize  it ;  yon  are  all 
in  haste,  and  eager  for  its  accomplishment; 


and  the  sense  of  a  mighty  destiny  before  you 
urges  you  forever  on.  We  dwell  more  among 
thoughts  of  the  past,  and  are  less  keen,  there- 
fore— a  little  moss-grown,  perhaps,  with  more 
of  what  we  call  repose;  you,  it  may  be,  give  it 
a  worse  name.  We,  too,  have  some  energy ; 
but  both  nations — you  on  this  side  of  the 
Atlantic,  and  we  on  the  other  —  are  influ- 
enced very  powerfully  by  the  conditions  un- 
der which  we  live. 

There  is  much  besides  which  tells  upon  us. 
How  mightily  is  our  mind  affected  by  the 
writings  of  the  great  authors  whose  works 
are  our  daily  companions !  And,  sharing  in 
the  same  literature,  this  is  an  influence  which 
brings  the  Old  and  New  Worlds  together  and 
unites  us.  And  then  there  is  the  current 
literature  of  the  age,  the  newspapers  and 
magazines ;  and,  still  more,  the  general  tone 
of  conversation  around  us.  Add,  too,  that  the 
past  still  sways  the  present.  We  are  what 
.we  are  because  of  what  our  fathers  did  and 
said ;  and  because  of  the  choice  made  for 
good  and  for  evil  by  the  generations  that 
preceded  us.  They  have  settled  for  us  what 
were  the  conditions  under  which  we  were 
brought  up,  just  as  we  are  settling  and  mod- 
ifying those  conditions  for  the  generations 
to  couie.  It  is  a  vast  aggregate  that  togeth- 
er forms  national  and  individual  character, 
and  every  part  of  it  is  perpetually  in  mo- 
tion, acting  and  reacting  upon  every  other 
part.  And  in  this  vast,  slowly -changing 
mass,  we  individuals  have  our  allotted  place, 
powerfully  influenced  by  it,  ourselves  influ- 
encing it  more  or  less  according  to  our 
strength  of  character,  doing  either  good  or 
harm,  lowering  or  raising  the  general  tone, 
making  it  more  Christian  or  more  worldly, 
yet  no  two  of  us  exactly  in  the  same  place, 
no  two  of  us  exactly  shaped  alike,  each 
molded  by  different  influences,  or  by  the  same 
influences  to  a  varying  degree,  each  certain- 
ly acted  upon  by  the  spirit  of  our  age,  each 
powerfully,  I  trust,  influenced  by  Christian- 
ity, and  yet  with  our  points  of  divergence, 
and  forming  a  different  estimate,  if  not  of 
the  main  essentials  of  Christianity,  yet  of 
much  that  is  very  important  and  precious  in 
its  bearings  and  doctrines. 

But  here  comes  the  very  important  ques- 
tion, Is  this  diversity  right  ?  Ought  we  to 
be  content  thus  to  differ  ?  I  answer  that  it 
is  not  right  absolutely  and  in  itself,  and  that 
we  ought  not  to  be  content  with  it.  It  is 
an  imperfection  of  our  present  state,  and  we 
ought  not  to  be  content  with  an  imperfec- 
tion. On  matters  of  such  eternal  conse- 
quence as  the  truths  of  revelation,  it  is  a 
necessity  that  we  must  have  opinions,  views, 
ideas.  I  do  not  shrink  even  from  the  unpop- 
ular word  dogma.  I  do  not  see  how  Chris- 
tianity can  exist  without  dogma ;  for  a  dog- 
ma is  but  an  intellectual  conception  of  a 
truth,  a  form  and  mode  of  embodying  and 
expressing  it.  And  necessarily  there  must  be 


148 


CHRISTIAN  UNION. 


various  degrees  of  correctness  in  these  ideas 
and  conceptions  of  what  the  Bible  teaches 
us.  Some  must  be  more,  some  less  true ; 
some  more  complete,  others  deficient,  and 
falling  short  of  the  full  meaning  of  the  in- 
spired teaching.  I  know  of  no  greater  mis- 
fortune that  could  befall  the  Christian  world 
than  that  we  should  become  indifferent  to 
truth,  or  suppose  that  there  was  no  such 
thing  as  truth,  or  that  we  ought  not  to  pur- 
sue it  and  make  sacrifices  for  it,  and  if  need 
be  suffer  for  it.  To  love  truth  and  follow  it 
for  its  own  sake  is  to  add  fresh  nobleness  to 
life ;  and  ill  would  it  be  for  us  if  we  were 
careless  about  it,  or  imagined  that  it  was  of 
small  consequence  whether  we  attained  to 
truth  or  not.  Such  a  cancer  of  indifference 
would  eat  far  into  the  heart  of  every  better 
and  higher  resolve.  Truth  is  most  precious, 
even  if  it  were  only  because  our  beliefs  af- 
fect our  conduct,  and  that  so  far  as  we  fall 
short  of  the  truth,  so  far  will  our  motives 
also  be  debased  by  the  admixture  of  error 
in  what  we  hold.  But  besides  this,  truth 
is  precious  for  its  own  sake.  If  the  stu- 
dent of  science  or  philosophy  or  morals 
thinks  his  life  well  spent  if  he  can  add  to 
man's  heritage  of  knowledge,  surely  we  who 
claim  to  have  had  truths  revealed  to  us  from 
heaven  can  justify  our  belief  in  such  a  reve- 
lation only  by  the  genuine  conviction  that 
the  knowledge  of  those  truths  was  necessa- 
ry for  us  here  upon  earth.  And  is  not  the 
possession  of  truth  part  of  our  promised  per- 
fection in  the  world  to  come  ?  Are  we  not 
told  that  there  we  are  to  know  as  also  we 
are  known  ? 

Truth,  therefore,  we  must  love  and  follow 
after  and  cherish;  and  lest  we  should  fall 
short  of  it,  we  must  earnestly  search  into 
ourselves,  that  no  selfish  motive,  no  pride  of 
reasoning,  no  unwillingness  to  be  convinced, 
may  shut  us  out  from  attaining  to  it.  But 
what  is  to  be  our  attitude  toward  those  who 
differ  from  us?  Now  if  there  is  any  reason- 
ableness in  what  I  hcive  stated,  divergence 
of  opinion  is  a  necessary  condition  of  our 
present  imperfection.  We  are  here,  first  of 
all,  in  a  state  of  progress.  "We  have  not 
yet  attained,  neither  are  we  already  per- 
fect," and  all,  therefore,  that  we  can  do  is 
"  to  follow  after,  if  that  we  may  apprehend 
that  for  which  also  we  are  apprehended  of 
Christ  Jesus  "  (Phil,  iii.,  12).  But  surely,  if 
thus  the  knowledge  of  us  all  is  imperfect ; 
if  our  state  is  not  one  of  having  attained, 
hut  one  of  progress ;  if  at  most  we  are  but 
feelers  and  seekers  after  God,  our  feelings 
toward  those  who  with  us  are  also  seekers 
after  God  should  be  one  not  of  hostility, 
but  of  love.  We  fall  far  short  ourselves  of 
what  we  would  gladly  know ;  and  if  they 
fall  short  too,  or  hold  what  we  do  not  hold, 
and  reject  what  we  accept,  yet  they  are  en- 
gaged in  the  same  quest  as  ourselves,  and 
this  very  diversity  is  a  necessary  condition 


of  our  general  advance.  Look  where  you 
will,  truth  and  the  Bible  are  nowhere  val- 
ued, except  where  there  is  discussion  and 
free  debate  and  iuquiry  about  them.  Go 
where  there  is  that  mechanical  unity  which 
some  men  profess  to  value  so  much,  where 
it  is  the  Church's  business  to  settle  what  is 
the  faith,  and  you  will  find  all  practical  in- 
terest in  it  gone.  Wherever  men  value  the 
Bible,  they  will  search  it  for  themselves,  will 
form  diverse  opinions  about  it,  will  discuss 
it,  and  often,  it  may  be,  misunderstand  and 
misuse  it.  So  all  things  capable  of  being 
used  are  capable  of  being  misused.  It  is 
the  necessary  result  of  the  imperfection  of 
our  nature.  But  where  there  is  no  contro- 
versy and  divergence  of  opinion,  it  is  be- 
cause the  truths  of  revelation  are  put  aside, 
out  of  the  way,  apart  from  man's  practical 
life.  Unless  we  would  wish  the  Holy  Scrip- 
tures thus  to  be  as  though  they  existed  not, 
we  may  well  be  content  with  the  existence 
of  rival  denominations.  They  serve  often 
to  keep  great  truths  from  being  practically 
lost  and  omitted  from  our  view ;  they  in- 
fluence minds  which  otherwise  might  never 
be  reached ;  they  are  the  luxuriant,  even 
if  irregular,  outgrowth  of  vigorous  life,  and 
without  them  there  would  be  the  torpor  of 
death. 

But  there  is  a  far  graver  consideration,  and 
one  that  may  make  us  look  very  seriously  at 
this  divergence  of  opinion,  namely,  that  it 
is  the  result  of  our  being  responsible  agents. 
We  are  accountable  to  God  for  what  we  be- 
lieve as  well  as  for  what  we  do.  But  respon- 
sibility implies  freedom.  We  are  not  respon- 
sible for  necessary  acts,  or  acts  done  under 
compulsion.  To  reward  or  punish  for  deeds 
done  without  choice  on  our  parts  would  be 
contrary  to  our  first  ideas  of  justice.  So 
would  it  be  to  reward  or  punish  for  doctrines 
received  at  the  dictation  of  others.  There 
would  be  obedience  and  disobedience,  noth- 
ing more.  And  if  the  belief  imposed  upon 
us  were  ruinous  to  our  spiritual  or  mor- 
al nature,  we  should  not  be  answerable  for 
that  result ;  the  responsibility  Avould  rest 
upon  the  Church.  But  if  it  matters  what 
we  hold,  and  we  are  accountable  to  God  for 
our  belief,  we  must  be  free ;  and  if  we  arc 
free,  then  too  we  are  responsible.  But  sure- 
ly any  one  who  felt  his  own  responsibility 
would  be  slow  and  unwilling  to  judge  other 
people.  Right  beliefs  there  are,  and  wrong 
beliefs ;  and  we  must  answer  to  God  for  the 
measure  of  truth  we  attain  to,  or  fail  in  at- 
taining to,  according  to  the  opportunities 
vouchsafed  us.  And  no  one  who  felt  this 
responsibility  would  willingly  judge  another. 
Ourselves  standing  at  the  bar,  conscious  of 
the  many  prejudices  which  have  kept  us 
away  from  the  full  light,  sorrowing  over  the 
blindness  of  our  passions  and  the  narrowness 
of  our  intellects,  and  the  one-sidedness  of  our 
reasons,  and  the  many  un worthinesses  which 


R.  P.  SMITH :  CHRISTIAN  UNION  AND  DENOMINATIONAL  DISTINCTIONS.  149 


have  made  our  beliefs  so  tangled  a  web  of 
truth  aud  falseness,  well  might  we  shrink 
from  judging  others.  They,  it  may  be,  have 
sought  the  light  more  prayerfully  and  ear- 
nestly than  we  have;  or,  if  not,  yet  our 
searching  has  been  too  imperfect  to  justify 
us  in  pronouncing  their  sentence.  It  is  the 
judge  who  pronounces  sentence,  not  any  of 
those  who  together  are  standing  at  the  bar ; 
and  I  feel  sure  that  every  one  Avho  really  felt 
how  grave  is  the  duty  of  searching  out  God's 
truth  and  living  by  it,  would  be  so  humbled 
by  the  sense  of  his  own  shortcomings  that 
he  would  thankfully  leave  to  that  God  on 
whose  mercy  he  himself  depended  the  task 
of  inquiring  how  far  others  had  made  better 
or  worse  use  than  himself  of  God's  gifts. 

I  have  in  this  but  briefly  sketched  some 
considerations  which  may  make  us  tolerant 
of  the  divided  state  of  opinion  existing  at 
the  present  day.  I  have  shown  that  it  nec- 
essarily belongs  to  an  imperfect  state ;  that 
it  is  essential  to  progress ;  and  that  it  must 
exist  wherever  the  Bible  is  valued  and  stud- 
ied. Great  activity  in  religious  thought  can 
not  but  lead  to  conflicting  views  and  inter- 
pretations ;  aud  these,  I  have  shown,  are  ab- 
solutely and  in  themselves  an  evil,  though 
one  of  those  infirmities  with  which  we  are 
now  necessarily  beset.  I  should  have  been 
glad,  also,  to  have  shown  how  much  of  essen- 
tial unity  underlies  our  diversities,  how  much 
we  hold  in  common,  how  many  of  the  things 
that  keep  us  apart  are  disputes  on.  matters 
of  mere  temporary  and  secondary  interest, 
and  how  the  work  of  the  Holy  Spirit  on  the 
believer's  own  heart  can  not  but  bind  him 
closely  to  all  those  who  love  the  Lord  Jesus 


Christ  in  sincerity.  But  the  full  and  proper 
treatment  of  these  subjects  belongs  to  oth- 
ers, while  it  was  allotted  to  me  rather  to 
show  that  Christian  unity  does  not  involve 
the  sacrifice,  on  our  part,  of  what  we  suppose 
to  bo  truth,  but  the  holding  our  views  in  a 
more  Christian  way.  We  too  often  push 
our  points  of  difference  into  extreme  prom- 
inence; we  magnify  those  things  whereon  we 
disagree,  and  regard  as  nothing  the  vast  com- 
mon ground  whereon  we  are  united.  And 
then  we  suppose  that  all  that  we  hold  is  ab- 
solutely certain.  We  are  very  hard  upon 
the  Pope,  and  yet  there  are  but  few  men 
who  have  sense  enough  practically  to  doubt 
their  own  infallibility.  And  so,  firmly  be- 
lieving in  ourselves,  we  condemn  all  those 
who  differ  from  us.  All  this  is  natural,  but 
wrong ;  and  we  shall  rise  above  it  only  by 
drawing  nearer  to  Christ.  He  told  his  dis- 
ciples that  they  knew  not  of  what  spirit  they 
were;  and  still  we  are  of  the  spirit  of  the  dis- 
ciples rather  than  of  that  of  the  Master.  But 
by  loving  and  meditating  more  upon  the 
Master,  we  shall  learn  more  of  his  gentle- 
ness, and  so  may  his  prayer  be  fulfilled  that 
we  all  may  be  one  in  him ;  and  without  giv- 
ing up  our  beliefs,  without  parting  with  one 
jot  or  tittle  of  what  we  regard  as  truth,  may 
yet  feel  that  too  heavy  a  responsibility  rests 
upon  ourselves  for  us  to  condemn  others;  and 
that  after  all  the  true  faith  of  Christ,  however 
ready  it  may  be  to  suffer  for  him,  and  to  fol- 
low him  withersoever  he  leadeth,  will  yet  be 
a  faith  that  worketh  by  love,  that  love  which 
alone  can  heal  our  divisions,  because  it  is  the 
very  "  bond  of  peace,"  and  the  fulfillment  of 
the  whole  law. 


SPIRITUAL  UNITY  NOT  ORGANIC  UNION. 


BY  THE  Rx.  REV.  GREGORY  T.  BEDELL,  D.D., 

Bishop  of  the  Diocese  of  the  Protestant  Episcopal  Church  in  Ohio. 


.  AN  allusion  was  made  yesterday  to  the 
death  of  the  venerable  and  beloved  Bishop 
M'llvaine,  which  deeply  touched  me.  The 
President  will  permit  me,  while  thanking 
him  for  the  brotherly  words,  to  respond  for 
a  moment  before  entering  on  the  duly  ap- 
pointed subject.  In  the  late  Bishop  of  Ohio 
the  Evangelical  Alliance  possessed  a  most 
devoted  and  conscientious  friend,  and  the 
cause  of  evangelical  truth  a  consistent,  ear- 
nest, loving,  eloquent  advocate.  Bishop 
M'llvaine  had  looked  forward  to  this  meet- 
ing with  fervent  hopefulness,  believing  that 
such  a  communion  of  souls  kindred  in  the 
faith,  and  such  a  comparison  of  minds  dedi- 
cated to  the  one  cause  of  the  Gospel,  must 
by  God's  blessing  result  in  clearer  compre- 
hension of  the  great  religious  problems  of 
the  age,  and  the  knitting  closer  of  bonds  of 
Christian  fellowship.  He  realizes  now  what 
we  are  only  praying  for.  In  his  absence  I 
may  speak  of  him,  but  will  employ  the  fitting 
•words  of  his  intimate  associate,  like-minded, 
Bishop  Lee,  of  Delaware,  which,  with  many 
whom  I  am  privileged  to  address  to-day,  will 
have  a  decided  weight. 

"  While  thoroughly  and  affectionately  at- 
tached to  his  own  church,  he  delighted  to 
recognize  in  others  the  fruits  of  the  Holy 
Spirit  and  the  manifestations  of  the  mind 
which  was  in  Christ  Jesus.  To  acknowledge 
those  who  held  the  great  foundation  truths 
of  the  Gospel  as  brethren  was  to  his  mind  no 
compromise  of  his  principles.  His  supreme 
loyalty  was  given  to  Jesus,  the  Master  of 
the  House,  and  he  embraced  in  his  frater- 
nal sympathies  all  who  bore  the  image  of 

Christ Diverse  and,  in  many  instances, 

antagonistic  tendencies  were  in  him  happily 
combined.  His  clear,  comprehensive,  and 
powerful  intellect  was  softened  by  deep  ten- 
derness. His  constitutional  warmth  and  vi- 
vacity were  tempered  and  restrained  by  calm 
judgment  and  thorough  self-control.  His 
strong,  earnest  convictions  were  so  regu- 
lated by  charity  as  not  to  run  into  bitterness 
or  bigotry.  This  native  nobility  was  united 
with  entire  simplicity  and  unaffected  affa- 
bility. He  was  a  scholar  without  pedantry, 
and  an  orator  without  being  declamatory. 
The  intellectual  and  emotional,  the  medita- 
tive and  the  energetic,  the  intrepid  and  the 
considerate,  were  in  beautiful  combination. 
The  fervor  of  his  piety  did  not  unfit  him  for 


the  busy  scenes  of  life,  and  lively  interest  in 
what  transpired  around  him  ;  and  efficient 
discharge  of  various  duties  did  not  damage 
the  inner  life  of  faith  and  communion  with 
God." — [Sermon  of  Bishop  Lee,  of  Delaware, 
on  the  death  of  Bishop  M'llvaine,  of  Ohio.] 
Those  who  knew  Bishop  M'llvaine  rec- 
ognize the  portrait ;  and  those  who  did  not, 
remembering  these  characteristic  delinea- 
tions, will  be  prepared  to  recognize  him  when 
they  shall  meet  him  in  the  general  assembly 
and  Church  of  the  first-born,  which  are  writ- 
ten in  heaven. 

With  this  brief  tribute  of  respect  to  the 
memory  of  one  of  the  greatest  men  of  this 
generation,  and  of  affectionate  friendship,  I 
pass  to  the  subject  assigned  to  me  by  the 
Committee:  "CHRISTIAN  UNION  CONSISTENT 
WITH  DENOMINATIONAL  DISTINCTIONS." 

Protestantism  has  often  been  proclaimed 
a  failure,  merely  because  Protestants  differ 
in  methods  of  administration.  Christian 
unity  is  often  declared  to  be  impossible,  and 
any  real  expression  of  brotherhood  among 
God's  children  by  faith  in  Christ  Jesns  im- 
practicable, where  denominational  distinc- 
tions are  conscientiously  maintained.  Ene- 
mies of  Christianity  are  constantly  ringing 
the  changes  on  the  divisions  of  Christendom. 
It  is  time  that  Evangelical  Christians  should 
affirm  that  unity  does  not  depend  on  organic 
union.  We  have  lost  immeasurably  by  mag- 
nifying differences  in  form,  minifying  the 
unity  of  evangelical  opinion,  sentiment,  and 
practice,  and  tacitly  yielding  to  a  current 
impression  that  Evangelical  Christianity  is 
in  essence,  in  the  very  nature  of  the  case, 
disintegrated.  Let  the  truth  be  boldly  af- 
firmed. Such  is  one  purpose  of  this  Confer- 
ence. Protestantism,  indeed,  is  not  a  church. 
Evangelical  Christianity  is  not  a  form  of  or- 
ganization. But  neither  of  them  is  a  mere 
negation,  as  enemies  of  the  Gospel  are  fond 
of  asserting.  They  are  systems  of  positive 
truth,  characterizing  many  churches.  Nev- 
ertheless the  unity  of  Christianity  is  inde- 
pendent of  Protestantism,  as  well  as  of  all 
other  external  expressions  of  the  truth  of 
Christ.  It  exists  as  a  living,  active  reality  of 
spiritual  communion,  consistent  with,  but  in- 
dependent of,  forms  of  organization..  Such  is 
the  principle  that  underlies  this  proposition. 

The  proposition,  however,  opens  a  more  dif- 


BEDELL :   SPIRITUAL  UNITY  NOT  ORGANIC  UNION. 


151 


ficult  discussion.  The  controversies  of  all 
Christian  ages  have  turned  largely  on  the 
great  question,  In  what  sense  and  in  what  de- 
gree the  term  Oneness  of  the  Church  is  to  be 
understood.  If  oneness  of  the  Church  is  in- 
consistent with  denominational  distinctions, 
then,  strictly  speaking,  there  has  been  no 
oneness  in  the  Church  from  the  beginning. 
Denominational  distinctions  separate  the 
great  churches  of  the  Latin  and'  the  Greek 
faiths,  and  separate  them  from  the  Oriental 
churches.  Distinctions  are  named  between 
the  Protestant  Episcopal  churches,  distinc- 
tions in  doctrine,  in  formularies,  or  in  poli- 
cy ;  as,  for  example,  between  the  Church  of 
England,  and  the  Church  of  Sweden,  and 
the  Protestant  Episcopal  Church  iu  this 
country.  Denominational  distinctions  sep- 
arate great  Protestant  churches  in  America 
from  one  another,  and  these  from  foreign 
churches.  But  oneness  exists,  nevertheless ; 
and  in  every  age,  as  in  this,  "the  Holy  Cath- 
olic Church,  the  communion  of  saints,"  has 
been  recognized  of  men  and  blessed  of 
Christ ;  forming  sufficiently  a  whole,  bound 
together  by  sympathies  and  unity  of  work 
which  are  sufficient  to  accomplish  the  pur- 
poses of  the  Holy  Ghost.  Upon  this  general 
question,  however,  it  can  hardly  be  expect- 
ed that  we  shall  enter. 

A  minor  practical  inquiry  remains — What 
measure,  and  what  manner,  of  Christian  un- 
ion are  desirable,  in  order  to  express  the  one- 
ness of  Christ's  Church,  and  to  further  the 
Saviour's  designs  in  establishing  it ;  it  be- 
ing supposed  that  denominational  differences 
will  be  maintained  ? 

"Alliance"  is  a  well -chosen  term.  It 
solves  the  question  immediately  by  force  of 
definition.  It  expresses  all  union  expedient 
or  possible  among  Christians  who  conscien- 
tiously differ  in  forms  of  administration ; 
while  it  admits  full  liberty  of  individual 
opinions,  within  a  range  agreed  upon.  Be- 
neath the  broad  shadow  of  this  term  we 
may  express  ourselves  freely  on  the  subject 
now  under  discussion.  The  term  "  union," 
employed  in  the  proposition,  is  not  felici- 
tous. It  is  not  synonymous  with  unity. 
"  Union  "  embraces  the  idea  of  organization, 
and  implies  a  certain  degree  of  human  for- 
mations. "Organic  Union"  is  the  fuller 
and  more  definite  expression.  "Unity,"  on 
the  contrary,  conveys  a  purely  spiritual 
idea.  It  has  no  relation  to  earthly  or  visi- 
ble forms.  It  exists  independently  of  dis- 
tinctions which  separate  the  children  of  God 
into  national  churches,  or,  in  one  nation,  into 
various  denominations.  The  terms  "  union  " 
and  "unity"  not  being  synonymous,  the 
proposition  can  hold  good  only  as  affirmed 
concerning  spiritual  unity,  or  communion. 

Organic  Unity  not  impossible. 

The  idea  has  been  broached  that  even  or- 
ganic union  is  not  impossible  among  Chris- 


tian churches  which  hold  the  same  evangel- 
ical doctrines,  and  this  with  only  a  partial  re- 
linquishing  of  denominational  distinctions. 
Certainly,  it  would  be  possible  to  unify  the 
Church  on  an  ancient  historical  basis,  trench- 
ing only  on  those  differences  which  are  in- 
consistent with  that  form.  But  supposing 
this  suggestion  to  be  in  advance  of  public 
sentiment,  and  impracticable  at  present,  shall 
we  silently  submit  to  the  opprobrium  that 
the  Church  of  Christ  lacks  unity  because 
denominational  differences  exist  ?  This  is 
a  question  of  interpretation — interpretation 
of  providential  facts  and  of  the  revealed  will 
of  Christ. 

Unity  consistent  icith  Differences. 

1.  The  significant  fact  remains,  to  which 
allusion  has  already  been  made,  that  denom- 
inational distinctions  have  existed  within 
the  Church  from  the  beginning.  They  are 
not  new  things.  They  did  not  spring  out 
of  the  Reformation,  although  made  more 
prominent  and  easier  of  production  since 
that  era.  They  have  existed  for  eighteen 
hundred  years.  One  of  the  earliest  facts  in 
Church  history  is  the  separation  of  Chris- 
tians into  sects  and  parties ;  I  will  not  say 
it  is  one  of  the  saddest  facts,  for  it  is  by  no 
means  certain  that  such  a  universal  fact  in 
our  religious  history,  within  a  Church  which 
has  always  been  under  the  guidance  of  the 
Holy  Ghost,  is  a  subject  of  unmixed  lamen- 
tation. There  have  been  sadder  facts  than 
this.  The  crushing  out  of  free  thought  and 
liberty  of  action  by  the  despotism  of  Rome, 
which  was  a  corollary  of  the  attempt  to  force 
organic  union  on  the  followers  of  Christ,  was 
a  much  sadder  fact.  Nor  is  it  easy  now  to 
prove  that  the  evil  prevalence  of  ancient 
heresies  which  distracted  the  Church  in  ear- 
lier centuries  was  not  quite  as  much  the  re- 
sult of  the  effort  to  suppress  error  by  eccle- 
siastical force  as  of  any  principle  of  vigor  in 
themselves.  Certainly,  since  the  era  of  the 
Reformation  and  of  printing,  since  men  have 
thought  freely  and  uttered  themselves  with- 
out restraint,  since  instructed  public  senti- 
ment has  been  the  only  arbiter,  no  heresy 
has  arisen  in  the  Church  comparable  in  its 
wide-spread  disasters  to  that,  for  example, 
which  called  for  the  Council  of  Nice.  If 
the  results  of  organized  and  enforced  union 
in  suppressing  denominational  differences 
are  to  be  measured,  let  the  history  of  dog- 
mas and  parties  iu  the  Church  of  Rome 
be  analyzed-  Denominational  distinctions 
have  always  existed  in  her  body.  Who 
does  not  know  that  contending  sects  are 
rending  her  frame  to-day,  under  the  mask 
of  union,  contending  not  less  for  religions 
and  doctrinal  principles  than  for  policies  ? 
Jesuits,  Dominicans,  and  Franciscans  con- 
tend with  the  fiercest  denominational  ran- 
cor within  an  organization  that  is  falsely 
proclaimed  to  be  one  and  undivided.  It  is 


152 


CHRISTIAN  UNION. 


a  significant  historical  fact,  anil  I  will  for- 
bear to  illustrate  it  further,  that  denomi- 
national differences  have  continued  in  the 
Church  from  the  beginning. 

2.  They  arise  from  natural  causes,  not  so 
much  from  religious  imperfections  as  from 
native  differences.     The  first  schism  on  rec- 
ord resulted  from  nothing  worse  than  na- 
tional prejudices.    However  we  may  lament 
them — and  they  are  to  be  lamented,  just  as 
all  disorders  of  the  human  frame  or  of  the 
human  mind  are  subjects  of  sorrow — there 
is  little  prospect  that  denominational  dis- 
tinctions will  vanish  from  the  present  dis- 
pensation.    They  are  the  offspring  of  differ- 
ences in  nervous  temperaments,  in  mental 
constitutions,  and  in  physical  build.     The 
Church  of  Christ  can  not  think  precisely 
alike  in  all  its  members,  nor  act  with  entire 
sympathy  and  harmony,  until  all  minds  run 
in  the  same  groove,  all  nerves  respond  to 
the  same  impulse,  and  all  bodies  are  framed 
on  one  model,  and  are  equally  free  from  dis- 
ease. 

3.  It  follows  that  denominational  distinc- 
tions are  necessary  results  of  liberty  of 
thought  and  action.    When  Luther's  success 
cut  the  shackles  of  religious  opinion,  de- 
nominationalism  revealed  itself  without  re- 
straint upon  the  Continent.     A  similar  re- 
sult followed  the  slower-paced  and  more 
cautious  reformation  in  England,  happily 
with  restraint.     The   Church  of  England 
lias  never  been  free  from  parties — from  the 
wholesome  influence  of  parties — and  the  se- 
cret of  its  vigorous  life  has  been  liberty  of 
difference,  within  the  Scriptural  bounds  of 
its  symbols.     The  Reformation  was  a  resur- 
rection.    A  new  life  sprang  out  of  the  dead 
things  among  which  the  Church  had  become 
inanimate.     And  one  of  the  most  character- 
istic elements  of  that  new  life  exhibits  itself 
in  denominationalism.     However  it  may  be 
applauded  or  deplored,  it  is  a  part  of  that 
grand  revolution.     Such  revolutions  never 
go  back,  and  denominational  distinctions  can 
never  be  expected  to  disappear,  unless  mind 
can  be  again  shackled,  and  liberty  crushed. 

4.  Among  the  inexplicable,  although  ob- 
vious, methods    of  divine    government   is 
that  which   couples  happiest  moral   ends 
with  fiercest  moral  conflicts.     As  electrici- 
ty restores  the  equilibrium  of  atmospheric 
forces  by  awful  convulsions — as  peace  is  the 
natural  and  necessary  product  of  exhaust- 
ing wars — as  civilization,  and  arts,  and  com- 
merce, and  tranquil  industry,  follow  never 
except  upon  the  footsteps  of  contending  ar- 
mies, or  after  invasions  by  more  advanced 
nations— so,  in  the  moral  Avorld,  truth  is  the 
resultant  of  controversies.     Not  always  er- 
ror against  error;   not  always  half-truths 
against  each  other ;  not  always  some  whole 
truth  against  either,  produces  the  desired 
result;  but  never  does  an  ago  reach  truth 
pure  and  simple  until  that  age  has  struggled 


for  it,  conflicting  amidst  falsehoods.  My 
impression  is  that  differences  in  the  Church 
— call  them  denominational,  or  by  whatever 
name  will  bo  more  agreeable- — differences  in 
the  Church  exist  according  to  a  law,  and  are 
preservative  of  the  pure  truth  of  the  Gospel. 
With  this  conclusion  ecclesiastical  history 
entirely  coincides. 

This  logic  of  facts  has  led  such  a  writer 
as  Dean  Goulburn  unwillingly  to  suggest 
that  there  may  bo  (what  may  be  termed)  a 
secondary  law  of  Church  structure  ;  and 
that  when  men's  passions  or  prejudices  re- 
fuse to  be  governed  by  the  primitive  law, 
the  secondary  becomes  controlling.  Dean 
Goulburn's  words  are,  "When  a  primitive 
ideal  is  hopelessly  frustrated,  and  the  first 
best  thing  made  impracticable  by  human  sin 
and  perverseness,  God  introduces  a  second 
best  thing,  and  endows  it  with  (at  all  events) 
a  temporary  sanction."  (Dean  Goulburn's 
Catechism  on  the  Church.)  We  are  cer- 
tainly living  under  a  law  which  renders  de- 
nominational distinction  consistent  with  Chris- 
tian unity. 

This  significant  fact  is  to  be  clearly  held 
and  recognized.  Considering  the  history  of 
the  Church,  considering  the  principles  on 
which  the  Holy  Ghost  has  been  guiding  it, 
considering  the  constitution  of  the  human 
mind,  and  human  society,  an  experiment  of 
unconditional  union  among  all  Christians 
would  be  perilous.  Still,  holding  that  a  com- 
mon organic  form  having  a  historical  basis,  and 
allowing  for  denominational  differences,  is  pos- 
sible, it  is  also  certain  that  any  organic 
union  of  Evangelical  Christians  formed  to- 
day by  the  abandonment  of  conscientious 
religious  distiuctions  would,  on  the  return 
of  sober  thought  to-morrow,  be  split  into  a 
thousand  fragments,  disjoined  forever. 

Unity  Eealized. 

From  this  excursus  among  possibilities 
and  improbabilities  we  return  with  grate- 
ful restfulness  of  heart  to  dwell  upon  that 
spiritual  unity  which  has  been  realized. 
The  unity  of  faith  in  the  Son  of  God ;  the 
unity  of  common  regeneration  by  the  power 
of  the  Holy  Ghost;  the  unity  of  love  to 
Christ,  and  love  in  Christ  to  all  who  are 
Christ's ;  the  unity  of  loving  work  for  Christ, 
which,  amidst  all  distinctions  of  minor  dog- 
mas, has  a  single  eye  for  the  glory  of  Christ 
and  a  single  aim  to  develop  his  kingdom  in 
every  ransomed  soul — that  is  the  unity  of 
the  Church.  That  is  the  unity  which  has 
been  manifested  in  every  age.  That  is  the 
unity  which  Christ  prayed  for,  and  which 
was  granted  him,  and  which  distinguishes 
and  separates  the  Church  of  Christ  from  the 
world. 

In  that  solemn  hour  when  the  Head  of  the 
Church  began  his  work  of  intercession,  pray- 
ing not  for  the  apostles  alone,  but  for  them 
also  that  should  believe  on  him  through  their 


BEDELL :   SPIRITUAL  UNITY  NOT  ORGANIC  UNION. 


153 


word,  he  did  not  speak  concerning  organic 
union.  A  true  interpretation  of  our  Saviour's 
language  is  also  a  just  interpretation  of  the 
facts  of  ecclesiastical  history.  His  mind  was 
fixed  on  a  spiritual  unity  only.  "  That  they 
all  may  be  one  " — so  he  prayed.  Again  and 
again  his  supplication  went  up,  crowded  with 
this  thought  of  unity.  "  Holy  Father,  keep 
through  thine  own  name  those  that  thou  hast 
given  me,  that  they  may  be  one,  as  we  are." 
"  One,  as  we  are."  "  The  world  hath  hated 
them,  because  they  are  not  of  the  world,  even 
as  I  am  not  of  the  world."  "  Neither  pray  I 
for  these  alone,  but  for  them  also  that  shall 
believe  on  me  through  their  word;  that  they 
all  may  be  one ;  as  thou,  Father,  art  in  me, 
and  I  in  thee,  that  they  also  may  be  one  in 
us:  that  the  world  may  know  that  thou  hast 
sent  me.  And  the  glory  which  thou  hast 
given  me  I  have  given  them ;  that  they  may 
be  one,  even  as  we  are:  I  in  them,  and 
thou  in  me,  that  they  may  be  made  perfect 
in  one."  This  is  not  a  vision  of  organic  un- 
ion. Could  any  thing  visible  realize  that 
oneness  between  the  Father  and  the  Son? 
"As  thou,  Father,  art  in  me,  and  I  in  thee, 
that  they  may  be  one  in  us ;"  and  "  that 
they  may  be  one "  actually,  positively,  and 
as  we  are,  so  that  the  world  may  recognize 
the  unity.  This  spiritual  unity  is  to  be  the 
world's  testimony.  That  ineffable  union  of 
the  Father  and  the  Son  in  adorable  Godhead 
is  not  a  union  that  can  be  seen — a  union  that 
can  be  manipulated ;  nor  can  any  earthly  un- 


ion that  interprets  it  be  of  such  a  character 
that  it  may  be  increased  or  diminished  by 
human  will  or  by  human  consent,  or'subject 
to  any  physical  or  external  conditions.  As 
the  Unity  in  the  Blessed  Trinity  is  unde- 
fined, uumanifested,  and  spiritual,  so  is  that 
oneness  for  which  Christ  prayed  that  it 
should  ever  characterize  his  Church.  "I 
in  them,  and  thou  in  me,  that  they  may  be 
made  perfect  in  one." 

That  prayer  has  not  remained  unanswered 
through  all  these  Christian  centuries.  That 
prayer  has  been  fulfilled.  Every  age  and 
generation  has  witnessed  it.  The  Church  is 
one,  has  been  made  perfect  in  one,  has  never 
failed  of  unity.  In  the  darkest  days  of  or- 
ganized Catholicism,  the  Catholic  Church, 
the  Church  universal,  the  Church  of  living 
ones  in  Christ  Jesus,  the  Church  of  his  love 
and  his  acceptance,  has  always  existed  in  his 
sight,  recognized  by  his  Spirit,  accomplish- 
ing his  purpose.  In  that  unity  all  modes 
of  holding  truth  coincide.  With  that  unity 
denominational  distinctions  are  entirely  con- 
sistent. As  we  exhibit  the  loving  principles 
of  that  Divine  Unity,  all  the  earthly  that 
divides  the  spiritual  brotherhood  becomes 
secondary  in  thought,  and  the  children  of 
God  realize  their  absolute  and  eterual  one- 
ness. 

God  be  praised  for  whatever  in  Evangel- 
ical Alliance  will  nurture  and  fortify  in  our 
souls  a  sense  of  this  spiritual  unity  in  Christ 
Jesus  our  Lord ! 


THE  COMMUNION  OF  SAINTS: 

MODES  OF  ITS  PROMOTION  AND  MANIFESTATION. 

BY  THE  REV.  ELIPHALET  NOTT  POTTER,  D.D., 

President  of  Union  Coll.,  Schenectady,  N.  Y. 
Together  with  a  Communication  from  Professor  TAYLER  LEWIS,  LL.D. 


REPRESENTING  Union  College,  an  institu- 
tion founded  nearly  a  century  ago  upon  the 
Christian  basis  of  Evangelical  Catholicity, 
I  had  hoped  to  ask  you  to  receive  011  this 
occasion,  in  my  stead,  my  honored  coadjutor 
in.  the  Faculty,  Dr.  Tayler  Lewis.  Well 
known  to  you  all,  it  were  fitting  that  his 
nge,  his  experience,  and  his  ripe  scholarship 
should  find  voice  on  such  an  occasion,  and 
in  the  discussion  of  such  a  theme.  Prevent- 
ed from  being  here,  he  has  sent  me  the  ac- 
companying communication.  I  omit  much 
that  I  had  written,  that  I  may,  without  ex- 
ceeding the  assigned  limits,  embody  his  in- 
structive letter  in  this  paper. 

The  union  of  the  Church  Militant  with 
the  Church  Triumphant,  the  union  of  each 
Christian  soul  with  the  blessed  departed,  is 
a  reality,  like  that  of  the  union  of  all  the 
members  of  Christ  now  on  the  earth,  in  the 
one  body  of  Christ.  The  hand  may  not  see 
or  know  the  foot,  but  the  unity  of  the  body 
is  not  the  less  a  fact.  All  the  members  of 
Christ,  whether  conscious  of  the  fact  or  no, 
are  thus  truly  and  vitally  united  in  the  one 
body  of  which  Christ  is  the  head.  Living 
saints  and  dead  but  one  communion  make ; 
and  if  so,  the  fact  that  living  saints  are  for 
the  time  as  widely  separated  from  each  oth- 
er as  they  are  from  the  blessed  departed 
does  not  destroy  the  reality  of  their  oneness 
in  Christ. 

As  the  communion  between  the  saints  of 
the  Elder  Covenant  and  those  of  the  latest 
ages,  if  it  can  not  be  more  real,  will  yet  be 
more  clearly  manifested  in  the  future  life,  so 
in  the  future  of  this  life  we  may  hope  that 
the  means  and  methods  for  the  visible  inter- 
communion of  saints  will,  through  the  ages 
all  along,  be  more  and  more  clearly  revealed. 
Divided  and  doubting  now,  the  members  of 
the  body  of  Christ  are  yet  one  family.  If 
war  sometimes  rages,  the  Creed  yet  pro- 
claims the  belief  of  Christendom  in  that  ar- 
ticle, late  to  be  introduced,  but  none  the  less 
fundamental  to  the  faith,  "  I  believe  in  the 
communion  of  saints." 

The  signs  of  the  times  are  not  without 
tokens  of  encouragement. 

Is  there  not  a  tendency  in  the  present 
mind  of  Christendom  toward  the  establish- 


ment of  a  clearly  recognized  distinction  be- 
tween the  substance  of  the  faith,  that  is  to 
say,  God,  his  Word,  his  Truth,  and  man's 
conception  and  expression  of  the  faith,  that 
is  to  say,  the  topics  of  scientific  theology  f 
While  the  substance  of -the  faith  is  unchange- 
able, yet  theology  as  a  science  is  seen  in- 
viting discussion,  admitting  question,  and 
requiring  variety  as  well  as  accuracy  in 
statement.  Should  not  greater  facilities  be 
afforded  for  the  uutrammeled  study  of  the- 
ology? The  instructor  in  the  theological 
seminary  has  ofteuest  to  indoctrinate  the 
pupil.  There  is  danger,  therefore,  lest  the 
facts  of  revelation,  of  history,  and  of  meta- 
physical and  physical  science  be  made  to 
bend  to  the  supposed  necessity  of  harmoni- 
zing with  the  theology  taught,  the  unchan- 
ging truth  of  God.  Facilities  for  the  study 
of  theology  as  a  pure  science  are  now,  how- 
ever, increasing,  and  might  readily  be  af- 
forded in  connection  with  many  institutions 
founded  for  the  pursuit  of  higher  education. 
It  would  then  come  to  be  more  clearly  un- 
derstood that  iteration  and  reiteration  is  not 
demonstration;  .and  that  while  it  is  desir- 
able that  definite  belief  should  displace 
doubt,  yet  that  mere  verbal,  parrot-like  ut- 
terance is  not  Christian  faith,  faith  being  de- 
fined as  (viroffTams)  "  the  substance  of  things 
hoped  for,  the  evidence  of  things  not  seen." 
In  matters  of  faith  the  distinction  needs 
to  be  understood  between  infallible  author- 
ity and  competent  authority ;  between  that 
scheme  of  human  infallibility  which  demands 
from  the  faithful  an  act  of  intellectual  sui- 
cide, and  that  respect  for  adequate  and  com- 
petent authority  which  common  sense  ren- 
ders unhesitatingly  in  the  ordinary  affairs 
of  life. 

Outward  organic  unity  depends,  doubt- 
less, upon  unity  in  organic  ideas.  In  the 
modes  of  its  promotion,  and  the  means  for 
its  manifestation  already  operative,  have  wo 
not  encouragement  to  hope  for  the  more  per- 
fect manifestations  hero  on  earth  of  the  Com- 
munion of  Saints  ? 

1.  Christian  Work. — This  point  is  consider- 
ed first  in  order  because  of  our  Saviour's 
declaration,  "They  that  do  my  will  shall 
know  of  the  doctrine,  whether  it  be  of  God." 


POTTER:  THE  COMMUNION  OF  SAINTS. 


155 


The  increase  among  all  -who  profess  and  call 
themselves  Christians,  of  similar  conceptions 
and  methods  of  Christian  work,  tends  to 
Christian  unity.  The  establishment  of  free 
churches,  the  increase  of  Sunday-schools,  the 
organization  of  woman's  work,  the  encour- 
agement of  lay  co-operation,  the  realization 
that  the  body  of  a  sin-sick  world  must  be 
cleansed  and  healed,  and  the  mind  enlight- 
ened and  elevated,  if  the  soul  is  to  be  saved ; 
in  these  activities  and  ideas  Christian  work- 
ers are  already  almost  at  one.  Egotistic  ri- 
valry and  wasteful  excess  of  labor  in  some 
fields,  contrasted  with  the  abject  and  neg- 
lected needs  of  adjacent  fields,  must  fill  the 
earnest  and  thoughtful  mind  with  an  awful 
realization  of  the  great  danger  the  work  of 
Christ  is  in  through  our  unhappy  divisions; 
and  so  tend  to  inspire  the  desire  and  prayer 
for  organized  co-operatiou,  and  for  loving 
Christian  intercommunion. 

2.  Christian  Doctrine. — We  include  under 
this  general  head  both  teaching  and  preach- 
ing, and  also  systems  of  ethics  and  apologet- 
ics,.    Is  it  not  evident  that  a  truer  concep- 
tion of  the  "proportion  of  the  faith"  is  now 
becoming  general?    Great  central  truths  are 
seen  to  be  of  supreme  importance.     Schools 
of  theology,  widely  divergent  in  many  re- 
spects, yet  concur  in  the  relative   impor- 
tance which  they  attach  to  certain  cardinal 
points  of  doctrine,  when  compared  with  ten- 
ets which  they  mutually  regard  as  of  less 
moment.     The  cross  of  Christ  is  declared  by 
all  to  be  the  preacher's  profoundest  and  most 
pregnant  and  essential  theme.     The  prov- 
ince and  nature  of  the  teacher's  work  is  rec- 
ognized in  nearly  the  same  terms  by  many 
different  bodies  of  Christians.     Ethical  sys- 
tems are  becoming  more  nearly  identical 
throughout  Christendom.      In  apologetics, 
representatives  of  every  school  now  adopt  the 
same  general  theory  of  evidence,  and  recog- 
nize as  of  moment  the  same  general  lines  of 
defense.     As  men  come  to  think  alike,  their 
convictions  with  reference  to  the  oracles  of 
God  and  the  facts  of  history,  whether  civil 
or  ecclesiastical,  will  become  less  discordant. 
It  would  thus  seem  to  be  practicable  that,  as 
with  one  heart,  they  desire  the  welfare  of 
the  Church  of  God,  so  with  one  mouth  they 
should  confess  the  faith  once  delivered  to 
the  saints. 

3.  Christian  Felloicship. — A  point  is  gained 
when  Christians  deprecate  their  differences 
and  come  together  in  the  spirit  of  love  to 
discuss  them.     No  fellowship  can  be  real  or 
effective  while  mutual  misunderstanding  and 
distrust  exist.     An  interchange,  therefore, 
of  ideas  is  of  importance.     In  this  age  it  is 
forced  upon  the  most  retiring  by  the  venti- 
lation, as  it  is  called,  of  topics  of  general  in- 
terest in  the  public  prints.    We  gain  in  this 
way,  if  in  no  other,  a  healthful  sense  of  what 
our  fellow-men  are  thinking  about,  a  knowl- 
edge of  the  opinions  they  are  forming.     But 


no  correspondence,  no  study  of  the  lives  and 
writings  of  Christian  men,  can  give  us  that 
knowledge  of  them  which  we  gain  by  meet- 
ing them  face  to  face  in  free  and  loving  con- 
ference. Christianity  has  declared  the  de- 
struction of  caste,  and  has  proclaimed  peace 
and  good-will  to  man.  Nations  tend,  under 
its  influence,  to  consolidate  in  larger  masses. 
The  growth  of  intercommunication  and  of 
international  law  may  yet  substantially 
unite,  in  one  higher  and  all-embracing  na- 
tional relationship,  the  peoples  of  the  world. 
The  influences  we  are  considering,  together 
with  the  universal  desire  for  Christian  unity 
and  the  increasing  opportunities  for  Chris- 
tian conference,  are  hastening,  it  would 
seem,  the  hour  when,  in  place  of  earthly 
kingdoms,  there  shall  be  Christ's  kingdom, 
and  in  place  of  the  world,  the  Church  of 
God. 

4.  The  conception  contained  in  the  apos- 
tolic maxim,  "Let  every  man  be  fully  per- 
suaded in  his  own  mind,"  is  producing  the 
increase  of  toleration  and  Christian  charity. 
On  the  one  hand  there  is  a  growing  regard 
for  the  best  results  of  modern  science,  and 
on  the  other  an  increased  respect  for  those 
living  churchly  ties  which  bind  redeemed 
humanity  to  the  past. 

5.  If  ecclesiastical  history  opens  up  agi- 
tating topics  of  discussion,  there  are  other 
influences  of  culture  which  tend  to  peaceful 
agreement.     Architecture  and  sestheflc  feel- 
ing are  doing  their  part  in  diffusing  a  com- 
mon sentiment  and  sympathy,  not  to  say 
similarity,  in  the  accessories  of  worship. 

6.  Without  suppressing  the  voice  of  indi- 
vidual utterance,  ancient  liturgies  are  gain- 
ing a  firm  hold  in  the  hearts  of  all  Christian 
people,  and  are  thus  tending  to  facilitate  in- 
tercommunion by  their  general  use  as  the 
mother  tongue  of  Christendom. 

7.  So,  too,  is  it  with  the  increasing  observ- 
ance throughout  Christendom  of  its  great 
historic  anniversaries  in  the  system  of  the 
Christian  year.     The  assimilative  power  of 
the  nation  which  enables  it  to  receive  indi- 
viduals of  every  race,  and  to  make  of  them  in 
many  states  but  one  people,  should  enable 
it  to  receive  elements  of  good  from  every 
part  of  Christendom,  that  in  God's  own  time 
there  may  be  realized  the  prophetic  vision 
of  the  Church,  which,  in  its  embracing  in- 
tercommunion, shall  be  one  Church. 

8.  Music  is  the  Evangel  of  the  Commun- 
ion of  Saints.     Hymnals  are  effective  pleas 
for  unity.      Congregational  singing  is  de- 
structive of  the  isolation  of  individualism, 
and  the  Church  militant,  in  its  march  heav- 
enward, unites  its  voices,  advancing  to  the 
note  of  hymns  familiar  to  every  tongue  and 
dear  to  every  heart,  as  are  those  words, 

"  Rock  of  Ages,  cleft  for  me, 
Let  me  hide  myself  in  thee." 

9.  For  the  Communion  of  Saints,  for  true 
Christian  unity, myriads  are  praying.    God's 


156 


CHRISTIAN  UNION. 


answer  would  seem  to  bo  reflected  in  the 
spirit  of  those  ancient  words,  "In  essen- 
tials, unity;  in  non  -  essentials,  liberty ;  in 
all  things,  charity;"  since,  Christian  liberty 
and  love  are  the  essentials  of  abiding  unity. 
Meantime  each  individual  will  be  tempted, 
at  least  in  thought,  to  hold  that  Christen- 
dom, to  bo  one,  must  bo  drawn  within  the 
circle  of  belief  in  which  ho  dwells,  and 
which  ho  thinks  to  be  the  very  citadel  of 
the  truth  of  God ! 

10.  It  may,  therefore,  be  with  the  divine 
science  of  theology  as  it  has  been  with  the 
science  of  the  heavenly  bodies.  Individu- 
als have  contributed,  by  persevering  efforts, 
to  the  final  triumph,  who  were  in  theory 
farthest  from  any  adequate  conception  of 
the  truth.  The  superstitious  but  observant 
astrologer  could  furnish  data  for  the  astron- 
omer. Tycho  Brahe,  who  doubted  the  Co- 
pernican  system  of  the  universe,  could  yet 
accumulate  facts  from  which  Kepler  should 
adduce  his  three  great  laws,  while  Newton, 
by  a  higher  generalization,  included  in  one 
law  the  work  of  his  predecessors.  Thus  it 
may  be  with  the  science  of  theology.  Much 
may  be  achieved  by  the  reverent  and  ardu- 
ous study  of  divine  truth;  much  will  be 
achieved  by  the  prayers  of  the  faithful,  till 
"  we  all  come  in  the  unity  of  the  faith  and 
of  the  knowledge  of  the  Sou  of  God,  unto  a 
perfect  man,  unto  the  measure  of  the  stature 
of  the  fullness  of  Christ." 

Finally,  although  the  systematic  order 
and  organic  relation  of  all  the  members  in 
the  one  body  of  Christ,  together  with  the 
modes  of  promoting  and  the  means  for  man- 
ifesting Christian  unity,  be  not  yet  clear  to 
all,  still  on  Scriptural  grounds  we  must  hold 
that,  like  the  hidden  potency  of  gravity  in 
the  material  universe,  the  Communion  of 
Saints  is  a  vital  and  ever-present  fact  in 
the  spiritual  universe.  The  force  of  gravity 
was  potent  before  its  law  was  demonstrated. 
The  universe  is  neither  created  nor  imperil- 
ed by  the  clashing  theories  of  materialists, 
nor  docs  it  depend  for  its  continuance  upon 
the  success  of  rival  schools  in  their  attempts 
to  formulate  its  facts.  As  the  orderly  rela- 
tion of  the  heavenly  bodies  existed  before 
the  first  ray  elucidating  the  system  dawned 
upon  the  human  intellect,  so  with  the  Com- 
munion of  Saints — that  system  which  em- 
braces the  countless  hosts  of  God's  elect. 
"  They  that  be  wise  shall  shine  as  the  bright- 
ness of  the  firmament,  and  they  that  turn 
many  to  righteousness,  as  the  stars  for  ever 
and  ever."  And  though  "now"  we  know 
but  in  part,  though  now  we  see  but  as  in  a 
glass  that  is  dim  the  reflected  image, "  then  " 
the  brightness  already  dawning  shall  break 
in  upon  the  soul,  in  the  full  revelation  of 
the  unity  of  the  many  in  the  One ;  the  com- 
munity of  saints  and  angels,  as  of  countless 
stars  in  that  one  vast  system  of  which  Christ 
is  the  central  and  the  everlasting  light! 


Voices  like  to  the  music  of  the  spheres  may 
bo  heard  by  the  ear  of  faith  echoing  and  re- 
echoing through  the  ages  that  great  high- 
priestly  prayer  of  our  Divine  Lord  (last  ut- 
tered, in  its  fullness  it  may  bo  the  last  to  bo 
answered):  "That  they  all  may  be  one;  as 
thou,  Father,  art  in  me,  and  I  in  theo,  that 
they  also  may  be  one  in  us :  that  the  world 
may  believe  that  thou  hast  sent  me." 

With  the  following  valuable  letter  referred 
to  in  the  opening  sentence,  I  may  most  fitly 
close  the  further  consideration  of  the  sub- 
ject in  this  paper. 

Union  College,  Sept  30th,  1873. 

MY  DEAR  FRIEND, — I  have  been  thinking 
much  on  our  late  conversation,  and  its  principal 
topic,  the  article  of  the  Creed  in  relation  to  the 
"  Communion  of  Saints."  Other  ideas  have  oc- 
curred to  me ;  and  I  know  that  you  will  not  deem 
me  obtrusive  or  impertinent  if  I  give  them  a  writ- 
ten form,  though  in  an  epistolary  way  that  will 
not  allow  of  close  connection  or  logical  regular- 
ity. Take  them,  then,  in  the  off-hand  style  in 
which  they  have  presented  themselves  to  my 
mind. 

The  Communion  of  Saints  implies  a  commu- 
nity of  Saints,  as  a  recognized  body  in  distinction 
from  a  mere  social  sympathy.  It  is  not  a  feel- 
ing of  nearness  simply,  or  of  affection  toward  in- 
dividuals whom  we  may  esteem  Christians,  but 
the  recognition  of  "a  people,"  a  "people  of 
God,"  a  choice  community  among  the  other  com- 
munities of  the  earth — a  divine  community,  yet 
having  a  history  and  a  visibility  in  this  world, 
and,  at  the  same  time,  a  TroXirtv/ia  iv  ovpavolg, 
a  "citizenship  in  the  heavens"  (Phil.  Hi.,  20), 
more  real  than  any  tie  that  binds  together  any 
earthly  organization,  social  or  political.  In  oth- 
er words,  it  is  not  a  mere  spiritual  communion, 
if  we  mean  by  that  term  one  of  feeling  merely, 
of  taste,  or  thought.  Christianity,  or  Christen- 
dom, if  the  term  is  preferred,  is  not  a  school, 
either  of  art  or  of  philosophy.  It  is  not  a  mere 
brotherhood,  however  precious  may  be  the  idea 
conveyed  by  that  word.  The  Communion  of 
Saints  is  truly  organic.  There  is  a  real  head- 
ship, a  real  membership — a  "membership  one 
of  another."  But  upon  that  topic  I  would  not 
dwell.  There  is  not  time  nor  space  for  the  dis- 
cussion of  an  idea  that  carries  us  so  far,  and 
which,  in  the  present  state  of  Christendom,  is 
attended  with  so  many  difficulties.  These  diffi- 
culties will  doubtless  be  surmounted.  We  should 
never  let  go,  or  loosen  our  tenacious  hold  upon 
the  idea :  The  Church  was  one  in  the  beginning 
— visibly  and  organically  one — and  it  will  be 
such  in  the  end.  Such,  too,  is  it  now,  notwith- 
standing the  appearances  of  rupture  and  disorgan- 
ization that  may  be  charged  upon  it,  or  that  do 
actually  exist.  Its  real  visibility  is  its  antago- 
nism to  a  world  lying  in  wickedness ;  and  while 
this  shows  itself,  its  true  visible  unity  can  not  be 
lost,  either  in  a  broad  subjectiveness,  or  in  an 
imposing  outward  formality  that  retains  the  name 
without  the  substance. 

"Lo!  I  am  with  you  always,  even  to  the  end 
of  the  world."  The  very  language  implies  diffi- 
culty, instead  of  a  smooth,  labor-saving,  thought- 
saving  doctrine  of  objective  or  personal  infalli- 
bility. It  is  not  said,  the  Church,  even  as  a 


POTTER:  THE  COMMUNION  OF  SAINTS. 


157 


whole,  shall  never  err,  it  shall  never  be  in  dark- 
ness, it  shall  never  have  its  outward  organiza- 
tion impaired,  it  shall  never  have  to  struggle 
with  corruptions,  it  shall  -never  be  torn  by  dis- 
ruptions, such  as  corruption  breeds  and  necessi- 
tates. "Lo,  I  am  with  you."  The  very  style 
of  the  address  is  a  forecasting  of  stormy  times. 
It  indicates  deeper  perils  than  those  that  come 
from  fierce  encounters  with  the  world  with- 
out, or  the  direct  blows  of  infidel  persecution. 
These  are  the  least  of  the  forces  with  which  om- 
nipotent grace  has  to  contend.  "Lo,  I  am  with 
you,"  implies  still  nearer  dangers,  more  inward 
disorders,  such  as  demand  the  physician  as  well 
as  the  conqueror,  the  healing  as  well  as  the  hero 
Messiah.  It  is  not  the  world  merely,  but  diffi- 
culties, defections,  spiritual  diseases  within,  pro- 
duced by  worldly  contact,  or  the  Church's  long 
war  with  so  poisonous  and  malarious  an  adver- 
sary. Instead  of  an  objective  or  oracular  infalli- 
bility, either  in  the  universal  body,  or  in  some 
single  individual  as  an  earthly  head,  this  testa- 
mentary language  seems  to  intimate  that  the 
Church  is  not  only  fallible,  but  that  it  will  be  al- 
ways in  danger  of  failing — sometimes  of  failing 
grievously.  There  stands  the  promise  of  event- 
ual triumph ;  but  it  is  as  something  ever  to  be 
prayed  for,  notwithstanding — as  though  shipwreck 
were  ever  imminent  to  a  vessel  sailing  on  so  tem- 
pestuous a  sea.  An  infallible  Church,  infallible 
in  itself  or  in  some  individual  earthly  head,  could 
have  no  spiritual  probation.  To  this  end  it  must 
encounter  storms,  seasons  of  peril,  not  apparent 
only,  but  tremendously  real.  There  may  have  to 
be  the  cutting  away  of  masts,  the  throwing  over- 
board of  cargo.  The  outward  form  may  be  sad- 
ly marred.  Breaches  may  be  demanded  by  the 
very  work  of  healing.  Deep  wounding  may  be 
necessary  for  the  better  binding  up  of  fractures 
made  by  worldliness  and  corruption.  There  may 
be  great  apparent  disorganization,  but  the  prom- 
ise, "Lo,  I  am  with  you, "is  the  warrant  for  be- 
lieving that  there  will  never  be  a  total  loss  of  that 
visible  organic  unity,  however  simple,  or  com- 
plex, or,  for  the  time,  irregular  its  form,  which 
was  in  the  beginning,  and  will  be  in  the  end. 
Such  periods  as  the  lleformation  are  but  the  ful- 
fillment of  the  promise. 

Division  is  never  to  be  treated  as  a  good  per  se. 
I  can  never  go  with  those  who  regard  denomina- 
tional distinctions  as  things  totally  innocent  or 
indifferent,  much  less  as  desirable.  But  how  is 
there  to  be  brought  about  a  closer  organic  unity, 
an  ecclesiastical  polity,  which  shall  be  something 
more  than  an  Evangelical  Alliance,  or  a  mere  ex- 
hibition, however  precious  that  maybe,  of  frater- 
nal Christian  feeling  ?  I  feel  my  utter  inability 
to  give  any  thing  like  a  satisfying  answer  to  such 
a  question.  "God  only  knows," as  the  devout 
Mohammedan  says ;  HE  alone  can  solve  the  prob- 
lem. Our  duty  is  to  believe  that  he  will  solve  it, 
and  therefore  to  hold  ourselves  in  readiness  for 
such  solution  whenever  the  course  of  Providen- 
tial events  shall  indicate  its  coming.  In  the 
mean  time,  certain  other  duties  are  remarkably 
clear.  There  must  be  no  more  division.  May 
that  man  be  anathema  who  seeks  to  create  a  new 
sect.  Let  union,  ecclesiastical  union,  take  place 
without  delay  between  those  bodies  that  are  di- 
vided by  the  least  interval.  Let  the  last  parting 
be  the  first  coming  together.  Let  it  be  deeply 
impressed  on  every  mind  that  the  greatness  of 


the  sin  of  schism  is  in  the  inverse  ratio  of  the 
smallness  of  the  dividing  interval.  Let  it  be  felt 
that  the  great  organic  union  prayed  for  is  more 
likely  to  be  effected  by  the  steady  approach  of 
bodies  than  by  any  spasmodic  proselyting  of  in- 
dividuals. When  a  man  suddenly  jumps  from 
one  boat  to  another,  the  most  probable  effect  is 
the  driving  the  two  vessels  farther  apart — espe- 
cially if  he  turns  round,  and,  as  is  too  often  the 
case,  hurls  his  missiles  at  those  whom  he  has 
left,  or  manifests  a  new  zeal  offensive,  by  its  ex- 
cess, even  to  those  whose  company  he  has  joined. 
In  such  a  case  as  this,  let  no  Christian  be  gov- 
erned by  taste  merely,  or  oesthetical  preference, 
tempting  him  to  leave  a  plainer  organization,  or 
a  plainer  worship,  for  one  deemed  more  beauti- 
ful and  imposing.  The  taste  may  be  innocent, 
and  even  holy,  and  yet  the  denial  of  its  gratifica- 
tion demanded  by  considerations  of  what  may  aid 
or  hinder  the  great  cause.  In  other  words,  ev- 
ery member  of  an  Evangelical  Church,  in  which 
"the  pure  Word  of  God  is  preached,  and  the  sac- 
raments are  administered  according  to  Christ's 
ordinance,"  should  stay  where  he  is,  and  where 
birth,  baptism,  and  God's  providence  have  placed 
him,  faithfully  laboring  in  such  body  for  the  great 
cause  of  ecclesiastical  unity,  ever  praying  and 
ever  watching  for  that  more  perfect  consumma- 
tion which  God  alone  can  bring  about.  Above 
all  should  he  avoid  every  word  and  every  deed 
which  may  in  the  least  impede  or  discourage  such 
a  result,  allowing  nothing,  unless  it  be  a  supposed 
peril  to  his  salvation,  to.  change  a  purpose  thus 
formed. 

In  the  present  state  of  the  Church,  there  is  a 
duty  preparatory  to  outward  schemes  for  a  closer 
ecclesiastical  organization.  They  will  be  in  vain 
without  the  cultivation,  in  each  separate  body,  of 
a  Churchly  feeling  in  distinction  from  the  me- 
chanical Ecclesiasticism  of  Rome  on  the  one 
hand,  and  the  extreme  broad  Churchism,  or  loose 
subjectiveness  of  ultra-Protestantism,  on  the  oth- 
er. It  can  not  be  denied  that  in  the  revulsions 
of  the  Reformation,  and  more  evidently  since, 
there  has  been  a  departure  which  must  be  re- 
gained. There  has  been  not  a  loss,  but  an  ob- 
scuring, or,  rather,  a  suffering  to  lie  obsolete  of 
certain  ideas  which  must  be  stamped  with  a  new 
impression,  if  the  modern  Church  would  firmly 
link  itself  with  the  past.  Surely  it  needs  no 
proof  that  one  characteristic  of  our  most  modem 
thinking  is  the  tendency  to  an  extreme  individu- 
alism. Church  and  State  both  show  it.  The 
true  idea  of  the  latter  is  ritnning  down  to  that  of 
a  mass  meeting  or  lynch  law  mob,  re-asserting 
the  inherent  sovereignty  of  each  atom  of  which 
it  is  composed.  The  "compact  "  theory,  deriv- 
ing government  solely  from  the  individual  assent, 
can  most  easily  be  proved  to  be  false ;  but  it  is 
destroying  the  proper  idea  of  the  civic  organism 
as  ordained  of  God.  So  in  theology  and  anthro- 
pology. There  is  no  humanity,  it  is  held,  except 
as  an  abstraction  or  figure  of  speech  ;  only  indi- 
vidual men.  There  is  no  God-created  and  Satan- 
tempted  humanity,  by  partaking  of  which  indi- 
viduals become  men.  Any  one  who  studies  this 
must  see  how  it  affects  the  doctrines  of  the  hu- 
man fall  and  the  human  redemption,  or  that 
problem  of  the  first  and  second  Adam  which 
finds  its  only  solution  in  the  true  idea  of  the 
Church.  In  some  of  its  aspects,  our  most  mod- 
ern science  carries  still  further  this  extreme  disor- 


158 


CHRISTIAN  UNION. 


ganizing  nominalism.  There  is  nothing  generic, 
nothing  specific,  no  fixed  being,  no  universals  of 
any  kind,  only  individual  atoms.  All  things  else 
that  may  seem  to  be  are  but  the  overflowing 
changes  and  combinations  of  these,  the  only  eter- 
nal and  unchanging  realities.  Such  are  the  ex- 
tremes of  the  tendency ;  but  in  a  more  moderate 
degree  it  affects  the  mind  of  our  Protestant 
churches,  and  must  be  counteracted  if  we  would 
cultivate  a  true  churchly  feeling,  or  believe  in  the 
Church  as  any  thing  more  than  a  mass  aggregate 
of  undefined  irregularities.  Closely  allied  to  this 
is  the  false  humanitarianism,  or  that  which  views 
man  irrespective  of  those  ideas  of  ruin  and  re- 
demption which  can  alone  give  birth  to  a  true 
philanthropy — those  doctrines  apparently  so  se- 
vere, but  which  alone  contain  the  true  milk  of 
human  kindness.  What  I  would  express  in  the 
most  general  terms  is  that  there  can  not  be  any 
true  organic  action — and  it  had  better  not  be  at- 
tempted by  us  —  until  a  firm  basis  can  be  found 
in  the  cultivation  of  organic  ideas.  Aside  from 
this,  it  would  be  like  the  attempt  at  building  a 
structure  with  separate  pebbles,  without  variety 
and  without  cement  to  hold  them  together. 
Such  would  be  all  political  or  social  compacts, 
all  religious  alliances,  that  have  no  other  adhe- 
sion than  what  comes  from  this  inorganic  and 
unchurchly  individualism. 

There  are  other  churchly  ideas  which  must  be 
thus  cultivated  previous  to  a  successful  organic 
action.  I  can  barely  touch  upon  them.  There 
is,  first  of  all,  the  idea. of  the  mystic  union  be- 
tween Christ  and  believers,  whether  regarded  as 
flowing  from,  or  as  constitutive  of,  union  between 
Christ  and  his  Church — that  "great  mystery" 
which  the  apostle  symbolizes  by  the  marriage 
relation.  As  a  fact  ineffable,  nothing  is  more 
clearly  taught  in  the  Scriptures.  In  its  rationale 
it  is  something  into  which  the  archangels  "might 
stoop  down  to  look."  I  am  too  poor  a  Christian 
for  the  discussion  of  a  theme  so  holy.  I  can  not 
even  touch  upon  it  without  a  feeling  of  intrusion 
into  a  mystery  too  sacred  for  my  poor  measure 
of  faith.  As  &fact  believed,  as  something  more 
than  a  moral  influence,  or  intellectual  agreement, 
or  emotional  sympathy,  it  certainly  entered  most 
deeply  into  the  mind  of  the  early  Church.  "Men 
i  n  Christ "  —  Christophoroi,  ' '  Christ-bearers  " — 
they  called  themselves.  It  was  no  mer.e  figure, 
but  the  most  sublime  of  realities.  It  was  no  mere 
term  of  discipleship,  much  less  any  mere  nom- 
inalistic  generalization,  but  the  solid  ground  of 
their  purest  churchly  feeling.  There  can  only 
be  expressed  the  deep  conviction  that  in  the  re- 
vival and  re-impression  of  this  idea  is  to  be  found 
the  most  efficient  aid  to  a  true  spiritual  commun- 
ion. Then,  too,  when  it  becomes  predominant 
in  Christian  hearts,  there  may  disclose  itself  more 
clearly  that  way  of  visible  outward  realization 
to  which  we  all  are  looking.  In  the  mean  time, 
there  are  two  practical  considerations,  of  highest 
importance,  that  present  themselves  as  flowing 
from  this  idea,  in  itself  so  ineffable.  Are  be- 
lievers truly  Christophoroi,  "  Christ-bearers  ?"— 
then  should  we  regard  no  error,  whether  in  rela- 
tion to  doctrine  or  to  Church  organization,  so 
perilous  as  the  rejection  of  any  one  with  whom 
we  have  reason  to  believe  Christ  dwells.  In  the 
second  place,  if  we  think  of  ourselves  as  in  mem- 
bership with  this  sacred  body,  then  the  humblest 
Christian,  the  most  ignorant,  the  most  unculti- 


vated, the  most  lowly  in  the  social  scale,  should 
be  deemed  nearer  to  us,  more  esteemed,  more 
beloved,  not  merely  aesthetically,  condescending- 
ly, sentimentally,  but  truly,  heartily,  practically, 
than  the  most  cultivated,  the  most  learned,  the 
highest  in  earthly  rank,  that  belongs  not  to  the 
family  of  Christ. 

I  would  turn  to  other  and  plainer  views  con- 
nected with  this  general  theme.  The  Com- 
munion of  Saints  has  its  historical  aspect,  the 
thought  of  which  is  most  important  to  be  re- 
vived at  the  present  day.  Nothing  is  more  un- 
churchly than  that  mode  of  thinking  and  feeling 
which  separates  us  from  the  past  as  though  it 
were  a  chapter  closed,  and  our  present  Christian- 
ity a  thing  by  itself,  the  same  as  though  it  were 
now  anew  established  in  the  earth.  I  allude  not 
now  to  councils,  or  to  ordinal  successions,  or  to 
Church  history  as  a  mere  recorded  series  of 
events  from  which  we  are  to  learn  or  from 
which  we  are  to  take  warning,  but  to  that  great 
vital  continuance  to  which  the  name  Church  may 
be  given  as  well  as  to  any  existing  congregation. 
No  man  can  carefully  read  ecclesiastical  history 
without  seeing  that  there  has  been  all  along  a 
most  real  life,  most  distinctly  separated  from  the 
worldly  life.  There  is  the  line  of  unearthly  char- 
acters, the  product  of  an  unearthly  power — a  per- 
petual miracle,  an  unbroken  series  of  such  un- 
earthly manifestations,  extending  from  the  Apos- 
tolical through  the  Patristic,  the  Roman,  the  Me- 
diaeval, the  Protestant,  the  Modern  Church.  It 
is  the  line  in  which  appear  Paul,  Cyprian,  Au- 
gustine, Anselm,  Bernard,  Luther,  Calvin,  Pas- 
cal, Hooker,  Ken,  Edwards,  Chalmers,  down  to 
our  own  times.  It  is  not  a  mere  fancied  catena, 
with  links  arbitrarily  supplied.  This  stream  of 
life  .flows  on  amidst  all  the  apparent  confusion 
cf  ecclesiastical  history.  Let  infidels  say,  too, 
what  they  will  about  the  endless  diversity  of 
creeds ;  there  has  been  all  along  this  stream  of 
vitality  a  marvelous  unity  of  belief.  "All  these 
died  in  faith,  holding  fast  '  the  doctrines  of 
grace.1"  It  is  the  best  name  that  can  be  given 
to  that  system  of  truth  distinguished  from  all 
other  by  the  deep  impression  it  has  ever  made, 
and  the  incalculable  importance  its  recipients 
ever  attached  to  it — the  tenacious  truth,  ever 
holding  its  own,  ever  recovering  from  attack, 
and  from  which  all  divergencies  have  ever  wan- 
dered more  and  more  until  lost  in  the  utter  dark- 
ness of  atheistic  infidelity.  It  differs,  too,  from 
all  other  views  by  this  decided  mark — that  it  ever 
makes  religion  a  great  and  fearful  thing.  Re- 
jecters have  ever  been  afraid  of  it.  This  was  its 
essential  orthodoxy,  as  it  may  be  described  with- 
out any  theological  technics :  a  great  perdition 
from  which  to  be  rescued,  a  great  and  most  real 
peril  to  man,  a  great  salvation,  a  great  and  di- 
vine Saviour.  Those  who  in  their  hearts  hold 
these  ideas  as  thus  generally  presented  can  not 
be  said  to  differ  much  in  any  more  specific  state- 
ments of  orthodoxy.  Grace  is  the  significant 
word  —  grace  as  distinct  from  every  idea  that 
ever  springs  from  any  mere  earthly  thinking. 
Man  ruined  by  himself,  and  saved  by  God ;  lost 
in  Adam,  found  in  Christ.  Here  has  been  the 
Church,  the  visible  Church — visible  in  the  light 
of  this  Word.  With  this  Church  we  should  love 
to  be  in  communion,  to  agree  with  it  in  doctrine, 
to  interpret  by  it,  and  with  it,  the  Word  of  God. 
The  opposite  feeling,  which  ever  delights  in  some- 


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159 


thing  new,  new  views  of  doctrine,  new  interpre- 
tations of  Scripture,  every  thing,  in  short,  that 
separates  us  from  the  past,  or  which  feeds  the 
unnatural  thought  that  the  Lux  Mundi  has  been 
darkness  for  1800  years,  or  until  our  light  has 
been  thrown  upon  it — this  is  heresy,  the  spirit  of 
heresy,  which  is  a  bad  feeling,  a  bad,  unchurchly, 
separating,  individualizing  state  of  soul,  rather 
than  any  peculiar  opinions  in  themselves  consid- 
ered. So,  on  the  other  hand,  a  love  to  agree,  a 
strong  desire  to  think  with  the  godly  mind  of  all 
ages,  a  sorrow  at  differing  from  it,  a  most  careful 
examination  and  re-examination  of  private  judg- 
ment when  it  leads  that  way — this  is  orthodoxy. 
The  definition  may  not  be  very  logical  for  the 
head,  but  it  is  clear  to  the  Christian  heart. 

Let  me  mention,  as  closely  allied  to  this,  an- 
other of  these  churchly  ideas  that  we  should  cul- 
tivate. It  is  that  of  the  Church  in  Paradise : 

"One  people  of  the  living  God, 
One  Church  above,  below; 
Part  of  the  host  have  crossed  the  flood, 
And  part  are  crossing  now." 

Here,  too,  a  just  revulsion  from  the  Romish  abuse 
has  driven  the  Protestant  mind  too  far  in  the 
other  direction.  The  thought  of  the  Christian 
dead — not  merely  of  the  near  and  known  de- 
parted, but  of  the  Christian  dead  of  past  ages — 
has  too  little  hold  on  our  Protestant  churches. 
It  is  not  that  we  do  not  think  of  them  at  all,  but 
that  we  do  not  think  of  them  as  in  unbroken  com- 
munion with  the  Church  on  earth.  Rome  might 
seem  to  have  the  advantage  here,  and  it  might 
be  conceded,  were  it  not  for  the  abuse  she  has 
made  of  it  in  the  doctrine  of  Purgatory,  and  of 
priestly  deliverance.  But  surely  there  is  a  lack 
here,  in  Protestant  Christendom,  that  may  be 
confessed.  There  might  be  religious  services  in 
connection  with  this  idea,  memorial  worship, 
without  any  sanction  of  Rome's  awful  error,  and 
furnishing,  in  fact,  the  most  direct  mode  of  con- 
demning it.  Such  memorial  worship  there  might 
be,  unconnected  with  any  idea  of  peril  to  those 
who  sleep  in  Christ,  while  full  of  the  richest  spir- 
itual nourishment  to  the  souls  of  the  living. 

With  another  thought  I  will  bring  my  discur- 
sive letter  to  a  close — "  The  people  of  God."  I 
have  already  alluded  to  the  preciousness  of  the 
expression.  "The  elect  of  God."  As  a  Calvinist, 
I  am  very  fond,  too,  of  that  term  ;  but  the  other  is 
the  one  in  which  we  can  better  harmonize.  It  is 
suggestive  of  another  phrase,  having  also,  when 
rightly  viewed,  a  high  churchly  value  —  "The 
Word  of  God,"  the  Holy  Scriptures,  or  the  Word 
of  God  written,  in  its  close  analogy  with  the 
Word  incarnate.  The  one  phrase  presents  a 
significance  inseparable  from  the  other.  The 
"Word  of  God"  can  not  be  disjoined  in  idea 
from  the  "People  of  God."  Aside  from  this,  it 
is  simply  "a  book,"  as  some  of  the  Rationalists 
have  contemptuously  called  it.  Even  as  "a 
book  "  of  written  or  printed  characters,  it  has  an 
inestimable  value.  It  is  the  record,  the  conserv- 
ing vehicle ;  but,  strictly  speaking,  it  is  not  the 
Word  itself.  The  completeness  of  that  idea  de- 
mands an  ear,  a  soul  to  which  it  is  addressed. 
Nor  is  this  a  mere  verbal  or  air-beating  proposi- 
tion. The  ' '  Word  of  God  "  demands  a  ' '  People 
of  God,"  to  whom  it  is  the  Word,  and  without 
which  it  is,  in  a  religious  sense,  Vox,  et  prceter- 


ea  nihil — not  in  stone,  or  wood,  or  parchment 
printed,  but  in  human  hearts,  in  the  collective 
heart  of  the  new  humanity.  It  is  this  which 
makes  it  the  "  living  W'ord" — Aoyof  rov  QEOV  £&v 
Kai  ivepyrjq  (Heb.  iv.,  12) — having  its  power,  its 
very  being,  in  the  souls  of  God's  people,  the  uni- 
versal churchly  mind.  I  barely  touch  upon  it  in 
this  imperfect  way  to  show  the  connection  of 
ideas,  and  as  a  protest  against  that  view  which 
would  lock  it  up  in  convents  and  libraries,  to  be 
doled  out  in  a  sort  of  priestly  alms-giving,  even 
if  such  doling  were  any  thing  more,  in  most  cases, 
than  the  sheerest  pretense.  Protestants  have 
been  charged  with  Bible  worship;  but,  as  thus 
regarded,  the  love  of  the  Holy  Scriptures,  leading 
to  their  devout  and  universal  study,  is  one  of  the 
most  churchly  of  affections.  It  is  not  only  the 
voice  of  God  in  the  Church,  but  the  vernacular 
language  of  the  "People  of  God,"  the  expression 
of  their  life,  more  valuable  as  such  than  any  mere 
exegetical  accuracy.  You  who  know  my  favor- 
ite pursuits  will  certainly  not  suspect  me  of  un- 
dervaluing the  latter ;  but,  after  all,  learned  exe- 
gesis has  its  chief  worth  as  a  conservative  influ- 
ence, exercising  a  proper  check  upon  the  devout 
imagination,  but  leaving  the  great  heart  of  Scrip- 
ture as  it  has  ever  affected  the  pious  mind  in  all 
ages  of  Christendom  from  Jerome  to  Matthew 
Henry.  There  is  truth,  then,  in  the  idea  of  the 
Bible  being  the  book  of  the  Church,  and  of  the 
Church  being  its  true  interpreter.  But,  this  must 
not  be  caricatured.  It  does  not  mean  that,  when 
perplexed  witli  a  difficult  passage  in  Job,  I  am 
to  send  for  light  to  the  infallible  one  in  Rome, 
or  to  the  parish  priest  as  his  most  accessible  tem- 
porary delegate.  Even  that  would  be  an  exercise 
of  my  private  judgment,  though  a  very  foolish 
one.  Church  interpretation  is  a  very  different 
thing  from  this.  I  am  to  realize  the  precious 
idea  by  seeking,  as  far  as  I  can  obtain  it,  the 
mind  of  that  old,  unearthly,  churchly  series  of 
unearthly  men.  I  must  seek  the  spiritual  food 
on  which  they  lived.  Those  hearty,  practical 
interpretations  of  Scripture  which  are  thus  sanc- 
tioned as  belonging  to  this  living  catena,  I  should 
love.  I  ought  to  rejoice  in  agreement.  I  ought 
to  feel  pain  if  the  most  honest  and  faithful  exege- 
sis compelled  a  difference.  I  should  believe  that, 
even  in  their  outward  errors,  they  were  nearer  the 
heart  of  the  Giver  of  that  Word  than  the  dry  ex- 
egete.  whose  whole  mind  is  upon  the  letter  that 
only  killeth  when  that  life  is  wanting  and  that 
voice  is  not  heard. 

I  have  done  injustice  to  this  latter  topic,  but 
you  will  pardon  it  as  an  attempt  to  set  forth  one 
of  the  most  precious  of  organic  ideas  that  must 
be  cultivated  as  preparatory  to  any  successful  or- 
ganic action.  The  Bible  and  the  Church ;  he  is 
no  friend  of  either  who  would  regard  one  as  in 
any  aspect,  or  in  any  degree,  excluding  the  other. 
Any  organization  that  calls  itself  the  Church,  and 
yet  locks  up  the  Word  which  God  has  addressed 
to  his  people,  thereby  proves  its  great  deficiency, 
if  not  the  utter  falseness  of  its  claim. 

If  any  thing  in  what  I  have  written  has  the  ap- 
pearance of  being  too  dogmatic,  ascribe  it  to  the 
difficulty  of  expressing  briefly  ideas  that  seemed 
of  so  much  importance.  With  Christian  affec- 
tion and  esteem,  yours  truly, 

TATLER  LEWIS. 

To  the  Rev.  President  POTTEB,  D.D. 


THE  COMMUNION  OF  SAINTS— MODES  OF  ITS 
PROMOTION  AND  MANIFESTATION. 

BY  THE  REV.  C.  DALLAS  MARSTON,  M.A., 

Vicar  of  St.  Paul's,  Onslow  Square,  London. 


THE  article  of  the  Christian  Creed*  -which 
expresses  belief  iu  the  communion  of  saints 
is  one  of  comparatively  late  introduction  ; 
bat  the  truth  declared  by  the  expression  is 
a  fundamental  one,  based  upon  the  Word  of 
God,  full'of  the  richest  comfort,  and  well  cal- 
culated in  its  realization  to  promote  to  the 
highest  extent  the  holiness  and  prosperity 
of  the  Church  of  Christ.  In  order  to  appre- 
ciate the  force  of  the  article — '•'  I  believe  in 
the  communion  of  saints" — it  will  be  neces- 
sary to  define  the  word  Communion,  and  to 
keep  the  definition  constantly  iu  view. 

Communion  is  more  than  intercourse ; 
though  the  word  is  frequently  used  in  a  loose 
sense,  as  if  it  meant  nothing  more — as  when 
we  speak  of  "a  season  of  refreshing  com- 
munion between  Christians."  Communion 
—  Koivwvia  (comp.  KOIVWVOG,  Philem.  17 ;  -01, 
Luke  v.,  10) — is  properly  fellowship;  a  partic- 
ipation enjoyed  by  those  who  are  mutually 
concerned,  in  things  which  they  hold  in  com- 
mon. By  the  covenant  of  grace  the  believer 
is  taken  into  certain  relations  with  God, 
with  each  Person  of  the  Holy  Trinity  ;  and 
those  relations  insure  fellowship,  participa- 
tion, communion  in  the  particular  blessings 
which,  according  to  revealed  arrangements, 
each  Person  of  the  Trinity  vouchsafes  to  con- 
fer. Again,  the  relations  with  God  estab- 
lish a  relation  among  believers  themselves, 
as  among  those  who  are  interested  iu  the 
same  Father,  the  same  Saviour,  the  same 
Sanctifier.  The  communion,  then,  or  fellow- 
ship of  the  saints  (>;  KOIVWVIO.  rStv  ayiwv,  com- 
municatio  sanctorum),  is  the  mutual  partic- 
ipation of  the  saints  in  all  those  matters 
which  pertain  to  them  as  the  people  brought 
into  covenant  with  God  ;  and  the  phrase 
thus  understood  will  prove  to  be  a,  most 
comprehensive  one,  involving,  and  indeed  ex- 
pressing, a  guarantee  of  the  highest  privi- 
leges to  the  possession  of  which  men  are  in- 
troduced by  the  gracious  purposes  of  Re- 
deeming Love.t 

L.  The  comprehensiveness  of  the  phrase 
will  best  be  seen  by  a  reference  to  the  pas- 
sages of  the  New  Testament  in  which  men- 
tion  is  made  of  the  fellowship  to  which  the 


•  Pearson,  "Creed,  in  Art" 

"The  communion  of  saints  is  a  holy  conjunction 
between  all  God's  people,"  etc.-O.wen,  Principles  of 
the  Doctrine  of  Christ,  ch.  xxv. 


believer  is  admitted.    Observe  the  following 
as  speaking  of  it  generally : 

"  Our  fellowship  (Koivtavia)  is  with  the  Fa- 
ther and  Avith  his  Son  Jesus  Christ"  (1  John 
i.,3). 

"  God  is  faithful,  by  -whom  ye  were  called 
unto  the  fellowship  (icoivuviav)  of  his  Son  Je- 
sus Christ"  (1  Cor.  i.,  9). 

"The  communion  (KOIVOIVIO)  of  the  Holy 
Ghost  be  with  you  all"  (2  Cor.  xiii.,  14). 

"  If  there  be  any  fellowship  (noivuvid)  of 
the  Spirit"  (Phi},  ii.,1). 

"The  things  which  we  have  seen  and  heard 
declare  we  unto  you,  that  ye  also  may  have 
fellowship  (icoivuviav)  with  us  (1  John  i.,  3). 

To  these  may  be  added  the  passage  in  the 
seventh  verse  of  the  first  chapter  of  St. 
John's  First  Epistle :  "  If  we  walk  in  the 
light  as  he  is  in  the  light,  we  have  fellow- 
ship (Koivwviav)  one  with  another;"  which 
may  refer  either  to  the  fellowship  between 
believers,  or — which  I  believe  to  be  prefer- 
able— the  fellowship  between  the  believer 
who  walks  iu  the  light  and  God  who  is  him- 
self the  Light. 

What  a  view  is  here  given  of  the  exalted 
condition  of  the  spiritual  Christian !  With 
the  Eternal  Father,  with  Jesus  in  all  his  full- 
ness, with  the  Holy  Ghost,  with  every  fellow- 
disciple  of  the  heavenly  Lord,  he  is  made  a 
partaker.  Special  ties  bind  him  to  each  of 
these ;  special  joys  flow  from  the  existing 
union ;  special  duties  claim  performance. ; 
special  privileges  bring  their  honor  and  de- 
light. 

"Oh  !  child  of  God— oh  !  Glory's  heir, 
How  rich  a  lot  is  thine." 

I  must  ask  you  to  glance  briefly  at  the 
several  branches  of  this  fellowship  or  com- 
munion, as  indicated  by  the  Scriptures  just 
now  quoted  when  compared  with  parallel 
passages.  We  can  not  bestow  more  than  a 
glance,  as  the  time  necessarily  forbids  any 
attempt  at  dwelling'upon  the  several  points, 
although  their  attractiveness  might  well  en- 
chain us  with  a  never-failing  power.  We 
will  keep  close  to  the  teaching  of  the  New 
Testament,  using,  indeed,  for  the  most  part, 
its  very  words. 

i.  Our  felloicship  or  communion  is  with  the 
Father.  "  Ye  have  not  received  the  spirit 
of  bondage  again  to  fear ;  but  ye  have  re- 
ceived the  Spirit  of  adoption,  whereby  wo 


MARSTON :  THE  COMMUNION  OF  SAINTS. 


161 


cry,  Abba,  Father"  (Rom.  viii.,  15).  The 
Eternal  God  regards  the  believer  as  his  child, 
and  the  fatherly  relation  secures — 

(1)  A  share  in  his  nature.  "  Behold  -what 
manner  of  love  the  Father  hath  bestowed 
upon  us  that  we  should  be  called  the  chil- 
dren of  God"  (1  John  iii.,  1).  As  those  "be- 
gotten again"  unto  a  living  hope,  "born 
again  of  incorruptible  seed"  (1  Pet.  i.,  3, 23), 
there  are  given  unto  us  exceeding  great  and 
precious  promises  that  by  these  we  might  be 
partakers  of  the  divine  nature  (Geiac  KOIVUVOI 
<t>vfft(ae)  (2  Pet.  i.,  4). 

'  (2)  Because  of  this  there  is  granted  to  us 
a  share  in  the  Father's  light.  "  God  is  Light. 
...  If  we  say  that  we  have  fellowship  (KOIV.) 
with  him,  and  walk  in  darkness,  we  lie 
. .  .  but  if  we  walk  in  the  light,  as  he  is  iu 
the  light,  we  have  fellowship  (Koivmviav) 
one  with  another"  (1  John  i.,  5-7).  Those 
who  walk  in  light  do  so  because  the  Light 
vouchsafes  to  dwell  in  them  and  shiue  forth 
from  them ;  so  that  the  light  of  their  life  is 
really  the  divine  presence  communicated  to 
them,  and  exhibiting  itself  in  their  deeds 
and  words. 

(3)  Believers  also  have  a  fellowship  in  the 
Father's  kingdom.  They  are  his  heirs  (K\>J- 
povofioi  [Rom.  viii.,  17]) ;  interested  now  in 
the  inheritance  as  those  who  are  made  kings 
unto  God  (Rev.  i.,  6),  and  with  a  prospect 
before  them  described  in  this  glowing  lan- 
guage :  "  Blessed  be  the  God  and  Father  of 
our  Lord  Jesus  Christ,  who  has  begotten  us 
again  ...  to  an  inheritance  incorruptible, 
undefiled,  unfading,  reserved  in  heaven"  (1 
Pet.  i.,  3,  4). 

Such  is  the  communion  or  fellowship  of 
the  saints  with  the' Father — fellowship  se- 
curing a  share  in  his  nature,  his  light,  his 
kingdom  — fellowship  most  intimately  af- 
fecting the  believer's  standing,  his  life,  and 
his  future  portion. 

ii.  Again :  Our  fellowship  is  with  his  Son  Je- 
sus Chrtet.  We  are  one  with  Christ  and 
Christ  with  us.  Union  with  Jesus  by  faith 
involves — 

(1)  Fellowship  with  him  in  life.     Behold 
in  Jesus  "the  Prince  of  Life"  (rbv  apwybv 
rrjc  £wije  [Acts  iii.,  15]).    And  he  speaks  thus, 
"  Abide  in  me  and  I  in  you"  (John  xv.,  4). 
"  Because  I  live  ye  shall  live  also  "  (John  xiv., 
19).    "Christ,  who  is  our  life"  (Col.  iii.,  4), 
has  declared,  "He  that  eateth  me" — he  that 
partakes  of  me  as  the  living  bread  of  the 
soul — "even  he  shall  live  by  me"  (John  vi., 
57). 

(2)  Fellowship  in  righteousness  also  re- 
sults from  union  with  Jesus.    Behold  in  him 
"the  Lord  our  righteousness"  (Jer.  xxiii., 
6).     Incorporated  in  him  the  believer  has 
all  that  he  can  bestow.     To  use  the  words 
of  Hooker,  "  The  man  being  found  in  Christ 
through  faith,  him  God  accepteth  iu  Jesus 
Christ  as  perfectly  righteous  as  if  he  had  ful- 
filled all  that  is  commanded  him  iu  the  law: 

11 


shall  I  say  more  perfectly  righteous  than  if 
himself  had  fulfilled  the  whole  law  ?  I  must 
take  heed  what  I  say ;  but  the  apostle  saith, 
'  God  made  him  which  knew  no  sin  to  be 
sin  for  us,  that  we  might  be  made  the  right- 
eousness of  God  in  him ' "  (Serm.  ii.,  6). 

(3)  With  this  there  is  fellowship  in  grace. 
Behold  in  Jesus  the  one  to  whom  the  Fa- 
ther hath  given  the  Spirit  without  measure 
(John  iii.,  34).     And  is  it  not  written,  "  Of 
his  fullness  have  all  we  received,  and  grace 
for  grace  ?"  (John  i.,  16).    And  again, "  Bless- 
ed be  God  .  .  .  who  hath  blessed  us  with 
all  spiritual  blessings  in  heavenly  places  in 
Christ"  (Eph.i.,  3). 

(4)  There  is  also  for  us  fellowship  in  his 
sufferings.    Behold  in  Jesus  the  "  man  of  sor- 
rows and  acquainted  with  grief"  (Isa.liii.,3). 
To  him,  the  Head,  must  the  members  be  con- 
formed ;  though,  indeed,  we  do  not  reckon 
upon  this,  and  are  too  prone  to  forget  or 
overlook  it.     But  we  are  "joint  heirs  with 
Christ,  if  so  be  that  we  suffer  with  him" 
(Rom.  viii.,  17).     And  the  illusions  to  this  in 
the  New  Testament  are  interesting  from  the 
use  which  the  inspired  writers  make  of  the 
very  word  Koivuvid,  or  KOIVUVOQ,  when  speak- 
ing on  the  point,  as  may  be  seen  by  referring 
to  2  Cor.  i.,  7 ;  Phil,  iii.,  10 ;  1  Pet.  iv.,  13. 

(5)  We  have,  too,  with  Jesus,  fellowship  in 
glory.     Behold  him  as  the  exalted  Prince  to 
whom  all  power  is  given  (Acts  v.,  31 ;  Matt, 
xxviii.,  18).    Now  listen  to  his  words :  "  The 
glory  which  Thou  gavest  me  I  have  given 
them"  (John  xvii.,  22).     "  He  that  overcom- 
eth,  to  him  will  I  give  power  over  the  na- 
tions, and  he  shall  rule  them  .  .  .  even  as 
I  received  of  my  Father"  (Rev.  ii.,  26,  27). 
"  To  him  will  I  grant  to  sit  with  me  in  my 
throne  "  (Rev.  iii., 21 ).  Therefore  Peter  wrote, 
"  I  am  a  partaker  (KOIVWVOG)  of  the  glory  that 
shall  be  revealed ;"  and  John, "  I  am  a  com- 
panion (vvyKotvuvoe)  in  the  kingdom  of  Je- 
sus Christ." 

Such  is  the  fellowship  or  communion  of 
the  saints  with  the  Son ;  which, like  that  with 
the  Father,  concerns  the  believer's  standing 
in  life  and  righteousness,  his  present  course 
in  action  and  suffering,  and  his  future  man- 
ifestation in  glory. 

iii.  The  saints  enjoy  also  the  fellowship  of 
the  Spirit.  "  He  hath  given  us  of  his  Spirit" 
(1  John  iv.,  13).  "God  hath  sent  forth  the 
spirit  of  his  Son  into  your  hearts"  (Gal.  iv.. 
6).  In  touching  upon  this,  I  will  but  pass- 
ingly remind  you  that  by  this  fellowship  we 
are  made  partakers  of  all  the  sanctifying  in- 
fluences of  the  Holy  Ghost,  as  well  as  of  all 
his  consolations.  Then  more  especially  let 
me  direct  you  to  some  words  in  our  Lord'o 
parting  discourse  to  his  disciples,  which  give 
to  one  particular  of  the  communion  of  the 
Holy  Ghost  a  prominence  which  is,  I  fear, 
much  overlooked.  In  the  15th  chapter  of 
St.  John's  Gospel,  at  the  26th  and  27th  verses, 
the  words  of  Jesus  are  these:  "When  the 


162 


CHRISTIAN  UNION. 


Comforter  is  conic.  ...  Ho  shall  testify  of 
me;  and  ye  also  shall  bear  witness."  Here, 
then,  is  fellowship  with  the  Spirit  in  testi- 
mony to  Christ.  What  a  glorious  privilege  is 
this — to  be  placed,  so  to  speak,  on  the  same 
level,  to  occupy  the  same  platform,  with  the 
Spirit,  to  share  his  special  work  of  witness- 
ing among  men  to  the  grace  and  love  of  Je- 
sus our  Lord ! 

Thus,  while  contemplating  from  the  reve- 
lations of  Scripture  the  communion  which  the 
believer  has  with  God,  it  is  as  though  in  a 
heavenly  vision  each  Person  of  the  Trinity 
draws  nigh  and  speaks  after  this  manner  to 
the  trusting  and  expectant  soul:  "I  possess 
such  or  such  benefits  and  privileges.  I  ad- 
mit thee  to  a  share  in  them.  As  the  Fa- 
ther, as  the  Son,  as  the  Spirit,  I  make  thee  a 
partaker  (KOIVUVOS)  ;  I  bless  thee  with  com- 
munion (KOIVUVIU).  Thon  shalt  participate 
in  all  the  riches  of  grace  and  glory  which,  in 
the  economy  of  redemption,  it  is  my  prerog- 
ative to  bestow." 

Oh !  with  what  joy,  beloved  in  Christ, 
should  such  thoughts  as  these  fill  our  souls ! 
What  earnestness  should  they  excite  within 
us  to  make  the  due  return  on  our  part  to 
the  God  of  all  grace,  that  the  communion 
with  Him  may  be  as  complete  as  possible. 
For  this  fellowship,  remember,  is  mutual. 
God  condescends  to  establish  it  with  us;  we 
are  privileged  to  maintain  it  with  him.  Let 
us  enter  more  fully  into  its  joys :  toward  the 
Father,  by  the  exercise  of  love,  trust,  wor- 
ship, and  obedience;  to  ward  the  Son,  in  faith, 
imitation,  and  gratitude ;  toward  the  Spirit, 
by  walking .  after  his  guidance,  and  by  not 
grieving  him  or  quenching  his  influences. 

iv.  We  have  now  to  consider  the  communion 
which  the  saints  have  with  one  another.  I  here 
omit  all  reference  to  that  communion  which 
.may  exist  with  the  angels  or  with  the 
Church  triumphant,*  as  well  as  to  the  mere- 
ly external  fellowship  between  the  real  and 
the  merely  nominal  disciples  of  the  Lord,  and 
will  but  notice  a  few  passages  of  the  New 
Testament  which  afford  instructive  illustra- 
tion of  this  part  of  the  subject. 

I  will  quote  some  lines  from  Pearson's 
"Exposition  of  the  Creed"  (p.  663,  Chcval- 
lier's  edition)  :  "  The  saints  of  God  living  in 
the  Church  of  Christ  have  communion  with 
all  the  saints  living  in  the  same  Church.  .  .  . 
We  all  have  benefit  of  the  same  ordinances, 
all  partake  of  the  same  promises;  we  are  all 
endowed  with  the  graces  of  the  same  Spirit, 
all  united  with  the  same  mutual  love  and  af- 
fection, keeping  the  unity  of  the  Spirit  in 
the  bond  of  peace ;  all  ingrafted  into  the 
same  stock,  and  so  receiving  life  from  the 
same  root;  all  holding  the  same  Head,  from 
which  all  the  body,  by  joints  and  bands  hav- 
ing nourishment  ministered  and  knit  to- 


*  On  the  communion  between  1he  Church  triumph- 
ant and  the  Church  militant,  gee  Owen,  "On  the  Per- 
8011  of  Christ,"  chap.  xx. 


gether,  iucreaseth  with  the  increase  of  God ; 
.  .  .  and  being  (i.e.,  since)  the  Head  of  the 
body  is  Christ,  and  all  the  saints  are  mem- 
bers of  that  body,  they  all  partake  of  the 
same  nourishment,  and  so  have  all  commu- 
nion among  themselves." 

As  I  have  just  said,  the  nature  of  this  fel- 
lowship will  receive  instructive  illustration 
from  some  notices  of  it  which  may  be  found 
in  the  New  Testament. 

When  St.  Luke  describes  the  state  of 
things  which  characterized  the  early  disci- 
ples, he  tells  us  that  they  continued  stead- 
fastly in  fellowship,  ry  KOIVWVIQ  (Acts  ii.,  42). 
There  was  among  them  a  realization  and  ex- 
hibition of  their  common  blessings ;  their 
unity,  their  mutual  interest,  and  care. 

The  words  of  St.  Paul  to  the  Romans, "  The 
Gentiles  have  been  made  partakers  (tKoivw- 
vtjffav)  of  their  spiritual  things"  (xv.,  27), 
teach  us  that  the  blessings  of  the  Gospel  an- 
imate the  soul  with  the  desire  to  receive  and 
welcome  others  to  the  enjoyment  of  them. 
With  snch  a  feeling  it  was  that  the  apostle 
wrote,  "  I  thank  my  God  for  your  fellowship 
(KOIVWV'K}.)  in  the  Gospel"  (Phil,  i.,  3, 5). 

There  are  two  very  interesting  passages, 
one  in  Gal.  vi.,  6,  and  the  other  in  Phil,  iv., 
15,  which  show  the  result  of  Christian  fel- 
lowship in  the  kindly  feelings  of  the  general 
brotherhood  toward  those  who  minister  to 
them  the  Word  of  God.  "  Let  him  that  is 
taught  in  the  word  communicate  unto  (KOI- 
voivtiTw,  let  him  exercise  fellowship  with; 
him  that  teacheth  in  all  good  things."  "  Ye 
Philippians,  when  I  departed  from  Macedo- 
nia, no  church  communicated  (tKoivuvrjaw, 
practiced  fellowship)  with  me  as  concerning 
giving  and  receiving,  but  ye  only." 

To  which  it  may  be  added  that  the  pas- 
sage just  now  quoted  (Rom.  xv.,  26,  27) 
shows  that  spiritual  fellowship  is  intended 
to  lead  to  such  an  exercise  of  liberality  as 
shows  a  recognition  of  mutual  interest  in 
temporal  goods. 

Two  others  may  be  grouped  together: 
"Praying  us  ...  that  wo  would  .  .  .  take 
upon  us  the  fellowship  (noivtaviav')  of  the 
ministering  to  the  saints "  (2  Cor.  viii,  4)  ; 
and  "  they  gave  to  me  and  Barnabas  the  right 
hands  of  fellowship  (icoij/wvi'ac)"  (Gal.  ii.,  9). 
From  these  we  learn  that  there  is  a  fellow- 
ship in  ministry,  either  in  performing  part 
of  the  same  work,  or  in  occupying  different 
spheres  with  the  same  end  in  view,  even  the 
spread  of  the  truth  of  Jesus  and  the  exten- 
sion of  his  kingdom. 

These  quotations  make  sufficiently  evi- 
dent the  character  of  that  communion  which 
exists  among  the  saints.  Based  as  it  is  on 
the  communion  which  they  all  enjoy  with 
their  one  covenant  God,  their  Father,  their 
Saviour,  their  Sanctifier,  consisting  as  it  does 
of  the  mutual  interest  which  they  all  pos- 
sess in  the  rich  spiritual  blessings  of  the  new 
covenant,  it  involves,  as  among  themselves, 


MAKSTON:  THE  COMMUNION  OF  SAINTS. 


163 


all  the  consideration  that  results  from  their 
unity  in  Christ,  all  the  joint  service  that  can 
promote  the  cause  and  glory  of  their  God. 
And  if  we  search  for  the  root  from  which 
such  practical  communion  takes  its  spring, 
we  find  it  in  the  essential  fellowship  which 
the  Father  has  established  among  his  chil- 
dren by  making  them  "  fellow-heirs,  and  of 
the  same  body,  and  partakers  of  his  promise 
in  Christ"  (Eph.  iii.,  6),  and  thus  introducing 
them  to  the  advantages  of  "  the  common 
faith"  (Tit.  i.,  4)  and  "  the  common  salvation" 
( Jude  3). 

I  almost  feel  that  an  apology  is  necessary 
for  the  very  cursory  sketch  which  I  have  of- 
fered of  this  part  of  my  subject.  Yet,  under 
the  circumstances,  I  can  only  aim  at  afford- 
ing material  for  future  thought  and  study. 
I  give  but  an  outline,  Avhich  you  may  at  leis- 
ure make  more  complete  for  yourselves. 
While,  however,  I  have  done'little  more  than 
enumerate  the  various  particulars  which  may 
illustrate  the  communion  of  the  saints,  I  have 
been  induced  to  notice  them  in  detail,  be- 
cause a  proper  Scriptural  opinion  as  to  this 
communion  or  fellowship  can  alone  enable 
us  to  decide  upon  the  other  points  mentioned 
in  the  great  subject  now  under  review.  The 
modes  of  promoting  and  manifesting  com- 
munion, and  the  assertion  that  Christian 
uuion  is  consistent  with  denominational  dis- 
tinctions, must  depend  upon  a  correct  idea 
of  communion  itself.  We  can  not  build  with- 
out a  sound  basis ;  we  can  not  insure  a  right 
direction  without  some  knowledge  of  the 
tendency  of  our  impelling  force ;  nor  is  it 
possible  for  us  to  appreciate  the  great  truth 
which  it  is  proposed  eventually  to  establish 
— I  mean  that  Christian  union  exists  inde- 
pendently of  our  sectional  differences — un- 
less we  understand  what  Christian  fellow- 
ship is  and  what  it  involves,  and  so  place 
ourselves  in  a  position  to  discover  whether 
there  is,  or  is  not,  any  thing  in  tlte  essence 
of  Christian  fellowship  with  which  denomi- 
national distinctions  must  necessarily  inter- 
fere. 

II.  I  will  only  touch  for  a  short  time  on 
the  modes  of  promoting  and  manifesting  the 
communion  of  saints. 

This  portion  of  the  subject  is,  I  presume, 
intended  more  particularly  to  embrace  the 
fellowship  which  believershave  among  them- 
selves, and  to  suggest  an  inquiry  into  the 
means  by  which  its  benefits  may  be  most  ef- 
fectually enjoyed  for  the  general  good.  If  I 
have  done  well  in  fixing  as  the  starting- 
point  of  all  advance  in  this  department  of 
the  Christian  life  the  plain  teaching  of  the 
Word  of  God,  it  is  clear  that  we  can  only 
progress  in  the  direction  pointed  out  by  ob- 
serving the  principles  which  the  Word  in- 
culcates, and  cultivating  the  spirit  which 
it  enjoins.  Attention  to  this  will  render  it 
no  difficult  matter  to  ascertain  how  we  may 
best  promote  and  manifest  our  communion. 


i.  Let  there  be,  then,  an  earnest  desire,  in 
the  first  place,  to  maintain  the  enjoyment  of 
that  fellowship  which  exists  between  the 
believer  and  the  several  Persons  of  the  all- 
gracious  Trinity.  The  whole  Christian  life, 
in  its  relation  to  man,  receives  its  efficacy 
and  beauty  from  the  health  of  the  Christian 
life  in  its  relation  to  God.  True,  there  may 
be  a  perfunctory  performance  of  many  stated 
duties  which  as  Christians  we  owe  to  one 
another,  while  communion  with  the  Father, 
the  Sou,  and  the  Spirit  is  not  carefully  encour- 
aged on  our  part ;  but  only  this  communion 
with  God — longed  after,  realized,  enjoyed — 
will  preserve  for  us  the  gracious  and  consid- 
erate mind  which  makes  communion  with 
each  other  delightful,  and  renders  men  ear- 
nest and  real  in  the  pursuit  and  preservation 
of  it. 

If,  therefore,  so  far  as  in  us  lies,  we  would 
promote  communion,  let  us  aim  at  the  real- 
ization of  our  sbnship  ;  that  we  are  children 
of  God,  that  our  fellow-believers  are  the 
same,  that  there  is  "  one  God  and  Father  of 
all."  Let  us  live  among  ourselves  as  those 
who  are  partakers  of  the  divine  nature, 
called  as  members  of  one  family  to  walk  in 
light  and  love,  journeying  with  thousands 
of  others  to  the  one  home.  What  is  the 
prime  unfailing  spring  of  family  affection, 
that  affection  which  exhibits  the  ideal  of 
the  family  in  so  many  living  realities  among 
us  ?  Surely  it  is  this — a  common  origin,  a 
common  parentage.  The  more,  then,  that 
we  prove  the  joy  of  communion  with  our 
God  and  Father  in  Christ,  the  more  keenly 
alive  shall  we  be  to  the  force  of  the  apostle's 
words:  "Every  one  that  loveth  him  that 
begat  loveth  him  also  that  is  begotten  of 
him"  (1  John  v.,  1) ;  and  when  the  tempta- 
tion arises  which  may  urge  us  to  strife  or 
misunderstanding,  the  more  readily  shall  we 
be  influenced  by  the  question  of  Moses  to 
the  quarreling  Israelites,  "Sirs,  ye  are  breth- 
ren; why  do  ye  wrong  one  to  another?" 
(Acts  vii.,  26). 

ii.  For  this  end  also  let  us  cultivate  a  deep- 
ening sense  of  our  fellowship,  as  believers, 
with  Jesus.  Is  he  not  for  us  the  living  Cen- 
tre, the  attractive  One,  that  regulates  all 
who  surround  him  ?  Oh !  let  us  but  draw 
closer  to  him,  and  of  necessity  it  follows  that 
we  shall  approach  continually  nearer  to  each 
other.  The  body,  to  use  St.  Paul's  phrase, 
will  be  "  knit  together"  (Col.  ii.,  19).  Keal- 
ized  oneness  with  Christ  is  that  which  brings 
individuals  .and  churches  into  genuine  com- 
munion. Christ  Jesus  is  the  centre  of  the 
circle ;  his  believing  members,  and  the  Chris- 
tian societies  which  they  compose,  are  as 
points  on  the  circumference.  How  will  you 
make  these  points  mutually  approach  ?  By 
bringing  some  nearer  to  others?  No:  for 
then  you  will  increase  the  distance  between 
them  and  others  again.  But  lessen  your  cir- 
cumference ;  in  other  words,  bring  every 


164 


CHRISTIAN  UNION. 


point  nearer  to  the  centre,  and  it  can  not  be 
otherwise  than  that  the  points  will  all  close 
up — the  nearer  they  are  to  one  another,  the 
nearer  they  are  to  Christ. 

iii.  Let  us  also  seek  a  more  abiding  expe- 
rience of  the  communion  of  the  Holy  Ghost. 
Is  he  the  Comforter,  and  have  we  fellowship 
•with  him!  Then  must  we  aim  at  "com- 
forting them  which  are  in  any  trouble  by 
the  comfort  wherewith  we  ourselves  are  com- 
forted of  God"  (2  Cor.  i.,  4).  Is  he  the  Sanc- 
tifier,  and  are  we  made  partakers  of  his  ho- 
liness t  Then  must  it  be  our  part  to  promote 
the  growth  in  spirituality  of  our  brethren, 
that  "  the  whole  body  fitly  joined  together, 
and  compacted  by  that  which  every  joint  sup- 
plieth,  according  to  the  effectual  working 
in  the  measure  of  every  part,  may  make  in- 
crease of  the  body  unto  the  edifying  of  itself 
in  love"  (Eph.  iv.,  16).  Is  the  Spirit  the  great 
witness  for  Jesus,  with  whom  the  disciples 
are  associated  by  the  Lord  himself  ?  How, 
let  me  ask,  can  we  more  effectually  bear  our 
testimony  so  as  to  affect  the  world  than  by 
the  exhibition  of  that  love  and  unity  which 
our  Lord  has  thus  solemnly  commended: 
"  Neither  pray  I  for  these  alone,  but  for  them 
also  which  shall  believe  on  me  through  their 
word ;  that  they  all  may  be  one ;  as  thou, 
Father,  art  in  me  and  I  in  thee,  that  they 
also  may  be  one  in  us :  that  the  world  may 
believe  that  thou  hast  sent  rue"  (John  xvii., 
20,  21). 

iv.  So  much  as  regards  the  promotion  and 
manifestation  of  communion  by  the  cultiva- 
tion of  our  fellowship  with  God.  And  as  to 
the  practical  display  of  it  among  ourselves, 
what  better  can  we  do  than  frame  our  life 
and  conduct  after  the  Scriptural  rules  so  ev- 
idently urged,  so  exquisitely  illustrated,  in 
the  pages  of  the  New  Testament  ?  Should  we 
not,  like  the  early  disciples,  continue  stead- 
fast in  fellowship  as  well  as  in  doctrine  ? 
Should  we  not  aim  at  making  others  par- 
takers of  our  spiritual  things  ?  Should  we 
not  encourage,  as  between  ministers  and  peo- 
ple, as  between  fellow-workers  in  the  same 
or  in  different  spheres,  the  interchange  of 
the  ever  warm  grasp  of  the  right  hand  of 
fellowship!  Yes;  unquestionably  we  should. 
And  let  us  do  so.  This  meeting — oh !  God 
grant  that  it  may  give  a  higher  tone  to  our 
Christian  communion  than  has  ever  hither- 
to been  attained.  Beloved,  as  those  who 
profess  to  be  one  with  the  Lord  Jesus,  let  us 
remember  with  especial  care  that  those  who 
are  one  with  him  are  one  with  each  other  in 
him.  The  holy  fellowship  which  during  the 
days  of  this  Conference  exhibits  itself  in  so 
practical  a  shape  before  the  eyes  of  Chris- 
tendom— is  it  not  a  reality  ?  Yes ;  assuredly 
it  is — au  even  greater  reality  in  the  purpose 
of  our  divine  Master  than  it  is  in  our  inten- 
tion. It  is  an  attempt — imperfect,  perhaps, 
but  still  an  attempt— at  the  realization  of 
his  prayer,  "  That  they  all  may  be  one."  It 


affords  a  foretaste  of  the  joy  of  that  desira- 
ble, that  anticipated  day,  when  "  there  shall 
be  one  Lord,  and  his  name  one"  (Zech.  xiv., 
(J) ;  when  "there  shall  be  one  flock  and  one 
Shepherd"  (John  x.,  16).  To-day  we  do  not  ut- 
ter the  wish, "  Unum  corpus  SIMUS  in  Christo;" 
we  make  the  solemn,  the  glad  declaration, 
"  Unum  corpus  SVMUS  in  Christo."  Let  us,  then, 
keep  this  feast — for  we  are,  as  Israel  of  old, 
gathered  from  all  parts  for  a  festival — let 
us  keep  this  feast,  and  let  us  return  to  our 
homes,  when  we  have  kept  it,  as  those  who 
confess  that  Christ  is  all  and  that  Christ  is  in 
all.  Let  us  watch  and  pray  against  "  what- 
soever may  hinder  us  from  godly  union 
and  concord ;  that  as  there  is  but  one  body 
and  one  spirit  and  one  hope  of  our  calling — 
one  Lord,  one  faith,  one  baptism — one  God 
and  Father  of  us  all — so  we  may  henceforth 
be  all  of  one  heart  and  of  one  soul,  united  in 
one  holy  bond  of  truth  and  peace,  of  faith 
and  charity,  and  may  with  one  mind  and  one 
mouth  glorify  God,  the  Father  of  our  Lord 
Jesus  Christ."  Brethren, "  to  do  good  and  to 
communicate,"  or,  as  I  may  more  correctly 
render  it,  encouraged  by  the  subject  and  the 
occasion,  "  Of  well-doing  and  of  fellowship 
be  not  forgetful ;  for  with  such  sacrifices  God 
is  well  pleased"  (Heb.  xiii.,  16). 

I  now  come  to  the  concluding  point  for 
our  consideration — the  assertion  that  Chris- 
tian union  is  consistent  with  denomination- 
al distinction.  Alas !  that  after  the  lapse  of 
eighteen  centuries  from  the  establishment  of 
the  Christian  Church  among  men,  it  should 
be  necessary  to  advance  arguments  upon 
this  topic.  Surely  we  should  receive  it  as 
an  axiom ;  not  argue  about  it  as  a  matter 
demanding  proof.  Yet  error  is  so  pertina- 
cious, and  false  views  of  union  are  so  com- 
mon—  while  the  conditions  of  union  pro- 
pounded by  some  are  so  extravagant — that  it 
is  well  for  us,  especially  on  an  occasion  like 
the  present,  to  restate,  as  it  were,  the  case, 
and  proclaim  without  hesitation  the  convic- 
tion of  our  hearts,  resting  as  that  conviction 
does  upon  firm  and  sufficient  grounds. 

The  true  idea  of  Christian  union  may  evi- 
dently be  drawn  from  the  Scriptural  teach- 
ing which  has  been  delivered  in  reference  to 
the  fellowship  of  the  saints.  Now  it  is  cer- 
tain that  the  New  Testament  nowhere  shows 
this  fellowship,  resulting  as  it  does  from 
union,  to  be  dependent  on  externals.  One- 
ness with  Christ  is  really  the  essential  basis 
of  oneness  ire  Christ. 

For  a  few  moments  recall  to  your  minds 
what  the  communion  of  the  saints  has  been 
shown  to  be,  according  to  the  voice  of  the 
New  Testament.  The  saints  have  commu- 
nion with  the  Father  in  nature,  light,  and 
kingdom  ;  with  the  Son  in  life,  righteous- 
ness, grace,  sufferings,  and  glory ;  with  the 
Spirit  in  sanctifying  influences,  consolations, 
and  testimony ;  and  with  each  other  in  all 
the  spiritual  blessings  of  the  new  covenant, 


MARSTON :  THE  COMMUNION  OF  SAINTS. 


165 


in  the  affections  -which  result  from  their  uni- 
ty in  Christ,  and  in  the  service  which  they 
can  render  to  advance  the  glory  of  God.  Now 
can  it  be  said  that  differences  of  organiza- 
tion, of  ecclesiastical  regimen,  of  forms  of 
worship,  affect  any  one  of  these  branches  of 
communion  ?  Is  it  possible  to  assert,  with 
any  truth,  that  Christians  whose  religious 
bodies  are  organized  on  different  models  can 
not  alike  call  God  their  Father  t — that  those 
who  put 'themselves  under  various  kinds  of 
Church  government  can  not  alike  rejoice  in 
Jesus  as  their  Saviour?  —  that  individuals 
who  adopt  this  or  that  or  the  other  form  of 
worship  can  not  alike  enjoy  the  precious 
presence  of  the  Holy  Ghost  ?  Is  it  possible 
to  say  that  these  various  bands  of  Christians 
can  not  realize  the  joys  of  a  common  faith 
and  a  common  salvation  ?  —  that  they  can 
not  be  linked  in  fraternal  intercourse,  and 
with  mutual  good  wishes  encourage  one  an- 
other in  serving  and  glorifying  their  God  ? 
Questions  like  these  need  only  be  asked  to 
make  it  evident  that  you  can  not  answer 
them  in  the  affirmative,  unless  you  put  indif- 
ferent things  in  the  place  of  that  which  is 
essential,  and  insist  upon  settling  in  your 
own  way  matters  which  God  has  seen  fit  to 
leave  unsettled  in  his  Word. 

For  it  is  manifest  that  such  matters  as 
the  constitution  of  churches,  their  internal 
organization,  their  forms  of  worship,  are  not 
clearly  and  strictly  defined  or  prescribed  in 
the  New  Testament.  I  say,  it  is  manifest  that 
these  are  not  so  prescribed  ;  for,  if  they  be, 
it  would  be  easy  to  show  the  Scriptural  ideal 
in  each  respect.  Then  it  would  follow  that 
if  any  one  of  the  existing  forms  could  be 
shown  to  be  alone  right,  all  the  rest  would 
be  wrong.  But,  strong  as  our  preferences 
may  be  for  one  or  another  mode  of  organiza- 
tion and  worship,  none  of  us  will  venture 
to  assert  that  he  and  his  alone  possess  the 
true  secret  of  worship — alone  command  the 
springs  which  fill  the  sweet  wells  of  fellow- 
ship with  God  and  man.  To  assert  this,  or 
any  thing  like  it,  would  be  to  thrust  all  oth- 
ers on  one  side  and  call  them  "Esau,"  while 
they  might  cry  in  vain, "  Hast  thou  but  one 
blessing,  O  my  father  ?"  But  then  it  might 
be  retaliated  upon  ourselves  with  too  much 
truth,  "  Is  he  not  rightly  named  Jacob,  be- 
cause he  hath  supplanted  me  ?"  Weighty 
and  solemn  are  the  words  of  one  who  wrote 
well  and  boldly  on  the  unity  of  the  Church : 
"  If  the  body  holds  to  the  one  Head,  and  is 
animated  by  the  one  faith,  and  is  sanctified 
by  the  one  baptism,  it  is  a  Church  before 
God ;  and  woe  to  us  if  we  deny  that  it  is  so ! 
Our  denial  will  recoil  upon  our  own  heads; 
and  we  shall  only  cut  ourselves  off  from  the 
blessings  of  Christian  communion  with  those 
by  whose  faith  and  knowledge  and  love  we 
might  otherwise  be  instructed  and  edified."* 

•  Archdeacon  Hnre,  "  Sermon  on  the  Unity  of  the 
Church;"  Note,  A, D. 


I  need  not,  however,  enlarge  in  this  strain. 
We  admit  with  readiness,  with  gladness,  that 
the  Presbyterian,  the  Episcopalian,  the  Con- 
gregationalist — all  the  Christian  brethren, 
indeed  who  "  hold  the  Head" — have,  several- 
ly and  with  each  other,  communion  with  the 
Father,  the  Son,  and  the  Spirit ;  that  they  ex- 
perience this  communion ;  that  they  can  and 
do  communicate  with  each  other  in  the  prac- 
tical manifestations  of  fellowship  noticed 
and  enforced  in  the  Scriptural  statements  to 
which  reference  has  been  made  in  this  ad- 
dress. The  Evangelical  Alliance  is  a  stand- 
ing witness  to  the  fact  that  hundreds  of 
Christians  make  this  admission,  and  rejoice 
in  making  it.  The  present  Conference,  the 
most  imposing  display  of  Christian  fellow- 
ship that  the  world  has  ever  seen,  is  a  living 
illustration  of  the  truth  that  union  in  Christ 
is  consistent  with  denominational  distinc- 
tions. 

Fellow-believers,  brethren  and  sisters  in 
Christ,  we  who  are  here  assembled  can  ap- 
ply to  ourselves,  and  to  this  our  associa- 
tion, the  grand  passage  in  the  fourth  chap- 
ter of  St.  Paul's  Epistle  to  the  Ephesians,  to 
which  I  have  already  adverted.  We  profess 
and  proclaim,  by  this  important  demonstra- 
tion, that  we,  humbly  yet  confidently  speak- 
ing in  dependence  on  divine  grace,  have  fel- 
lowship with  God  and  with  each  other ;  that 
we  realize,  not  the  possibility,  but  the  fact 
of  our  Christian  union,  while  recognizing  the 
existence — I  may  almost  say  the  necessary 
existence — of  our  differences  in  constitution, 
arrangement,  and  form.  We  do  not  ask  for 
uniformity ;  we  assert  our  unity.  There  is, 
indeed,  a  uniformity,  according  to  Hooker's 
idea,  which  all  several  persons  belonging 
to  the  visible  body  and  Church  of  Christ 
have,  by  reason  of  that  one  Lord,  "  whose 
servants  they  all  profess  themselves,  that 
one  faith  which  they  all  acknowledge,  that 
one  baptism  wherewith  they  are  all  initi- 
ated"* This  uniformity  we  own  ;  but  we 
have  learned  that  uniformity,  in  the  ordi- 
nary sense  of  the  word,  is  by  no  means  the 
shape  in  which  unity  necessarily  manifests 
itself,  and  that  the  desire  of  imposing  it  is 
one  of  the  commonest  errors  of  our  weak, 
self-relying,  narrow -hearted,  stiff-minded 
nature.  Uniformity  is  of  man,  and  we  have 
already  too  much  of  what  is  of  man  to  wish 
for  more.  Unity  is  of  God,  and  we  long  for 
an  increase  of  that  which  is  of  him  and  from 
him.  Uniformity,  let  me  repeat,  is  of  man. 
Man  can  frame  you  a  machine  so  ordered 
and  regulated  that  a  thousand  of  its  prod- 
ucts shall  come  forth  all  alike,  cast  in  the 
same  mould,jrunning  in  the  same  groove,  un- 
varying, indistinguishable.  But  it  is  not  so 
with  the  works  of  God.  Do  you  find  uni- 
formity among  the  members  of  the  human 
race  ?  Look  at  the  hundreds  of  men  and 


166 


CHRISTIAN  UNION. 


women  iu  this  room.  Is  there  any  uniform- 
ity in  the  figures,  the  faces,  the  features,  the 
expressions  of  all  these  f  There  is  a  unity 
of  design  and  end  in  the  sexes,  but  what  a 
diversity  in  the  individuals!  Do  you  find 
uniformity  in  the  leaves  of  the  wood,  iu  the 
waves  of  the  sea,  in  the  stars  of  heaven, 
where  one  star  differeth  from  another  star 
in  glory T  No.  And  "they  who  have  seen 
the  blessed  vision  of  unity,  with  the  prayer 
of  the  Saviour  breathing  through  it  as  the 
Hpirit  of  its  life,  and  the  smile  of  the  Father 
beaming  upon  it,  how  can  they  turn  from 
this  to  dote  upon  any  thing  so  shadowy,  so 
harsh,  so  empty  as  mere  uniformity  ?  or  how 
can  they  care  much  about  uniformity,  except 
so  far  as  it  is  indeed  the  expression  of  a  liv- 
ing love  for  unity,  submitting  its  own  heart 
and  mind  to  do  as  others  do  for  the  sake  of 
a  more  entire  union  and  communion  ?"*  Let 
us  prize,  if  we  will,  our  own  peculiar  modes 
— I  do  not  know  why  men  should  not  have 
their  preferences ;  fet  us  be  glad  when  oth- 
ers adopt  our  views,  if  we  can  win  them 
without  base  proselytisin — I  do  not  know 
why  men  should  not  encourage  an  honorable 
esprit  de  corps;  but  above  all  this  sectional 
feeling  let  us  put  the  welfare  of  the  com- 
mon, universal  Church  of  Christ — the  pro- 
motion and  development  of  our  oneness  in 
him  who  prayed  that  we  may  be  one. 

Union — this  is  the  true  condition  of  the 
body  animated  by  the  spirit.  The  spirit  it 
is  which  keeps  up  the  union  in  the  natural 
body :  let  the  spirit  be  absent,  the  body 
wastes,  corrupts,  decays,  crumbles  to  its  at- 
oms. The  presence  of  the  Spirit  of  God,  with 

*  Hare,  "  On  the  Unity  of  the  Church." 


whom  the  saints  have  fellowship,  preserves 
the  union  which  God  has  constituted,  and 
which  really  and  essentially  exists.  What 
the  apostle  applies  to  individuals  in  a  Chris- 
tian community  has  its  force  of  application 
to  the  churches  in  the  Church.  They  are 
members  one  of  another  by  virtue  of  com- 
munion. None  of  us  can  bo  the  head — for 
the  head  of  the  body  is  Christ ;  but  wo  arc 
members  one  of  another.  And  if,  in  a  sur- 
vey of  the  churches  and  their  efforts,  their 
theologians,  evangelists,  and  members,  we 
find  that  one  community  is  blessed  with  far- 
sightedness ;  another  with  quickness  to  hear 
the  cry  of  the  world's  need ;  another  with 
skill  to  mould  Christian  operations ;  another 
with  ready  swiftness  to  run  upon  the  Mas- 
ter's bidding — then  shall  the  eye  say  to  the 
ear,  or  the  hand  to  the  foot,  Thou  art  not  of 
the  body  ?  "  For  the  body  is  not  one  mem- 
ber, but  many.  And  God  hath  set  the  mem- 
bers every  one  in  the  body  as  it  hath  pleased 
him.  And  the  eye  can  not  say  unto  the  hand, 
I  have  no  need  of  thee ;  nor  again  the  head 
to  the  feet,  I  have  no  need  of  you.  God 
hath  tempered  the  body  together  that  there 
should  be  no  schism  in  the  body,  but  that 
the  members  should  have  the  same  care  one 
for  another.  Now,  ye  are  the  body  of  Christ, 
and  members  iu  particular"  (see  1  Cor.  xii., 
14-27). 

If  so,  let  it  be  our  care,  whatever  place  in 
the  body  we  occupy,  so  to  realize  our  fellow- 
ship, so  to  manifest  our  oneness,  so  to  live  in 
the  communion  of  the  saints,  that  we  may 
show  to  the  world  that  Christian  union  is  a 
reality,  and  that  each  of  us  feels  iu  the  heart 
what  we  have  together  repeated  with  the 
lips,  I  believe  in  the  communion  of  the  saints. 


CHRISTIAN  LOVE  THE  BOND  OF  CHRISTIAN 

UNION. 

BY  THE  REV.  GEORGE  R.  CROOKS,  D.D.,  NEW  YOKK. 


As  the  human  body,  though  composed  of 
many  members,  is  one,  so  also  is  Christ  and 
his  Church.  This  body  is  made  one  by  the 
operation  of  the  Spirit.  "  For  by  one  Spirit 
are  we  all  baptized  into  one  body,  whether 
Jews  or  Gentiles ;  whether  we  be  bond  or 
free."  One  very  important  point  is,  there- 
fore, established :  the  Church  is  already  one. 
It  can  not  be  made  two,  or  divided ;  it  is 
one  by  virtue  of  a  common  life.  Its  unity 
does  not  consist  in  subscription  to  a  common 
formula ;  that  is  unity  of  opinion.  Its  unity 
does  not  consist  in  the  agreements  or  reso- 
lutions of  Christians  that  they  will  be  one  ; 
that  would  be  the  unity  of  a  league  or  com- 
pact. Nor  does  its  unity  consist  in  the  con- 
sent to  follow  a  certain  method  of  practice ; 
that  is  the  fruit  of  the  unity  rather  than  the 
unity  itself. 

We  can  not,  therefore,  of  ourselves,  create 
the  unity  of  the  Church.  It  is  already  cre- 
ated. We  might  as  well  speak  of  ourselves 
creating  the  unity  of  the  human  family. 
The  human  family  is  already  one  by  virtue 
of  its  descent  from  a  common  stock.  God 
has  "created  of  one  blood  all  nations  to 
dwell  upon  the  face  of  the  earth."  Whether 
the  members  of  the  human  family  recognize 
this  fact  or  not,  it  remains  unaltered.  And 
this  is  the  sin  of  human  nature  that  we,  be- 
iugofone  kind,  having  one  common  nature, 
do  not  act  toward  each  other  in  harmony 
with  this  relationship.  We  act  as  though 
the  human  race  were  not  truly  and  organic- 
ally one ;  as  though  it  had  not  a  common 
destiny ;  as  though  all  its  members  were  not 
embraced  in  the  same  comprehensive  plans 
of  the  Providence  of  God.  The  members  of 
the  human  family  are  brought  into  more 
satisfactory  relations  with  one  another  by 
the  recognition  in  their  conduct  of  the  one- 
ness of  the  race.  The  vital  unity  becomes  the 
ground  of  the  moral  and  affectional  unity. 

Now,  as  the  vital  unity  of  the  human  race 
remains,  whether  men  recognize  it  or  not,  so 
does  the  unity  of  Christ's  Church,  whether  it 
be  or  be  not  clear  to  the  consciousness  of 
Christians.  For  the  Church  recognizes  as 
its  head  the  second  Adam,  its  life  is  his  life 
pervading  its  members.  By  the  Spirit  these 
members  are  baptized  into  one  body,  the 
unity  is  created  by  a  divine  power,  the  power 
which  makes  the  Church  a  living  body  at  all. 
When  Christians  come  to  a  consciousness 
that  all  who  are  Christ's  really  are  one,  be- 


cause they  are  his,  then  they  begin  to  in- 
quire whether  this  unity  is  practically  re- 
alized. Before  this  consciousness  is  devel- 
oped, they  try  to  form  other  unities.  These 
are  such  as  the  unity  founded  on  acceptance 
of  a  creed,  which  is  the  most  common  form 
that  the  effort  has  taken  in  Protestantism ; 
in  a  unity  of  external  organization,  which 
is  that  of  Romanism.  These  fail,  as  they 
deserve  to  fail ;  the  fact  that  they  have  led 
to  bloody  persecutions  is  prima  facie  evi- 
dence that  they  are  not  the  true  principles 
of  unity.  The  Christian  world  has  late- 
ly made  the  discovery  that  the  oneness  of 
Christ's  Church  is  not  a  fact  to  be  created, 
but  one  in  harmony  with  which  we  are  to 
live.  He  is  a  Christian  who  partakes  of 
Christ's  life  ;  he  is  the  brother  of  every  one 
else  who  partakes  of  that  life.  All  Chris- 
tians are  therefore  of  one  family ;  and  the 
problem  before  them  is  by  their  conduct  to 
express  the  oneness  which  has  been  divine- 
ly created. 

This  exhibition  of  Christ's  Church  as  al- 
ready one  is  a  leading  Pauline  idea.  With 
Paul  the  unity  of  Christ's  body  is  present, 
not  future,  and  his  effort  is  to  bring  his  fel- 
low-Christians not  to  create  the  oneness, 
but  to  apprehend  it.  Thus  he  writes  to  the 
Galatians:  "As  many  of  you  as  have  been 
baptized  into  Christ,  have  put  on  Christ. 
There  is  neither  Jew  nor  Greek,"  i.  e.,  there 
are  no  distinctions  of  race  recognized ;  "there 
is  neither  bond  nor  free,"  i,  c.,  there  are  no 
distinctions  of  condition;  "there  are  neither 
male  nor  female,"  i.  c.,  there  are  no  distinc- 
tions of  sex;  "for  they  are  all  one  in  Christ 
Jesus."  The  three  great  causes  of  separa- 
tion among  mankind  are  (1)  differences  of 
race,  (2)  differences  of  condition,  (3)  differ- 
ences of  sex.  The  fact  that  believers  have 
put  on  Christ  is  sufficient,  according  to  Paul, 
to  overcome  all  these  causes  of  separation, 
and  to  create  unity.  Let  it  be  observed 
that  these  causes  of  separation  were  more 
powerfully  operative  in  the  ancient  world 
than  any  causes  of  separation  at  work  in 
the  Christian  world  now.  Jews  and  Gentiles 
after  accepting  Christ  were  hedged  about  by 
habits  and  opinions  which  still  kept  them 
apart.  We  see  from  the  whole  tenor  of  the 
Gospel  history  that  they  were  far  from  think- 
ing alike.  Paul  reconciled  these  differences 
by  pointing  to  their  higher  unity.  The  be- 
lieving slave  and  the  believing  master  were 


168 


CHRISTIAN  UNION. 


in  Christ  one.  According  to  the  ancient 
system,  there  was  an  immense  distance 
maintained  between  the  sexes ;  there  were 
no  pnre  associations  of  men  and  women  to- 
gether. But  both  sexes  were  alike  redeem- 
ed by  Christ,  and  the  slavish  subjection  of 
the  -weaker  was  at  an  end. 

Let  us  observe  further.  There  are  three 
ideas  frequently  confounded  with  each  oth- 
er. The  first  of  these  is  unity,  which  is  of 
spirit  and  life;  the  second  is  unanimity, 
which  is  oneness  of  thinking ;  the  third  is 
uniformity,  which  is  oneness  of  method. 
The  effort  to  establish  the  last  of  these  has 
been  given  up  in  Protestantism,  and  yet  it 
operates  as  a  cause  of  alienation.  It  is  the 
effort  to  establish  the  second  which  is  now 
about  being  abandoned,  and  Protestant 
Christians  are  ready  to  fall  back  on  the 
first.  When  they  have  so  done,  they  will 
find  that  unity  of  life  does  produce  a  suffi- 
cient unanimity  and  a  sufficient  uniformity  ; 
for  a  oneness  of  life  does,  in  time,  produce 
a  sufficient  agreement  in  thinking  and  in 
procedure. 

The  history  of  the  last  century  is  a  striking 
proof  of  the  correctness  of  these  positions. 
John  Wesley  began  his  labors  in  the  hope  of 
reforming  the  lives  of  the  English  people. 
The  object  of  his  attack  was  practical  un- 
godliness. In  1760  he  issued  a  circular  to 
fifty  ministers  of  various  churches,  propos- 
ing that  they  should  acknowledge  and  treat 
each  other  as  brethren,  notwithstanding  their 
differences.  In  this  he  says :  "  I  do  not  ask 
a  union  in  opinions.  They  might  agree  or 
disagree  touching  absolute  decrees  on  the 
one  hand  or  perfection  on  the  other.  These 
may  still  speak  of  imputed  righteousness,  and 
those  of  the  merits  of  Christ.  Not  a  union 
with  regard  to  outward  order.  Some  may 
still  remain  quite  regular,  some  quite  irregu- 
lar, and  some  partly  regular :  but  these  things 
being  as  they  are,  as  each  is  persuaded  in  his 
own  mind,  is  it  not  a  desirable  thing  that 
we  should  love  as  brethren?"  And  again, 
in  1765,  he  writes  to  a  minister  of  the  Church 
of  England :  "  I  desire  to  have  a  league,  of- 
fensive and  defensive,  with  every  soldier  of 
Christ.  We  have  not  only  one  faith,  one 
hope,  one  head,  but  are  directly  engaging  in 
one  warfare.  Come,  then,  ye  that  love  Him, 
to  the  help  of  the  Lord,  to  the  help  of  the 
Lord  against  the  mighty."  In  the  spirit  of 
a  true  catholicity,  he  publishes  a  life  of 
Madame  Guyon,  a  Koman  Catholic,  and  of  a 
French  Unitarian.  The  simple  law  by  which 
he  decides  the  question  of  Christian  union 
was  wherever  he  saw  the  image  of  Christ  to 
recognize  in  its  possessor  a  brother.  What 
God  had  accepted  he  Avould  not  call  com- 
mon or  unclean. 

Yet  for  the  want  of  a  consciousness  in  the 
churches  of  that  age  of  the  value  of  the  truth 
which  was  so  clear  to  him,  he  who  would 
have  united  with  all  was  driven  to  separate 


action,  and  his  followers  to  separate  church 
organization.  And  there  can  not  be  much 
done  now  for  the  more  perfect  union  of 
Christians  till  the  consciousness  of  the  es- 
sential unity  of  all  who  believe  truly  in  Je- 
sus is  more  perfectly  developed.  Then  the 
differences  which  now  separate  us  will  melt 
away  in  the  perception  of  a  higher  unity. 

May  I,  without  censure,  refer  further  to 
this  great  reformer  as  a  leader  in  the  pro- 
motion of  union  of  Christian  men  I  I  hold 
in  my  hand  some  paragraphs  from  his  ser- 
mons on  a  "  Catholic  Spirit."  Its  date  is 
1771,  just  one  hundred  and  two  years  ago. 
His  definitions  are  those  which  we  have  ac- 
cepted— that  personal  faith  in  Christ,  and 
love  which  is  its  product,  are  the  true  bonds 
of  Christian  Union.  In  looking  for  the  traits 
in  his  fellow-man  which  constitute  a  claim 
to  fellowship,  he  asks : 

"  Do  you  show  your  love  by  your  works  ? 
While  you  have  time,  as  you  have  opportu- 
nity, do  you,  in  fact,  '  do  good  to  all  men,' 
neighbors  or  strangers,  friends  or  enemies, 
good  or  bad  ?  Do  you  do  them  all  the  good 
you  can ;  endeavoring  to  supply  all  their 
wants,  assisting  them,  both  in  body  and  soul, 
to  the  uttermost  of  your  power  ?  If  thou 
art  thus  minded,  may  every  Christian  •  say 
yea;  if  thou  art  but  sincerely  desirous  of  it, 
and  following  on  till  thou  attain,  then  '  thy 
heart  is  right,  as  my  heart  is  with  thy  heart.' 
'  If  it  be,  give  me  thy  hand.'  I  do  not  mean, 
'  Be  of  my  opinion.'  You  need  not.  I  do 
not  expect  or  desire  it.  Neither  do  I  mean, 
'  I  will  be  of  your  opinion.'  I  can  not.  It 
does  not  depend  on  my  choice.  I  can  no 
more  think  than  I  can  see  or  hear  as  I  will. 
Keep  yon  your  opinion ;  I  mine,  and  that  as 
steadily  as  ever.  You  need  not  endeavor  to 
come  over  to  me,  or  bring  me  over  t6  you. 
I  do  not  desire  to  dispute  those  points,  or  to 
hear  or  speak  one  word  concerning  them. 
Let  all  opinions  alone  on  one  side  and  the 
other.  Only  '  give  me  thine  hand.' " 

What  he  asks  for  himself  from  his  fellow- 
Christians  is  conceived  in  the  same  spirit : 

"  I  mean,  first,  love  me.  And  that  not  only 
as  thou  lovest  all  mankind ;  not  only  as  thou 
lovest  thine  enemies  or  the  enemies  of  God, 
those  that  hate  thee,  that  '  despitefully  use 
thee,  and  persecute  thee ;'  not  only  as  a 
stranger,  as  one  of  whom  thou  knowest  nei- 
ther good  nor  evil.  I  am  not  satisfied  with 
this.  No ;  'if  thine  heart  be  right,  as  mine 
with  thy  heart,'  then  love  me  with  a  very 
tender  affection,  as  a  friend  that  is  closer 
than  a  brother,  as  a  brother  in  Christ,  a  fel- 
low-citizen of  the  New  Jerusalem,  a  fellow- 
soldier  engaged  in  the  same  warfare,  under 
the  Captain  of  our  salvation.  Love  me  as  a 
companion  in  the  kingdom  and  patience  of 
Jesus,  and  a  joint  heir  of  his  glory." 

Finally  he  sums  up  his  whole  theory  of 
Christian  union  in  the  pithy  statement, 
"  Catholic  love  is  a  catholic  spirit." 


CHRISTIAN  UNION;  OR,  THE  EVANGELICAL  AL- 
LIANCE IN  FRANCE. 

BY  THE  EEV.  EMILE  F.  COOK,  B.A.,  PAKIS. 


IT  is  a  matter  of  deep  regret  to  myself  and 
to  many  others  that  our  venerated  brother, 
Pastor  Guillaume  Monod,  is  not  here  to  speak 
on  the  subject  of  "  Christian  Union,"  as  had 
been  expected.  He  would  have  done  it  in 
that  beautiful  language  of  which  he  pos- 
sesses the  secret,  and  with  that  elevation  of 
thought  and  maturity  of  talent  which  are 
the  fruits  of  his  long  and  rich  experience. 

As  this  important  theme  was  to  be  han- 
dled and  discussed  in  its  essential  principles 
and  bearings  by  several  distinguished  ora- 
tors, it  appeared  to  me  that  the  best  thing  I 
could  do  was  to  give  a  short,  historical  sur- 
vey of  what  has  been  done  during  the  last 
thirty  or  forty  years  in  France  to  promote 
Christian  union,  and  then  to  suggest  very 
briefly  some  desiderata  in  view  of  a  closer  and 
more  complete  union.  I  shall  not  deal  with 
abstractions,  but  with  facts.  In  apology  of 
the  meagreuess  and  defect! veness  of  this  ad- 
dress, and  in  justice  to  myself,  I  must  say 
that  the  task  of  preparing  a  paper  on  this 
subject  was  intrusted  to  me  two  hours  be- 
fore I  set  off  from  Paris  to  come  to  America ; 
that  I  have  had  no  means  of  consulting  any 
documents  whatever,  and  have  had  to  rely 
only  on  my  recollections.  I  have  also  to  beg 
for  indulgence  on  account  of  my  very  im- 
perfect acquaintance  with  the  English  lan- 
guage, which  is  not  my  mother-tongue,  and 
for  using  in  many  instances  French  phrase- 
ology. I  hope  to  be  understood,  and  that  is 
what  I  aim  at. 

I  ought  to  say,  at  the  outset,  with  heart- 
felt gratitude  to  God,  that  the  union  of  evan- 
gelical Christians  in  France  is  not  a  vain 
word,  but  a  blessed  fact.  As  far  as  I  am 
able  to  judge  of  the  religious  condition  of 
other  countries,  I  see  nowhere  so  few  points 
of  disagreement  among  Christians  of  differ- 
ent denominations,  and  I  nowhere  ascertain 
so  many  points  of  contact,  so  many  things 
drawing  the  Christians  close  to  one  another, 
as  I  see  in  France.  This  may  be  attributed 
to  the  fact  that  we  are  but  a  very  feeble  mi- 
nority, lost,  as  it  were,  among  the  mass,  and 
on  that  account  obliged  to  draw  near  to  one 
another,  and  help  one  another ;  as,  also,  to 
the  outward  circumstances  in  which  Protest- 
antism is  placed,  and  which  have  created  for 
all  of  us  a  very  similar  situation  ;  but  it  may 
also  be  due  to  the  absence  within  the  circle  of 


evangelical  Protestantism  of  any  parties  pro- 
fessing extreme  views.  There  is  no  Church 
among  us  holding  the  tenet  of  apostolical 
succession ;  Protestant  pastors  are  all  on  a 
footing  of  perfect  equality  with  regard  to 
their  ordination  ;  and  a  fact  worth  mention- 
ing which  would  scarcely  be  found  anywhere 
else  is  that  in  at  least  three  of  the  great  di- 
visions, among  the  Reformed,  the  Free  United, 
and  the  Methodist  churches,  it  is  a  very  com- 
mon thing  to  invite  to  the  ordination  of  a 
pastor  in  one  of  these  churches  the  pastors 
of  the  two  others,  who  join  them  in  the  lay- 
ing on  of  hands.  Then,  again,  the  question 
of  adult  baptism  has  scarcely  been  discussed 
as  yet.  The  liturgy  of  the  Reformed  Church 
(national)  is  not  an  elaborate  one,  and  leaves 
room  for  spontaneous  and  extempore  prayer, 
so  that  with  regard  to  sacred  worship,  and 
to  ecclesiastical  modes  of  proceeding,  and, 
we  might  add,  with  regard  to  the  doctrines 
generally  preached,  the  Reformed  and  the 
Methodists  and  the  Independents  are  very 
much  alike,  and  in  many  things  almost  iden- 
tical. [I  have  said  nothing  of  the  Luther- 
ans, as  they  are  in  the  habit  of  standing  a 
little  more  aloof;  but,  alas,  there  are  but 
very  few  of  them  calling  themselves  French, 
or  being  considered  as  such  —  some  in  the 
"  pays  de  Montbeliard,"  and  some  in  Paris, 
who  have  harmoniously  worked  together 
there  with  pastors  of  other  churches.] 

But  having  said  so  much,  we  can  not 
avoid  acknowledging  that  Christians  in 
France  have  been  too  long  divided,  and  in 
too  many  respects  hostile  to  one  another; 
that  they  have  had  too  many  of  those  secret 
and  underhand  contests  which  entertain 
unjust  prejudices,  and  produce  painful  clash- 
ings.  The  Evangelical  Alliance  has  done  us 
good  by  bringing  us  together;  it  has  caused 
the  members  of  different  churches  to  know 
each  other,  and,  as  a  natural  sequence,  to 
value  and  love  one  another. 

Before  it  was  founded  as  a  special  organ- 
ization, the  principles  which  it  has  for  its 
mission  to  spread  had  been  recognized,  and 
had  exercised  a  wholesome  influence  in 
France,  as  well  as  in  England  and  in  Amer- 
ica, by  the  establishment  of  religious  socie- 
ties, the  directing  committees  of  which  were 
composed  of  pastors  and  laymen  belonging 
to  several  denominations.  We  had  as  far 


170 


CHRISTIAN  UNION. 


back  as  1830  our  Bible,  Tract,  Missionary, 
Primary  Education  Societies ;  later,  tbe  So- 
cifU  du  Sou  Protestant,  etc. ;  and  it  deserves 
to  be  noted  tbat  there  was  no  society  of  tbe 
kind  specially  connected  with  a  particular 
church,  as  is  the  case  in  England,  where  one 
missionary  society  is  connected  with  tbe  Es- 
tablishment, another  with  the  Methodists 
or  the  Baptists,  and  so  on.  The  result  was 
this,  that  any  individual  Christian  who  felt 
bis  responsibility,  and  recognized  the  duty 
of  working  for  the  conversion  of  the  world, 
has  had  to  choose  between  doing  nothing, 
or  meeting  on  common  ground  with  mem- 
bers of  other  churches  imbued  with  the  same 
spirit  with  himself.  There  is  no  doubt  that 
those  works  undertaken  by  Christians  of 
different  churches  unitedly  had  prepared 
the  way,  and  that  many  there  were  who 
longed  for  a  closer  and  more  formal  alliance. 

If  I  mistake  not,  it  was  the  Evangelical 
Church  of  Lyons,  admirably  placed  for  this 
by  its  intermediate  position  between  the 
Established  and  Dissenting  Churches,  which 
was  the  first  to  address  an  appeal  in  view 
of  so  desirable  a  union,  and  Pastor  Fisch 
(whom  we  have  the  pleasure  to  have  with 
us)  took  the  "  initiative  "  of  calling  together 
in  1845  a  meeting  of  all  those  who  profess- 
ed to  love  the  Lord  Jesus  Christ,  the  year 
before  the  organization  of  the  Evangelical 
Alliance;  then  a  committee  was  formed  in 
Lyons,  connected  with  the  movement  inau- 
gurated on  the  other  side  of  the  Channel, 
and  soon  after  another  in  Paris,  and  one  at 
Nismes,  while  similar  meetings  were  being  or- 
ganized in  the  surrounding  countries  where 
French  is  spoken,  at  Brussels,  Geneva,  Lau- 
sanne, Neuchatel,  which  together  Constituted 
the  French  branch  of  the  Evangelical  Alliance. 
In  every  place  these  committees  called  to- 
gether public  meetings  for  prayer  and  edifi- 
cation, in  which,  notwithstanding  what  may 
have  been  said,  it  did  a  real  good  to  have  to 
conjugate  the  tenses  of  the  verb  to  love,  and 
to  place  in  their  true  light  the  principles  of 
the  unity  of  the  Spirit  by  the  bond  of  peace. 
At  first,  there  were  some  good  men  who  did 
not  think  it  their  duty  to  associate  with  this 
movement.  A  few  believed  that  their  fidel- 
ity to  their  convictions  required  of  them 
that  they  should  stand  aloof,  claiming  the 
rights  of  truth,  and  refusing  to  take  any 
part  in  what  appeared  to  them  to  be  bane- 
ful and  injurious  compromises;  but,  in  pres- 
ence of  the  blessings  vouchsafed  by  God  to 
meetings  of  the  Alliance,  they  thought  bet- 
ter of  it,  and  were  one  by  one  irresistibly 
brought  to  co-operate  with  it,  and  not  a  few 
who  had  remained  strangers  to  .the  Evan- 
gelical Alliance  when  it  commenced  have 
become  afterward  its  warmest  friends  and 
supporters. 

Apart  from  the  committees  we  have  men- 
tioned, but  in  the  same  spirit,  although  un- 
der a  different  form,  were  founded  the  so- 


1  called  Conferences  of  the  two  Charentcs  in 
the  West,  of  which  our  regretted  brother,  Lu- 
cien  des  Meisards,  was  the  chief  promoter ; 
and  in  the  South  the  brotherly  Conferences 
of  the  Cevennes,  which  embraced  a  large  re- 
gion, and  met  in  turn  at  St.  Hippolyte,  Aii- 
duze,  Ganges,  and  Le  Vigan.  I  had  the  priv- 
ilege of  being  a  member  of  the  latter,and  was 
present  at  the  extraordinary  meeting  of  Le 
Vigan  in  1853,  where  the  Pentecostal  influ- 
ence was  most  visibly  seen  and  felt.  Minis- 
ters in  Department  of  the  Drome  convoked 
also  in  turn,  in  their  several  churches,  gener- 
al meetings  of  Christians,  and  a  beautiful  re- 
vival was  the  fruit  of  those  meetings.  One 
meeting  in  particular  will  not  be  forgotten 
;  for  a  long  time  to  come,  that  at  Montmey- 
ran,  where  the  regretted  Charles  Cook  and 
Bertholet  Bridel  appeared  as  mighty  men, 
and  were  received  as  apostles  sent  by  God. 

The  Evangelical  Alliance  had  thus  already 
brought  forth  precious  fruit ;  in  many  places 
a  quickening  breath  was  felt  to  pass  over 
many  souls,  and  to  vivify  both  the  ministers 
and  their  flocks. 

It  is  about  this  time  that  we  shall  place 
the  foundation  in  France  of  the  Young 
Men's  Christian  Associations,  and  that  of 
the  Sunday-school  Union,  both  institutions 
being  specially  placed  on  the  basis  of  the 
Evangelical  Alliance.  During  the  first  ten 
years  the  Young  Men's  Christian  Associa- 
tions were  rapidly  multiplied.  There  may 
have  been  some  slackening  in  their  prog- 
ress, but  we  believe  that  they  have  a  great 
future  in  prospect ;  and  \ve  attribute  in  a 
great  measure  to  the  fact  that  in  some  of 
our  important  cities  Christian  young  men 
have  had  much  intercourse,  free  from  all  sec- 
tarian spirit,  the  liberal  dispositions  which 
actuate  precisely  those  pastors  or  influential 
laymen  who  belonged  to  the  associations 
twenty  years  ago. 

The  Sunday-school  Union  has  steadily  ad- 
hered to  its  original  principles,  and  has  al- 
ways had  on  its  committee  representatives 
of  five  or  six  churches. 

The  second  General  Conference  of  the 
Evangelical  Alliance  was  held  in  Paris  in 
1855,  eighteen  years  ago.  It  was  very  large- 
ly attended,  and  drew  a  great  many  stran- 
gers, chiefly  from  Great  Britain  and  Amer- 
ica. It  can  be  asserted  unhesitatingly  that 
this  Conference  gave  a  great  impulsion  to 
the  Alliance  in  France.  Many  there  were 
who  took  this  opportunity  of  giving  in  their 
adhesion  to  its  principles.  It  would  have 
been  a  difficult  matter  to  refuse  to  take  the 
hand  of  men  who  were  the  glory  and  orna- 
ment of  the  Church,  such  as  Dr.  Duff,  Bap- 
tist Noel,  Krummacher.  And  we  may  say  it 
here,  the  General  Conferences  of  the  Evan- 
gelical Alliance  have  been  the  solemn  and 
ecumenical  assizes  of  the  Christian  world. 
And  if  there  did  remain  in  the  mind  of  some 
true  Christian  enough  of  bigotry  to  prevent 


COOK :  EVANGELICAL  ALLIANCE  IN  FKANCE. 


171 


his  uniting  with  his  near  neighbors  with 
whom  there  might  be  a  painful  contact, 
how  could  he  refuse  the  hand  stretched  out 
to  him  by  men  considered  as  the  lights  of 
the  Church  ?  But  this  first  step  once  made, 
others  followed  in  course. 

The  same  year  a  most  touching  scene  was 
repeated  which  certainly  helped  in  destroy- 
ingbarriers,  and  bringing  into  close  union  the 
Christians  of  Paris.  This  scene  took  place, 
now  and  again,  at  the  bedside  of  Adolphe 
Monod.  He  had  it  at  heart  to  give  a  sol- 
emn affirmation  of  the  unity  of  Christ's 
body,  and  to  do  this  he  called  near  him  in 
succession,  Sabbath  after  Sabbath,  pastors 
of  different  denominations,  and  received 
from  them  in  turn  the  comforting  words 
of  Divine  truth  and  the  sacred  emblems  of 
the  Saviour's  atoning  sacrifice.  Time  after 
time  the  Communion  of  Saints,  in  what  it 
has  of  most  noble  and  most  precious  influ- 
ence, was  realized  in  that  room  of  a  dying 
man.  And  it  would  have  been  very  diffi- 
cult, not  to  say  impossible,  to  any  of  those 
who  had  been  present  on  such  occasions  to 
resume  afterward  their  former  discussions, 
or  to  quarrel  with  regard  to  a  doctrinal  point 
or  an  ecclesiastical  arrangement. 

Soon  after  came  from  Loodiana  a  pressing 
invitation,  addressed  to  Christians  through 
the  whole  world,  to  devote  to  united  prayer 
the  first  week  in  January.  In  many  places, 
and  especially  where  a  Committee  of  the 
Evangelical  Alliance  had  been  formed,  a 
joyful  response  was  given,  and  during  the 
last  fifteen  years  this  universal  concert  of 
prayers  has  had,  in  our  country,  its  warm 
partisans,  who,  North  and  West,  in  towns 
and  in  the  provinces,  have  taken  care  that 
the  renewal  of  the  year  should  always  bring 
about  a  renewal  of  Christian  Union,  and  who 
have,  by  dint  of  sheer  perseverance,  triumph- 
ed over  the  inertia  or  the  prejudices  of  nar- 
row-minded brethren.  This  week  of  prayer 
has  been  blessed  in  the  conversion  of  souls, 
and  has  often  communicated  a  salutary  im- 
pulsion to  churches  either  asleep  or  languish- 
ing and  drooping. 

Thus  during  fifteen  years  .and  more  there 
have  been  held  in  Franco  at  regular  epochs 
series  of  meetings,  which  most  surely  have 
not  passed  uuperceived,  all  of  them  condu- 
cive to  the  promotion  of  Christian  Union ; 
namely,  (1.)  At  the  beginning  of  the  year 
the  week  of  prayer,  during  which,  in  most 
places,  Christians  of  all  denominations  have 
met  in  turn  in  the  church  or  chapel  of 
each  denomination.  (2.)  In  April  or  May 
are  held  the  anniversary  meetings  of  the  re- 
ligions societies,  bringing  back  with  them 
the  pastoral  conferences,  both  special  and 
general,  of  which  we  have  as  yet  said  noth- 
ing, which  have  exercised  so  great  an  at- 
traction on  the  ministers  and  elders  of  our 
churches.  (3.)  At  the  commencement  of  No- 
vember, just  at  the  beginning  of  the  winter 


season,  the  annual  assemblies  of  Lyons,  al- 
ways well  prepared,  well  attended,  and  abun- 
dantly blessed.  And  we  have  not  spoken  of 
many  other  extraordinary  meetings  which 
have  taken  place  here  and  there  ;  one  at 
Bordeaux,  not  many  years  ago,  convened  by 
a  new  committee,  that  named  of  the  South- 
west, others  in  the  East  at  Troyes,  Bar-le- 
duc,  etc.  And  we  might  also  have  mention- 
ed, in  order  to  make  a  complete  review,  the 
General  Conference  held  in  1859  at  Geneva, 
at  our  door,  and  nearly  on  French  soil,  which 
was  attended  by  great  numbers  of  our  fel- 
low-countrymen. At  the  General  Exhibi- 
tion of  1867,  in  Paris,  there  were  also  remark- 
able manifestations  of  the  spirit  of  the  Evan- 
gelical Alliance,  in  the  manner  in  which  the 
Protestant  Missionary  Museum  was"  arranged, 
in  which  the  services  at  the  evangelical  hall 
were  conducted,  and  the  daily  distributions 
of  tracts  and  gospels  was  made.  And  on  the 
eve  of  the  opening  of  the  Ecumenical  Coun- 
cil of  Rome,  there  was  held  in  the  Church  of 
the  Oratoire  of  Paris  a  most  numerous  and 
interesting  meeting,  in  which  evangelical 
Protestantism  manifested  its  unity.  Ad- 
dresses were  given  and  prayers  offered  up  to 
God  by  ministers  of  various  churches,  and 
assuredly  they  all  appeared  as  one. 

By  this  time  the  Evangelical  Alliance  had 
fully  entered  in  our  religious  habits  and  cus- 
toms, and  had  brought  into  close  relation- 
ship the  various  denominations  of  Chris- 
tians in  our  dear  country.  The  painful 
events  through  which  it  would  have  to 
pass  would  doubtless  cement  this  union,  and 
cause  it  to  bring  forth  its  most  excellent 
fruit.  It  has  been  so.  Without  any  effort, 
in  the  most  natural  manner,  the  Evangelic- 
al Alliance  has  practically  demonstrated  its 
power  during  those  sad  days  of  affliction 
and  mourning.  Let  us  just  go  back  to  the 
end  of  July  and  beginning  of  August,  1870. 
The  Paris  Committee  had  met  to  consider 
what  ought  to  be  done  in  view  of  tlie  ap- 
proaching New  York  Conference.  It  was 
unanimously  decided  that  no  French  dele- 
gate could,  under  the  circumstances,  leave 
France  for  America,  and  a  telegram  was  sent 
to  the  New  York  Committee,  suggesting  that 
the  conference  be  adjourned  to  a  more  fa- 
vorable time.  And  at  once  our  Church  laid 
the  basis  of  a  special  distinct  organization, 
to  be  designated  the  "Evangelical  Auxiliary 
Committee  of  Help  to  Soldiers  wounded  or 
sick,"  which  would  act  in  harmony  with  the 
Geneva  Red  Cross  Society. 

The  influence  of  this  Committee,  and  the 
importance  of  the  work  which  it  has  done, 
can  scarcely  be  exaggerated.  If  it  were  the 
proper  time,  most  interesting  things  might 
be  said  about  the  army  chaplains  sent  out 
by  the  Committee,  the  ambulances  organized 
both  in  the  provinces  and  in  Paris,  especially 
the  great  ambulance  of  the  Chaptal  College, 
with  its  three  hundred  beds,  and  the  large 


172 


CHRISTIAN  UNION. 


sums  collected ;  but  we  must  confine  our  re- 
marks to  those  facts  which  have  given  to 
Christian  Union  a  new  aliment  and  added 
something  to  its  power.  In  the  first  place, 
•with  regard  to  the  chaplains  sent  out,  there 
was  nothing  said  about  the  Established 
Church  or  Free  Churches.  The  question 
was  not  asked  of  a  minister  wishing  to  be 
employed  in  that  capacity,  to  what  church 
he  belonged,  but  what  were  his  aptitudes, 
and  so  it  happened  that  of  the  ten  chaplains 
first  appointed  four  belonged  to  the  National 
Reformed  Church,  one  to  the  Lutheran,  two 
to  the  Free  Churches,  and  three  to  the  Meth- 
odist; then  the  ambulances  were  only  known 
under  the  beautiful  name  of  evangelical  am- 
bulances, and  in  the  weekly  meetings  of  the 
Committee*,  which  were  very  numerous,  as 
many  as  fifty  or  sixty  persons  being  some- 
times present,  no  distinction  of  a  sectarian 
character  was  ever  made,  and  a  stranger 
who  might  have  been  present  at  one  or  sev- 
eral of  the  animated  and  most  cordial  ses- 
sions of  the  Committee  could  not  have  im- 
agined that  there  were  there  representatives 
of  five  distinct  denominations,  working  in 
concert  and  perfect  harmony.  And  on  the 
battle-field,  in  the  various  sorties,  there  were 
between  thirty  and  forty  pastors,  serving  as 
brancardiers,  helping  the  surgeons,  carrying 
the  wounded,  and  living  the  same  life,  be- 
cause all  were  enduring  the  same  sufferings, 
and  all  partaking  of  the  same  hopes.  They 
were  truly  great  and  solemn,  those  five  gen- 
eral prayer-meetings  held  during  that  dreary 
winter  in  the  Oratoire,  the  Taitbout  Chapel, 
the  Church  of  the  Redemption,  the  Chapelle 
Malesherbes,  and  the  Church  du  St.  Esprit. 
Never  before  were  the  Christians  in  Paris  so 
completely  identified  in  a  most  profound  hu- 
miliation and  a  common  sorrow.  Then  fol- 
lowed the  disastrous  days  of  the  Commune. 
The  brethren  felt  more  than  ever  the  need 
of  seeing  each  other  frequently,  and  taking 
counsel  together  as  to  what  was  to  be  done 
in  certain  emergencies.  It  was  a  source  of 
great  comfort  to  be  able  to  meet  and  pray 
together,  and  cast  our  burden  upon  the  Lord, 
in  those  days  of  shame  and  peril.  And  most 
certainly,  those  who  have  thus  held  one  an- 
other's hand  in  the  hour  of  danger  will  never 
forget  that  they  have  fought  together. 

The  succession  of  this  Evangelical  Com- 
mittee for  help  to  the  sick  and  wounded, 
which  had  been  so  actively  employed  during 
the  war,  was  taken,  when  peace  had  been 
made,  by  the  Protestant  Committee  for  help 
to  the  victims  of  the  war,  and  from  this 
sprang  the  Commission  for  religious  aid  to 
the  condemned  prisoners  sent  to  New  Cale- 
donia, both  of  them  also  based  upon  the 
same  principles  of  united  co-operation  by 
the  representatives  of  the  different  denom- 
inations— principles  which  will  henceforth 
obtain,  wo  firmly  believe,  in  every  great  work 
of  charity. 


It  remains  that  we  should  refer  to  the 
Home  Mission  established  in  November, 
1871,  with  Nismes  as  its  centre  of  opera- 
tions. The  idea  of  this  mission  originated 
in  the  National  Conferences  of  the  South, 
which  met  at  Cette,  where,  notwithstanding 
their  name,  pastors  of  the  Free  and  Method- 
ist Churches  were  allowed,  if  not  to  vote,  to 
take  part  in  the  discussions.  It  is  again  in 
the  spirit  of  the  Evangelical  Alliance  that 
this  most  opportune  mission  has  been  found- 
ed, and  it  is  the  very  embodiment  of  Chris- 
tian Union.  I  shall  not  enter  into  any  de- 
tails on  the  subject,  the  French  Home  Mis- 
sion being  specially  represented  in  this  Con- 
ference by  Pastor  Matthieu  Lelievre,  who 
will  report  on  its  principles  and  operations. 

We  have  shown  by  this  hurried  sketch 
that  the  religions  movement  in  France  is 
going  on  undoubtedly  in  the  direction  of 
Christian  Union,  and  that  united  co-opera- 
tion is  the  order  of  the  day.  It  is  no  longer 
asked,  How  shall  we  proceed  with  respect  to 
this  or  that  work  of  a  general  interest  T  As 
a  matter  of  course,  every  one  recognizes  the 
advantage  of  grouping  the  various  elements 
which  the  different  denominations  of  Chris- 
tians offer.  And  even  the  special  assemblies 
and  synods  of  particular  churches  afford  op- 
portunities which  are  eagerly  sought  of  riv- 
eting the  bonds  of  brotherly  affection.  Thus, 
last  year,  the  General  Synod  of  the  Reformed 
Church  (the  first  held  since  1659)  received 
deputations  from  the  French,  Independent, 
and  Methodist  Churches ;  and  very  recently, 
the  Synod  of  the  Free  Churches  at  St.  Jean 
du  Gard  was  the  occasion  of  many  interest- 
ing manifestations,  which  at  the  same  were 
the  unequivocal  affirmation  of  the  unity  of 
the  Church,  and  served  in  strengthening  the 
union  which  is  its  natural  consequence,  and 
ought  always  to  flow  from  it. 

We  are  conscious,  as  we  are  about  to  con- 
clude, that  we  have  omitted  several  impor- 
tant facts.  We  have  said  nothing  of  the 
Paris  City  Mission,  which  was  established 
fifteen  or  eighteen  years  ago,  and  was  car- 
ried, during  its  short-lived  existence,  on  the 
same  unsectarian  principles  of  which  we 
have  been  speaking  all  along ;  nor  of  the 
Committee  of  Evangelization  for  Paris,  of 
which,  in  1869,  the  Rev.  Henry  Grattan  Guin- 
ness was  the  promoter,  and  which,  during 
several  months,  had,  on  the  Scime  plan  of  mis- 
sionary services  which  aimed  at  reaching  the 
masses,  the  names  of  fifteen  to  twenty  minis- 
ters and  about  ten  or  twelve  churches  and 
chapels  belonging  to  the  different  denomina- 
tions. We  have  not  mentioned  the  interesting 
work  which  sprang  from  this  Committee,  and 
is  still  carried  on  at  the  Rue  Royale,  in  which 
Methodists  and  Baptists,  Reformed  National 
and  Independents,  co-operate  with  Pastor  Ar- 
niand  Delille ;  nor  the  very  successful  mission 
to  the  workmen  of  Belleville  andMontmartre, 
and  three  other  districts,  under  the  direction 


COOK :  EVANGELICAL  ALLIANCE  IN  FRANCE. 


173 


of  the  Rev.  aud  Mrs.  M'All,  a  quite  novel  effort 
characterized  by  the  broadness  of  the  plat- 
form on  which  it  stands,  and  by  the  prompt 
and  hearty  co-operation  of  the  Christians  of 
our  metropolis ;  nor  the  interesting  conver- 
saziones held  during  the  two  last  winters 
every  Monday  night  in  the  drawing-room  of 
Pastor  Durancl  Dassier,  where  professors,  the- 
ologians, aud  laymen  have  met  to  discuss  in 
a  friendly  spirit  religious  subjects. 

In  conclusion,  we  shall  state  very  briefly  j 
what  appears  to  us  specially  desirable  in  j 
order  to  maintain,  consolidate,  and  render  : 
more  efficient  Christian  Union  in  our  be- 1 
loved  France,  and  these  remarks  may  per- 
haps apply  to  other  countries  besides. 

One  of  the  first  things  needed  is  the  prompt 
and  vigorous  reorganization  of  Evangelical 
Alliance  committees  wherever  they  have  al- 
ready existed,  and  the  formation  of  new  com- 
mittees wherever  it  can  be  done.  And  these 
committees  ought  to  meet  at  stated  times,  and 
call  together  public  meetings  for  edification 
andprayeras  often  as  convenient — every  Sun- 
day night  if  possible,  as  it  is  done  at  Nismes, 
where  there  is  but  one  service  in  the  even- 
ing, held  in  turns  in  two  chapels,  aud  it  is 
an  Evangelical  Alliance  meeting,  or  once  a 
mouth  at  least. 

Secondly,  it  would  be  necessary  that,  apart 
from  these  committees  and  meetings,  which 
may  retain  their  actual  form,  groups  should 
be  gathered,  in  the  various  districts  of  our 
great  cities,  or  in  towns  and  villages,  con- 
nected with  the  Home  Mission  (Mission  in- 
terieure),  with  the  express  aim  of  giving  to 
every  individual  Christian  the  opportunity 
of  and  required  facilities  for  working  in  co- 
operation with  those  around,  in  view  of  sav- 
ing souls  and  doing  good  to  all  men. 

The  evangelization  of  the  masses,  general- 
ly of  Roman  Catholics,  of  children,  to  whom 
we  ought  to  give  a  great  attention,  will  nev- 
er be  carried  forward  on  a  great  scale  but  by 
the  united  forces  of  the  Church. 

Popular  lectures  have  to  be  given  in  stores 
or  halls  hired  for  the  purpose,  in  order  that 
crowds  may  be  brought  to  hear  the  Gospel ; 
tracts  must  be  given  away  by  thousands,  and 
good  books  be  lent  to  multitudes ;  hundreds 
of  Sunday-schools  must  be  founded  in  view 
of  the  poor;  and  for  all  this,  the  co-operation 
and  simultaneous  action  of  all  the  earnest 
aud  pious  members  of  the  churches  are  abso- 
lutely necessary,  aud  nothing  could  contrib- 
ute more  in  uniting  the  hearts  of  God's  chil- 
dren than  this  work  done  in  common. 

Thirdly,  we  should  like  to  see  established 


between  the  different  churches  frequent  in- 
tercourse under  the  form  of  an  exchange  of 
pulpits.  Every  body  would  be  the  gainer 
if  now  and  then  pastors  of  neighboring 
churches,  not  of  the  same  denomination, 
should  reciprocally  preach  for  one  another ; 
and  we  fail  to  see  what  possible  harm  could 
arise  from  such  intercourse.  Or  such  pastors 
might  with  a  third  make  arrangements  iu 
view  of  giving  a  series  of  lectures,  instituting 
revival  services,  here  or  there.  They  would, 
together,  and  holding  each  other's  hands,  at- 
tack vigorously  the  strongholds  of  the  adver- 
sary, Satan ;  and  if  the  results  might  not  be 
iu  every  instance  directly  profitable  to  this 
or  that  particular  church,  they  would  as- 
suredly turn  to  the  advantage  of  the  Church 
in  its  greatest  and  best  sense,  and  turn  to  the 
honor  and  glory  of  Jesus  Christ  the  Redeem- 
er. But  we  feel  assured  that  such  a  course 
of  action  could  not  fail  to  benefit  all  the 
churches  adopting  such  a  mode  of  action. 

Is  it  necessary  that  I  should  add  that,  in 
order  that  all  this  may  take  place,  in  order 
that  the  unity  of  the  Spirit  may  be  kept  iu 
the  bond  of  peace,  it  is  absolutely  needed 
that  a  closer  relationship  be  established  be- 
tween the  members  of  the  body  and  their  liv- 
ing Head ;  that  men  should  cease  to  say,  "  I 
am  of  Paul,  I  am  of  Apollos,  I  am  of  Cephas," 
that  Christ  may  become  all  in  all ;  that  the 
aim  of  every  individual  man  or  woman,  and 
his  or  her  constant  preoccupation,  be  only, 
"  What  shall  I  do  to  please  my  Master  and 
Lord  ?  What  wouldst  thou  have  me  to  do  f " 
and  that  all  be  willing  to  say  with  sincerity, 
speaking  not  with  respect  to  themselves  only, 
but  with  respect  to  the  particular  church  to 
which  they  belong, " He"  (Christ)  "must  in- 
crease, but  I  must  decrease,"  i.  e.,  every  thing 
which  is  merely  earthly,  formal,  transitory  1 
Then  the  separate  churches  will  no  longer  be 
rivals,  but  sisters;  then  the  interest  of  the  few 
will  yield  to  the  interest  of  all;  then  God's  chil- 
dren will  continually  do  good  to  each  other, 
and  never  any  harm ;  then  every  thing  which 
might  throw  discredit  upon  other  churches 
or  other  Christians  will  be  avoided  most  sed- 
ulously;  then  all  offensive  weapons  would  be 
reserved  for  the  battle  against  error  aud  sin ; 
then  the  word  of  the  Lord  Jesus  will  be  re- 
alized, "And  the  glory  which  thou  gavest  me 
I  have  given  them ;  that  they  may  be  one, 
even  as  we  are  one:  I  in  them,  and  thou  in 
me,  that  they  may  be  made  perfect  in  one ; 
and  that  the  world  may  know  that  thou  hast 
sent  me,  and  hast  loved  them,  as  thou  hast 
loved  me." 


INTERCHANGE  OF  PULPITS. 

BY  TIIK  REV.  F.  W.  CONRAD,  D.D.,  OF  PHILADELPHIA,  PA. 


Mn.  PUESIDENT, — Dr.  Adams,  in  his  admi- 
rable opeiiiug  address,  made  touching  allu- 
sion to  the  name  of  Dr.  S.  S.  Schmucker,  of 
Gettysburg,  Pa.,  among  those  who  expected 
to  be  present  at  this  meeting  of  the  Alliance, 
but  who  have  recently  been  transferred  by 
God  to  "the  General  Assembly  and  Church 
of  the  First-born,  written  in  Heaven."  Call- 
ed by  the  Committee  to  occupy  his  place  on 
the  programme,  I  deem  it  an  appropriate  and 
agreeable  duty,  before  proceeding  to  the  dis- 
cussion of  the  subject  assigned  me,  to  pay  a 
brief  tribute  to  his  memory,  as  an  able  ad- 
vocate of  Christian  union,  and  as  one  of  the 
originators  and  supporters  of  the  Evangel- 
ical Alliance. 

Dr.  Schmucker  commenced  the  study  of 
the  subject  of  Christian  union  more  than 
half  a  century  ago.  The  matured  results  of 
these  studies  were  given  to  the  world  in 
his  "Fraternal  Appeal"  to  the  American 
churches,  which  was  first  published  in  1838, 
and  subsequently  passed  through  several 
editions  in  a  revised  and  enlarged  form.  It 
was  extensively  circulated  in  England  and 
America,  awakened  a  deep  interest  in  the 
subject,  received  favorable  notice  from  the 
religious  press,  and  numerous  testimonials 
from  many  of  the  most  distinguished  divines 
of  the  different  Protestant  denominations. 
It  is  an  admitted  fact  that  the  "Appeal"  of 
Dr.  Schmucker  bore  a  prominent  part  in  pre- 
paring the  way  for  the  organization  of  the 
Evangelical  Alliance  in  1846.  He  was  present 
at  its  first  meeting,  and  was  even  then  des- 
ignated as  "  the  father  of  the  Alliance  "  by 
Dr.  King,  of  Ireland,  in  a  public  address  de- 
livered in  London  at  that  time.  It  was  he 
also  who  moved  already,  at  that  first  meet- 
ing of  the  Alliance,  that  its  second  meeting 
should  be  held  in  New  York ;  and  although 
his  motion  Avas  not  adopted  at  that  time,  nev- 
ertheless it  was  carried  out  practically  twen- 
ty-seven years  later,  as  the  present  sixth  Con- 
ference of  the  Alliance  here  happily  attests. 

Dr.  Schmucker  took  special  interest  in  the 
subject  of  Christian  union,  and  labored  for 
its  promotion,  through  the  Evangelical  Alli- 
ance, during  the  greater  portion  of  his  minis- 
terial and  professional  life.  As  he  approach- 
ed the  portals  of  eternity  during  his  declin- 
ing years,  his  mind  and  heart  were  more 
and  more  absorbed  by  it,  and  ho  prepared  a 
Plan  for  the  Confederation  of  all  Protestant 
denominations  in  an  Evangelical  Alliance 
of  the  entire  Christian  world.  This  plan 


was  published,  and  favorably  noticed  by  a 
number  of  religious  journals  of  different  de- 
nominations in  this  country  during  the  past 
year,  and  a  copy  of  it  has  been  laid  before 
the  Committee  of  the  Alliance  for  their  con- 
sideration. He  looked  forward  to  this  meet- 
ing with  ardent  solicitude,  and  expected  to 
be  present  to  submit  his  Plan  of  Confeder- 
ation before  the  Alliance  in  person.* 

The  last  letter  I  received  from  him  had  ref- 
erence to  the  subject  of  Christian  union,  and 
contained  a  request  that  the  speaker  should 
in  his  absence  take  charge  of  his  plan  for  the 
confederation  of  the  churches  of  Protestant 
Christendom,  and  present  it  for  considera- 
tion at  the  meeting  of  the  General  Synod  of 
the  Lutheran  Church.  But  God,  in  his  all- 
wise  providence,  so  ordered  that  his  strong 
desire  to  take  part  in  this  Conference  could 
not  be  gratified.  On  the  26th  of  July  last, 
after  entertaining  friends  at  his  house  in  the 
evening,  he  was  suddenly  seized  with  heart 
disease,  and  before  midnight  died,  in  the  con- 
scious hope  of  a  blissful  immortality.  His 
last  words  were, "  I  have  lived  and  am  dying 
in  the  faith  of  Jesus." 

With  this  tribute  to  the  memory  of  the 
departed,  I  proceed  to  the  discussion  of  the 
theme  assigned  me  by  your  Committee :  IN- 
TERCHANGE OF  PULPITS. 

Interchange  of  pulpits  is  a  legitimate  out- 
growth of  the  original  appointment  of  the 
ministry,  and  the  organization  of  the  Chris- 
tian Church. 

Jesus  Christ  himself  instituted  the  office 
of  the  Christian  ministry.  He  originally  ap- 
pointed twelve  apostles,  and  invested  them 
with  ordinary  and  extraordinary  powers  and 
functions.  The  extraordinary  powers  con- 
ferred upon  them  constituted  them  apostles 
in  the  specific  sense ;  the  ordinary  functions 
constituted  them  ministers  of  the  Gospel  in 
the  general  sense.  As  apostles,  they  receiv- 
ed their  appointments  directly  from  Christ, 
were  endowed  with  inspiration,  made  the 
medium  of  divine  revelation,  clothed  with 


*  [It  is  proper  here  to  state  that,  while  the  late  ven- 
erable Dr.  Schmncker,  in  his  "Plan,"  aimed  at  an  of- 
ficial confederation  of  the  various  denominations,  the 
Evangelical  Alliance  confines  itself  to  the  promotion 
of  union  among  individual  Christians,  without  inter- 
fering with  their  preference  for,  or  loyalty  to,  their 
particular  denomination,  and  without  any  attempt  at 
an  organic  or  confederate  union  of  churches  as  such, 
which,  however  desirable  it  may  be  in  itself,  is  cer- 
tainly not  practicable  or  obtainable  at  the  present 
time.— Ed.} 


CONRAD :  INTERCHANGE  OF  PULPITS. 


175 


miraculous  power,  commissioned  to  hear  wit- 
ness of  his  personal  ministry,  and  especially 
of  his  resurrection,  and  were  empowered  to 
organize  churches  among  all  nations. 

As  ministers,  they  were  commissioned  to 
preach  the  Gospel  to  every  creature  in  all 
the  world,  to  administer  the  sacraments  ac- 
cording to  the  Scriptures,  to  exercise  gov- 
erning and  disciplinary  powers,  to  confer 
the  same  prerogatives  upon  their  successors 
through  ordination,  and  thus  to  transmit  the 
ministerial  office  to  the  end  of  time.  As 
apostles,  their  field  of  labor  was  the  world 
into  which  they  went,  bearing  witness  for 
Christ,  organizing  churches,  ordaining  min- 
isters, and  exercising  special  supervision  over 
both  pastors  and  congregations. 

In  this  manner  congregations  were  organ- 
ized, which,  in  their  individuality,  constitu- 
ted the  Church  Local  or  Particular ;  and  as 
parts  of  a  general  spiritual  organism,  consti- 
tuted the  Church  Universal.  In  like  man- 
ner, ministers  were  called,  ordained,  and  set- 
tled as  pastors  over  these  local  churches. 
Thus  believers  became  members,  and  their 
overseers  or  bishops  became  pastors  of  the 
Church  Particular,  and  thereby  also  of  the 
Church  Universal,  just  as,  by  our  national 
constitution,  persons  who  become  citizens  of 
any  one  State  thereby  also  become  citizens 
of  the  United  States. 

And  while  order  requires  that  certain  pre- 
rogatives belonging  to  members  and  pastors 
should  be  limited  in  their  exercise  to  the 
Church  Particular,  yet  the  profounder  and 
more  comprehensive  conception  of  the  Church 
of  Christ,  as  an  all-embracing  spiritual  or- 
ganism, demands  that  some  other  privileges 
pertaining  to  the  Church  Universal  may  also 
be  exercised  by  both  members  and  pastors, 
in  exceptional  cases,  by  mutual  consent.  To 
this  class  of  privileges,  sacramental  fellow- 
ship among  members,  and  interchange  of 
pulpits  among  pastors,  rightfully  belong. 

These  formative  principles  here  briefly 
stated  are  contained  in  the  Scriptures,  and 
were  practically  developed  in  the  organiza- 
tion of  the  primitive  Church,  whose  mem- 
bers confessed  that  they  believed  in  one  holy 
Catholic  Church,  to  which  they  belonged, 
and  in  which  they  were  invested,  both  as 
members  and  ministers,  with  the  privilege 
of  sacramental  and  pulpit  fellowship.  But 
in  the  ongoing  of  Providence,  the  primitive 
Church  was  inoculated  with  error,  and  trans- 
formed into  the  Romish  hierarchy.  This  made 
a  reformation  indispensable.  The  occasion 
was  thus  furnished  for  the  rise  of  Protestant- 
ism, whose  development  eventually  culmi- 
nated in  the  organization  of  the  different 
orthodox  Protestant  denominations,  among 
which  an  interchange  of  pulpits  ought  to  be 
practiced,  in  accordance  with  the  principles 
and  example  of  the  Apostolic  Church. 

Interchange  of  pulpits  can  not,  however, 
be  inaugurated  and  regulated  by  canon  laws. 


As  Protestants  are  not  united  in  one  external 
J  organization,  there  is  no  general  ecclesiastic- 
al body  which  is  authorized  to  legislate  on 
the  subject.  Interchange  of  pulpits  must, 
therefore,  be  remanded  to  the  sphere  of  ec- 
clesiastical liberty,  and  be  regulated  by  the 
pastors  of  the  Protestant  denominations  ac- 
cording to  local  circumstances,  congregation- 
al relations,  pastoral  preferences,  and  ecclesi- 
astical affinities.  While,  therefore,  the  Evan- 
gelical Alliance  can  not  legitimately  author- 
ize the  pastors  of  the  different  denominations 
represented  in  it  to  interchange  pulpits,  or 
prescribe  when  and  where  and  how  often 
exchanges  shall  take  place,  yet  in  our  judg- 
ment it  may  approve  or  recommend  such 
interchanges  wherever  ecclesiastical  canons 
and  laws  of  State  will  allow.  And  we  hope 
that  through  the  influence  of  this  Alliance 
all  such  obstructions  will  eventually  be  re- 
moved. 

Interchange  of  pulpits  ought  to  be  re- 
stricted to  Protestants.  The  Church  of 
Rome,  as  the  "Mother  of  Abominations," 
invented  traditions,  corrupted  the  Word  of 
God,  perverted  the  sacraments,  usurped  the 
authority  of  the  Church,  and  led  the  people 
astray;  and  when  rebuked,  refused  to  re- 
nounce its  errors  and  correct  its  abuses,  and 
hence  the  Protestants  heeded  the  call  of  God 
addressed  to  them :  "  Come  out  from  among 
them,  and  be  ye  separate."  They  according- 
ly organized  their  respective  denominations. 
The  errors  and  abuses  protested  against  were 
subsequently  authoritatively  adopted  by  the 
Council  of  Trent,  and  are  held  and  promul- 
gated to  this  day.  As,  therefore,  the  Canons 
of  Trent  remain  in  full  force,  the  Protest 
of  Speyer  must  remain  in  full  force  also. 
Fidelity  to  the  truth  of  God  required  the 
entire  separation  of  Protestants  from  the 
Church  of  Rome,  and  consistency  demands 
that  there  be  no  interchange  of  pulpits 
with  the  priests  and  prelates  of  that  cor- 
rupt Church. 

Interchange  of  pulpits  should  also  be  re- 
stricted to  the  ministers  of  orthodox  denom- 
inations. Under  the  deterioration  of  the 
human  reason  consequent  upon  the  fall, 
there  arose  in  Apostolic  times  false  proph- 
ets, who  erred  concerning  the  faith,  preached 
another  gospel,  denied  the  Lord  that  bought 
them,  and  brought  in  damnable  heresies. 
Christ  called  these  "wolves  in  sheep's  cloth- 
ing," and  warned  his  disciples  against  them ; 
and,  as  the  apostles  forbade  the  churches 
from  receiving  them  and  their  pastors  from 
bidding  them  God -speed,  the  moral  force 
of  these  warnings  and  injunctions  requires 
that  the  pastors  of  orthodox  denominations 
should  refuse  an  interchange  of  pulpits  with 
modern  errorists  who  deny  the  fundamental 
doctrines  of  the  system  of  evangelical  truth. 

Interchange  of  pulpits  in  the  Christian 
Church  was  foreshadowed  by  the  custom 
prevalent  in  the  service  of  the  synagogues 


176 


CHRISTIAN  UNION. 


of  the  Jewish  Church.  The  prerogative  of 
reading  and  expounding  the  Scriptures  and 
preaching  to  the  people  was  not  restricted, 
but  was  extended  by  the  rulers  of  the  syna- 
gogue to  any  member  of  it  or  to  any  stran- 
ger who  might  be  present,  as  well  as  to  the 
"angel"  who  was  appointed  to  attend  to 
this  part  of  the  religious  service.  When 
Christ  entered  the  synagogue  at  Nazareth, 
of  which  he  was  a  member,  the  book  of  the 
prophet  Esaias  was  handed  to  him,  and  he 
read  and  expounded  the  lesson  for  the  day. 
But  when  Jesus  was  present  in  a  synagogue 
of  which  he  was  not  a  member,  he  preach- 
ed to  the  people  instead  of  the  "angel"  or 
preacher,  after  the  reading  and  exposition  of 
the  Scriptures.  When  Paul  and  his  com- 
panions were  at  Autioch,  in  Pisidia,  they 
went  to  the  synagogue  and  sat  down.  Af- 
ter the  reading  of  the  Law  and  the  Prophets, 
the  rulers  sent  a  messenger  to  them,  saying, 
"  Men  and  brethren,  if  ye  have  any  word  of 
exhortation  for  the  people,  say  on."  And  in 
accordance  with  this  invitation,  Paul  preach- 
ed the  Gospel  to  those  who  were  present,  or 
officiated  in  the  place  of  the  angel  or  preach- 
er of  the  synagogue.  If,  now,  the  privilege 
of  exhorting  or  preaching  in  the  place  of 
the  angel  was  conferred  upon  any  member  or 
stranger  present,  much  more  would  this  priv- 
ilege be  extended  by  one  angel  of  the  syna- 
gogue to  another.  And  as  the  ministers  of 
the  Seven  Churches  of  Asia  were  called  an- 
gels, in  all  probability  because  of  the  analo- 
gy which  exists  between  the  duties  and  pre- 
rogatives of  these  offices,  the  propriety  and 
duty  of  interchange  of  pulpits  among  the 
angels  of  the  New  Testament  churches  was 
at  least  foreshadowed  by  the  custom  prevail- 
ing in  the  Jewish  synagogue  service. 

The  propriety  of  interchange  of  pulpits  is 
enforced  by  apostolic  authority  and  exam- 
ple. The  apostles  organized  churches  in 
different  localities,  ordained  elders  or  bish- 
ops, and  recommended  them  as  pastors  to 
their  members.  They  also  chose  ministers 
or  evangelists  whom  they  employed  as  their 
assistants,  sending  them  forth  to  promulgate 
the  Gospel  in  destitute  regions,  to  visit  and 
edify  the  churches  and  encourage  their  pas- 
tors. The  presbyters  or  bishops  were  pas- 
tors of  the  different  churches  in  the  same 
city,  and  doubtless  recognized  each  other  as 
such,  and  officiated  for  each  other  as  occa- 
sion called  for  it.  The  evaugelists,  like  the 
apostles,  were  ministers  of  the  Church  in 
general,  and  wherever  they  came  they  were 
acknowledged  as  the  accredited  messengers 
of  the  apostles  by  the  pastors  of  the  local 
churches,  in  whose  stead  they  preached  the 
Gospel  during  their  sojourn  among  them. 
The  interchange  of  pulpits  on  the  part  of 
the  pastors  of  orthodox  Protestant  congre- 
gations in  the  same  localities,  or  when  they 
visit  other  congregations  in  other  countries 
as  temporary  evangelists,  has  doubtless  the 


sanction  of  Apostolic  authority  and  exam- 
ple. 

The  propriety  of  the  interchange  of  pul- 
pits is  sustained  by  the  practice  of  the  prim- 
itive Church.  In  the  primitive  ages  the 
unity  of  the  Church  was  exemplified  by  al- 
tar fellowship  among  its  members  and  pul- 
pit fellowship  among  its  pastors.  Any  min- 
ister in  one  part  of  the  Church  was  recog- 
nized as  such  in  every  other,  and,  if  present 
at  public  worship,  was  ordinarily  invited  to 
take  part  in  conducting  the  services.  This 
privilege  having  been  abused,  regulations 
were  made  by  the  church  councils  to  guard 
against  the  reception  of  impostors.  Accord- 
ingly, one  of  the  Apostolic  Canons  requires 
that  no  strange  minister  should  be  received 
without  letters  of  recommendation ;  and  the 
Council  of  Carthage  adopted  in  the  year  A.D. 
368  a  similar  regulation. 

Interchange  of  pulpits  is  demanded  by  a 
consistent  development  of  the  principles  of 
Protestantism.  Protestantism  was  not  a 
new  creation.  It  did  not  originate  new  ec- 
clesiastical forces,  but  it  discovered  the  form- 
ative principles  of  Christianity,  and  embod- 
ied them  in  the  organization  of  the  Evangel- 
ical Church.  At  first  Luther  aimed  at  the 
reform  of  the  Romish  Church  and  opposed 
separation  from  her.  For  while  he  saw 
"that  every  thing  was  in  a  wretched  state 
there,"  he  did  not  regard  that  as  a  sufficient 
"  reason  for  separation,"  nor  separation  as 
the  best  means  of  making  it  better.  "  There 
is  no  sin,  no  evil,"  said  he,  "  that  should  de- 
stroy charity  or  break  the  bond  of  union. 
We  must  not  desert  God  on  account  of  the 
devil."  But  the  Papal  bull  of  excommuni- 
cation eventually  taught  him  the  hopeless- 
ness of  reforming  the  Church  of  Rome,  and 
the  necessity  of  an  ecclesiastical  reorganiza- 
tion. In  the  accomplishment  of  this  work 
he  did  not  originate  a  new  sect,  having  no 
connection  with  the  Church  of  the  past,  but 
he  reorganized  and  revived  the  primitive 
Catholic  Church,  with  its  Apostolic  prin- 
ciples, in  contradistinction  from  the  Papal 
hierarchy. 

Adopting  the  ecumenical  creeds,  the  Re- 
formers confessed  their  faith  in  the  perpe- 
tuity of  the  One  Holy  Catholic  Apostolic 
Church,  which  consists  of  the  assembly  of 
all  believers  among  whom  the  Gospel  is 
preached  in  its  purity,  and  the  sacraments 
are  administered  in  accordance  therewith 
by  the  ministers  ordained  according  to  the 
divine  appointment.  They  maintained  the 
universality  of  the  priesthood  of  believers 
as  the  Scriptural  basis  for  the  particular 
priesthood  of  the  ministry,  not  as  an  indeli- 
ble order  of  ecclesiastics  as  held  by  Rome, 
but  as  an  office  of  service  in  the  Church, 
transmitted  by  the  laying  on  of  the  hands 
of  the  presbytery,  according  to  Apostolic  ex- 
ample. Congregations  of  believers  were 
thus  organized  and  pastors  settled  over  them 


CONRAD:  INTERCHANGE  OF  PULPITS. 


177 


in  various  localities  and  different  lauds.  Ex- 
ternally separated,  they  appear  as  the  Church 
Particular ;  but  internally  bound  by  the  uni- 
ty of  the  faith,  they  constitute  the  Church 
Catholic.  And  this  unity  did  not  consist  in 
absolute  uniformity  iu  doctrine,  worship, 
government,  and  usage,  but  in  agreement  in 
the  reception  of  the  fundamental  doctrines 
of  the  Gospel. 

These  ecclesiastical  principles  the  Swiss 
as  well  as  the  Saxon  Reformers  promulga- 
ted at  first  independently,  and  their  repre- 
sentatives, Zwiugli  and  CEcolampadius,  Lu- 
ther and  Melanchthon,  formally  adopted 
them  at  the  Marburg  Conference,  October 
4,  1529,  the  363d  anniversary  of  the  signing 
of  whose  articles,  by  an  extraordinary  coin- 
cidence, occurs  this  very  day.  They  were 
re-affirmed  in  their  colloquies  and  conferen- 
ces, confessed  in  their  creeds  and  concordats, 
and  authoritatively  declared  in  formal  trea- 
ties. And  while  it  must  be  confessed  that 
the  Reformers,  under  the  pressure  of  pecul- 
iar circumstances  and  temptations,  some- 
times acted  inconsistently  with  the  catho- 
lic principles  adopted  by  them,  nevertheless 
were  they  not  thereby  repealed,  but  remain- 
ed in  full  force.  It  must  also  be  admitted 
that  some  Protestants  have  infringed  upon 
them  by  unduly  magnifying  their  denomi- 
national peculiarities ;  but  while  such  an  ac- 
knowledgment reveals  the  fallibility  of  man 
and  the  tendency  to  sectarian  exclusiveness, 
it  does  not  destroy  the  force  of  the  historic  tes- 
timony to  Protestant  unity  and  catholicity. 

Dr.  Dorner,  in  his  "  History  of  the  Develop- 
ment of  Protestant  Theology,"  testifies  that 
he  wrote  it  to  show  that,  "  under  the  guid- 
ance of  the  spirit  of  Evangelical  Catholicity, 
in  spite  of  the  variety  of  nationalities,  as  well 
as  the  manifold  conformations  of  Evangelic- 
al Protestant  Christianity  among  those  peo- 
ples which  have  appropriated  the  blessings  of 
the  Reformation  of  the  sixteenth  century — 
in  spite  of  the  divisions  in  language,  usages, 
and  habits,  as  well  as  iu  its  destiny,  Evan- 
gelical Protestant  Christendom  forms  a  uni- 
ty." In  corroboratioii  of  this  testimony, 
another  distinguished  witness,  Merle  d'Au- 
bigne",  says :  "  The  catholicity  of  the  Refor- 
mation is  a  noble  feature  in  its  character. 
The  Germans  pass  into  Switzerland;  the 
French  into  Germany;  in  later  times  men 
from  England  and  Scotland  pass  over  to  the 
Continent,  and  doctors  from  the  Continent 
into  Great  Britain.  The  Reformers  in  the 
different  countries  spring  up  almost  inde- 
pendently of  each  other,  but  no  sooner  are 
they  born  than  they  hold  out  the  hand  of 
fellowship.  There  is  among  them  one  sole 
faith,  one  spirit,  one  Lord.  It  has  been  an 
error,  in  our  opinion,  to  write  the  history  of 
the  Reformation  for  a  single  country.  The 
work  is  one,  and  from  their  very  origin  the 
Protestant  churches  form  '  a  whole  body  fitly 
joined  together.'" 

12 


In  other  words,  the  unity  and  catholicity 
of  the  Protestant  Church,  together  with  the 
parity  and  validity  of  the  ordination  of  her 
ministry,  were  acknowledged  as  the  cardi- 
nal ecclesiastical  principles,  in  accordance 
with  which  interchange  of  pulpits  was  prac- 
ticed as  occasion  presented  itself  and  cir- 
cumstances rendered  it  proper  and  benefi- 
cial ;  and  the  consistent  development  of  the 
same  principles  demands  a  free  interchange 
of  pulpits  now. 

Such  interchange  has  been  fostered  by  the 
organization  of  the  Evangelical  Alliance.  It 
originated  in  the  longing  awakened  by  the 
Holy  Spirit  for  the  realization  of  "  the  com- 
munion of  saints,"  and  is  the  expression  of 
Protestant  unity  and  catholicity.  Consist- 
ency requires  that  the  denominations  repre- 
sented in  it  recognize  the  Christian  charac- 
ter of  their  members,  the  doctrinal  sound- 
ness of  their  ministers,  and  the  validity  of 
the  ordinances  administered  by  them.  The 
articles  of  confederation  constitute  a  bond 
of  union  which  seeks  expression  in  sacra- 
mental fellowship  at  the  table  of  the  Lord, 
and  culminates  in  ministerial  fellowship  by 
an  interchange  of  pulpits.  What  influence 
the  meetings  and  publications  of  the  Evan- 
gelical Alliance  in  England  and  on  the  Con- 
tinent have  had  in  fostering  interchange  of 
pulpits,  we  leave  to  our  European  brethren 
to  tell  us ;  but  we  can  assure  them  that  its 
influence  has  rendered  such  exchanges  com- 
mon in  the  United  States.  Ministerial  ex- 
changes are  customary  iu  all  parts  of  our 
country,  and  between  the  great  majority  of 
the  Protestant  denominations,  and  the  result 
proves  their  propriety  and  usefulness. 

Interchange  of  pulpits  has  had  a  tendency 
to  root  and  ground  believers  in  the  truth,  to 
confirm  their  faith,  to  increase  their  broth- 
erly love,  and  to  prepare  them  to  acknowl- 
edge each  other  at  the  sacramental  board 
as  "  fellow-citizens  of  the  saints  and  of  the 
household  of  God."  It  recognizes  the  offi- 
cial standing  of  Protestant  ministers,  re- 
veals their  talents,  acquirements,  and  spir- 
itual graces,  produces  mutual  affection,  and 
promotes  their  cordial  co-operation  in  the 
common  work  of  the  Lord.  It  places  essen- 
tial and  non-essential  truths  in  their  true 
relative  position,  and  is  calculated  to  correct 
misapprehensions  and  remove  prejudices  in 
regard  to  other  denominations,  as  well  as  to 
diminish  the  occasions  for,  and  to  soften  the 
asperities  of,  religious  controversy.  It  ac- 
cords with  the  Scriptural  constitution  of 
the  Church  and  the  office,  relations,  and  pre- 
rogatives of  the  ministry ;  it  is  enforced  by 
the  analogy  of  faith,  and  it  practically  illus- 
trates the  unity  and  catholicity  of  Protest- 
antism over  against  the  unfounded  and  pre- 
tentious claims  of  unity  and  catholicity  set 
up  by  the  Church  of  Rome. 

Objections  are,  of  course,  to  be  expected 
against  the  practice.  It  is  alleged : 


178 


CHRISTIAN  UNION. 


1.  That  interchange  of  pulpits  is  incon- 1 
sistent  with  fidelity  to  "  the  truth  as  it  is  in  | 
Jesus"  and  "  the  faith  6nce  delivered  to  the 
saints."     All  truth  has  its  source  in  Christ, 
and  is  important.    But  some  truths  are  more 
important  than  others,  because  of  their  in- 
trinsic excellence  and  their  relative  position 
anil-i  niliifiicf  in  the  system  of  Christian  doc- 
trine.   To  this  class  belong  the  fundamental 
doctrines  of  the  Gospel,  all  of  which  are  held 
by  the  orthodox  Protestant  denominations. 
To  the  discussion  of  topics  involving  these 
essential  truths,  Protestant  ministers,  by  a 
kind  of  common  ecclesiastical  law,  confine 
themselves  in  exchanging  pulpits  with  each 
other.     They  furnish  a  very  wide  field  from 
which  to  select  pulpit  themes,  and  the  strong- 
est incentive  against  the  introduction  of  dis- 
puted points  on  such  occasions.   And  as  faith 
cometh  by  hearing  and  embracing  the  cardi- 
nal doctrines  of  Christianity,  and  as  these  are 
set  forth  by  Protestant  ministers  when  offi- 
ciating for  each  other,  interchange  of  pul- 
pits is  consistent  with  bearing  witness  "  to 
the  truth  as  it  is  in  Jesus,"  as  well  as  with 
"earnestly  contending  for  the  faith  once  de- 
livered to  the  saints." 

2.  It  is  alleged  that  interchange  of  pul- 
pits renders  the  ministers  of  one  denomina- 
tion jespousible  for  the  doctrinal  statements 
of  the  creed  of  another.     Confessional  obli- 
gations can  only  be  assumed  by  the  volun- 
tary subscription  of  a  creed,  and  they  can 
not  be  rightfully  imposed  by  mere  implica- 
tion.    In  this  manner  the  ministers  of  Prot- 
estant denominations  become  responsible  for 
the  doctrines  set  forth  in  their  respective 
confessions,  according  to  the  import  of  the 
formula  of  subscription  assented  to  at  their 
ordination.     By  an  interchange  of  pulpits 
they  merely  acknowledge  the  soundness  of 
their  several  creeds  as  regards  fundament- 
als, while  by  withholding  a  formal  subscrip- 
tion to  them  they  indicate  that,  in  their  judg- 
ment, their  respective  confessions  are,  nev- 
ertheless, deficient,  imperfect,  or  erroneous 
in  some  of  their  doctrinal  statements.     But 
they  do  not  by  such  exchanges  in  anywise  in- 
dorse what  they  regard  as  error,  nor  bid  God- 
speed to  errorists. 

3.  It  is  alleged  that  interchange  of  pul- 
pits depreciates,  if  not  ignores,  denomina- 
tional differences.     In  consequence  of  the 
multiform  character  of  revelation,  the  per- 
verseness  of  the  human  reason,  the  imper- 
fection of  man's  spiritual  development,  and 
the  diversified  influences  to  which  he  is  ex- 
posed in  his  religions  training,  the  attain- 
ment of  absolute  agreement  in  the  interpre- 
tation of  the  Scriptures  has  been  found  im- 
possible, and  doctrinal  differences  have  ac- 
cordingly arisen  among  Protestants.    These 
differences  have  been  regarded  as  sufficient- 
ly important  to  justify  them  in  organizing 
their  respective  denominations.      Now,  in- 
terchange of  pulpits  recognizes  the  exist- 


ence of  these  differences  as  the  distinguish- 
ing characteristics  of  the  Protestant  denom- 
inations. Ecclesiastical  instinct,  Christian 
courtesy,  as  well  as  Scripture  injunction, 
prevent  their  discussion  while  occupying 
each  other's  pulpits.  They  are  neither  ig- 
nored nor  thrust  forward ;  they  are  neither 
depreciated  nor  exalted;  they  are  simply 
let  alone.  Protestant  ministers  may,  conse- 
quently, justify  the  origination  of  their  re- 
spective denominations  in  their  organiza- 
tions, and  regard  their  peculiarities  as  suffi- 
ciently important  to  perpetuate  them.  By 
interchange  of  pulpits  they  transfer  their 
differences  to  the  sphere  of  non-fundament- 
als, and  confess  that  their  non-reception  does 
not  destroy  the  Christian  character  of  the 
members,  the  official  standing  of  the  minis- 
try, nor  the  validity  of  the  ordinances  of 
their  respective  organizations. 

4.  It  is  alleged  that  interchange  of  pulpits 
is  calculated  to  confuse  the  minds  of  Chris- 
tians, and  unsettle  their  ecclesiastical  opin- 
ions.    This  objection  is  based  upon  the  sup- 
position that,  whenever  one  Protestant  min- 
ister occupies  the  pulpit  of  another,  he  would 
seize  the  opportunity  to  assail  the  doctrines 
and  usages  of  the  denomination  to  whose 
members  he  was  preaching,  and  to  set  forth 
and  defend  those  of  his  own  Church.     But 
as  the  Scriptures  enjoin  upon  all  ministers 
to  avoid  "doubtful  disputations"  and  the 
discussion  of"  questions  which  gender  strife," 
so  glaring  an  impropriety  will  seldom  if  ever 
occur ;  and,  as  a  matter  of  fact,  we  have  nev- 
er heard  that  any  Protestant  minister  thus 
abused  the  privilege  accorded  him,  nor  that 
any  members  have  thereby  been  proselyted 
from  one  denomination  to  another. 

5.  It  is  alleged  that  the  various  Protest- 
ant confessions  set  forth  different  doctrinal 
systems,  that  the  discourses  of  their  minis- 
ters are  characterized  by  their  peculiarities, 
and  through  interchange  of  pulpits  the  mem- 
bers of  one  denomination  are  necessarily  in- 
oculated with  what  are  regarded  as  the  er- 
rors of  the  other.    This  objection  sounds  spe- 
cious, but  it  nevertheless  has  little  weight. 
It  has  been  conjured  up  by  theologians  Avhose 
lives  are  spent  in  splitting  doctrinal  hairs, 
and,  wrhen  practically  examined,  proves  a 
mere  man  of  straw. 

The  Protestant  confessions  in  reality  set 
forth  the  essential  features  of  but  one  doc- 
trinal system,  and  their  differences  belong 
to  the  category  of  theological  accidents. 
This  was  recognized  and  manifested  at  Ber- 
lin, in  1851,  when  two  thousand  six  hundred 
pastors,  professors,  and  theologians,  repre- 
senting the  four  grand  divisions  of  Protest- 
antism—  Lutheran,  Reformed,  Calvinistic, 
and  Movarian — reconfessedthe  doctrinal  ar- 
ticles of  the  Augsburg  Confession  as  contain- 
ing the  evangelical  system  of  Christianity. 
Their  doctrinal  differences  are  seldom  dis- 
cussed by  Protestant  pastors  in  their  own  pul- 


CONRAD :  INTERCHANGE  OF  PULPITS. 


179 


pits ;  and  nearly  all  the  sermons  they  preach 
present  evangelical  truth  in  such  a  form  as 
to  be  just  as  well  adapted  to  edify  the  mem- 
bers of  one  Protestant  denomination  as  those 
of  another.  It  is  only  on  rare  and  special 
occasions,  and  by  special  effort,  that  sermons 
are  preached  by  Protestant  pastors  so  charged 
with  the  peculiar  phases  of  their  respective 
denominations  as  to  be  clearly  apprehended 
even  by  their  own  members ;  and  should  any 
one  of  them  so  far  forget  himself  as  to  preach 
such  a  discourse  to  the  members  of  another 
denomination,  when  occupying  one  of  their 
pulpits,  the  result,  in  all  probability,  would 
be  nothing  more  than  an  opportunity  of 
obeying  the  apostolic  injunction, "Prove  all 
things :  hold  fast  that  which  is  good."  And 
it  is  hardly  conceivable  how  the  sermons 
preached  by  Protestant  pastors,  when  ex- 
changing pulpits  with  each  other,  could  in- 
fect their  hearers  with  heresy  and  lead  them 
astray. 

Those  who  refuse  to  practice  exchange 
of  pulpits,  and  isolate  themselves  from  all 
other  Christians  in  their  exclusiveness,  un- 
duly magnify  their  denominational  peculiar- 
ities, and  give  them  an  unscriptural  position 
and  influence  in  the  system  of  evangelical 
truth.  They  arrogate  to  themselves  the 
characteristics  of  the  Church  Catholic ;  they 
practically  deny  the  Christian  character  of 
the  members,  the  official  legitimacy  of  the 
ministry,  and  the  doctrinal  orthodoxy  of  all 
other  denominations,  and  thus  transform  a 
true  denominationalism  into  an  unjustifia- 
ble sectarianism.  They  refuse  to  acknowl- 
edge the  manifest  favor  with  which  God  has 
crowned  the  labors  of  the  ministers  of  other 
denominations,  and  virtually  reproach  Christ 
for  accrediting  by  his  benediction  the  ministry 
of  such  unchurch!  y  sects,  without  the  pale  of 
the  covenanted  mercies  of  God  vouchsafed 
to  them  alone,  as  the  true  Church  of  Christ. 

Let  the  ministers  of  the  Evangelical  Prot- 
estant denominations  realize  that  the  Church 
is  set  forth  in  the  Scriptures  as  a  sun,  and  that 
ministers  are  all  its  light-bearers;  as  a  school, 
in  which  they  are  all  teachers ;  as  a  house- 
hold, in  which  they  are  all  servants ;  as  a  fold, 


in  which  they  are  all  pastors ;  as  a  vineyard, 
in  which  they  are  all  laborers ;  as  a  kingdom, 
in  which  they  are  all  officers ;  and  as  a  great 
world  field,  in  which  they  are  all  sowers  of 
the  seed  of  the  Word.  Let  them  remember 
that  the  true  conception  of  the  Church  Mil- 
itant is  not  that  of  a  manikin  whose  parts, 
mechanically  connected,  form  a  body  with- 
out organic  union  or  life,  but  of  a  body  all 
of  whose  members  are  compactly  joined  to- 
gether and  constitute  a  living  spiritual  or- 
ganism ;  nor  is  it  that  of  an  army  divided 
into  separate  divisions,  led  by  hostile  officers 
against  each  other,  but  of  one  grand  army 
marching  against  Antichrist,  all  of  whose 
divisions  with  their  leaders  are  led  by  Je- 
sus Christ,  the  great  Captain  of  our  salva- 
tion. Neither  is  the  true  ideal  of  the  Church 
triumphant  that  of  a  templo  divided  into 
separate  courts,  between  whose  worshipers 
and  miuistrauts  there  is  no  fellowship ;  but 
it  is  that  of  one  vast  temple,  not  made  with 
hands,  illumined  by  the  Shekinah  of  glory, 
occupied  by  the  general  assembly  and  Church 
of  the  First-born  as  worshipers,  whose  min- 
isters are  all  recognized  as  alike  the  priests 
of  the  Most  High  God. 

Let  the  Protestant  ministry  heed  the  decla- 
ration of  Christ,  "  One  is  your  Master,  and  ye 
are  all  brethren."  Let  them  give  due  signif- 
icance to  the  sacerdotal  prayer  of  Jesus,  that 
they  might  all  be  one,  as  he  and  the  Father 
are  one,  that  the  world  may  believe  that  the 
Father  sent  the  Son  to  redeem  it.  Let  them 
ponder  the  prophecies,  that  the  time  shall 
come  when  Ziou  shall  constitute  but  one 
fold,  under  one  Chief  Shepherd,  all  whose 
"  watchmen  shall  see  eye  to  eye."  Let  them, 
by  their  prayers  for  each  other,  their  inter- 
change of  pulpits  with  each  other,  and  their 
cordial  co-operation  in  every  good  work,  aid 
in  ushering  in  the  time  when  the  Scriptural 
characteristics  of  the  One  Holy  Catholic 
Apostolic  Church  shall  be  actualized  on 
earth,  and  "  the  kingdoms  of  this  world  "  bo 
declared  by  the  Apocalyptic  angel  to  have 
become  "  the  Kingdoms  of  the  Lord  and  of 
His  Christ,"  and  all  her  accredited  ministers 
"  kings  and  priests  unto  God." 


THE  LORD'S  SUPPER  IN  RELATION  TO  CHRISTIAN 

UNION. 

BY  THE  REV.  WILLIAM  AUGUSTUS  MUHLENBERG,  D.D., 

Pastor  and  Superintendent  of  St.  Luke's  Hospital,  New  York,  and  of  St.  Johnland,  Long  Island.* 


PERHAPS  I  ought  to  apologize  for  not 
keeping,  iu  what  I  am  about  to  say,  to  one 
of  the  themes  allotted  me  in  the  programme ; 
yet  my  only  apology  is  that  I  ain  strongly 
moved  to  speak  on  another — one,  however, 
not  wholly  irrelevant  to  the  general  topic 
of  the  day,  nor  inappropriate  as  one  of  the 
concluding  papers  of  the  Conference. 

Proceeding  with  my  subject,  which  I  can 
treat  only  in  the  plain  words  of  a  worker 
rather  than  a  speaker,  and  not  after  the  sci- 
entific method  of  the  able  and  scholarly  men 
who  have  preceded  me,  I  observe,  we  should 
think  it  strange,  were  we  not  accustomed  to 
it,  that  among  Protestant  Evangelical  Chris- 
tians there  is  so  little  socialness,  if  it  may  be 
so  designated,  in  the  observance  of  the  high- 
est social  act  of  their  religion.  Their  unity 
in  the  faith  and  in  the  cardinal  doctrines  of 
the  Gospel  is  certainly  not  obvious  in  their 
relations  to  the  great  Sacrament  of  unity — 
the  Lord's  Supper,  their  observance  of  which 
being  so  isolated  Avithin  their  own  ecclesi- 
astical bounds.  They  meet  each  at  their 
own,  but  rarely  at  a  common  communion 
table.  Now  this,  as  an  ordinary  rule,  could 
not  be  otherwise.  The  communicants  in  a 
neighborhood  of  any  size  could  not  form  a 
single  congregation.  Nor,  if  they  could, 
would  it  be  desirable.  They  have  their 
church  homes,  so  to  call  them,  where,  under 
their  own  pastors,  and  amidst  their  families 
and  friends,  they  feel  it  a  good  and  pleasant 
thing  so  to  participate  in  the  sacred  feast. 
They  have  an  indisposition  to  go  for  it  be- 


*  [The  above  address  was  delivered  by  the  vener- 
able author,  October  11, 1873,  but  belongs  properly  to 
the  section  on  Christian  Union.  The  note  at  the  close 
of  Dr.  Hodge's  article  applies  also  here.  The  Evan- 
gelical Alliance,  which  is  no  church,  but  simply  a 
voluntary  association  of  Christians  from  different 
churches,  did  not  hold  a  communion  service  at  the 
General  Conference  iu  New  York ;  but  an  opportuni- 
ty was  given  to  its  members  to  join  freely  in  the  reg- 
ular communion  services  which  were  held  in  several 
churches  during  the  two  intervening  Sundays.  One 
such  service,  which  took  place  in  Dr.  Adams's  Pres- 
byterian Church,  October  5th,  and  in  which  the  Dean 
of  Canterbury,  of  the  Chnrch  of  England,  Bishop  Von 
Schweinitz,  of  the  Moravians,  Dr.  Angus,  of  the  Bap- 
tists, Rev.  N.Sheshadri,  a  converted  Brahmin,  of  Bom- 
bay, and  others,  took  part,  was  especially  impressive, 
and  elicited  a  great  deal  of  interest  and  subsequent 
discussion  in  the  newspapers,  which  it  is  hoped  may 
have  a  good  effect  in  the  end.— Ed.] 


yond  these  companies  of  immediate  breth- 
ren. Nor  is  this  unsocial  if  it  be  only  a  nat- 
ural preference  for  their  own  associations, 
for  the  sacramental  modes  and  customs  to 
which  they,  like  their  fathers  before  them, 
have  been  accustomed.  But  when  they  do 
it  on  religions  grounds,  when  they  make  it 
a  matter  of  conscience,  when  they  would 
forego  the  communion  altogether  rather 
than  partake  of  it  outside  of  their  own  con- 
nections, then  it  is  that  unsocialuess,  to  call 
it  by  its  mildest  name,  which  it  is  hard  to 
reconcile  with  aught  of  hearty  realization 
of  membership  in  the  one  body  of  Christ. 
Here  I  pray  not  to  be  understood  as  advert- 
ing to  any  particular  body  of  Christians 
who  feel  constrained  to  close  communion, 
from  consistency  with  their  special  creeds. 
There  are  true  brethren  in  that  category, 
at  whom  I  would  not  be  aiming  words,  and 
at  a  time  like  this.  I  refer  to  what  is  com- 
mon among  all  Protestant  Christians — their 
avoidance  of  one  another's  communions ;  an 
avoidance  the  more  remarkable  since  they 
practice  it  on  scarcely  any  other  religious 
occasions.  They  do  not  refuse  to  worship 
in  one  another's  sanctuaries,  they  listen  to 
one  another's  preachers,  they  go  hand  in 
hand  in  wrorks  of  piety  and  benevolence, 
in  the  name  of  their  one  Lord ;  but  when 
it  comes  to  communicating  together,  there 
they  halt — they  are  ready  for  any  act  of 
brotherliness  but  that ;  and  so  the  extraor- 
dinary and  not  less  unworthy  thing  comes 
to  pass,  that  the  last  place  at  which  they 
should  be  willing  to  separate  is  the  last 
place  at  which  they  are  willing  to  meet. 

Were  I  now  to  add  what  has  been  fearful- 
ly worse  than  such  alienation,  the  wrathful 
controversies,  the  bitter  theological  strifes, 
the  mutual  excommunications,  of  which  this 
blessed  ordinance  has  been  the  occasion  — 
the  centre  of  peace  the  very  centre  of  war — 
we  should  say,  how  true  the  paradox  of  our 
Lord, "  I  am  not  come  to  send  peace  on  earth, 
but  a  sword."  Such  fierce  zeal  for  opinion, 
magnified  into  essential  faith,  has,  however, 
been  for  the  most  part  confined  to  religion- 
istic  combatants,  who,  of  all  combatants, 
least  know  wha^t  manner  of  spirit  they  an» 
of.  Happily,  too,  it  is  rather  a  thing  of  the 
past ;  but  not  without  leaving  a  remainder 
in  that  which  is  the  same  in  kind,  though 


MUHLENBERG:  THE  LORD'S  SUPPER. 


181 


less  in  degree — sacramental  exclusiveness, 
the  veriest  opposite  of  what  \vould  seem  to 
be  a  matter  of  course,  sacramental  compre- 
hensiveness. That  also,  thank  God,  is  pass- 
ing away.  A  happy  change  has  of  late 
years  been  going  on.  The  fencing  in  of 
God's  board  by  man's  devices  is  one  of  the 
old  ways  Avhich  we  are  discovering  must 
not  necessarily  be  good  only  because  they 
are  old.  We  are  coming  into  a  clearer  and 
freer  atmosphere.  The  night  is  far  spent ; 
the  day  is  at  hand.  The  icy  barriers  and 
frost-work  of  ecclesiasticism,  congealed  in 
the  dark,  are  melting  under  the  beams  of 
advancing  light.  We  have  had  union  com- 
munions. Christians  have  acknowledged  a 
becoming  and  solemn  significance  in  forget- 
ting awhile  their  diversities,  and  in  enjoy- 
ing their  agreement  in  the  supreme  and 
precious  truths  embodied  in  the  sacrament. 
Loyal  to  the  Churches  in  which  Providence 
has  set  them,  giving  them  due  preference  and 
support,  they  own  a  yet  higher  allegiance  to 
the  law  laid  upon  them  in  common :  "  This 
do  in  remembrance  of  me."  It  is  one  of  the 
encouraging  signs  of  the  times,  an  ascendant 
harmony  of  Gospel  concord  amidst  the  jar 
of  churchy  discord,  and  as  such  not  un- 
worthy the  observation  of  a  Gospel  alliance. 
So,  at  least,  it  seems  to  your  speaker,  who 
begs  to  offer  some  thoughts  upon  it  as  his 
contribution  to  the  Conference. 

With  regard  to  these  union  communions, 
I  submit  that  the  time  has  come  when  they 
should  be  systematized  and  regulated,  and 
that  mainly  in  order  to  their  having  a  rep- 
resentative character.  Accordingly,  they 
should  not  be  extemporary  gatherings  of  all 
and  any  good  people  moved  to  attend  them, 
but  companies  of  persons  chosen  by  their 
brother  communicants  of  their  respective 
congregations — not,  of  course,  to  the  exclu- 
sion of  all  others;  but  these  elected  dele- 
gates or  proxies  should  form  the  main  body 
of  the  communicating  assembly,  which  would 
thus  witness  not  only  for  itself,  but  for  all  its 
constituents,  to  unity  and  union  in  Christ. 

To  that  extent  it  would  be  a  representa- 
tive holy  communion ;  but  let  it  be  extended 
farther — let  it  embrace  more  than  only  cer- 
tain local  congregations,  however  numerous. 
The  great  object  in  view  is  the  union  of  the 
different  branches  of  the  Protestant  Church 
— even  intercommunion.  And  mark  how  ea- 
sily that  could  be  effected — by  what  a  simple 
process.  Those  different  branches,  in  their 
highest  councils,  their  synods,  their  conven- 
tions, and  so  forth,  would  only  have  to  adopt 
resolutions  approving  of  such  communions, 
recommending  their  members  to  join  in 
them,  giving  counsel  concerning  them,  with 
the  prayerful  hope  that  they  might  become 
a  new  and  blessed  pledge  of  brotherly  peace 
and  good-will  in  the  widest  aud  best  of 
bonds.  Let  us  suppose  their  action  went 
beyond  this,  and  that  they  appointed  dele- 


gates immediately  from  their  own  bodies,  to 
meet  in  a  stated,  say  annual,  holy  commun- 
ion, coinciding  in  time  with  one  or  anoth- 
er of  the  local  celebrations.  Here  would  be 
a  general  Church  union.  Here  would  be  a 
concordat,  not  of  theological  dogmas  or  of  ec- 
clesiastical policy,  yet  of  fundamental  Chris- 
tian doctrine,  withal  of  Christian  amity. 
Here  would  be  a  compact  without  diploma- 
cy, without  settlings  of  precedence,  without 
mutual  concessions — a  compact  signed  with 
Christ's  own  seal.  Here  would  be  an  Ecu- 
menical Council  that  might  claim,  as  conn 
dently  as  any  ever  held,  the  presence  of  the 
Holy  Ghost.  Here  would  be  a  universal 
confraternity,  having  that  mark  of  divine 
creation,  variety  in  unity — Lutheran  and 
Calvinist,  Zwinglian  and  Moravian,  Episco- 
palian and  Presbyterian,  Methodist  aud  Bap- 
tist, all  within  the  limits  of  a  sound  Faith  ; 
of  all  ranks  and  conditions,  too — the  ortho- 
dox Emperor  who  sent  us  so  cordial  a  greet- 
ing, and  the  pietist  school-master,  the  Pri- 
mate of  all  England  (so  be  it)  who  spake 
friendly  words  to  us  through  his  dean,  and 
the  dissenting  Bible-reader,  side  by  side  in 
the  equality  of  the  one  Faith,  the  one  Lord, 
the  one  Baptism,  the  one  God  and  Father  of 
all,  partaking  of  the  one  bread  and  the  one 
cup  given  to  them,  as  brethren,  by  their 
God-brother  at  his  own  table  of  all-embra- 
cing love.  Let  that  come  to  pass,  and  who 
will  say  that  our  evangelic  Christendom  is 
destitute  of  all  unity,  a  chaotic  aggregation 
of  confused  and  inter-repellent  parts  ? — yet 
withal,  the  objection  may  be  made,  destitute 
of  any  organic  union.  Nay,  nay,  who  was 
the  great  organizer  of  the  Church?  And 
when  by  any  positive  external  act  of  his 
own  did  he  ever  organize  it,  if  not  when  he 
instituted  this  one  bond  of  fellowship  for  all 
his  disciples  through  their  fellowship  with 
him?  —  if  not,  too,  when  by  the  hallowed 
wine-cup  he  signified  the  only  organism  of 
which  he  ever  spake,  "  I  am  the  vine,  ye  are 
the  branches." 

Such  an  evangelic,  catholic,  and  represent- 
ative holy  communion,  all  will  admit,  is  a 
goodly  ideal.  But  we  may  doubt  its  prac- 
tical realization — ay,  we  may  more  than 
doubt — unless  we  can  assume  for  it  a  wide- 
spread and  longing  desire — unless  from  all 
earnest  hearts  and  voices  there  goes  forth 
the  response,  "Amen,  in  the  name  of  the  God 
of  peace,  Amen."  Trusting  for  that,  I  see 
no  great  difficulties  in  the  way  of  the  tribes 
of  our  Israel  thus  gathering  for  a  high  Chris- 
tian Passover.  I  say  great,  for  there  might  be 
minor  ones,  arising  out  of  the  divers  modes 
of  celebration  prevalent  among  the  different 
bodies  of  Christians,  each  naturally  adher- 
ing to  its  own ;  but  respecting  these  there 
could  be  only  universal  agreement  that  they 
are  mere  accidents,  not  of  the  essence  of  the 
ordinance.  They  are  extrinsic  forms,  vari- 
able, while  the  substance  is  untouched.  In 


182 


CHRISTIAN  UNION. 


the  solemnity  proposed  we  must  look  at  the 
Holy  Supper  as  it  is  iti  itself  and  exclusive- 
ly as  we  liud  it  in  the  pages  of  the  New  Tes- 
tament. There,  it  is  simply  a  company  of 
disciples  partaking  together  of  the  elements 
of  the  meal  ordained  by  their  Lord  and  Mas- 
ter in  sacred  and  grateful  commemoration  of 
the  sacrifice  of  his  death  for  their  redemp- 
tion— the  communion  of  his  body  and  blood. 
This  is  the  amount  of  Scripture  fact  and 
teaching  concerning  the  Eucharist.  It  is 
one  of  the  agenda,  not  credenda,  of  our  relig- 
ion. The  doctrines  concerning  its  nature, 
efficacy,  and  the  like  are  inferential,  the  Bi- 
ble argument  for  which  we  may  weigh  for 
ourselves,  having  due  regard  for  ancient  and 
traditional  consent  in  the  premises.  They 
do  not  affect  the  minimum  of  agreement,  be- 
yond all  question  Scriptural,  which  must  ex- 
ist among  ourselves  in  order,  with  our  mani- 
fold views  and  sentiments,  to  our  intercom- 
munion. That  minimum,  considering  the 
amount  of  Gospel  truth  it  involves,  is  enough. 
So  of  the  various  sacramental  rites  and  cere- 
monies ;  they  are  more  or  less  agreeable  to 
Scripture,  they  have  more  or  less  value  in 
their  way ;  but  none  of  them  are  invaluable. 
They  do  not  approach  to  an  essential. 

Thus  looking  at  the  institution  solely  in 
the  New  Testament  exhibitions  of  it,  wo  are 
struck  with  the  absence  in  it  of  one  feature 
which  is  very  extensively  thought  to  be  in- 
dispensable to  its  integrity — or,  as  some 
would  say,  to  its  validity :  I  mean  admin- 
istration by  an  authorized  administrator. 
Herein  might  lie  the  greatest  obstacle  to  in- 
tercommunion, but  of  this  we  discover  not 
a  trace  in  the  inspired  records.  In  the  first 
instance,  our  Lord  was  the  iustitutor  rather 
than  the  administrator,  and,  so  far  as  he  was 
the  latter,  certainly  he  appointed  no  suc- 
cessor in  the  office.  Had  he  done  so,  we 
could  not  have  been  left  in  the  dark  con- 
cerning it.  Inequality,  except  that  of  "  Pri- 
mus inter  pares  "  for  order's  sake,  is  at  vari- 
ance with  the  chief  idea  of  the  communion. 
It  was  to  his  first  communicants  our  Lord 
laid  down  the  law  ignoring  all  precedence 
among  them :  "  One  is  your  Master,  even 
Christ,  and  all  ye  are  brethren."  Turning 
to  the  Pentecostal  Christians,  we  find  them 
keeping  the  feast  in  their  private  houses, 
where  certainly  the  apostles,  who  as  yet  were 
the  only  ministers  of  the  new  dispensation, 
could  not  always  have  been  present  to  give 
their  authoritative  benediction.  When  St. 
Paul  preached  to  the  disciples  at  Troas, 
where  they  had  met  on  the  first  day  of  the 
week  for  their  "  breaking  bread,"  the  oppor- 
tunity was  his  for  a  farewell  discourse  to 
them,  not  their  opportunity  for  a  commun- 
ion, which  would  have  taken  place  whether 
he  had  been  with  them  or  not.  When  the 
same  apostle  rebukes  the  Corinthians  for 
their  shameful  behavior  at  their  sacraments, 
if  the  clergy  were  among  them  as  celebrants 


or  consecrators,  they  certainly  would  have 
come  in  for  a  share  of  his  lecture  for  allow- 
ing such  scandalous  disorder.  "  The  figment 
of  any  thing  like  sacerdotal  consecration  of 
the  Eucharist  by  transmitted  power,"  says 
Dean  Alford,  "  is  as  alien  from  the  apostolic 
writings  as  it  is  from  the  spirit  of  the  Gos- 
pel." To  this  quotation  let  me  add  another 
from  a  High-churchman,  Bishop  Cotterill, 
of  the  Episcopal  Church  in  Scotland.  "  This 
Christian  rite,"  he  says,  "  the  highest  expres- 
sion of  communion  with  Christ  and  with  one 
another,  was  celebrated  at  first  with  little 
of  that  formal  observance  which  afterward 
attended  it,  not  in  the  temple  where  the  dis- 
ciples still  met  for  formal  public  worship  "- 
not  in  the  temple,that  place  devoted  to  priest- 
ly service — "  but  at  home,  probably  in  such 
of  their  houses  as  were  used  for  their  gath- 
erings ;"  where,  I  may  add,  as  I  have  already 
implied,  the  apostles  must  have  been  ubiqui- 
tous, to  be  at  every  sacrament,  absorbed  as 
they  were  with  their  work  as  ambassadors 
for  Christ,  especially  as  the  service  at  first 
seems  to  have  been  a  daily  one.  Again,  re- 
marks the  bishop :  "  It  is  a  significant  fact 
that  the  one  representative  ordinance  of  the 
old  economy  for  which  the  office  of  the  Le- 
vitical  priesthood  was  not  needed  (the  Pass- 
over being  a  household  institution)  was  se- 
lected by  Jesus  Christ  as  the  rite  out  of 
which  the  great  representative  ordinance  of 
the  new  should  grow."*  If  an  officiating 
ministry  was  not  required  for  the  type  un- 
der the  old  dispensjvtion,  surely  none  can  be 
demanded  for  the  antitype  under  the  un- 
priestly  dispensation  of  the  new,  save  on  the 
ground  of  custom  not  to  be  needlessly  set 
aside.  Accordingly,  to  speak  as  we  are  wont 
of  one's  administering  the  communion,  of 
giving  and  taking  the  sacrament,  is  not  Scrip- 
tural, though  the  language  is  unobjectiona- 
ble as  conformable  to  the  long-existing  modes 
of  celebrating  the  Supper.  So  the  various 
ritual  observances  which  have  been  added 
to  it  are  of  course  to  be  reverenced  accord- 
ing to  their  age  and  significance,  so  long  as 
they  do  not  touch  the  elementary  nature  of 
the  institution,  or  prevent  or  interfere  with 
its  main  design.  We  all  have  a  strong  at- 
tachment to  our  own  Eucharistic  modes. 
Nothing  here  said  would  in  the  least  disturb 
it.  It  is  a  pious  attachment  which  it  would 
be  well-nigh  impious  to  violate.  Communi- 
cating within  our  own  ecclesiastical  house- 
holds, we  should  bo  disorderly  if  we  did  not 
conform  to  their  established  order.  Never 
in  the  main  could  I  part  with  that  of  the 
liturgy  enshrined  in  my  heart,  as  it  enshrines 
all  catholic  and  evangelic  truth.  But  when 
we  come  out  and  hold  a  communion  on  com- 
mon ground,  we  forego  all  that  marks  our 


*  In  justice  to  the  bishop,  I  should  mention  that  in 
another  place  he  requires  an  authorized  celebrant, 
bnt  pretendingno  Scriptural  precedent.  See  his  "Gen- 
esis of  the  Church." 


MUHLENBEKG:   THE  LORD'S  SUPPER. 


183 


dissimilarity,  and  we  confiue  ourselves  to 
that  wherein  we  are  alike.  We  merge  our 
various  species  in  the  genus  Christian.  We 
can  afford  to  lay  aside  badges,  though  worn 
by  our  ancestors,  content  to  appear  only 
with  the  one  sign  of  the  cross.  As  the  Eu- 
charist was  ordained  before  ecclesiastical 
order,  so  in  partaking  of  it  in  its  primitive 
form  we  must  be  pre-ecclesiastical.  We  put 
ourselves  on  a  level,  clergy  and  laity,  one  of 
necessity  presiding,  and  he,  for  obvious  seem- 
liness,  a  brother  in  the  ministry.  We  fall 
back  upon  our  status  of  simple  discipleship 
in  Christ,  and  keep  the  feast,  as  far  as  may 
be,  after  the  manner  of  its  first  occurrence 
in  the  upper  room  at  Jerusalem.  And  could 
it  be  otherwise  than  refreshing  aud  enlar- 
ging and  strengthening  to  the  soul  thus  to 
return  from  time  to  time  to  a  primordial 
Christianity  ? 

I  will  not  detain  you  by  enlarging  upon 
the  probable  happy  consequences  of  a  divine- 
ly constituted  Evangelical  Alliance,  but  will 
conclude  with  one  or  two  additional  re- 
marks. 

For  all  practical  movements  toward  great- 
er union  among  Christians  there  must  be 
some  central  ground.  Overtures  from  par- 
ticular quarters  might  not  be  met  in  the 
spirit  with  which  they  would  be  made.  You 
can  not  start  from  any  of  your  old  harbors ; 
you  must  take  a  new  departure.  And  from 
whence  rather  than  from  the  broad  mid- 
land of  a  catholic,  holy  communion  ?  If 
you  can  not  begin  there,  you  can  begin  no- 
where. 

Again,  such  "love-feasts"  would  be  an 
exhibition  of  the  Church  in  her  normal  char- 
acter as  the  Divine  Brotherhood — the  char- 
acter which  she  needs  to  make  good,  and  to 
manifest  more  and  more,  if  she  is  to  make 
headway  in  the  world.  In  that  she  will 
not  fail  to  be  appreciated.  Men  understand 
brotherhood.  They  desire  it,  and  will  have 
it  in  forms  which  they  invent  for  themselves, 
as  in  their  fellowships,  their  lodges,  their 
fraternities.  Let  them  see  fellowship  in  the 
Church — ay,  socialism,  communism,  too.  Let 
the  Church  recognize  in  these  that  which,  in 
their  true  forms,  she  should  supply,  by  tak- 
ing a  lead,  with  her  concerted  strength,  in 
all  beneficently  social  movements,  all  phil- 
anthropic enterprise ;  by  her  concern  for  the 
downtrodden  and  oppressed,  lifting  them 
up  in  their  redeemed  humanity ;  by  her  ad- 
vocacy of  the  righteous  rights  of  man ;  by 
her  not  winking  at  the  complacent  notions 
of  wealth  and  power,  that  the  Dives  and 
Lazarus  of  the  parable  are  the  normal  con- 
dition of  social  Christendom,  that  in  the 
conventionalities  of  life  there  must  needs  be 
an  impassable  gulf  between  the  rich  and  the 
poor ;  by  her  not  leaving  plans  for  the  mel- 


ioration of  the  humbler  classes  wholly  to  the 
State,  as  if  no  business  of  hers ;  by  proving 
that  the  interests  of  humanity  are  therefore 
hers ;  by  her  doing  justice — dare  I  say  it  ? — 
to  her  Christ,  by  giving  men  to  behold  him 
the  supreme  Philanthropist — the  Christ  not 
of  her  theolognes  and  scribes;  the  Christ  of 
Matthew,  Mark,  Luke,  and  John ;  the  Christ 
that  now  is,  the  Liberator — the  Emancipator 
from  slavery,  tyranny,  from  the  grinding  of 
mammon,  burying  the  children  of  poverty  in 
the  pits  and  mire  of  earth — as  well  as  the  Al- 
mighty Redeemer  from  the  bondage  of  sin  to 
the  glorious  liberty  of  the  Sous  of  God.  So 
let  the  Church  demonstrate  Christian  social- 
ism, Christian  communism.  So  let  her,  too, 
declare  for  liberty,  equality,  fraternity.  To 
such  ends  let  this  Congress  charge  her — for 
who  has  a  better  right  to  ? — bid  her  make 
full  proof  of  her  profession  as  the  benefactor, 
of  the  world,  and  not  unfit  herself  for  the 
high  vocation  by  dissensions  within  herself. 
Remind  her,  with  line  upon  line  aud  precept 
upon  precept,  that  union  is  strength.  Of 
every  barrier  that  keeps  her  people  from 
joint  co-operation  in  her  common  work,  that 
withholds  them  from  intercommunion  at  the 
blessed  feast,  for  the  uplifting  and  invigor- 
ating of  their  souls — of  all  such  ramparts  of 
separation,  say  to  her,  as  the  prophet  of  old 
did  to  Zion,  "Take  away  the  battlements 
that  are  not  the  Lord's."  So  adjure  the 
world-wide  Zion  you  here  represent  to  the 
sacred  obligation  of  peace  within  her  own 
borders,  as  she  would  be  worthy  of  herself, 
aud  do  earnest  battle  with  her  foes  all  thick 
and  united  around.  So  let  her  hope  for  suc- 
cessful conquest  with  the  world,  as  she  then 
may  when  she  fulfills  her  prophetic  type, 
"Jerusalem  built  as  a  city,  at  unity  with 
herself." 

But  one  word  more,  referring  to  union. 
Let  the  American  churches  unite,  as  some  of 
them  already  do,  in  the  practice  of  nearly  all 
the  churches  abroad,  of  observing  the  great 
historic  days  of  Christianity,  which  commem- 
orate the  Incarnation,  the  Atonement,  the 
Resurrection,  and  the  Descent  of  the  Holy 
Ghost,  and  on  these  days,  making  all  sanct- 
uaries to  resound  with  the  universal  creed, 
the  Te  Deum,  the  Glorias,  the  common  her- 
itage of  us  all — so  demonstrating  both  pres- 
ent union  aud  the  oneness  of  the  Church  of 
the  past  with  the  Church  of  to-day. 

But  all,  nothing,  nothing — communions, 
alliances,  hospitalities — all  nothing  without 
larger  outpourings  of  the  Holy  Ghost,  in  the 
love  of  Christ  constraining  us,  in  unselfish- 
ness, iu  the  spirit  of  conciliation  and  forbear- 
ance, in  self-sacrifice,  in  the  affection  of  hearty 
brotherhood  iu  Christ.  Who  will  not  pray 
for  that  iu  the  invocation  of  the  Church  for 
more  than  a  thousand  years — Veni  Creator? 


THE  ECCLESIASTICAL  AND  SPIRITUAL  RELATIONS 
OF  AMERICA  TO  ENGLAND. 

BY  THE  REV.  JOHN  STOUGHTON,  D.D.,  KENSINGTON,  LONDON. 


As  the  earlier  part  of  my  address  must  be 
historical,  I  feel  myself  placed  at  a  disadvan- 
tage before  tbis  assembly,  as  historical  state- 
ments, \vheu  condensed,  are  sure  to  be,  even 
at  the  best,  very  dry.  However  fresh  and 
fragrant  the  parts  may  appear  in  the  his- 
torian's mind,  and  however  much  of  inter- 
est they  may  inspire  in  the  minds  of  those 
to  whom  they  are  presented  in  expanded 
pictorial  form,  they  must  become  a  mere  hor- 
tua  81CCU8  when  subjected  to  a  process  of  ex- 
treme condensation.  Were  I  to  take  up  the 
subject  of  the  "ecclesiastical  and  religious 
relations  between  America  and  Europe  at 
large,  it  would  much  more  than  double  the 
difficulties  I  have  to  contend  with ;  and, 
therefore,  I  can  but  briefly  point  to  that 
very  wide  field  of  observation,  and  then  re- 
strict my  remarks  mainly  to  the  relations  of 
America  and  England.  Moreover,  I  must 
confine  my  attention  to  the  relations  be- 
tween Protestants  in  the  New  and  the  Old 
World,  as  any  discussion  respecting  the  re- 
lation of  Protestants  and  Roman  Catholics 
to  each  other — or  to  the  effect  of  European 
Romanism  on  America  in  general — would  be 
far  too  wide  for  the  limits  of  this  paper,  and 
would  involve  controversies  which  might 
draw  us  away  from  our  proper  theme. 

I  would  begin  with  the  general  remark  that 
different  countries  have  contributed  great- 
ly to  the  formation  of  your  religious  life. 
When  America  was  covered  with  forests, 
which  no  woodman's  axe  had  ever  touched 
— when,  where  now  thriving  cities  may  be 
seen,  naught  existed  but  prairies,  in  which 
buffaloes  wandered  at  their  own  wild  will — 
when  your  majestic  rivers  were  furrowed  by 
no  barks  larger  than  the  Indian's  canoe — di- 
vine Providence,  by  dispensations  of  wis- 
dom, righteousness,  and  love,  was  preparing 
influences  which  have  served  to  mould  your 
religious  destinies.  The  Mediaeval  Church — 
the  Waldensian  and  Bohemian  Brotherhoods 
— the  Protestant  Reformation — the  labors  of 
Luther  and  Calvin  and  Zwingle — the  suffer- 
ings of  Latimer  and  Ridley — the  struggles  of 
Huguenots  —  the  institutions  and  activities 
of  the  Dutch  Reformed — the  confessorship 
and  exile  of  Puritans — the  writings  of  for- 
eign and  English  divines— and  the  language, 
literature,  and  aspirations  of  Germany,  have 
all  contributed  to  create  the  religious  Amer- 


ica of  the  present  day.  These  influences 
may  be  said  to  have  risen  into  the  heavens, 
to  become  there  fertilizing  shower-clouds; 
and  these,  in  due  time — sailing,  settling,  and 
breaking  upon  old  American  wildernesses — 
have  made  seeds  of  truth,  sown  on  cleared 
lands  of  thought  and  sentiment,  grow  into  a 
harvest  of  faith  and  love  and  blessing. 

The  addresses  you  have  heard  from  our 
foreign  brethren  supply  some  information  il- 
lustrative of  points  of  contact  between  Eu- 
ropean and  American  Christendom;  and  a 
promised  paper  by  another  clergyman  may 
contain  statements  throwing  light  upon  the 
formation  of  opinion  here  through  influences 
from  other  lauds.  But  the  links  of  connec- 
tion between  European  Protestant  Church- 
es and  American  Protestant  Churches  ;  be- 
tween the  Church  of  Holland  and  the  Dutch 
Reformed  Church  of  this  country ;  between 
Lutherans  of  the  Fatherland  and  Luther- 
ans in  this  land  of  their  adoption ;  between 
the  old  Huguenots  and  the  Protestant 
Frenchmen  of  the  States ;  between  the  Mo- 
ravians who  sprung  from  Herruhut,  and  the 
Moravians  who  have  their  settlements  and 
episcopacy  among  you — all  these  interesting 
links  of  connection  deserve  to  be  examined 
with  historical  care  by  some  one  thoroughly 
competent  to  the  task.* 

I.  In  confining  myself,  as  I  am  compell- 
ed, within  the  limits  of  those  historical  re- 
lationships which  have  obtained  between 
America  and  England,  I  observe,  in  the  first 
place,  that  there  has  been  between  us  an  ago 
of  ecclesiastical  union,  now  past  and  gone 
forever.  It  has  been  partly  organic  and 
partly  inorganic.  Of  organic  union  two 
types  present  themselves  —  the  Episcopa- 
lian and  the  Methodist.  A  word  respecting 
each. 

Episcopalianism  in  America,  from  its  in- 
troduction at  the  founding  of  Virginia,  in  the 
beginning  of  the  seventeenth  century,  to  the 
consecration  of  bishops  for  American  sees, 
where  Episcopaliauism  obtained  at  the  close 
of  the  eighteenth  century,  was  undoubted- 
ly a  branch  of  the  English  Church.  The 
Book  of  Common  Prayer  used  to  be  read  on 

*  [The  subject  of  the  Ecclesiastical  and  Religious 
Relations  of  America  to  the  Continent  of  Europe  was 
originally  on  the  programme,  and  assigned  to  the  Ed- 
itor, but  was  stricken  out  at  his  own  request.— £U] 


STOUGHTON:  ECCLESIASTICAL  AND  SPIRITUAL  RELATIONS,  ETC.       185 


the  shores  of  Chesapeake  Bay  as  on  the  banks 
of  the  River  Thames ;  for  the  terms  of  the 
Charter  in  1606  gran  ted  to  Virginia — a  colony 
consisting  of  Episcopalians — prescribed  that 
in  the  new  settlement  "  the  true  Word  and 
service  of  God  should  be  preached,  planted, 
and  used,  according  to  the  rites  and  doc- 
trines of  the  Church  of  England."  The  set- 
tlement, like  other  colonies  under  the  En- 
glish crown,  came  within  the  capacious  boun- 
daries of  the  metropolitan  see  of  London : 
and  ecclesiastical  authority  on  the  side  of 
the  mother  country,  submission  on  the  side 
of  such  of  the  daughter  states,  continued 
amid  many  difficulties  for  about  a  century 
and  three  quarters.  At  the  end  of  that  pe- 
riod, in  1784,  Dr.  Seabury,  as  Bishop  of  Con- 
necticut, was  consecrated  in  Scotland,  and 
Dr.  White  and  Dr.  Provost,  as 'Bishops  of 
Pennsylvania  and  New  York,  at  Lambeth.* 

Another  branch  of  Christ's  Catholic  Church 
sprung  up  in  this  vast  continent  in  the  mid- 
dle of  the  last  century,  and  for  a  little  while 
retained  organic  union  with  it.  The  year 
1766  saw  a  German  Irishman — (who  four- 
teen years  before  had  become  acquainted 
with  John  Wesley,  and  had  by  that  means 
recovered  the  "blessedness  of  humble  faith, 
after  losing  it  a  while) — opening  his  house 
for  Methodist  worship  in  this  city,  and  the 
infant  cause  of  Methodism  found  here  not  a 
cradle  for  sleep,  but  a  school  for  the  devel- 
opment of  its  mighty  energies.  Three  years 
afterward  an  appeal  from  the  country  for 
preachers  reached  the  English  Conference, 
then  sitting  at  Leeds.  "  Who  is  willing  to 
go  ?"  asked  Wesley.  Two  earnest  itiner- 
ants, named  Boardman  and  Pilmoor,  an- 
swered each  of  them,  "Here  am  I ;  send  me." 
"What  can  we  do  further,  in  token  of  broth- 
erly love  ?"  asked  the  Conference.  To  this 
a  thoroughly  Methodistical  reply  was  given. 
"  Let  us  make  a  collection."  Thus  the  Meth- 
odism of  America  became  ingrafted  on  the 
English  stock,  and  the  Methodist  love  of  col- 
lection -  making  perhaps  contributed  some- 
thing to  the  characteristic  generosity  of  the 
American  religions  public  ever  since.  But 
very  naturally  the  American  Methodist  So- 
cieties soon  aspired  to  independence.  In 
1773,  the  first  Conference  was  held  in  the 
New  World ;  and,  in  1784,  Dr.  Coke  received 
his  famous  commission  to  your  shores  from 
the  hands  of  the  founder  of  universal  Wes- 
leyandom.  From  that  time  dates  the  exist- 
ence of  Methodism  in  America  as  a  distinct 
organization.  Before,  but  for  a  short  space, 
Methodist  Societies  in  the  Western  World 
were  subject  to  the  English  Conference  ;  aft- 
erwards they  were  separate  and  self-con- 

*  It  appears  that  two  clergymen  who  came  over  to 
America  in  the  first  quarter  of  the  last  ceutnry  were 
consecrated  bishops  before  they  came  by  nonjnring 
bishops  in  England,  and  furtively  discharged  Episco- 
pal functions.— Wilberforce,  Uiatory  of  the  American 
[Episcopal]  Church,  p.  155. 


taiued.  The  organic  union  of  the  two  dur- 
ing a  short  period  was  the  natural  and  nec- 
essary result  of  the  constitution  of  Method- 
ism, which  is  based  on  a  principle  of  ec- 
clesiastical harmony  and  wholeness,  and  is 
averse  to  the  breaking  of  organic  bonds 
until  compelled  by  circumstances  of  imperi- 
ous necessity.  The  love  of  Episcopal  order — 
which  beat  strongly  in  the  breasts  of  both 
Wesley  and  Coke,  and  lingered  long  in  the 
midst  of  the  early  Methodists,  notwithstand- 
ing their  irregularities — led  to  the  introduc- 
tion of  an  Episcopal  element,  under  a  some- 
what new  and  characteristic  form,  into  the 
developments  of  American  Wcsleyanism. 

But  Anglican  Episcopalianism  and  Wes- 
leyan  Methodism  stand  by  themselves  in  the 
history  of  organic  ecclesiasticism  on  the  two 
sides  of  the  Atlantic.  They  exhibit  aspects 
different  from  those  of  other  religious  bodies. 
Other  bodies  have  never  been  interlaced  by 
organic  ties — they  have  only  felt  the  gen- 
tler entwinements  of  sympathetic  affection. 
English  Independents  and  Presbyterians 
founded  states  in  the  New  World,  in  the  ex- 
ercise of  a  freedom  denied  to  them  at  home, 
being  neither  patronized  nor  persecuted  by 
the  government  they  had  left  behind — since 
that  government  possessed  no  adequate 
means  of  controlling  their  proceedings  in  the 
land  of  their  adoption.  Under  the  Common- 
wealth, indeed,  Acts  of  Parliament  against 
the  Book  of  Common  Prayer  were,  on  this 
side  of  the  sea,  formally  published  by  com- 
missioners sent  out  for  the  purpose — as  I 
find  from  the  state  papers  of  the  period — 
but  they  do  not  appear  to  have  been  prac- 
tically enforced.  Presbyterianism  in  Amer- 
ica has  never  been  organically  united  with 
Presbyteriauism  in  Great  Britain.  Nor  does 
Congregationalism  either  in  New  England 
or  in  Massachusetts  appear  to  have  received 
support  from  any  English  Government,  or 
to  have  been  subject  to  the  control  of  any 
English  Churches.  Cromwell's  rule  pro- 
moted the  missionary  designs  of  Eliot,  and 
the  Presbyterian  Synod  at  Sion  College,  Lon- 
don, showed  a  disposition  to  co-operate  in 
his  noble  enterprise;  but,  beyond  expres- 
sions of  regard,  and,  it  may  be,  some  measure 
of  voluntary  assistance,  I  am  not  aware  of 
any  thing  having  been  done  at  that  time  in 
England  for  the  strengthening  and  exten- 
sion of  American  Presbyteriauism  or  Ameri- 
can Congregationalism. 

The  whole  action  of  both  ecclesiastical 
systems  within  your  shores  may  be  said 
to  have  been  that  of  thorough  self-control. 
They  operated  according  to  the  laws  of  the 
state  in  which  they  established  themselves ; 
and  in  the  formation  of  which  they  had  been 
chief  actors,  neither  helped  nor  hindered  by 
the  mother  country;  struggling  only  with 
those  difficulties  which  spring  from  the  ri- 
valry and  antagonism  of  sects  when  brought 
into  contiguity.  The  same  remark  may  be 


186 


CHRISTIAN  UNION. 


made  of  Baptist  Churches  in  Rhode  Island, 
•which  arose  out  of  the  teaching  of  the  apos- 
tle of  ecclesiastical  freedom,  Roger  Williams, 
If  I  may  mention  another  respected  section 
of  our  Anglo-American  Christendom,  the  So- 
ciety of  Friends  (between  whom  and  other 
denominations  there  existed  no  little  strife), 
I  would  add  that  the  yearly  meeting  of 
Friends  in  England,  at  the  close  of  the  sev- 
enteenth century,  formed,  I  helieve,  a  sort  of 
Court  of  Appeal  for  American  Friends — any 
such  link  of  dependence,  however,  was  slen- 
der ;  and  this  simple  manifestation  of  Chris- 
tian life  among  you  has,  like  others  (indeed, 
all  others  except  the  two  I  first  mentioned), 
mainly,  if  not  entirely,  throughout  stood  on 
a  basis  of  its  own. 

Such,  in  a  few  words,  is  the  history  of  old 
ecclesiastical  relations  between  England  and 
America. 

It  would  be  interesting,  had  we  time,  to 
investigate  the  causes  and  characteristics 
of  each  of  these  relations. 

Those  causes  would  appear  to  have  been 
economical,  embracing  the  spirit  of  enterprise 
and  emigration — Englishmen  bringing  over 
to  America,  with  their  commercial  and  in- 
dustrial habits,  religious  predilections  form- 
ed at  home.  Political  causes  would  also  be 
recognizable,  including,  on  the  one  side,  the 
action  of  government,  on  the  other  side,  love 
and  loyalty  to  the  mother-land — influences 
which  undoubtedly  have  had  much  to  do 
with  the  current  of  Episcopalian  sympathies 
flowing  over  the  New  World  long  before  they 
were  gathered  into  diocesan  channels. 

Distinctly  religious  influences  are  especial- 
ly noticeable  in  connection  with  this  sub- 
ject, comprehending  impulses  of  conscien- 
tious conviction,  appearing  in  some  cases  as 
a  reverential  and  conservative  regard  for 
ancient  institutions,  in  others  as  an  out- 
burst of  zeal  in  favor  of  quickening  move- 
ments, such  as  periodically  are  wont  to  oc- 
cur in  the  Church  of  Christ,  breaking  up 
dead  formalities.  And  then,  finally,  person- 
al causes  and  characteristics  would  come  to 
light,  and  we  should  have  to  point  to  the 
names  of  Smith  and  Hunt — almost  forgot- 
ten in  England,  but  I  suppose  emblazoned, 
as  they  ought  to  be,  in  rich  colors  on  your 
Virginian  records — and  to  the  world-known 
names  of  William  Penn,  John  Wesley,  and 
George  Whitefield. 

Interesting  also  it  would  be,  had  we  space, 
to  work  out  the  history  of  the  termination  of 
this  by-gone  age.  It  would  lead  us  up  to 
moral  and  social  causes  of  disruption — to 
the  alienated  feeling  between  Americans  and 
Englishmen  a  century  ago  —  to  a  decline 
in  fondness  for  organic  systematizing,  and 
especially  to  the  great  political  influences 
which  became  condensed  in  operation  amid 
your  grand  struggle  for  independence  a  hun- 
dred years  ago.  That  has  played  a  conspic- 
uous and  important  part  in  the  ecclesiastic- 


al revolution  of  the  past,  and  was  sufficient 
of  itself  to  snap  any  such  organic  relations 
as  existed  between  the  imperial  and  colonial 
States.  And  here  let  me  be  excused  for  re- 
marking that  as,  on  account  of  the  close  and 
loving  friendship  sustained  by  Scotchmen 
to  us  Englishmen,  and  by  us  Englishmen 
to  Scotchmen,  we  can  sincerely  rejoice  in 
the  defeat  of  our  fathers  at  Bannockburn 
(but  for  which  heart-burnings  might,  no- 
body knows  how  long,  perhaps  to  this  day, 
have  kept  apart  the  two  nations  divided  by 
the  Tweed) — so  on  account  of  different  but 
equally  affectionate  friendships  subsisting 
now  between  you  as  an  independent  people 
and  ourselves  as  the  once  maternal  empire 
— (friendships  which  could  not  have  existed 
in  their  present  form  but  for  some  decisive 
event  assigning  to  the  two  countries  a  true 
and  proper  position  toward  each  other)  — 
on  account  of  such  friendship,  I  say,  we  can 
unfeignedly  exult  in  the  victory  which  your 
fathers  nobly  won  at  Bunker  Hill.  Once  a 
mortification,  it  is  turned  into  a  joy. 

II.  Now  we  turn  from  the  past  to  the  pres- 
ent and  the  future ;  and  more  interesting 
than  any  of  the  points  which  challenge  the 
secular  historian  are  those,  spiritual  rela- 
tions, independent  of  all  organic  structures 
and  schemes,  which  unite  the  Christians  of 
the  Old  and  the  New  World  —  relations 
which  strike  their  roots  below  formal  con- 
federations, and  survive  the  dissolution  of 
artificial  bonds,  and  are  now  existing  in 
more  vigorous  vitality  than  ever,  full  of 
hopes,  richer  than  any  of  our  treasured 
memories. 

Those  relations  I  would  rapidly  notice, 

1.  And  first,  if  I  may  be  excused  another 
backward  glance,  let  mo  remark  that  early 
English  colonization  in  America  bore  a  de- 
cidedly religious  impress.  It  presents  a 
unique  page  in  the  world's  history.  No- 
where else  do  you  find  blended  with  colonial 
enterprise  such  reverence  for  God  and  Christ 
and  divine  worship.  Of  the  story  of  the  Pil- 
grim Fathers  neither  you  nor  we  can  ever 
tire.  It  will  be  a  dark  day  for  the  world 
when  that  episode  fails  to  awaken  enthu- 
siasm on  either  side  the  world  of  dividing 
waters.  It  may  well  inspire  every  one  who 
wrrites  the  story  of  your  Northern  States. 
No  other  people  can  boast  of  an  origin  such 
as  belongs  to  New  England.  No  other  peo- 
ple can  find  in  their  annals  a  tale  at  once 
so  true  and  beautiful,  so  tender  and  brave, 
so  authentic,  and  yet  so  rich  in  a  sublime 
pathos  —  a  pathos  such  as  belongs  to  the 
ideal  world  of  legend,  myth,  or  drama. 

It  asks  still  for  the  pens  of  American  Vir- 
gils  to  trace  adventures  more  heart-stirring 
than  those  of  the  Trojan  yEucas.  The  New 
England  epic  shows  how  neither  martial 
ambition,  commercial  greed,  nor  mere  love 
of  enterprise  nerved  the  refugees  at  Delft- 
haveu — but  the  fear  of  God  and  the  spirit 


STOUGHTON :   ECCLESIASTICAL  AND  SPIRITUAL  RELATIONS,  ETC.       187 


of  liberty ;  and  how,  from  first  to  last,  the 
voyage  of  the  Speedwell  and  the  Mayflower  re- 
ceived its  impetus  from  a  form  of  Christian 
piety  which  identifies  itself  with  the  faith 
and  spirit  of  our  Evangelical  Alliance  this 
very  day. 

2.  Still  more  important  and  more  to  our 
immediate  purpose  is  it  to  recognize  the 
common  spiritual  life  of  Christians  on  both 
sides  the  waters.     We  are  all  one  in  Christ 
Jesus — German,  French,  Dutch,  Italian,  En- 
glish.     He  is  the  Shepherd  and  Bishop  of 
souls,  and  whatever  our  confession  of  faith 
and  form  of  polity — whatever  the  fold  in 
which  we  be  gathered — whatever  the  past- 
ure where  we  feed — we  are  of  the  flock  of 
•which  he  will  never  resign  the  pastoral 
oversight.    Despite  our  differences,  we  have 
one  Lord,  one  faith,  one  baptism.     We  need 
not  try  to  lay  a  new  corner-stone  of  unity. 
The  chief  corner-etone — "elect, precious" — 
is  laid,  and  that  forever.    We  may  go  so  far 
as  to  say  that  we  need  not  build  up  the  walls 
of  a  spiritual  unity ;  they  are  built  by  the 
Holy  Spirit  in  his  sanctifying  work.     To  us 
it  belongs  simply  to  manifest  what  exists — 
humanly  to  demonstrate  what  is  divinely 
created.     Atlantic  cables,  ocean  postage,  in- 
ternational treaties,  the  interchange  of  em- 
bassies, express  not  brotherhood  so  intimate 
and  clear  as  that  which  really  obtains  be- 
tween the  disciples  of  Christ  here  and  in 
Europe.     It  is  that  which  in  the  present 
Conference  binds  us  all  together  in  the  love 
of  one  Saviour  and  the  hope  of  one  heaven. 

3.  In  considering  the  relations  of  the  two 
empires,  one  is  struck  with  the  fact  that 
originating  power  in  reference  to  Church  de- 
velopment once  rested  on  the  side  of  Europe, 
especially  England.  Europe  gave  her  daugh- 
ter systems  of  ecclesiastical  polity,  which 
have  grown  with  her  growth  and  strength- 
ened with  her  strength ;  but  as  to  the  spirit- 
ual relations  between  the  United  States  and 
European  peoples,  there  lies  now  productive 
power  in  vigorous  exercise  on  both  sides — 
on  yours  no  less  than  ours.     Europe  does 
not  in  these  days,  perhaps,  originate  relig- 
ious in  fluences  in  America  beyond  what  Amer- 
ica does  in  Europe.     Influence  of  this  kind 
is  reciprocal.  Possibly  beyond  what  is  mere- 
ly reciprocal  went  that  wave  of  spiritual 
power  called  Revivalism,  which  rolled  over 
from  your  broad  continent  some  years  ago 
to  our  island  shores.     That  movement  was 
of  mighty  spiritual  force.     It  carried  with 
it  an  original  and  originating  energy.    We 
thank  you  for  it  most  devoutly,  and  most  de- 
voutly do  we  desire  a  renewal  of  it.    When- 
ever it  really  comes,  we  shall  return  it  in  a 
tide  of  blessing  and  praise,  depend  on  that. 
Action  and  reaction  between  us  will  be  in- 
cessant, augmenting,  wonderful. 

4.  Further,  an  interchange  of  spiritual  sen- 
timent is  yearly  going  on  through  the  peru- 
sal of  your  literature  in  Europe,  and  the 


perusal  of  European  literature  by  you.  We 
leave  you  to  tell  of  edification  and  refresh- 
ment derived  from  Continental  and  English 
divines ;  but  we  would  take  the  liberty  of 
testifying  to  the  effect  produced  on  the  the- 
ological intellect  of  Europe  by  authors  who 
have  lived  and  are  living  on  your  side  the 
water.  We  hope  we  can  appreciate  the 
close  and  almost  mathematical  reasoning  of 
your  imperial  logician,  Jonathan  Edwards, 
albeit  that  some  of  us  who  confess  his  gen- 
ius, dispute  some  of  his  conclusions,  and 
much  of  his  method.  And  truly  we  have 
all  had  our  devotion  enkindled  afresh  by 
the  seraphic  ardor  of  Edward  Payson,  while 
young  and  old  have  been  charmed  by  the 
felicitous  illustrations  of  Jacob  Abbott.*  In 
the  department  of  Church  History,  and  in 
that  of  Biblical  exegesis,  we  English  are 
debtors  to  American  names,  both  among  the 
living  and  the  dead ;  and  just  now  we  feel 
our  obligations  on  the  increase  as  we  receive 
critical  German  commentaries  enlarged  and 
improved  in  an  American  dress,  through  the 
hands  of  Dr.  Schaff,  and  welcome  the  first  in- 
stallment of  the  "Philosophical  and  Theo- 
logical Library"  issued  under  the  auspices 
of  Dr.  Smith  and  Dr.  Schaff. 

5.  Pulpit  intercommunion  must  not  be 
overlooked,  and  here  the  lives  of  Whitefield 
and  Wesley  bear  witness  to  the  wonderful 
impression  made  in  America  a  century  ago 
by  their  preaching.  We  have  not  been  fa- 
vored to  a  like  extent  with  the  living  elo- 
quence of  your  pulpit  orators;  but  we  do 
not  forget  the  visits  of  Mason,  Mcllvaine, 
Spring,  Sprague,  Patton,  Cox,Tyng,  and  oth- 
ers who  might  be  mentioned  with  honor. 
Henry  Ward  Beecher  just  allowed  our  coun- 
trymen, at  a  period  of  great  excitement,  to 
hear  his  voice,  and  to  stimulate  earnest  long- 
ings for  a  revisit ;  and  Dr.  Cuyler  warmed  our 
hearts  by  his  few  utterances  in  London  last 
year. 

But  pnlpit  interchange  between  the  two 
countries  has  as  yet  done  little,  compared 
with  what  it  might  accomplish.  Owing  to 
national  and  individual  idiosyncrasies,  Amer- 
ican and  English  preachers  adopt  different 
methods  of  instruction  and  appeal ;  each 
might  learn  something  of  the  other  by  more 
frequent  and  general  intercourse.  Preachers 
of  the  one  hemisphere  can  not  be  exactly  like 
preachers  of  the  other.  Pity  they  should ; 
but  one  might  spiritually  improve  the  oth- 
er, in  following  out  her  own  natural  and  gra- 
cious bent.  Perhaps,  on  this  side  of  the  At- 
lantic, more  of  English  preaching  might  be 
advantageous ;  certainly,  on  the  other,  Amer- 
ican preaching  would  be  of  immense  service 
to  English  Churches  of  all  denominations. 
The  matter  I  would  earnestly  commend  to 


*  These  names  are  mentioned  simply  because  they 
are  among  the  oldest  recollections  of  the  author.  A 
long  list  of  American  writers  worthy  of  all  honors 
might  easily  be  added. 


1S3 


CHRISTIAN  UNION. 


your  attention,  ns  one  of  practical,  and,  I 
would  add,  pressing  importance. 

6.  This  subject  is  intimately  connected 
with  another — the  interchange  of  visits  be- 
tween American  and  English  Christians.  Par- 
lor fellowship  is,  perhaps,  more  intensely  ef- 
fective than  pulpit  interchange.  An  Amer- 
ican in  an  English  home — an  Englishman  in 
an  American  one — is  not  only  the  partaker 
of  a  privilege,  but  the  originator  of  an  influ- 
ence. He  may  send  a  charming  ripple  of  ex- 
citement over  the  calm  lake  of  domestic  ex- 
perience. He  may  leave  behind  a  memory 
which  will  be  ever  beautiful,  ever  fragrant. 
We  Europeans  cherish  fond  recollections  of 
visitors  whose  presence  and  conversation 
have  shed  new  light  and  warmth  over  our 
firesides.  May  none  of  us  Englishmen  do 
aught  to  mar  the  Christian  intercourse  of  this 
auspicious  gathering;  and  may  the  friend- 
ships and  acquaintances  now  formed  or  re- 
newed be  bonds  of  everlasting  love  between 
families  of  the  two  countries.  With  mere 
politicians,  domestic  influence  may  count  for 
little ;  but  iu  the  estimation  of  Christians 
they  will  tell  for  much ;  and  our  hopes  for 
lasting  peace  between  England  and  America 
rest  not  a  little  on  the  foundation  of  mutual 
affection,  which  intercourse  such  as  we  now 
enjoy  will  do  more  than  any  thing  else  to 
deepen,  widen,  and  perpetuate. 

7. 1  must  be  allowed  to  refer  to  the  co-op- 
eration of  America  with  England  in  the  work 
of  Bible  revision,  now  so  harmoniously  and 
successfully  carried  on  at  Westminster.  That 
work  is  no  doubt  of  the  highest  value  to 
all  English-speakiug  people  throughout  the 
world.  It  has  brought  together  members  of 
English,  Scotch,  and  Irish  churches  iu  an  un- 
exampled way,  and  promoted  the  interests 
of  Christian  union  to  an  unexampled  extent. 
We  rejoice  to  know  that,  through  the  inde- 
fatigable exertions  of  Dr.  Schaff,  American 
scholars  have  been  formed  into  companies 
to  aid  iu  this  much-needed  and  noble  enter- 
prise ;  and  the  result,  it  is  trusted,  will  be 


the  production  of  such  an  improved  version 
in  the  mother  tongue  as  will  worthily  secure 
the  confidence  of  both  the  Old  World  and 
the  New. 

8.  Besides  these  definite  bonds  of  intercom- 
munion, there  is  another  of  a  more  general 
kind,  consisting  in  the  influence  which  flows 
from  example.  No  doubt  the  religious  ex- 
ample of  England  in  times  past  has  affected 
America  in  a  manner  more  effective  than  any 
organized  relation  whatever.  Perhaps  it  has 
told  beyond  every  thing  else.  But  also  for 
a  long  time,  and  now  more  than  ever,  your 
example  has  been  and  is  stimulating  us.  Re- 
vivals here,  as  I  have  indicated,  sent  thrills 
of  sympathy  all  over  England ;  the  vigor  of 
your  religious  activity  has  promoted  ours; 
your  boldness  in  spiritual,  as  in  other  enter- 
prises, has  inspired  our  admiration ;  and  your 
pre-eminent  liberality  will,  we  trust,  com- 
mand our  imitation. 

But  I  must  conclude.  Much  has  been 
said  of  late  in  England,  by  a  certain  order 
of  ecclesiastics,  about  a  union  between  East 
and  West,  i.  e.,  between  the  Greek  communion, 
on  the  one  hand,  and  the  Latin  and  Anglo- 
Episcopal  communions  on  the  other.  To  most 
of  us,  I  suppose,  such  a  union  appears  a  for- 
lorn hope.  The  age  for  organic  reunions,  after 
long  separation  and  independent  activity, 
is  gone  by.  From  the  union  of  Latin,  Anglo- 
American,  and  Greek  Churches,  based  on  the 
corner-stone  of  Episcopacy  as  an  indispensa- 
ble necessity,  of  course  all  non-Episcopalian 
communities  are  shut  out.  But  the  union  of 
East  and  West  in  the  case  of  Protestant  Eu- 
rope and  Protestant  America — the  union  of 
Bible  Christians  in  the  two  hemispheres  in 
works  of  faith  and  labors  of  love  (union  iden- 
tical with  mutual  sympathy  and  co-opera- 
tion—  common  prayer — love  to  the  same 
Saviour — the  desire  to  do  his  will,  and  to 
help  one  another  in  doing  it) — that  union  is 
no  impossibility.  It  exists — it  is  manifested 
to-day — its  growth,  its  increase,  calls  forth 
the  exclamation  Esto  perpetua. 


THE  EVANGELICAL  ALLIANCE:  ITS  ORIGIN, 
OBJECTS,  AND  OPERATIONS. 

BY  THE  KEY.  JAMES  DAVIS,  SECRETARY  OF  THE  BRITISH  ORGANIZATION,  LONDON. 


IF  the  Evangelical  Alliance  were  a  new 
institution,  it  would  be  none  the  less  excel- 
lent, but  in  name  only  has  it  the  stamp  of 
novelty.  The  Church  of  God  has  never  been 
otherwise  than  one.  "  One  faith,  one  Lord, 
one  baptism,  one  God  and  Father  of  all,"  is 
applicable  to  all  ages.  It  is  equally  true  to 
say  that  this  unity  has  always  co-existed 
with  diversities  of  administration.  Israel, 
under  the  former  dispensation,  was  one  hav- 
ing a  Divine  revelation — the  rule  of  life,  the 
inspirer  of  consolation  and  peace,  of  joy  and 
hope,  to  every  member  of  that  Church.  But 
Israel  was  composed  of  twelve  tribes,  equal- 
ly included  in  the  same  covenant,  interested 
in  the  same  promises,  inheritors  of  the  same 
heavenly  rest,  typified  by  an  earthly  one. 
They  occupied  different  positions,  and  were 
called  by  different  names,  yet  they  were  one 
Israel.  At  stated  seasons  separation  and  es- 
trangement were  forgotten  at  the  clear  call 
of  God  to  assemble  for  sacred  festival  in  Je- 
rusalem. "Whither  the  tribes  go  up,  the 
tribes  of  the  Lord,  unto  the  testimony  of  Is- 
rael, to  give  thanks  unto  the  name  of  the 
Lord.  Pray  for  the  peace  of  Jerusalem : 
they  shall  prosper  that  love  thee.  Peace  be 
within  thy  walls,  and  prosperity  within  thy 
palaces.  For  my  brethren  and  companions' 
sake,  I  will  now  say,  Peace  be  within  thee." 
So  far  as  the  true  Israel  were  concerned, 
there  was  then  an  Evangelical  Alliance. 

The  Church  has  not  lost,  and  never  can  lose 
its  essential  unity.  Forms  of  worship  may 
vary,  for  on  these  things  Holy  Scripture  is 
silent ;  modes  of  government  may  differ,  for 
these  are  matters  of  doubtful  interpretation, 
and  Protestants  own  no  infallible  authority 
short  of  the  Word  of  God.  There  is  one  lody. 
All  true  believers  admit  that  they  are  one 
in  Christ.  He  is  the  Head  of  the  Church. 
The  Lord  Jesus  Christ  came  "  to  gather  in 
one  all  things  in  himself,  both  which  are  in 
heaven  and  which  are  in  earth,  even  in  him." 
Delightful  fact,  applicable  to  the  great  mul- 
titude which  no  man  could  number,  of  all 
nations,  kindreds,  and  peoples,  and  tongues, 
whether  standing  before  the  throne  of  grace 
hero  or  the  throne  of  glory  hereafter,  re- 
deemed and  righteous  through  the  efficacy 
of  the  atoning  blood  of  the  Lamb  !  And  here 
again  we  meet  the  true  type  and  model  of 
the  Evangelical  Alliance. 

On  the  19th  of  August,  1846,  some  eight 


hundred  professing  Christians,  including 
many  of  the  holiest,  the  most  learned  and 
distinguished,  of  various  nations,  assembled 
in  Freemasons'  Hall,  London,  to  consolidate 
and  complete  efforts  which  had  been  made 
in  previous  years  to  associate  Christians  of 
all  countries  in  a  cordial,  visible,  and  effect- 
ive union.  Recent  circumstances,  more  es- 
pecially connected  with  attacks  made  in  dif- 
ferent quarters  against  Evangelical  Protest- 
autism,  had  seriously  impressed  thoughtful 
minds  with  the  necessity  for  more  combina- 
tion among  those  who  held  the  same  essen- 
tial doctrines  and  were  working  for  the 
same  object.  The  •warm  aspiration  after 
brotherly  intercourse  with  those  who,  like 
the  early  Church,  when  most  pure  and  tri- 
umphant, were  of  one  accord,  and  of  whom 
we  read,  "  the  multitude  of  them  that  be- 
lieved were  of  one  heart  and  of  one  soul," 
impelled  others  to  see  if  there  could  not  be 
found  a  way  of  bridging  over  the  narrow 
gulfs  that  separated  one  section  of  the  Chris- 
tian Church  from  another,  and  unite  follow- 
ers of  the  same  Lord  in  holy  fellowship  and 
active  and  world-wide  service.  Noble  pi- 
oneers in  this  great  cause,  from  the  Old  and 
New  Worlds,had  written  and  striven  for  this 
object,  sometimes  crossing  oceans  and  conti- 
nents, animated  with  strongfaith  and  exalted 
hope,  and  pleading  powerfully  for  the  increase 
of  brotherly  love,  by  which  all  men  should 
know  the  true  disciples  of  Christ.  For  twen- 
ty years  the  preparations  were  being  quiet- 
ly but  surely  made.  In  Liverpool  ministers 
of  different  denominations  had  been  annual- 
ly called  together  for  united  prayer,  and  au 
address  on  these  occasions  published,  exhort- 
ing Christians  to  follow  up  and  widely  ex- 
tend that  fraternal  intercourse.  In  other 
places,  at  home  and  abroad,  holy  and  catho- 
lic-minded men  were  moving  in  the  same 
direction,  which  culminated  in  a  proposal 
for  a  union  of  Evangelical  Protestants,  for 
fraternal  recognition,  mutual  aid,  and  the 
spread  of  the  Gospel  in  all  lauds.  At  a  con- 
ference of  ministers  of  various  Evangelical 
Churches,  at  the  Wesleyan  Centenary  Hall, 
London,  in  February,  1845,  sentiments  were 
expressed  in  favor  of  the  proposal,  and  at  a 
great  public  meeting  held  in  consequence 
in  Exeter  Hall,  in  June  of  the  same  year, 
such  was  the  enthusiastic  ardor  of  the  as- 
sembly that  the  friends  of  Christian  union 


190 


CHRISTIAN  UNION. 


found  that,  instead  of  fighting  a  battle  they 
had  to  celebrate  a  victory,  and  make  full 
proof  of  the  Psalmist's  words,  "  How  good 
and  how  pleasant  it  is  for  brethren  to  dwell 
together  in  unity !" 

A  meeting  held  in  Edinburgh  iu  the  fol- 
lowing July  contributed  an  important  step 
to  the  formation  of  the  Evangelical  Alliance. 
It  was  the  bi-centenary  of  the  Westminster 
Assembly,  and  gave  occasion  to  the  expres- 
sion of  sentiments  truly  catholic,  and  the 
advocacy,  in  powerful  terms,  of  evangelical 
union.  The  arguments  and  earnest  language 
of  one  of  the  speakers  forcibly  impressed  a 
gentleman  present  (the  late  John  Henderson, 
Esq.,  of  Park,  Glasgow),  to  whom  the  idea  at 
once  presented  itself  of  a  treatise  on  the  sub- 
ject. A  volume  of  essays,  to  which  some  of 
the  most  eloquent  and  distinguished  men  of 
the  day  contributed,  gave  point  and  force  to 
a  proposal — emanating  in  the  first  instance, 
we  believe,  from  the  Rev.  Dr.  Patton,  of  Amer- 
ica, in  a  letter  to  the  late  Rev.  Angel  James 
— that  a  great  conference  of  delegates  from 
Evangelical  Churches  in  various  parts  of  the 
world  should  be  held  on  the  subject,  in  the 
metropolis  of  Great  Britain.  From  East  and 
West,  from  North  and  South,  the  encouraging 
answer  came — "  Let  it  be  carried  into  effect." 
Fathers  and  brethren,  the  wise  and  good  of 
various  localities  in  Great  Britain,  combined, 
with  this  object,  in  provisional  committees 
formed  in  the  provinces;  and  in  due  time 
their  labors  were  crowned  with  success.  The 
19th  of  August,  1846,  had  been  fixed  for  the  as- 
sembly, and  on  that  day  Episcopalians,  Meth- 
odists, Presbyterians,  Independents,  Baptists, 
Moravians,  Lutherans,  and  others,  met  from 
different  and  distant  countries  to  consider 
the  great  question  about  to  be  submitted  to 
them — the  formation  of  an  Evangelical  Alli- 
ance. It  was  a  season  of  fervent  prayer  and 
praise,  of  hallowed  intercourse,  of  anxious 
and  animated  discussion ;  and  at  the  fourth 
session  the  following  resolution  was  unani- 
mously passed :  "  The  members  of  this  Con- 
ference are  deeply  convinced  of  the  desira- 
bleness of  forming  a  confederation  on  the 
basis  of  the  great  evangelical  principles  held 
in  common  by  them,  which  may  afford  op- 
portunity to  members  of  the  Church  of  Christ 
of  cultivating  brotherly  love,  enjoying  Chris- 
tian intercourse,  and  promoting  such  other 
objects  as  they  may  hereafter  agree  to  pros- 
ecute together.  And  they  hereby  proceed 
to  form  such  a  confederation  under  the  name 
of  the  Evangelical  Alliance."  The  proposal 
became  a  fact.  The  Alliance  was  formed ; 
and  brethren  who  had  assembled  on  this  oc- 
casion dispersed  to  their  respective  provinces 
and  countries,  to  reflect  on  the  good  work  in 
which  they  had  been  engaged,  and  to  organ- 
ize associations  for  extending  its  influence 
and  benefits  as  widely  as  possible.  But 
British  and  foreign  ministers  of  the  Gospel 
did  not  separate  without  giving  some  suita- 


ble expression  of  their  fraternal  sympathy 
as  fellow-ambassadors  for  Christ.  On  the 
Lord's  Day,  August  23,  by  mutual  arrange- 
ment, an  interchange  of  services  in  London 
took  place,  and  more  than  eighty  pulpits  were 
occupied  by  members  of  the  Conference,  and 
the  same  glorious  doctrines  constituting  our 
common  Evangelical  faith  were  preached  in 
the  English,  French,  German,  and  other  lan- 
guages, foreshadowing  the  time,  not  very 
far  distant,  it  is  hoped,  when  all  national, 
as  well  as  international,  hinderances  will  be 
removed  out  of  the  way,  and  wise  and  godly 
men,  apt  to  teach,  and  giving  full  proof  of 
their  ministry,  will  be  welcomed  in  all  pulpits 
to  preach  the  unsearchable  riches  of  Christ. 

The  Alliance  thus  auspiciously  formed 
rapidly  spread  its  fruit -bearing  branches, 
which  now  exist  not  only  in  the  United 
Kingdom  of  Great  Britain  and  Ireland,  but 
also  in  the  United  States  of  America,  and  in 
the  principal  capitals  throughout  the  world. 
These  organizations,  designed  for  Christians 
"  to  realize  in  themselves  and  to  exhibit  to 
others  that  a  living  and  everlasting  union 
binds  all  true  believers  together  in  the  fel- 
lowship of  the  Clmrch  of  Christ,"  express 
not  only  a  great  truth  of  vast  importance  in 
these  days  of  strife  and  division,  but  a  pow- 
er which  it  is  incumbent  upon  Christians 
so  united  to  use  prayerfully,  zealously,  and 
practically  whenever  occasion  calls  it  forth. 
That  these  occasions  have  not  been  wanting, 
and  that  the  Alliance  has  not  failed  to  turn 
them  to  most  useful  account,  its  subsequent 
history  very  clearly  shows. 

In  presenting  this  necessarily  brief  histor- 
ical sketch  of  the  Alliance,  and  recording  its 
transactions,  with  the  results  which,  by  the 
blessing  of  God,  have  followed,  it  would  have 
been  pleasant  to  speak  of  the  correspondence 
which  it  has  created,  and  the  communications 
held  with  Evangelical  Christians,  of  various 
communities,  in  different  parts  of  the  world, 
thus  enabling  them  to  express  and  manifest 
true  sympathy  in  seasons  both  of  joy  and 
sorrow.  It  would  have  been  pleasant  to 
trace  the  operations  of  the  Alliance  in  mod- 
erating controversy,  in  fostering  cordial  af- 
fection among  true  disciples  of  Christ,  and 
supplying  numerous  occasions  for  their  as- 
sembling together  to  hear  tidings  of  the 
progress  of  the  Gospel  in  different  lands, 
and  in  rendering  effectual  aid  in  cases  call- 
ing for  special  help.  It  would  have  been 
pleasant  to  refer  to  the  various  societies  it 
has  originated  for  combining  Christian  ef- 
fort in  new  departments  of  Evangelical  la- 
bor— the  Turkish  Missions  Aid  Society,  the 
Continental  Committee  for  Religious  Liber- 
ty, the  Christian  Vernacular  Education  So- 
ciety for  India,  the  German  Aid  Society,  the 
Christian  Evidence  Society — all  still  pros- 
ecuting their  important  home  and  foreign 
work,  with  unquestionable  evidences  of  the 
Divine  blessing.  But  we  proceed  to  speak 


DAVIS:  THE  EVANGELICAL  ALLIANCE. 


191 


of  the  larger  efforts  made  by  this  ecumen- 
ical society  in  prosecution  of  its  design  for 
the  largest  and  most  world-wide  usefulness. 
The  co-operation  of  Christians  being  the  log- 
ical, sound,  and  suitable  object  springing  out 
of  their  union,  it  is  essential  that  they  should 
periodically  meet  in  various  lands  for  mu- 
tual information,  for  wise  counsel,  and  for 
strengthening  the  various  brotherhoods  of 
the  universal  household  of  God. 

London. — The  first  General  Council  of  the 
Evangelical  Alliance  subsequent  to  its  for- 
mation was  held  in  the  British  metropolis 
in  the  autumn  of  1851.  It  was  the  year  of 
the  Great  Exhibition  of  the  Works  of  Indus- 
try of  all  Nations.  The  products  of  all  coun- 
tries and  the  triumphs  of  art  among  all  peo- 
ples were  made  tributary  to  Christian  coun- 
sel ;  and  the  invitation  to  come  in  the  inter- 
ests of  national  peace  was  supplemented  by 
one  in  the  interests  of  Christian  and  catho- 
lic love.  The  list  of  ministers,  professors, 
etc.,  who  attended  that  Conference  presents 
sixty  from  France,  forty  from  Switzerland, 
eleven  from  Belgium,  twenty -two  from  Hol- 
land, forty-seven  from  Germany,  six  from 
Sweden,  and  twenty-two  -from  the  United 
States ;  besides  individual  names  from  Pied- 
mont, Italy,  Kussia,  Malta,  Rhodes,  the  Cape 
of  Good  Hope,  the  West  and  East  Indies,  Tu- 
nis, China,  etc.  At  these  meetings  original 
papers,  prepared  with  great  ability  and  re- 
search, were  read ;  a  great  variety  of  authen- 
tic religious  intelligence,  both  home  and  for- 
eign, was  supplied,  and  seasons  for  Christian 
intercourse  and  mutual  edification  were  af- 
forded, which  left  the  happiest  and  most  en- 
during impressions  on  the  minds  of  those 
whose  privilege  it  was  to  be  present.  What 
nobler  purpose,  it  might  be  asked,  could  the 
Evangelical  Alliance  serve  than  that  of  pe- 
riodically bringing  together  Christians  of  all 
nations,  not  simply  to  avow  their  union  and 
exchange  affectionate  greetings,  or  by  their 
united  service  of  praise  and  prayer  antedate 
the  joys  of  heaven,  but  to  survey  the  state 
and  progress  of  the  whole  Church,  and 
strengthen  one  another  for  greater  zeal,  de- 
votion, and  activity  for  the  advancement  of 
the  great  Christian  commonwealth  ? 

Paris. — The  next  General  Conference  was 
held  in  the  capital  of  France,  in  the  year 
1855 ;  our  French  brethren,  like  the  British 
organization,  turning  to  a  happy  use  the 
Exposition  of  Arts  and  Industry  held  in 
their  metropolis  that  year.  For  an  assem- 
bly of  Christians  of  all  nations  to  be  held 
in  Paris  was  regarded  as  an  event  of  no  or- 
dinary significance.  If  the  capital  of  the 
British  kingdom  merits  the  distinctioiv  of 
being  the  focus  and  centre  of  Protestant 
influences,  the  capital  of  France  is,  of  all 
Continental  cities,  that  which  possesses  the 
greatest  influence  in  the  councils  of  Rome 
and  over  the  mind  of  Europe.  The  effect 
likely  to  be  produced  by  such  an  assembly 


upon  Christendom  at  large  was,  therefore, 
expected  to  be  greater  in  that  city  than  in 
London.  The  results  attained  through  the 
Divine  blessing  afforded  satisfaction  to  all 
who  took  an  interest  in  the  cause  of  Chris- 
tian union  and  the  spread  of  the  Gospel. 
Some  one  thousand  two  hundred  persons 
from  fifteen  different  nations  were  present 
at  the  Conference ;  and  while  the  deepest 
interest  was  awakened  in  the  various  sub- 
jects brought  under  the  consideration  of 
the  assembly,  the  discussions  which  follow- 
ed only  elicited  the  brotherly  feeling  and 
perfect  harmony  reigning  in  the  hearts  of  all. 
On  two  occasions  the  brethren  cemented 
their  fellowship  with  Christ  and  with  each 
other  by.  meeting  at  his  table,  when  the  serv- 
ice was  conducted  in  various  languages  ; 
the  elements  were  distributed  by  pastors  of 
the  different  Churches  represented  in  the 
Conference ;  and  the  words  of  the  Lord  Je- 
sus, in  giving  the  bread  and  in  giving  the 
wine,  were  pronounced  in  six  languages — 
French,  English,  German,  Dutch,  Italian, and 
Swedish.  But  the  varieties  of  human  lan- 
guage produced  no  discordance,  and  led  to 
no  confusion ;  they  were  the  harmonious 
utterances  of  the  one  faith,  and  the  expres- 
sions of  the  same  love  which  woke  up  in 
every  heart  the  fervor  of  holy  joy  and  grate- 
ful thanksgiving  and  praise.  It  is  worthy 
of  notice  that  the  subject  of  religious  liber- 
ty and  the  intolerance  which  at  that  time 
prevailed  on  the  Continent,  in  Protestant  as 
well  as  in  Roman  Catholic  countries,  as  well 
as  the  persecutions  endured  by  many  Chris- 
tian brethren,  were  forcibly  brought  under 
the  attention  of  the  Paris  Conference,  with 
a  view  to  some  practical  steps  being  taken 
in  reference  to  them.  This  led  to  the  ap- 
pointment of  a  united  committee,  composed 
of  brethren  from  France,  Belgium,  Switz- 
erland, Holland,  Prussia,  Sweden,  Turkey, 
Great  Britain,  Ireland,  and  America,  to  whom 
the  subject  was  confided  for  their  joint  coun- 
sel as  to  the  practical  measures  which  might 
be  adopted  in  relation  to  those  countries 
where  intolerance  principally  prevailed. 
The  Committee  met  and  drew  up  their  re- 
port, in  which  resolutions  were  framed,  and 
which,  on  being  presented  to  the  Conference, 
obtained  their  unanimous  concurrence.  The 
resolutions  were  to  the  effect : 

1.  That  it  is  the  right  of  every  man,  in  so 
far  as  his  fellow-man  is  concerned,  to  wor- 
ship God,  as  well  publicly  as  in  private,  ac- 
cording to  his  conscience,  and  to  propagate 
the  faith  he  holds  by  every  means  not  con- 
trary to  morals  or  good  order,  or  to  that 
obedience  to  government  which  is  enjoined 
in  the  Word  of  God. 

2.  That  the  Conference,  having  had  its  at- 
tention drawn  to  the  persecutions  endured 
by  many  Christian  brethren  for  conscience' 
sake,  takes  occasion  to  express  its  sympa- 
thy with  them  under  their  sufferings,  and 


192 


CHRISTIAN  UNION. 


to  commend  them  to  the  grace  of  the  Lord 
Jesus  Christ. 

3.  That  the  Conference  recommends  that 
strenuous  efforts  be  taken  with  a  view  to 
obtain  in  all  countries  where  now  intoler- 
ance prevails,  the  fullest  religious  liberty, 
not  only  for  themselves  as  Protestants,  but 
for  others,  irrespective  of  distinctions  of  be- 
lief; and  that,  in  furtherance  of  this  object, 
memorials  bo  prepared  and  presented  to  the 
rulers  of  those  nations  among  whom  cases 
of  persecution  were  occurring. 

Thus  were  laid  the  foundations  of  that 
great  work  in  the  cause  of  religious  free- 
dom whicli  the  Alliance  has  prosecuted 
with  vigor  in  European'  and  Eastern  coun- 
tries, and  on  which  the  Divine  blessing  has 
so  signally  and  so  largely  rested. 

Berlin. — The  third  in  the  series  of  Con- 
ferences of  Evangelical  Christians  of  vari- 
ous nations  and  churches,  convened  by  the 
Evangelical  Alliance,  was  held  in  the  city 
of  Berlin,  in  September,  1857.  The  desire  to 
bring  about  a  closer  union  among  Protest- 
ants had  long  been  cherished  by  the  King  of 
Prussia,  and  when  his  attention  was  drawn 
to  the  principles  and  proceedings  of  this  so- 
ciety, his  majesty  immediately  avowed  him- 
self its  friend,  and  subsequently,  on  repeated 
occasions,  rendered  to  it  valuable  service. 
The  king,  through  the  medium  of  private 
correspondence  and  a  royal  message  sent 
to  one  of  the  annual  meetings  of  the  British 
organization,  made  known  his  wish  that  the 
next  General  Conference  should  take  place  in 
the  capital  of  his  kingdom.  The  royal  com- 
munication was  as  encouraging  as  it  was 
novel  and  unlooked-for,  and  naturally  sup- 
plied a  stimulus  before  which  difficulties 
disappeared  and  exertions  multiplied.  Com- 
mittees in  Berlin  and  London  actively  co- 
operated in  making  the  required  prepara- 
tions, and  at  an  early  period  a  preliminary 
meeting  of  brethren  from  various  parts  of 
Europe  was  held  at  Frankfort.  Twice  a 
deputation  was  sent  to  communicate  with 
his  majesty,  and  was  honored  with  private 
audiences;  the  first  deputation  beiqg  com- 
posed of  French  and  English  members,  the 
second  of  English  and  German.  An  exten- 
sive correspondence  was  opened  w  ith  mem- 
bers of  the  Alliance  in  every  quarter  of 
the  globe,  and  a  wide-spread  sympathy  and 
many  prayers  were  thus  engaged  on  behalf 
of  the  Conference.  The  different  branches 
of  the  Alliance  in  Sweden,  Holland,  Bel- 
gium, France,  Switzerland,  Turkey,  Syria, 
the  East  Indies,  and  in  the  United  States 
of  America,  expressed  in  various  ways,  and 
especially  by  published  addresses  to  which 
numerous  signatures  were  attached,  their 
earnest  concurrence.  Where  no  branch  of 
the  Alliance  had  been  formed,  similar  ad- 
dresses spontaneously  emanated  from  Chris- 
tian brethren,  as  at  the  Cape  of  Good  Hope, 
and  also  from  various  ecclesiastical  and  mis- 


sionary bodies,  as  from  the  Synod  of  the  Mo- 
ravian Church,  from  the  Church  Missionary 
Conference  of  Calcutta,  and  the  German  Mis- 
sionaries in  Bombay.  Another  fact  worthy 
of  note  is  that  British  Christians  of  all  de- 
nominations issued  an  address  to  their  Con- 
tinental brethren,  signed  by  more  than  thrtjn 
thousand  persons,  and  the  Archbishop  of 
Canterbury,  with  several  bishops  of  tin; 
United  Church  of  England  and  Ireland,  and 
some  of  the  colonial  bishops,  gave  public  ut- 
terance, from  the  press,  to  their  hearty  sym- 
pathy and  earnest  prayers  that  the  blessiug 
of  God  might  rest  upon  and  prosper  the  as- 
sembly. Among  the  public  meetings  held 
to  help  forward  the  design,  special  mention 
should  be  made  of  one  in  London,  at  which 
the  Earl  of  Shaftesbury  took  the  chair,  and 
one  at  Lambeth  Palace,  presided  over  by  his 
Grace  the  Archbishop  of  Canterbury.  At 
the  latter  numerous  bishops  and  clergymen, 
non-conformist  ministers,  pastors  from  for- 
eign countries,  besides  noblemen  and  other 
laymen,  were  present,  and  expressed  their 
cordial  approval  of  the  object. 

The  Conference  opened  with  a  devotional 
meeting  held  on  the  evening  of  September 
9, 1857,  in  the  Royal  Garrison  Church,  used 
also  for  the  subsequent  sessions,  by  special 
permission  of  the  King  of  Prussia ;  and  for 
nine  successive  days  there  was  gathered  to- 
gether in  Berlin  an  assembly  of  Christian 
men  such  as — considering  their  nationalities 
and  ecclesiastical  diversities,  the  official  and 
ministerial  character  which  the  greater  part 
of  them  sustained,  and,  above  all,  the  sim- 
ple yet  sublime  object  which  had  brought 
them  together — no  city  perhaps  in  Christen- 
dom had  ever  before  witnessed.  It  would 
be  extending  too  largely  this  brief  histor- 
ical sketch  to  enter  into  details  of  the  pro- 
ceedings of  this  Conference,  but  one  inci- 
dent must  not  be  passed  over.  The  King  of 
Prussia,  who  had  shown  throughout  his  deep 
interest  in  the  gathering  of  Christians  from 
so  many  nations  in  the  metropolis  of  his 
kingdom,  expressed  his  wish  to  receive  the 
members  of  the  Conference  at  his  palace  at 
Potsdam. 

On  Friday,  September  12th,  three  special 
trains  conveyed  about  1200  visitors  to  Pots- 
dam, who,  after  partaking  of  an  elegant  re- 
past, were  received  on  the  terrace,  to  whicli 
the  front  of  the  palace  opens,  by  the  king 
and  the  queen,  who  had  arrived  about  six 
o'clock.  It  was  intended  that  his  majesty 
should  have  been  received  in  respectful  si- 
lence, but  it  was  impossible  to  repress  the 
enthusiasm  of  the  assembly  as  his  majesty, 
alighting  from  his  carriage,  passed  among 
his  guests,  manifesting,  by  his  look  and 
speech,  the  cordiality  with  which  he  wel- 
comed them.  The  Conference,  in  its  entire- 
ness,  having  been  presented  to  his  majesty, 
the  Chairman  of  the  German  Branch  of  the 
Alliance  (the  Rev.  E.  Kuutzc)  spoke  as  fol- 


DAVIS :  THE  EVANGELICAL  ALLIANCE. 


193 


lows :  "  Sire, — Your  majesty  has  seen  many 
armies,  but  never  before  such  a  one  as  now 
meets  your  view — an  army  not  arrayed  in 
martial  attire,  but  girt  with  spiritual  weap- 
ons, and  wielding  only  the  sword  of  the 
Spirit,  which  is  the  Word  of  God."  The 
king  replied,  with  evident  emotion, "  I  have 
always  felt  the  most  earnest  desire  to  pro- 
mote such  a  union  among  Christians,  and 
hitherto  it  has  appeared  to  me  impossible ; 
but  now  I  rejoice  to  see  it.  The  first  step  is 
taken.  The  first  days  of  the  Conference  are 
passed,  with  the  joy  and  blessing  of  the 
Lord.  I  trust  it  will  be  the  same  with  the 
rest.  My  wish  and  most  fervent  prayer  is, 
that  there  may  descend  upon  all  the  mem- 
bers of  the  Conference  an  effusion  of  the 
Spirit  of  God  like  that  which  fell  on  the 
first  disciples  at  Pentecost."  Afterward,  as 
his  majesty  advanced  through  the  different 
groups,  formed  according  to  their  national- 
ities, some  of  the  principal  persons  of  each 
were  successively  presented,  to  all  of  whom 
short  and  appropriate  observations  were 
made.  While  the  king  was  thus  engaged, 
the  queen  had  been  supplied  with  the  names 
of  the  ladies  who  had  been  most  kindly  in- 
cluded in  the  royal  invitation,  and  was  pay- 
ing similarly  gracious  attentions  to  them. 
The  presentations  being  finished,  as  their 
majesties  were  about  to  retire  amidst  the 
renewed  cheers  of  the  assembly,  a  voice 
struck  the  first  notes  of  Luther's  time-hon- 
ored hymn,  so  hallowed  in  the  minds  of  Ger- 
man Protestants — 

"Bin  feste  Burg  ist  nuser  Gott;" 

and,  at  its  close,  a  venerable  clergyman 
stepped  forward,  and  offered  up  a  short  but 
emphatic  prayer,  and  pronounced  the  Ben- 
ediction. The  king  and  queen,  evidently 
taken  by  surprise  at  this  spontaneous  and 
devout  utterance  of  Christian  loyalty,  stop- 
ped the  moment  they  heard  the  psalm  begin, 
and  reverently  remained  till  the  close  of  the 
prayer.  At  eight  o'clock  the  special  trains 
conveyed  the  visitors  back  to  Berlin. 

Geneva. — The  fourth  of  the  series  of  Gen- 
eral Conferences  was  held  in  1861,  in  the 
city  of  Geneva,  a  city  with  historic  associa- 
tions of  the  deepest  interest  to  Evangelical 
Christians,  and  a  land  of  unrivaled  beauty 
throughout  Europe.  It  recalled  the  memo- 
ry of  some  of  the  noblest  and  greatest  men 
that  the  Church  has  known  since  the  days 
of  the  apostles.  These  combined  to  give  a 
charm  and  an  interest  to  the  Conference 
being  held  there  which  attracted  multitudes 
to  the  assembly  gathered  to  consider  the  re- 
ligious state  of  the  world,  and  to  consult  for 
the  good  of  the  Church.  The  subjects  on 
which  admirable  papers  were  presented  fur- 
nished themes  for  the  interchange  of  wise 
aud  solemn  thought,  as  well  as  profitable 
discussion.  The  Observance  of  the  Lord's 
Day ;  the  Condition  of  the  Working  Classes ; 
13 


Modern  Skepticism;  Foreign  Missions;  Jew- 
ish Missions ;  Italy  and  the  Gospel ;  Calvin 
and  the  Reformation ;  the  Religious  State 
of  Eastern  Europe  and  Western  Asia ;  the 
Union  of  Doctrine  aud  Life ;  Recent  Reviv- 
als of  Religion ;  Sunday-schools ;  Religious 
Liberty  —  these  were  among  the  subjects 
carefully  considered,  and  in  which  the  fol- 
lowing, among  other  honored  brethren,  took 
a  prominent  part :  Drs.  Dorner,  Krummach- 
er,  and  Tholwall,  from  Germany ;  Professors 
Mazzarella,  Revel,  and  Geymonat,  from  It- 
aly ;  Professors  Merle  d'Aubigne",  Godet,  Na- 
ville,  Malan,  Gaussen,  Bungener,  Pastors 
Barde,  Coulin,  Brunier,  Colonel  Tronchin, 
from  Switzerland;  Professors  Rosseeuw  St. 
Hilaire  and  Cuvier,  Pastors  Monod,  De  Pres- 
sense",  Fisch,  Grandpierre,  Vallette,  Casalis, 
Frossard,  from  France ;  Monsieurs  Groen  van 
Prinsterer,  Dr.  Cappadose,  Pastor  Chantepie 
de  la  Saussaye,  from  Holland ;  Dr.  Kalkar, 
from  Denmark ;  Pastors  Rudiu  and  Descou- 
layes,  from  Sweden;  Barons  Von  Schwebs 
and  Von  Haaren,  from  Russia;  Rev.  Drs. 
Baird  and  Sawtell,  from  America;  Rev.  Pre- 
bendary Burgess,  Hon.  and  Rev.  Baptist  Noel, 
Revs.  T.  R.  Birks,  Dallas,  W.  Arthur,  Bun- 
ting, Birrell,  Herschell,  the  Earls  of  Roden 
and  Cavan,  the  Hous.  Arthur  Kinnaird  and 
Spencer  Cowper,  Sir  Culling  E.  Eardley, 
Bart.,  from  England ;  Rev.  Drs.  Guthrie, 
Thomson,  and  Cairns,  from  Scotland;  Pro- 
fessor Gibson  and  Dr.  Urwick,  from  Ireland. 
On  the  morning  of  September  2d,  the  Con- 
ference was  opened  in  the  Cathedral  of  St. 
Peter,  in  the  midst  of  a  large  concourse  of 
clergy  and  laymen  and  of  a  numerous  audi- 
ence. After  singing  the  hymn  Grand  Dieu, 
nous  te  ^nissons,  the  seventeenth  chapter  of 
the  Gospel  according  to  St.  John  was  read, 
and  a  fervent  prayer  was  offered  by  Pastor 
Coulin,  of  the  National  Church.  M.  Adrien 
Naville,  President  of  the  French-speaking 
Branch  of  the  Alliance,  then  gave  the  in- 
augural discourse,  and  thus  opened  the  busi- 
ness of  the  Conference,  which  throughout 
was  distinguished  by  the  harmonious  and 
loving  spirit  pervading  the  assemblies.  The 
celebration  of  the  Lord's  Supper  appropriate- 
ly closed  the  series  of  meetings,  and,  from 
its  international  as  well  as  eucharistic  char- 
acter, was  perhaps  the  most  remarkable  oc- 
casion in  the  history  of  the  Alliance.  During 
the  time  of  holding  the  Conference  a  num- 
ber of  special  meetings,  some  of  them  of  con- 
siderable importance,  were  held,  and  numer- 
ous breakfasts  and  other  gatherings,  of  a 
more  or  less  private  nature,  took  place ;  thus 
opportunities  were  afforded,  in  addition  to 
the  fraternal  and  friendly  intercourse  en- 
joyed among  esteemed  Christian  brethren 
of  various  countries,  for  private  conversation 
on  religious  questions  of  great  international 
importance.  Nor  should  we  omit  to  men- 
tion a  novel  feature  in  the  Conference,  and, 
indeed,  in  Switzerland  and  European  coun- 


194 


CHRISTIAN  UNION. 


tries — viz. :  the  numerons  open-air  meetings 
held  for  the  promotion  of  a  religious  awak- 
ening among  the  people,  who  were  address- 
ed, in  their  own  language  by  British  and 
other  foreign  visitors,  and  to  whom  the  ear- 
nest setting  forth  of  the  love  of  Christ  was 
largely  blessed. 

Amsterdam. — The  fifth  General  Conference 
-was  held  in  1867,  in  Amsterdam,  in  a  laud 
which,  among  Protestant  nations,  naturally 
holds  a  foremost  place.  While  comparative- 
ly of  small  geographical  extent,  and  contend- 
ing against  great  natural  difficulties,  Holland 
possesses  a  history  of  almost  unrivaled  im- 
portance and  traditions  which  cover  her  peo- 
ple with  everlasting  renown.  From  the  first 
they  have  been  brave  and  generous  lovers 
of  freedom,  of  national  independence,  and  of 
the  Gospel.  At  the  earnest  invitation  of  our 
Christian  brethren  of  the  Netherlands,  ar- 
rangements were  made  for  holding  the  next 
General  Conference  in  their  city  of  Amster- 
dam, and  on  the  evening  of  Lord's  Day,  Au- 
gust 10th,  the  Conference  was  opened  by  an 
inaugural  service  in  the  New  Church,  Am- 
sterdam. This  large  cathedral  church,  built, 
notwithstanding  its  name,  A.D.  1408,  was  fill- 
ed to  the  extent,  it  was  estimated,  of  4000 
persons,  occupying  and  crowding  all  that 
part  of  the  sacred  edifice  which  is  devoted 
to  divine  worship.  The  Kev.  Dr.  Van  Ooster- 
zee,  Professor  of  the  University  of  Utrecht, 
preached  on  the  occasion  a  sermon  of  great 
power  and  beauty,  admirably  adapting  an 
incident  in  the  history  of  St.  Paul  to  the  cir- 
cumstances of  the  assembly,  and  to  the  senti- 
ments and  objects  which  had  brought  Chris- 
tians together  from  so  many  different  coun- 
tries. The  hymns  sung  at  this  service  and 
at  all  the  subsequent  meetings  were  print- 
ed in  parallel  columns  in  four  languages — 
Dutch,  German,  French,  and  English ;  and 
thus  all  were  enabled  to  unite  in  this  act 
of  worship.  On  each  successive  day  papers 
were  read  of  great  learning,  historical  re- 
search, and  practical  value,  supplying  an 
amount  of  information  tending  to  re-assure 
faith  in  the  divine  origin  and  power  of 
Christianity,  and  enlarge  the  sympathy  of 
all  who  heard  them  with  the  true  Church 
of  Christ,  in  its  conflicts  and  varied  trials, 
its  social  philanthropies  and  missionary  en- 
terprise, and  its  all-pervading  spirit  of  life 
and  love,  t 

This  Dutch  Conference  was  distinguished 
even  more  than  any  of  the  preceding  ones  by 
an  immediate  and  local  usefulness,  giving  it 
additional  value.  The  Committee  had,  from 
the  first,  been  desirous  to  render  the  visit  of 
so  many  foreign  Christians  in  Amsterdam 
fruitful  of  spiritual  good  to  the  citizens  at 
large.  Various  methods  were  employed  for 
this  purpose,  some  of  which  must  be  men- 
tioned. On  two  occasions  the  regular  pro- 
ceedings were  suspended,  \vhen  the  great 
hall  was  filled  by  a  large  concourse  of  peo- 


'  pie  from  the  city,  to  whom  addresses  were 
delivered  on  the  nature  aud  design  of  the 
Evangelical  Alliance,  and  on  the  solemn  ob- 
ligations to  receive  the  Gospel  of  Christ  and 
imitate  the  faith  and  fidelity  of  their  re- 
nowned forefathers.  But  not  only  in  the 
Park  Hall  was  the  Gospel  earnestly  pre- 
sented. The  use  of  other  spacious  build- 
ings was  obtained,  when  crowds  of  the 
poor  and  even  moral  outcasts  of  society  list- 
ened, evening  after  evening,  to  the  message 
brought  to  them  by  sympathizing  strangers, 
whose  earnest  words  were  interpreted  by  our 
Dutch  brethren.  Soldiers  in  the  barracks 
were  also  cared  for,  and,  by  the  kind  permis- 
sion of  the  commandant,  the  troops  were  as- 
sembled, and  Mrs.  Daniel,  known  for  her  ex- 
traordinary work  among  the  soldiers  at  Al- 
dershot,  accompanied  by  a  British  general 
officer,  addressed  them  on  "  the  common  sal- 
vation." 

The  Conference  closed  with  the  celebra- 
tion, on  the  Sunday,  of  the  Lord's  Supper  in 
the  Remonstrant  Reformed  Church,  a  sim- 
ple but  spacious  edifice,  now  filled  with  com- 
municants gathered  together,  in  communion 
with  their  one  Lord  and  with  each  other,  to 
celebrate  his  redeeming  love.  Surely  it  was 
an  appropriate  conclusion  to  the  meetings 
of  the  previous  days,  which  had  produced  a 
sense  of  profound  gratitude  for  the  manifold 
and  rich  pleasures  afforded  by  "  the  comfort 
of  brotherly  love"  and  the  "fellowship  of 
the  Spirit,"  deepening  the  conviction  of  the 
power  of  the  Gospel,  aud  the  duty  of  be- 
lievers everywhere  to  strive  for  the  increase 
of  love  and  for  unity,  which  is  the  bond  of 
perfectness.  As  an  appropriate  and  delight- 
ful termination  to  the  Conference,  the  visit- 
ors were  invited  to  participate,  on  the  fol- 
lowing day,  in  the  engagements  and  pleas- 
ures of  the  annual  gathering  of  the  Dutch 
Missionary  Societies,  which,  by  special  ar- 
rangement, had  been  appointed  immediately 
to  follow  the  meetings  of  the  Evangelical  Al- 
liance. The  village  of  Vogelenzang  is  about 
half  an  hour's  distance  by  rail  from  Amster- 
dam, and  there,  in  a  beautifully  wooded  park, 
the  property  of  Mr.  Baruaart,  some  20,000  per- 
sons assembled  and  spent  the  day  in  listen- 
ing to  missionaries  and  missionary  addresses, 
intermingled  with  prayer  aud  praise,  and 
with  social  intercourse  of  an  eminently  grat- 
ifying and  Christian  character.  In  addition 
to  the  supply  of  refreshments  to  the  entire 
company,  Mr.  Barnaart  opened  his  mansion 
to  the  foreign  guests  and  their  families,  who 
were  entertained  with  the  utmost  kiuduess 
and  hospitality. 

It  only  remains  to  record  that,  at  one  of 
the  sessions  of  this  Conference  of  the  Evan- 
gelical Alliance,  the  Rev.  Dr.  Prime,  of  New 
York,  after  reading  a  luminous  report  on  the 
state  of  religion  in  the  United  States,  pre- 
pared by  the  Rev.  H.  B.  Smith,  D.D.,  of  the 
Union  Theological  Seminary,  New  York,  made 


DAVIS :  THE  EVANGELICAL  ALLIANCE. 


195 


the  following  communication :  "  Brethren  of 
the  Alliance,  I  am  charged,  in  the  name  of 
the  American  Branch  of  the  Alliance,  to  in- 
vite you  to  hold  your  next  General  Confer- 
ence of  Christians  of  all  Nations  in  the  city 
of  New  York,  assuring  you  a  hospitable  wel- 
come in  the  name  of  Jesus  Christ  our  Lord." 
The  announcement,  as  might  be  expected, 
was  very  enthusiastically  received  and  ac- 
knowledged, and  then  referred  for  consider- 
ation to  the  different  European  Branches 
of  the  Alliance,  with  a  view  to  its  being  ac- 
cepted. That  acceptance  having  been  uni- 
versally accorded,  the  present  Conference  is 
held,  for  which  much  prayer  has  been  offer- 
ed, that  special  blessings  may  rest  upon  it, 
for  the  increase  of  unity,  peace,  and  concord 
among  all  the  followers  of  our  divine  Lord, 
and  the  spread  of  his  kingdom  throughout 
the  world. 

UNITED  PRAYER. 

The  manifestation  of  Christian  union 
would  be  imperfect  indeed  if  it  had  not,  for 
one  of  its  most  frequent  and  brightest  evi- 
dences, united  prayer.  Drawn  to  the  Cross 
as  their  common  centre  for  the  baptism  of 
love,  Christians  will  be  also  drawn  to  the 
throne  of  grace  in  sympathy  with  each  oth- 
er's need,  and  with  the  wants  of  the  Church 
and  the  world  around  them.  To  promote 
union  in  prayer  at  stated  seasons  and  on 
special  occasions  has  been  the  constant  aim 
of  the  Alliance.  Principal  among  these  must 
be  mentioned  the  Week  of  Prayer  at  the  open- 
ing of  the  year,  which  has  become  an  insti- 
tution of  the  Christian  Church  throughout 
the  world.  One  of  the  practical  resolutions 
adopted  at  a  Conference  of  the  Alliance  held 
in  Manchester,  in  the  first  year  of  its  forma- 
tion, was  to  this  effect :  "  That  it  be  recom- 
mended that  the  week  beginning  with  the 
first  Lord's  Day  of  January  in  each  year  be 
observed  by  the  members  and  friends  of  the 
Alliance  throughout  the  world  as  a  season 
for  concert  in  prayer  on  behalf  of  the  objects 
contemplated  by  the  Alliance."  In  accord- 
ance with  this  resolution,  an  address  of  in- 
vitation, with  suggested  topics  for  prayer, 
has  been  prepared  and  translated,  and  wide- 
ly circulated  over  all  countries  in  the  au- 
tumn of  every  year,  embracing,  as  far  as  cir- 
cumstances will  permit,  entire  Christendom. 
This  annual  Week  of  Prayer  has  been  in- 
creasingly and  more  extensively  observed 
year  by  year,  and  in  some  places  in  England 
and  abroad  the  largest  halls  and  churches 
have  sometimes  been  insufficient  to  contain 
the  multitudes  attracted  by  these  devotional 
and  united  services  at  the  opening  of  the 
year.  In  reviewing  the  events  of  the  last 
quarter  of  a  century,  Christians  who  have 
assembled  on  these  hallowed  occasions  can 
hardly  fail  to  recognize  and  devoutly  ac- 
knowledge God's  goodness  in  answering  the 
prayers  of  his  people  agreed  touching  the 


things  they  have  asked  of  him.  The  open- 
ing of  so  many  wide  and  effectual  doors  in 
Europe  and  other  continents  for  the  proc- 
lamation of  the  Gospel  and  the  spread  of 
the  Holy  Scriptures;  the  religious  revivals 
which  have  visited  and  blessed  many  lands ; 
the  breaking  asunder  of  the  chains  of  slav- 
ery and  serfdom  ;  the  increased  life  and  ac- 
tivity among  Christian  Churches,  are  all 
events  in  the  gracious  providence  of  God 
indicating  the  hand  of  one  to  whom  the  cry 
of  faith  and  earnestness  never  ascends  in 


THE   ACTION    OF    THE    ALLIANCE    IN   THE 
CAUSE   OF  RELIGIOUS  LIBERTY. 

From  the  commencement  it  was  seen  that 
religious  liberty  would  be  in  perfect  har- 
mony with  the  professed  aim  and  ultimate 
object  of  the  Evangelical  Alliance,  and  that, 
without  it,  the  union  of  Christians  in  a  bond 
of  fellowship  would  be  an  impossibility. 
The  members  of  the  Alliance  have  therefore 
directed  their  earnest  efforts  to  deliver  their 
afflicted  brethren  from  all  religious  persecu- 
tion, and  to  remove  from  nations  existing 
obstructions  to  the  circulation  of  the  Word 
of  God  and  the  free  proclamation  of  the  Gos- 
pel of  Christ.  The  instances  in  which  the 
Evangelical  Alliance  has  successfully  exert- 
ed its  influence  for  these  objects  are  so  nu- 
merous that  they  can  only  be  glanced  at  in 
this  brief  sketch.  A  paper  was  to  have  been 
contributed  by  the  Foreign  Secretary  of  the 
Alliance,  on  the  foreign  operations  of  the 
Society,  but  owing  to  his  lamented  illness, 
and  consequent  absence  from  the  Conference, 
it  has  been  omitted.  It  is  sufficient  to  men- 
tion that  the  Madiai  in  Florence ;  Matamoros 
and  his  fellow-Protestants,  and  Julian  Var- 
gas, in  Spain ;  the  missionaries  and  Turkish 
converts  in  Constantinople  and  other  parts 
of  the  East ;  the  Baptists  in  Germany,  Rus- 
sia, Sweden,  and  Switzerland ;  the  Nestorians 
in  Persia ;  the  French  missionaries  in  Basuto 
Land,  South  Africa,  as  well  as  English  mis- 
sionaries in  New  Caledonia ;  the  Lutherans 
in  the  Baltic  Provinces  of  Russia,  with  oth- 
ers, have  proved  the  value  of  Christian  sym- 
pathy and  the  efficient  aid  which  the  Al- 
liance, through  its  various  British  and  For- 
eign organizations,  can  render  to  our  fel- 
low-Christians throughout  the  world.  The 
efforts  of  some  of  our  Continental  Branches 
with  reference  to  the  observance  of  the  Lord's 
Day  in  their  own  lands  have  also  been  sig- 
nally blessed.  In  Prussia,  labor  on  Govern- 
ment works  on  Sunday  and  the  assembly  of 
the  militia  on  that  day  have  been  stopped. 
In  Switzerland  a  large  number  of  manufac- 
tories has  been  closed,  and  the  postal  au- 
thorities are  giving  the  whole  or  part  of 
their  employes  rest  on  that  day.  These  are 
some  of  the  results  with  which  it  has  pleased 
God  to  bless  the  co-operation  of  Christians 
in  the  Evangelical  Alliance.  But  even  if 


19G 


CHRISTIAN  UNION. 


no  such  secondary  objects  had  been  accom- 
plished, its  great  value  would  still  remain 
in  supplying  a  bond  of  union  for  Christians 
in  all  countries,  and  manifesting  that  union 
before  the  world  as  a  duty  and  privilege 
binding  on  all  the  disciples  of  Christ.  Spir- 
itual union  is  heavenly,  and  as  all  true  be- 
lievers in  our  Lord  Jesus  Christ,  whatever 
their  national  differences  and  diversities  in 
non-essential  points  of  faith  and  practice, 
are  one,  and  will  be  harmoniously  joined 
together  iii  the  fellowship  of  the  heavenly 
glory,  it  is  expected  of  them  now  to  walk  iu 
the  fellowship  of  the  Spirit,  to  cherish  love 
one  toward  another,  and  with  united  activi- 
ty occupy  the  vast  fields  of  Christian  useful- 
ness that  on  all  sides  stretch  out  before  them. 
Amidst  the  many  and  minor  differences  of 
the  followers  of  our  Lord,  all  of  whom  are 


burdened  with  weighty  cares  and  solemn  re- 
sponsibilities, the  words  may  be  appropriate- 
ly applied  which  the  poet  represents  Adam 
as  addressing  to  Eve,  after  mutual  reproach- 
es and  accusations : 

"Arise,  let  us  no  more  contend,  nor  blame 
Each  other,  blamed  enough  elsewhere ;  but  strive, 
In  offices  of  love,  how  we  may  lighten 
Each  other's  burdens  in  our  share  of  love." 

It  only  remains  that  the  cause  so  auspicious- 
ly begun,  and  already  so  far  advanced,  be 
still  vigorously  prosecuted,  and  for  this  end 
the  members  of  the  Alliance  invite  the  sym- 
pathy, the  prayers,  and  the  co-operation  of 
all  in  every  land  who  love  our  Lord  Jesus 
Christ  in  sincerity.  "  He  that  will  love  life, 
and  see  good  days,  let  him  seek  peace,  and 
ensue  it."  "  Blessed  are  the  peace-makers ; 
for  they  shall  be  called  the  children  of  God." 


THE  EVANGELICAL  ALLIANCE: 


ITS  OBJECTS  AND  INFLUENCE  IN  PROMOTING  THE  UNIVER- 
SAL PRIESTHOOD  OF  BELIEVERS  TO  THE 
COMMUNION  OF  SAINTS. 

BY  THE  REV.  W.  NOEL, 

Counselor  of  the  "Ober-Kirchenrath,"  First  Pastor  of  the  Lonisa  Parish  Church  at  Berlin,  and  Secretary 
of  the  "German  Evangelical  Church  Diet." 


DEAR  BRETHREN, — When  God  the  Lord 
brought  Israel  out  of  the  laud  of  Egypt,  he 
spoke  a  word,  which  may  be  said  to  compre- 
hend all  that  God  had  said,  done,  and  or- 
dained in  behalf  of  his  people.  It  is  the 
word :  "  You  shall  be  a  priestly  kingdom,  and 
a  holy  people  "  (Exod.  xix.,  6).  In  saying  so, 
he  made  it  his  people's  duty  to  be,  or  rather 
to  become,  a  people  of  priests.  He  does  not 
say  You  are,  but  You  shall  be  a  priestly  peo- 
ple. He  himself  will  render  them  a  priest- 
ly people,  and  he  testifies  that  his  covenant 
made  with  Israel  has  no  other  object.  But 
the  way  to  carry  it  should  and  could  not  be 
made  a  short  and  easy  pleasure  excursion. 
It  was  to  be  rather  a  long  and  weary  pil- 
grimage beneath  the  yoke  of  the  law,  and 
within  the  narrow  range  of  the  statutes  reg- 
ulating the  service  of  the  Temple  and  the 
offerings.  The  time  must  be  fulfilled  before 
the  real  High-priest  could  make  his  appear- 
ance, and  offer  up  the  only  sufficient  sacrifice 
on  Golgotha  for  the  sins  of  the  whole  world. 
Then  only  the  veil  of  the  Temple  was  rent 
in  twain,  and  the  approach  to  God  was  free 
to  all  who  came  to  Jesus  at  his  word :  "  Come 
unto  me,  all."  That  is  the  origin  of  the  uni- 
versal priesthood  of  all  the  faithful,  which 
St.  Peter  testifies  to  the  Jews :  "  Ye  also,  as 
lively  stones,  are  built  Tip  a  spiritual  house, 
a  holy  priesthood,  to  offer  up  spiritual  sac- 
rifices, acceptable  to  God  by  Jesus  Christ ;" 
which  St.  Paul  preaches  among  the  heathens : 
"Now  therefore  ye  are  no  more  strangers 
and  foreigners,  but  fellow-citizens  with  the 
saints,  and  of  the  household  of  God ;  and  are 
built  upon  the  foundation  of  the  apostles 
and  prophets,  Jesus  Christ  himself  being  the 
chief  corner-stone  ;  in  whom  all  the  building 
fitly  framed  together  groweth  unto  a  holy 
temple  in  the  Lord."  The  first  Christian 
communities  esteemed  the  gift  of  universal 
priesthood  the  most  precious  jewel  of  their 
crown.  During  the  apostolic  age  it  was  not 
only  the  sanctified  lips  of  the  elders  and 
bishops  (between  whom  the  New  Testament 
makes  no  difference)  that  poured  forth  a 
strain  of  spiritual  life,  but  also  the  laity 


were  priestly  persons,  anointed  with  the 
Holy  Spirit,  who  in  tongues  of  prophecy  re- 
vealed to  them  the  mysteries  of  the  kingdom 
of  God.  But  then  followed  a  period  after 
that  of  the  apostles,  when  the  Church  that, 
strange  to  say,  had  chosen  for  her  patrons  St. 
Peter  and  St.  Paul,  the  prophets  of  the  uni- 
versal priesthood  of  all  the  faithful,  on  com- 
ing to  power,  re-established  the  ancient  Jew- 
ish priesthood,  with  its  statutes  and  offer- 
ings, as  if  there  had  never  been  a  redemp- 
tion. Now  the  enthusiasm  for  the  Lord  and 
his  kingdom  began  to  die  away,  and  with 
it  the  persuasion  that  all  the  faithful  were 
called  upon  to  be  priests,  and  that  there  was 
no  difference  between  the  clergy  and  the 
laity. 

It  was  reserved  to  the  Reformation  to 
draw  forth  from  the  dust,  under  which 
Rome  had  buried  them,  besides  other  jewels 
of  the  Gospel,  also  the  doctrine  of  the  uni- 
versal priesthood  of  the  faithful.  But  de- 
cidedly as  Luther  urged  this  point,  it  was 
forgotten  during  the  dogmatic  struggles 
of  the  sixteenth  century,  till  Spener  and 
Francke,  at  least  theoretically  and  as  pium 
desidet^ium,  set  it  up  as  the  privilege  of  all 
true  Christians,  and  the  Methodists  and  oth- 
er Dissenters  in  England  put  it  into  practice. 

Ever  since  the  doctrine  of  the  universal 
priesthood  of  the  faithful  has  become  an 
article  of  faith  of  the  German  Protestant 
Church,  she  has  striven  to  make  her  adher- 
ents members  of  that  invisible  Church  whicli 
is  the"  Communion  of  the  Saints,  as  testified 
in  the  Apostolic  Symbolum.  The  doctrine 
of  the  universal  priesthood  of  the  faithful 
praises  the  glorious  liberty  of  the  children 
of  God,  and  assigns  to  the  Christian  the 
place  which  he  occupies  with  reference  to 
his  God  and  Father  in  virtue  of  the  redemp- 
tion by  Jesus  Christ.  But  as  the  first  and 
great  commandment,  "Thou  shalt  love  the 
Lord  thy  God  with  all  thy  soul  and  with  all 
thy  mind,"  has  another  like  unto  it,  "Thou 
shalt  love  thy  neighbor  as  thyself,"  so  the 
second  question  for  the  Christian,  who  is 
reconciled  to  his  God  and  Father,  is  that  of 


198 


CHRISTIAN  UNION. 


his  relations  with  his  neighbor.  This  ques- 
*ion  is  answered  hy  the  article  of  the  Creed, 
"  I  helieve  in  the  holy  Catholic  Church,  the 
Communion  of  Saints."  Behold  what  high 
and  glorious  task  is  set  before  our  eyes! 
But  it  is  to  be  attained  only  gradually,  as 
the  Saviour  says  in  the  parable  of  the  seed 
growing  secretly :  "  For  the  earth  bringeth 
forth  fruit  of  herself:  first  the  blade,  then 
the  ear,  after  that  the  full  corn  in  the  ear." 
The  communion  of  all  who  are  redeemed 
and  sanctified  by  Jesus  Christ  can  not  be 
realized  but  by  the  members  of  each  indi- 
vidual church  first  joining  in  faithful  and 
holy  love  among  themselves.  When  that  is 
done,  let  them  stretch  out  their  hands  be- 
yond the  more  or  less  narrow  pale  of  their 
own  denomination,  and  open  their  hearts  to 
their  brethren  in  Christ,  and  invite  them  to 
take  a  joint  stand  on  the  ground  of  the  Com- 
munion of  the  Saints  as  the  children  of  God, 
eager  to  keep  the  unity  of  the  Spirit  in  the 
Lord  in  the  bond  of  peace  (Eph.iv.,  3-6). 

If  in  the  Apostolic  Age  it  was  possible  for 
the  Saint  Apostles  to  keep  up  the  unity  of 
the  Spirit,  even  in  spite  of  the  antagonism 
between  the  Christians  out  of  the  Jews  and 
those  out  of  the  Gentiles — an  antagonism 
which  was  a  good  deal  fiercer  than  that 
which  separates  the  Protestant  from  the 
Catholic  Church — how  is  it  that  we  should 
not  be  able  to  do  the  same,  provided  we 
strive  honestly  and  seriously,  and  trust  that 
God  will  assist  us  in  our  endeavors  ?  It  fills 
us  with  joy,  therefore,  that  Evangelical  Ger- 
many at  least,  since  the  days  of  Spener  and 
Francke,had  never  been  totally  in  want  of 
faithful  and  pious  souls  that,  though  belong- 
ing to  different  confessions,  united  on  the 
ground  of  their  common  love  to  the  one  Head 
of  all  Christendom. 

Particularly  has  this  been  the  case  when, 
after  the  wars  of  liberation  (1813-1815),  a 
new  life  of  faith  awoke.  Then  it  occurred 
that  members  even  of  the  Catholic  Church 
shook  hands  with  earnest  Protestants  in 
brotherly  love  over  the  separating  barrier 
of  their  respective  confessions,  rejoicing  in 
the  consciousness  of  being  both  children  of 
God  by  Jesus  Christ.  Let  me  only  point 
you  out,  for  an  instance,  Sailer  and  Wessen- 
berg,  and  those  they  drew  round  them. 
Unluckily  that  spirit  of  conciliation  did  not 
prevail  but  for  a  short  time.  The  Jesuits 
once  more  came  to  power,  and  Ultramonta- 
nism  began  again  its  fatal  work  of  corrup- 
tion, completing  it  by  the  proclamation  of 
the  Immaculate  Conception,  the  Syllabus, 
and  the  Infallibility  of  the  Pope.  A  great 
many  earnest  Catholics,  particularly  in  Ger- 
many, refusing  obedience  to  the  decrees  of 
the  Vatican  Council,  separated  from  the 
Church  of  Rome,  without  pretending  to  sep- 
arate from  the  Catholic  Church.*  Nor  was 


'  "Die  Altkatholikou.' 


that  all.  Ultramontanism  attempted  also 
to  encroach  upon  the  sovereignty  of  the 
State.  Laws  had  therefore  to  be  framed 
and  passed,  to  secure  its  independence  from 
the  pretensions,  altogether  unlawful  and 
revolutionary,  of  the  Roman  clergy.  Under 
the  prevailing  circumstances,  and  in  face  of 
the  eagerness  of  confessional  antagonism, 
in  Germany  at  least,  there  seemed  to  be  no 
chance  of  taking  np  and  promoting  the  work 
of  the  union  between  the  two  Churches, 
Catholic  and  Protestant,  so  successfully  be- 
gun after  the  wars  of  1813-1815.  The  more 
thankfully  was  welcomed  the  Evangelical 
Alliance  when,  about  twenty-five  years  since, 
it  endeavored  to  establish  within  the  Evan- 
gelical Church  a  union  of  the  faithful  of  the 
different  Reformed  confessions,  for  the  pur- 
pose of  giving  each  other  cordial  support,  of 
affording  means  for  an  exchange  of  ideas, 
and  of  encouraging  common  enterprises  of 
helping  and  saving  love. 

The  Evangelical  Alliance  will  not  be  a 
union  of  the  Evangelical  Churches,  still  less 
will  it  establish  a  new  church,  or  melt  and 
mix  together  those  which,  in  different  lan- 
guages, countries,  and  forms,  serve  God 
their  Saviour  in  their  own  manner.  The 
Evangelical  Alliance  will  inspire  them  all 
with  the  consciousness  that  their  members 
one  and  all  belong,  as  children  of  God,  to 
one  blessed  Lord  and  Saviour,  and  are  in 
duty  bound  to  join  in  true  love  for  the  pur- 
pose of  doing  his  work.  The  fact  that  all 
Christians,  in  virtue  of  the  universal  priest- 
hood of  the  faithful,  have  immediate  access 
to  God  through  Jesus  Christ,  has  found  its 
proper  expression  in  the  Evangelical  Alli- 
ance. If  that  is  the  case,  we  may  say  that 
our  Saviour's  prayer  for  his  apostles  (St. 
John  xvii.)  has  to  some  extent  been  heard : 
"  Neither  pray  I  for  these  alone  "  (the  apos- 
tles), "  but  for  them  also  which  shall  believe 
on  me  through  their  word ;  that  they  all  may 
be  one ;  as  thou,  Father,  art  in  me,  and  I  in 
thee,  that  they  also  may  be  one  in  us ;"  till 
once  the  word  will  be  fulfilled,  and  the  com- 
munion of  saints  realized, "  One  fold  and  one 
Shepherd." 

That  is,  in  my  opinion,  the  task  of  theEvan- 
gelical  Alliance.  Has  it  fulfilled  this  task, 
or  is" it  about  to  fulfill  it?  Let  me  answer 
these  questions  from  my  German  Evangel- 
ical point  of  view.  When,  in  1857,  the  Evan- 
gelical Alliance,  for  the  third  time  after  its 
foundation,  in  1846,  met  at  Berlin,  Dr.Krum- 
macher,  now  a  member  of  the  triumphant 
Church,  believed  himself  bound  to  examine 
in  his  address  three  reproaches  which  had 
been  thrown  upon  the  Evangelical  Alliance 
from  different  sides,  and  which,  in  Germany 
at  least,  are  still  raised  against  it:  First, 
that  its  endeavors  and  debates  wanted  inner 
truth ;  then,  that  they  were  not  suited  to 
the  spirit  of  the  age,  and  did  not  answer  the 
!  exigencies  of  the  Evangelical,  especially  the 


NOEL :  THE  EVANGELICAL  ALLIANCE. 


199 


German  Evangelical  people ;  finally,  that  its 
purposes  and  ends,  far  from  being  distinct- 
ly and  clearly  denned,  did  not  warrant  any 
practical  results. 

Concerning  the  first  reproach — that  it  is  a 
union  of  brethren  in  appearance  only,  not  in 
reality,  each  member  reserving  to  himself 
his  denominatism — we  may  say  that  the  very 
existence  of  the  Evangelical  Alliance  up  to 
this  day  has  sufficiently  invalidated  this  re- 
proach. Were  the  Evangelical  Alliance  de- 
void of  inner  truths,  it  could  not  have  lived 
and  derived  new  strength  from  each  of  the 
five  general  assemblies  which  have  taken 
place  since  its  foundation.  It  has  proved 
that  Evangelical  Christians,  though  belong- 
ing to  different  denominations,  can  love 
each  other  in  Christ  without  sacrificing  the 
truth,  and  that  the  voluntary  communion  of 
love,  on  the  ground  of  the  general  priest- 
hood of  all  the  faithful,  has  infinitely  more 
real  truth  in  itself  than  the  mechanical 
conformity  of  the  Eoman  Catholic  Church, 
which  is  nothing  but  an  artificial  produce 
of  overbearing  priestcraft. 

The  same  is  to  be  said  as  to  the  second  re- 
proach— that  what  the  Evangelical  Alliance 
aims  at  is  neither  in  the  spirit  of  the  age,  nor 
does  it  answer  the  exigencies  of  the  Evangel- 
ical, especially  the  German  Evangelical  peo- 
ple. Two  years  after  the  first  meeting  of  the 
Evangelical  Alliance  in  London  (August  19, 
1846),  and  quite  independent  of  it — it  was 
scarcely  known  then  —  was  founded  in  Wit- 
tenberg, at  the  burying-place  of  Luther,  the 
German  Evangelical  Church  Diet  (Deutsclier 
Evangelischer  Kirchentag),  which  within  the 
pale  of  the  Evangelical  Churches  of  Ger- 
many pursues  the  same  objects  as  the  Evan- 
gelical Alliance  does  at  large,  that  is,  to  es- 
tablish a  brotherly  union  of  all  German  Evan- 
gelical Christians,  standing  on  the  ground  of 
the  Protestant  professions  of  faith,  holding 
Jesus  Christ  to  be  the  only-begotten  Son  of 
the  living  God,  who  was  crucified,  and  rose 
again  from  the  dead.  The  German  Evan- 
gelical Church  Diet  has  held  sixteen  meet- 
ings, attended  not  only  by  German  Evan- 
gelical Christians,  but  also  by  foreigners. 
The  Church  Diet  goes  farther  in  its  views 
than  the  Evangelical  Alliance.  Its  object 
is  to  form  a  confederacy  of  different  Evan- 
gelical Churches,  while  the  Evangelical  Al- 
liance only  purposes  to  further  the  union 
of  faithful  individuals.  Yet  both  are  twin 
brothers,  born  out  of  the  same  «pirit,  and 
founded  for  the  same  object.  For  this  rea- 
son the  Church  Diet  has  always  gladly  sym- 
pathized with  the  endeavors  of  the  Evan- 
gelical Alliance.  When,  in  1869,  at  the  Diet 
which  had  been  convened  at  Stuttgart,  Pro- 
fessor Dr.  Schaff  delivered  the  invitation  of 
the  American  Branch  of  the  Evangelical  Al- 
liance to  the  sixth  great  meeting,  which  is 
now  being  held  in  this  city,  he  was  request- 
ed by  the  chairman  to  express  to  those  who 


sent  him  the  cordial  sympathy  of  the  Diet, 
with  their  endeavors  to  effect  a  closer  union 
between  the  members  of  the  different  de- 
nominations of  the  Evangelical  Church.  To 
this  the  whole  assembly  gave  its  hearty  as- 
sent by  rising  with  one  accord. 

These  facts  refute  sufficiently  the  re- 
proach that  the  endeavors  of  the  Evangel- 
ical Alliance  are  out  of  time. 

Finally,  a  few  words  respecting  the  third 
reproach  which  has  been  thrown  upon  us — 
that  our  purposes  and  ends,  far  from  being 
clearly  and  distinctly  defined,  do  not  warrant 
any  practical  results.  We  must  own  that 
objections  of  this  nature,  if  raised  against 
us,  are  not  entirely  unfounded.  Yet,  if 
to  inspire  each  other  with  the  love  of  God 
and  Christ,  to  teach  and  admonish  each  oth- 
er, to  minister  to  one  another  spiritual  gifts, 
is  something,  our  meetings  have  not  been 
without  fruit.  And  that  fruit  will  be  abun- 
dantly rich  should  we  attain  to  that  which 
an  eloquent  tongue  expressed  as  his  wish 
and  hope :  "  That  the  French  impart  to  us 
their  ardent  zeal  in  the  service  of  the  Lord ; 
the  brethren  of  Italy,  their  cheerfulness  in 
martyrdom  and  death ;  the  English,  their 
apostolic  energy ;  the  Scotch,  their  firmness 
in  the  faith  and  their  moral  and  religious 
earnestness ;  the  Dutch,  their  soberness  in 
the  days  when  thousands  are  spiritually  in- 
toxicated; the  Americans,  their  reverence 
for  the  letter  of  the  Word  of  God  and  their 
Christian  courage  in  conquering  the  world ; 
that  the  Methodists  bestow  upon  us  part  of 
their  zeal  to  gain  each  single  soul ;  the  In- 
dependents, their  readiness  to  make  sacrifi- 
ces for  the  interests  of  the  community ;  the 
Baptists,  their  discipline ;  the  Anglicans, 
their  reverence  and  love  for  their  Mother 
Church ;  the  United  Brethren,  their  mission- 
ary zeal."  Nor  must  we  undervalue  what 
the  Evangelical  Alliance  has  done  in  inter- 
fering for  religious  liberty  in  Italy,  in  Spain, 
in  Roumania,  in  Russia,  and  lately,  also,  in 
Japan.  Since  this  brotherly  exchange  of 
spiritual  gifts  will  first  of  all  strengthen  only 
the  inner  man,  and  his  intervention  in  be- 
half of  religious  liberty  can  take  place  only 
occasionally,  it  bears  the  character  of  a  testi- 
mony, however  important,  rather  than  the 
seal  of  a  deed  of  sacred  fraternity.  The  Ger- 
man Evangelical  Church  Diet,  which  I  have 
termed,  with  Dr.  Schaff,  the  twin  brother 
of  the  Evangelical  Alliance,  in  order  to  escape 
the  danger  of  falling  into  mere  doctrinarian- 
ism  and  vain  idealism,  has,  from  its  begin- 
ning, entered  into  a  league  with  the  con- 
gress for  "Interior  Mission"  (Innere  Mis- 
sion), and  thus  found  a  means  not  only  to 
take  practical  affairs  in  hand,  but  also  to 
perpetrate  deeds  of  helping  and  saving  love. 

Besides,  there  is  another  institution  in 
Germany,  the  Gustavus  Adolphus  Union, 
whose  best  friends  are  likewise  the  well- 
wishers  of  the  German  Evangelical  Church 


200 


CHRISTIAN  UNION. 


Diet.  This  Union,  with  more  than  a  thou- 
sand branch  societies,  spread  all  over  Ger- 
many, may  be  called  the  elder  brother  of 
the  Evangelical  Alliance.  It  embraces  mem- 
bers of  all  the  German  Reformed  Churches, 
and  its  object  is  to  support  such  Evangelical 
communities  among  a  larger  Catholic  pop- 
ulation, who  want  support  for  the  erection 
and  sustenance  of  churches  and  schools. 
Lutherans  and  Calvinista  indiscriminately 
enjoy  the  benefit,  according  to  the  word  of 
the  Holy  Scriptures :  "  Let  us  do  good  unto 
all  men,  especially  unto  them  who  are  of 
the  household  of  faith."  Its  agency  extends 
over  all  the  countries  of  the  earth  where 
German  Protestants  live  together  in  greater 
numbers. 

The  report  read  last  year  at  the  yearly 
meeting  of  the  society  in  Speier  mentions 
sixty-five  churches  consecrated  in  the  course 
of  the  year,  to  whoso  erection  the  society 
has  contributed,  one  of  which  at  Ferraz,  in 
Southern  Brazil,  another  at  Lutzin,  in  Rus- 
sia. Fifty-eight  schools  have  been  opened, 
most  of  them  in  Austria,  where  the  Evan- 
gelical communities  have  had  to  suffer  more 
than  anywhere  else  under  Jesuitical  oppres- 
sion and  insolence.  More  than  200,000  tha- 
lers  have  been  expended  on  more  than  a 
thousand  communities. 

During  the  thirty  years  since  its  founda- 


tion, the  society  has  disposed  of  more  than 
3,500,000  thalers,  and  "  every  gift,"  says  the 
report,  "  which  goes  out  with  our  work  and 
prayer  has  been  almost  everywhere  a  balm 
spread  on  wounds  inflicted  by  Jesuits.  It 
has  been  a  messenger  of  peace  and  life, 
drawing  our  brethren  abroad  out  of  their 
state  of  isolation  and  distress,  and  proving 
to  them  that  they  are  no  longer  to  be  for- 
saken and  forgotten." 

Should  it  not  be  possible  for  the  Evangel- 
ical Alliance  to  make  exertions  of  a  similar 
kind  in  a  practical  way?  Should  the  Al- 
liance not  be  able,  somehow  or  other,  to  do 
the  same  for  the  Evangelical  of  all  tongues 
that  the  German  "Gustavus  Adolphus  Ve- 
reiu  "  does  for  those  of  German  extraction  ? 
Should  it  not,  instead  of  hearing  only  works 
of  helping  and  saving  love  reported  and 
praised,  set  up  such  a  work  for  itself?  I 
would  only  refer  to  the  couvention  of  Gene- 
va. That  is  it,  dear  brethren,  which  I  wish 
your  enlightened  considerations  to  refer  to, 
without  presuming  to  make  farther  propos- 
als. Only  one  thing  let  me  observe,  before 
I  conclude,  that  the  Evangelical  people 
would  form  a  more  accurate  idea  of  the  en- 
deavors of  the  Evangelical  Alliance,  and 
would  give  them  a  more  hearty  sympathy, 
if  we  could  point  out  deeds  perpetrated  on  the 
ground  of  the  love  which  unites  us  in  Christ. 


III. 
CHRISTIANITY  AND  ITS  ANTAGONISMS. 

Monday,  October  6th,  1873. 


DIVISION  lit— CONTENTS, 


THEOLOGICAL  SECTION. 

PAGE 

1.  CHKISTLIEB  :    Counteracting  Modern  Infidelity 203 

2.  LEATIIES  :                   "                    "               "        224 

3.  CAIRNS  :    Causes  of  Modern  Infidelity 228 

4.  VAX  OOSTERZEE:    The   Gospel  History  and  Modern  Criticism 238 

5.  WARREX  :   American  Infidelity — its  Factors  and  Phases 249 

6.  WASHBURX  :  Reason  and  Faith 255 

7.  BOVET  :    Christianity  and  the   Gospel 261 

PHILOSOPHICAL  SECTION. 

1.  McCosn:  Religious  Aspects  of  the  Doctrine  of  Development 264 

2.  DAWSOX  :   Primitive  Man  and  Revelation 272 

3.  GUYOT  :    Cosmogony  and  the  Bible 276 

4.  NAVILLE  :    The   Gospel  and  Philosophy 288 

5.  KRAUTH  :    The  Strength  and  Weakness  of  Idealism 293 

6.  NEVIX  :    Christianity  and  Humanity 302 

7.  SPIESS  :  Comparative  Study  of  Religions 309 

8.  APPEXDIX. — Discussion  on  Darwinism  and  Development 317 


THEOLOGICAL   SECTION. 


THE  BEST  METHODS  OF  COUNTERACTING  MODERN 

INFIDELITY* 

BY  THE  REV.  THEODORE  CHRISTLIEB,  D.D., 

Professor  of  Theology,  and  Chaplain  in  the  University  of  Bonn,  Prussia. 


THE  question  as  to  the  best  methods  of 
counteracting  modern  infidelity  is  so  wide 
a  one — whether  we  consider  it  in  a  scien- 
tific, a  historical,  or  a  practical  and  moral 
light — that  it  is  imperatively  necessary  for 
us  to  confine  ourselves  in  its  treatment  to 
two  points  of  view.  First,  then,  we  would  in- 
dicate the  chief  scientific  positions  in  which 
attack  and  defense  can  be  most  successfully 
maintained  —  especially  drawing  attention 
to  those  points  in  the  great  struggle  which 
have  hitherto  been  overlooked ;  and  second, 
we  shall  endeavor  to  sketch  out  the  practi- 
cal tasks  imposed  upon  us  as  members  or 
teachers  of  a  Christian  community,  as  well 
as  on  the  Church  of  Christ  at  large,  in  the 
great  battle  against  the  unbelief  of  our  day. 
All  questions  of  detail  we  will  leave  to  free 
discussion. 

We  Germans  are  notorious  for  making 
long  introductions,  but  to-day  —  notwith- 
standing all  that  might  with  advantage  be 
said  —  I  prefer  to  omit  preliminaries  alto- 
gether. I  will  not,  therefore,  stop  to  give 
an  exact  limitation  or  definition  of  the  term 
"modern  infidelity,"  although  this  notion 
has  not  everywhere  quite  the  same  extent ; 
as  e.  g.,  in  England,  some  opinions  are  called 
rationalistic,  which  in  Germany  would  hard- 
ly be  so  designated.  I  hope,  however,  to  ex- 
press the  view  common  to  us  all,  when  I  say 
that  wo  comprise  under  the  name  of  "  infi- 
del "  all  those  tendencies  and  systems  which 
militate  against  the  Biblical  and  Christian 
view  of  God  and  of  the  universe,  which  do 


*  [This  essay  fur  exceeds  the  length  of  other  papers 
in  the  volume ;  but  the  editor  was  unwilling  to  use 
the  liberty  of  abridging  it  for  the  sake  of  gaining 
space.  It  is  an  able  and  elaborate  defense  of  Chris- 
tianity, and  made  a  deep  and  lasting  impression. 
It  was  delivered  twice  (first  in  part  in  Association 
Hall,  and  then,  by  request,  in  full  in  the  Madison 
Square  Presbyterian  Church),  with  unusual  fresh- 
ness, energy,  and  modest  self-assurance,  to  crowded 
and  intelligent  audiences,  which  listened  to  it  with 
delight,  and  with  a  growing  conviction  that  Christian- 
Sty  had  nothing  whatever  to  fear  from  its  assailants. 
It  was  all  the  more  effective  since  it  came  from  a  Ger- 
•man  scholar—one  almost  unknown  before  in  Amer- 
ica.— Ed.] 


not  consider  Holy  Scripture  as  an  authentic 
record  of  Divine  Revelation,  and  which  in 
theory  or  in  practice  refuse  to  acknowledge 
the  central  doctrine  of  our  faith,  viz.,  the 
salvation  that  has  appeared  in  Christ.  The 
term  modern  infidelity,  then,  would  desig- 
nate the  same  tendencies  and  schools  of 
thought  as  they  appear  at  the  present  day, 
i.  e.,  armed  with  weapons  furnished  them  by 
the  philosophy,  the  historical  criticism,  and 
the  natural  science  of  our  times. 

Finally,  we  pass  by  the  various  schools  of 
unbelief  with  their  specific  principles,  such 
as  Pantheism,  Rationalism,  etc.,  since  the 
more  important  of  them  will  be  separately 
treated  of  to-day ;  and  we  merely  glance  at 
the  different  forma  practically  assumed  by 
modern  unbelief.  Among  these  forms  we 
see  every  possible  gradation  of  departure 
from  Christian  truth,  ranging  from  the  in- 
differentism  which  still  admits  of  a  nominal 
connection  with  the  Church,  to  a  fanatical 
and  aggressive  hatred  of  all  that  belongs  to 
it ;  from  a  Pilate's  tone  of  haughty  despite, 
to  blasphemous  mockery ;  or  from  the  learn- 
ed investigator  and  critic,  who  with  im- 
mense diligence  and  acuteness  endeavors  to 
reduce  all  the  Divine  elements  in  Scripture 
to  mere  natural  phenomena  produced  by  hu- 
man historical  agencies,  down  to  the  shal- 
low journalist,  who  is  fain  to  widen  his  cir- 
cle of  readers  by  piquant  mockery  of  all 
"  orthodoxy  "  and  "  methodism."  Essential- 
ly the  same  tendency  of  thought  is  repre- 
sented by  that  critic  who,  as  the  result  of 
the  long  conflict,  would  have  us  substitute 
the  new  faith  (by  Messrs.  Lessing  and  Dar- 
win) for  the  old  faith,  but  who,  forsooth,  ar- 
dently desires  to  see  the  old  order  of  society 
preserved  at  least  until  his  eyes  are  closed, 
as  well  as  by  those  fanatical  enemies  of  the 
present  social  order,  who  already  anticipate 
the  logical  results  of  the  "  new  belief,"  i.  e., 
a  chaos  formed  by  the  destruction  of  socie- 
ty's present  frame-work,  of  all  the  ideal  ele- 
ments of  life,  even  of  the  worship  of  art-he- 
roes still  left  to  us  by  Strauss,  and  the  proc- 
lamation of  a  gospel  of  the  flesh  which  shall 


204 


CHRISTIANITY  AND  ITS  ANTAGONISMS. 


teach  niau  to  cultivate  naught  but  the  pal- 
pable and  sensuous. 

If,  in  view  of  these  increasingly  radical 
and  threatening  attacks,  we  inquire  after 
the  best  methods  of  repulse,  we  thereby  in- 
dicate that  there  are  various  methods  of  dif- 
fering value.  The  defense  must,  of  course, 
vary  in  its  method,  on  the  one  hand,  accord- 
ing to  the  nature  and  extent  of  the  unbelief, 
the  causes  of  its  origin,  and  the  manner  in 
which  it  conducts  its  assaults  against  our 
faith ;  on  the  other  hand,  according  to  the 
position  which  we  desire  to  defend.  But 
•we  may  safely  say  that  there  are,  and  al- 
ways have  been,  certain  recognized  and  well- 
defined  lines  and  maxims  of  defense,  though 
differing  much  from  one  another  in  value. 

A  thoroughly  wrong  method — one  which 
is  diametrically  opposed  to  the  spirit  of  the 
Gospel,  and  has  not,  sad  to  say,  always  been 
used  by  the  Roman  Church  only — is  the  sup- 
pression of  opposition  against  certain  dog- 
mas by  physical  force,  or  by  merely  appeal- 
ing to  the  outward  authority  of  the  Church. 
In  the  same  way  we  reject — and  I  think  you 
will  agree  with  me  in  this — as  unevangel- 
ical,  unfruitful,  and  productive  of  confusion, 
the  cognate  tendency  shown  by  the  extreme 
ecclesiastical  party  in  the  Protestant  Church, 
who  would  oppose  the  unbridled  independ- 
ence and  subjective  arbitrariness  of  the  crit- 
icism of  our  day  by  an  overstrained  assertion 
of  the  rights  of  the  priestly  office,  and  would 
endeavor  to  raise  a  barrier  against  the  prev- 
alence of  free  investigation  and  spontaneous 
appropriation  of  truth  by  laying  an  exag- 
gerated stress  upon  the  sacramental  actions 
of  the  Church,  which  the  most  advanced  of 
them  are  already  beginning  to  make  into 
sacrificial  rites.  These  theories  and  tenden- 
cies we  reject;  for  a  knowledge  or  appro- 
priation of  saving  grace  communicated  oth- 
erwise than  by  moral  (not  magical)  means 
is  opposed  no  less  to  Scripture  than  to  the 
spirit  of  our  age ! 

The  trust  that  sustains  us  in  this  tremen- 
dous struggle,  \vaged  not  "with  men  alone, 
but  with  all  the  powers  of  darkness,  must 
not  be  founded  on  ourselves,  nor  on  other 
weak  men ;  not  on  any  outward  assistance 
from  the  state,  nor  on  forms  and  ceremonies 
(for  "  cursed  is  the  man  that  maketh  flesh  his 
arm,"  Jer.  xvii.,  5) ;  but  on  the  Lord  himself, 
who  sits  exalted  at  his  Father's  right  hand, 
as  Ruler  over  all,  even  the  raging  of  his 
enemies.  His  presence  is  not  bound  to  out- 
ward forms  or  traditions.  Ho  is  the  Spirit 
(2  Cor.  in.,  17),  and  from  him  proceeds  the 
Spirit  of  truth.  To  this  his  Spirit  we  must 
in  the  last  resort  leave  the  work  of  convin- 
cing men's  hearts  and  minds  of  the  truth  of 
Christian  Revelation,  without  sparing  them 
the  trouble  of  free  investigation  or  of  a  con- 
scientious decision  and  self-resolve.  In  ac- 
cordance with  these  principles,  our  human 
task  in  the  battle  against  unbelief  can  be 


no  other  than  to  overcome  the  opponent  by 
moral  and  spiritual  means.  First  of  all,  that 
is,  by  an  earnest,  spiritually  vigorous  testi- 
mony for  Christ ;  next,  by  a  truly  scientific 
delineation  of  Christian  belief,  as  a  view  of 
the  world  and  of  God,  which  is  strictly  co- 
herent and  corroborated  by  history  and  con- 
science, while  at  the  same  time  openly  ac- 
knowledging all  its  difficulties  and  obscuri- 
ties ;  and  last,  by  a  practical  demonstration 
of  its  truth  in  Christian  living  and  suffering. 
Keeping  this  fundamental  rule  in  view, 
we,  on  the  other  hand,  see  unbelief  present 
itself  to  us  socially  in  different  shapes,  ei- 
ther isolated  in  individuals,  or  systematical- 
ly formulated  in  scientific  schools,  or  prac- 
tically carried  out  by  the  press,  clubs,  un- 
ions, etc.,  and  forming  a  threatening  power 
in  our  social  life.  Thus  our  subject  natu- 
rally divides  into  three  heads :  How  may  we 
best  counteract  Infidelity — I.  In  individu- 
als? II.  In  scientific  systems?  III.  As  a 
social  power,  practically  extending  its  influ- 
ence throughout  wide  circles? 

I.  INFIDELITY  IN  ISOLATED  INDIVIDUALS. 

Under  this  head  we  \vill  only  give  a  few 
suggestions,  in  order  to  have  more  room  for 
the  other  parts. 

The  following  treatment  seems  to  me  the 
wisest :  First,  \ve  must  endeavor  to  obtain 
for  ourselves  (and  mostly  for  the  individuals 
in  question,  too)  a  clear  idea  of  the  special 
causes  from  which  their  unbelief  has  origi- 
nated. These  may  be  of  very  varied  charac- 
ter. They  may  consist  in  received  tradition, 
in  discoveries  of  modern  science,  in  political 
or  social  phenomena.  Often  unbelief  results 
almost  as  a  natural  necessity  from  the  whole 
spiritual  and  moral  atmosphere  of  a- man's 
surroundings.  Let  us  put  ourselves  in  the 
place  of  such  individuals,  and  not  forget  (as 
is,  alas !  too  often  done)  the  share  of  blame 
wrhich  frequently  attaches  to  the  Church 
herself,  by  reason  of  her  neglect  to  care  for 
souls,  her  inward  nakedness,  her  fruitless 
bickerings  about  trifles,  her  narrow-minded 
party-spirit,  all  of  which  constantly  do  an 
infinity  of  mischief  by  alienating  from  her 
the  hearts  of  .thousands.  Such  thoughts 
will  produce  in  us  true  humility  and  hearty 
sympathy  with  the  inward  misery  of  those 
who  are  far  from  God — feelings  without 
which  wo  shall  never  be  able  to  gain  their 
confidence,  nor  to  lead  them  to  see  the  in- 
nermost causes  of  their  unbelief  in  certain 
moral  failings. 

It  is  not  for  nothing  that  our  Lord  classes 
unbelief  with  hardness  of  heart  ("He  up- 
braided them  with  their  unbelief  and  hard- 
ness of  heart,"  Mark  xvi.,14;  cf.  Luke  xxiv., 
25).  In  the  first  and  last  resort,  all  Ttnbe- 
lief  springs,  not  from  the  hardness  and  in- 
comprehensibility which  the  faith  possesses 
for  the  understanding,  but  from  the  hard- 
ness and  perverseness  of  the  natural  heart 


CHRISTLIEB :  COUNTERACTING  MODERN  INFIDELITY. 


205 


of  man,  which  will  not  bow  to  the  mighty 
aud  solemn  truth  of  Divine  Revelation. 
This  perverseuess  is  a  strange  mixture — on 
the  one  hand,  of  cowardice,  when  a  man  has 
not  the  courage  to  let  his  inward  failings  be 
uncovered  in  all  their  nakedness,  nor  dares 
to  enlarge  his  own  narrow  views  according 
to  the  great  ways  and  deeds  of  God,  but 
would  fain  make  these  fit  to  the  measure 
of  his  own  small  ideas  ;*  and  thus,  on  the 
other  hand,  of  overweening  self-confidence, 
when  the  same  man  thinks  far  too  highly 
of  human  knowledge  and  accomplishments, 
and  far  too  little  of  God's  mighty  and  holy 
government — when  he  would  attain  to  ev- 
ery thing  by  means  of  his  own  knowledge 
and  power — in  a  word,  when  man  would 
far  rather  help  himself  than  let  himself  be 
helped  by  God,  and  thankfully  accept  the 
redemption  brought  by  Jesus  Christ.  In 
truth,  this  is  the  material  principle  whicli 
divides  all  unbelief  and  false  belief  toto  ccelo 
from  true  belief:  on  the  one  hand,  there  is 
self-help;  on  the  other,  God's  help.  The 
pride  of  the  philosophical  critic,  just  as  much 
as  that  of  the  natural  scientist,  is  always 
striving  to  substitute  human  activity  and 
spontaneity  for  human  receptiveness  before 
God.  Instead  of  Soli  Deo,  its  motto  is  Soli 
Jwmini  gloria! 

Last,  but  not  least,  among  these  general 
iuward  causes  of  unbelief  come  the  positive- 
ly earthy  inclinations  of  the  human  heart, 
its  proueness  to  satisfaction  in  this  world, 
a  tendency  which  is  seductively  encouraged 
by  the  present  materialistic  denial  of  anoth- 
er life;  or,  to  put  it  plainly  in  a  word,  the 
power  of  the  dollar.  This  is  a  far  greater 
hinderance  to  true  belief  than  all  the  writ- 
ings of  philosophers  and  critics  put  together: 
this  worship  of  Mammon  it  is  that  causes  a 
deep  and  wide-spread  disaffection  against 
all  ethical  and  spiritual  truth,  and  a  per- 
version of  the  moral  judgment,  against  which 
all  mere  logical  reasoning  is  of  no  avail. 
The  causes  of  unbelief  really  lie  in  the  heart 
and  Avill.  However  strong  outward  influ- 
ences may  be,  in  divine  things  no  one  errs 
entirely  without  his  own  fault. 

If  such  be  the  case,  then  the  most  effect- 
ual method  of  opposing  unbelief  in  individ- 
uals is  that  which  we  may  term  the  ethico- 
psychological  or  isagogic  method;  that  is, 
the  method  which  leads  inward  to  the  heart 
and  conscience  of  those  addressed.  Let  mo 
explain  myself. 

First  of  all,  we  should  endeavor  to  lead 
our  brother  to  a  clear  and  sober  recognition 
of  the  inward  causes  and  the  effects  of  his 
unbelief  on  his  own  moral  development ; 
this,  however,  not  as  inquisitors,  but  with 
hearty  and  humble  sympathy.  "  Reflect," 


*  "Animus  ad  amplitudinem  mystei-iorum  pro  mo- 
dulo suo  dilatetur,  non  mysteria  ad  augustias  nnimi 
constringantur."— FRANCIS  BACON,  De  Augment.  Sci- 


let  us  say  to  him,  "on  the  first  beginning 
of  your  doubts.  From  what  region  did  they 
come  ?  Is  not,  perhaps,  your  present  creed 
merely  the  theology  of  the  natural  heart? 
And  can  you  say  that  this  unbelief  has  been 
a  real  blessing  for  your  inner  life  ?  Does  its 
increase  denote  a  true  moral  progress,  mod- 
eration in  happiness,  comfort  aud  support 
in  misfortune  ?  Oh,  give  a  true  and  upright 
account  of  all  this,  not  to  me,  but  to  your- 
self and  God !" 

Later  on  we  should  show  in  how  false  a 
manner  the  doubter  usually  examines  the 
Divine  origin  and  the  truth  of  the  Christian 
faith.  As  a  rule,  he  makes  the  convenient 
demand  first  to  be  convinced  by  scientific- 
ally exact  arguments  of  the  truth  of  Chris- 
tian revelation  before  he  will  accept  it.  He 
will  first  know,  and  then  believe.  But  this 
way  can  not  bring  him  to  his  goal.  We 
must  show  the  fundamental  error  of  this  de- 
mand, which  consists  in  a  confusion  between 
the  region  of  morals  and  religion  and  that 
of  mathematical  science.  Spiritual  truths 
should  not  aud  can  not  be  mathematically 
demonstrated.  First  they  must  be  appre- 
hended by  the  heart  and  conscience,  and 
they  will  then  prove  themselves  to  the  un- 
derstanding as  divinely  true  and  necessary. 
Were  faith  a  mere  matter  of  demonstration, 
it  would  cease  to  be  faith,  i.  e.,  a  moral  act 
consisting  in  a  trustful  yielding  up  of  self 
to  that  which  as  yet  we  see  not  (Heb.  xi.,  1). 

Further,  we  should  go  on  to  show  that 
faith  and  knowledge,  far  from  being  op- 
posed, naturally  supplement  each  other,  aud 
that  true  faith  is  the  source  of  the  deepest 
and  highest  knowledge.  All  learning  is  nec- 
essarily preceded  by  a  submission  to  the  au- 
thority of  the  teacher ;  and  this  prelimina- 
ry submission  of  the  intellectual  and  critic- 
al faculties  to  the  truth  of  Revelation  brings 
light  into  the  soul,  and  lays  the  foundation 
for  healthy,  sober,  aud  clear  views  as  to 
God,  our  own  being  and  condition,  sin  and 
its  cure,  and  our  final  destiny.  Thus  faith, 
i.  e.,  the  intrusting  ourselves  to  the  light  of 
Diviue  Revelation,  leads  to  the  knowledge 
of  the  most  exalted  truth ;  indeed,  it  is  the 
beginning  of  it. 

If  this  way  to  knowledge  seem  hard  to 
you,  ask  yourself  whether  the  Christian  faith 
does  not  correspond  to  and  supply  the  deep- 
est needs  of  the  human  heart.  And  this  is 
another  important  point  in  the  treatment  of 
unbelievers.  The  question  turns  upon  the 
recognition  of  evil  in  ourselves.  For  the 
whole  struggle  between  belief  and  unbelief, 
as  has  truly  been  said,*  is  but  the  conflict 
between  those  who  treat  sin  as  a  light  mat- 
ter and  those  who  are  heavily  oppressed  by 
it  until  they  come  to  Him  who  takes  their 
burden  away  and  lays  His  light  yoke  upon 


*  Cf.  A.  Peip,  "Das  Credo  der  Kirchc  nnd  die  Intel- 
ligenz  des  Zeitgeistes,"  1ST2. 


20G 

them.  Do  you  glory  in  your  upright  moral 
life  T  Have  you,  thou,  ever  turned  the  whole 
energy  of  your  moral  consciousness  inward 
in  a  strict  self-examination  T  Even  a  great 
thinker  like  Kant  once  thoughtfully  paused 
before  the  universal  and  unquestionable  fact 
of  a  "  radical  evil "  within  us.  And  no  up- 
right man  can  help  doing  the  same.  But 
the  depth  of  this  conviction  depeuds  upon 
the  standard  which  a  man  applies  to  him- 
self, upon  the  idea  which  he  has  formed  of 
his  aim  and  destiny.  Are  you  not,  per- 
chance, in  the  habit  of  comparing  yourselves 
with  other  men,  who  are  at  best  but  imper- 
fect f  In  so  doing,  yon  degrade  your  own 
dignity  as  one  created  in  the  image  of  God ! 
Your  destiny  is  the  highest  imaginable — 
higher  than  ever  philosopher  or'  poet  placed 
it.  "  Be  ye  holy,  for  I  also  am  holy."  "  Be 
ye  perfect,  even  as  your  Father  in  heaven 
is  perfect."  Does  not  a  presentiment  of  this 
immeasurable  destiny  live  in  your  soul  too  ? 
and  have  you  not  the  irrepressible  feeling, 
that  to  be  truly  free,  happy,  acceptable  to 
God,  aud  like  him,  you  must  be  free  from  all 
sin  T 

Now  we  have  seen  that  the  strictest  mor- 
alists, such  as  Kant,  confess  that  no  natural 
power  can  suffice  for  this ;  that  even  with 
the  greatest  moral  energy  in  wrestling  with 
evil  your  morality  remains  full  of  defects, 
and  therefore  your  own  exertions  can  not 
satisfy  the  wants  of  your  heart.  And,  on 
the  other  hand,  in  the  person  of  Christ  you 
see  a  moral  grandeur,  in  Avhich  healthy  eyes, 
at  least,  have  been  able  to  discover  no  blem- 
ish ;  an  ideal  of  perfection  respecting  which 
even  rationalistic  critics  have  confessed  that 
all  human  standards  vanish  before  it.  What, 
in  view  of  this,  is  more  reasonable  than  to 
conclude  that  you,  poor,  fettered,  but  strug- 
gling spirit  —  unable  to  free  yourself,  yet 
destined  to  the  highest  Good — must,  to  at- 
tain your  destiny,  enter  into  a  personal  aud 
living  communion  with  the  only  perfect  One 
who  has  appeared  in  the  history  of  our  race 
— with  Jesus  Christ,  the  Son  of  God  and 
Man,  the  Sin-destroyer  and  Redeemer  of  the 
world  ?  And  this  is  the  sum  and  substance 
of  our  Christian  faith  and  Christian  life! 
We  believe  that  the  free  grace  aud  mercy  of 
God  has  come  to  the  help  of  poor  man,  vain- 
ly struggling  to  free  himself  from  sin  and 
evil ;  and  this  great  and  all-sufficient  Divine 
Help  is  Christ  Jesus. 

If  you  still  wish  to  be  your  own  saviour, 
beware  lest  you  fall  into  a  delusion  as  to 
the  fatal  power  of  the  evil  which  is  in  you 
and  its  conquest.  Such  delusions  may  flat- 
ter our  human  pride,  but  are  belied  by  the 
actual  experience  of  all  straightforward  men. 
But  the  hand  of  the  Divine  Redeemer  has 
long  been  knocking  at  the  door  of  your  heart, 
in  answer  to  all  its  anxious  questionings  and 
complaints,  and  if  you  now  grasp  this  hand 
aud  intrust  yourself  to  the  guidance  of  the 


CHRISTIANITY  AND  ITS  ANTAGONISMS. 


highest  and  purest  Light  that  ever  shone  in 
this  world,  to  the  God  of  holiness  and  his 
saving  grace  in  Christ,  then  this  act  of  faith 
will  bo  your  greatest  moral  achievement :  it 
will  be  in  you  a  root  of  all  the  goodness  and 
greatness  attainable  by  man ;  you  will  re- 
ceive with  this  act  the  Christian  assurance 
of  the  Divine  truth  aud  immutability  of 
your  faith,  because  it  substantially  approves 
itself  to  your  conscience  in  the  "demonstra- 
tion of  the  Spirit  and  of  power." 

These,  in  short,  are  the  chief  features  of 
the  "isagogic"  method  of  treating  unbelief 
in  individuals.  I  consider  it  to  be  the  best 
and  most  effective,  because  the  most  trench- 
ant and  impressive.  Of  course,  however,  it 
must  be  varied  according  to  the  measure  of 
education  which  the  individual  has  enjoyed, 
and  especially  according  to  his  moral  condi- 
tion. The  surest  way  to  awaken  a  response 
in  the  other's  breast  is  the  personal  testimo- 
ny of  grace  received,  which  can  throw  itself 
and  its  spiritual  experience  into  the  scale, 
and  stand  surety  for  the  truth  of  Christ's 
salvation.  Another  very  important  point, 
especially  with  scientifically  directed  minds, 
is  to  show  them  that,  with  their  transpo- 
sition of  the  relation  between  faith  and 
knowledge,  they  will  never  escape  riddles, 
and  must,  nolens  wlens,  accept  many  things 
which  are  utterly  without  proof,  or  even 
absolutely  inexplicable.  Ay,  we  may  go  so 
far  as  to  say  that,  without  the  facts  of  Bib- 
lical revelation,  the  enigmas  of  our  exist- 
ence, the  world,  the  Church,  and  history,  are 
increased  tenfold.  This  indicates  to  us  the 
weak  point  of 

II.  THE  SCIENTIFIC  SYSTEMS  OF  UNBELIEF. 

These,  nowadays,  conduct  themselves  more 
than  ever  as  if  they  represented  science  par 
excellence.  They  will  hear  of  none  but  sci- 
entific arguments,  and  so  against  them  none 
but  a  strictly  scientific  procedure  cau  avail. 
From  the  very  beginning  the  Church  did 
not  shrink  from  this  struggle,  and  by  means 
of  it  she  constantly  attained  a  clearer  con- 
sciousness of  the  substantial  elements  of 
her  own  belief.  Apology  was  the  mother 
of  dogmatical  science.  However  great  the 
harm  may  be  which  is  done  to  whole  gen- 
erations by  the  systems  of  unbelief,  yet  it 
should  be  borne  in  mind  that  every  earnest 
and  honorable  contest  with  scientific  oppo- 
nents has,  in  the  end,  always  enriched  the 
Church's  store  of  truth,  brought  to  light 
new  weapons  from  her  inexhaustible  arse- 
nal, and  demonstrated  anew  the  steadfast- 
ness of  the  foundations  of  our  faith.  "For- 
ward!" then,  must  be  our  motto,  as  against 
modern  unbelieving  science  too.  The  hot- 
ter the  battle,  the  more  gainful  its  issue ! 

In  answer  to  the  question  as  to  the  best 
scientific  methods  of  defense,  I  pass  by  all 
matters  of  detail  (which  will  be  separately 
treated  of  in  our  conferences),  and  will  now 


CHRISTLIEB:  COUNTERACTING  MODERN  INFIDELITY. 


207 


endeavor  to  delineate  the  fundamental  po- 
sitions which  we  must  take  up,  in  order 
successfully  to  defend  our  faith,  and  at  the 
same  time  to  expose  clearly  the  scientific  and 
practical  weakness  of  the  opposing  systems. 

The  first  question  is :  How  far  does  the 
ground  extend  which  must  under  all  cir- 
cumstances be  defended?  Which  are  the 
absolutely  indispensable  articles  of  our  Prot- 
estant Christian  faith  ?  This  brings  us  to  a 
point  that  is  most  important  for  our  subject, 
and  which  it  should  be  the  chief  business  of 
our  dogmatic  theology  to  settle  :  I  mean,  the 
clear  definition  and  limitation  of  the  essen- 
tial and  fundamental  articles  of  our  faith,  in 
contradistinction  to  those  which  are  less  im- 
portant and  may  be  left  to  the  free  judg- 
ment of  each  individual  Christian.  In  order 
to  carry  out  its  task,  our  science  of  defense 
must  learn  to  treat  minor  points  as  such. 
He  who  defends  too  much,  and  represents 
doubtful  things  as  absolutely  necessary  to 
be  believed,  will  no  more  succeed  than  he 
who  defends  too  little,  i.  e.,  mere  rational 
truths,  instead  of  the  heart  of  Christian  be- 
lief. What  is,  then,  the  chief  object  of  our 
defense  as  distinguished  from  others  ?  Let 
me  explain  myself  by  means  of  an  illustra- 
tion. 

In  every  considerable  fortress  there  is  a 
central  bulwark  or  citadel,  writh  various 
bastions,  trenches,  etc.,  the  close  connection 
of  which  forms  the  strength  of  this  centre. 
Further  out  there  is  the  enceinte,  inclosing 
town  and  fortress  with  its  moat;  but  the 
largest  circle  of  all  is  formed  by  the  outside 
forts,  which  hinder  the  enemy  from  approach- 
ing too  near  the  walls.  Our  Christian  faith 
is  a  fortress,  strong  as  a  rock,  with  just  such 
defenses.  The  central  position,  or  citadel, 
is — as  all  believing  theologians  have  long 
agreed — the  redemption  and  atonement  ac- 
complished by  Jesus  Christ.  Union  of  man 
with  God  through  this  Mediator  is  the  end 
and  aim  of  all  Revelation.  This  central 
dogma  of  the  atonement  requires  certain 
presuppositions  and  certain  consequences — 
in  respect  both  of  God  and  man — which  are 
absolutely  indispensable  if  it  is  to  stand  firm. 

The  presuppositions  are  these :  our  natu- 
rally lost  condition  by  reason  of  sin,  not- 
withstanding the  image  of  God  originally 
implanted  in  man ;  and  the  saving  will  of 
God,  caused  by  his  merciful  love,  which  car- 
ried out  the  atonement  by  means  of  the  God- 
man,  Jesus  Christ,  the  Crucified  and  Risen, 
and  thus  crowned  his  revelation  to  the  world 
by  manifesting  himself  as  Father,  Son,  and 
Holy  Ghost.  The  consequences  are :  the  ap- 
propriation of  this  work  by  the  individual, 
objectively,  through  the  divinely  appointed 
means  furnished  by  the  work  of  the  Holy 
Spirit  in  the  Church,  L  e.,  the  Word  and  the 
visible  signs  and  seals  of  grace ;  subjective- 
ly, through  repentance  and  justifying  faith ; 
and,  finally,  the  perfection  of  our  salvation 


in  the  resurrection,  last  judgment,  and  eter- 
nal life,  when  the  new  creation  of  grace,  or 
the  ravages  of  sin  in  the  heart,  shall  be 
made  outwardly  manifest. 

These  are,  as  it  were,  the  bastions  of  the 
centre  in  back  and  front,  the  properly  so- 
called  fundamental  truths,  a  strong  chain, 
in  which  no  link  can  be  dispensed  with,  and 
hence  the  chief  object  to  be  defended.  The 
enceinte  with  its  moat  is  the  doctrine  of  Holy 
Scripture,  as  the  record  of  Divine  Revela- 
tion, inexplicable  if  assumed  to  be  the  prod- 
uct of  merely  human  authors,  and  hence 
both  human  and  Divine,  surrounding  with 
the  benignant  influence  of  its  living  waters 
the  citadel  and  town  of  our  faith — i.  e.,  our 
Protestant  Church — and  making  it  a  united 
fortress. 

The  remaiuiug  points,  such  as  the  various 
confessional  details — e.  g.,  as  to  the  relation 
between  the  two  natures  in  Christ,  the  ac- 
tion of  the  sacraments,  the  relation  of  Divine 
grace  to  human  freedom,  and  a  hundred  other 
things — may  be  left  for  decision  to  a  truly 
Christian  exegesis,  historical  investigation, 
and  philosophical  speculation,  as  long  as 
the  central  truth  of  the  God-man  and  his 
work,  or  the  soli  Deo  gloria,  is  left  untouch- 
ed. These  form,  as  it  were,  the  outer  forts, 
which  should  not,  indeed, 'be  given  up  pre-  '-^ 
maturely,  but  from  which  a  wise  combatant  * 
will,  in  case  of  need,  withdraw  to  the  cen- 
tre, in  order  not  to  exhaust  his  strength, 
but  to  defend  this  more  securely.  The  for- 
tress is  not  conquered  though  one  of  the 
outposts  should  fall  into  the  enemy's  hands; 
nor,  indeed,  should  even  one  of  his  missiles 
injure  a  stone  of  the  enceinte. 

Do  not  misunderstand  me.  I  do  not  say 
that  it  may  not  be  in  a  man's  power,  nor  his 
duty,  to  defend  many  outworks.  I  do  so 
myself;  and  merely  insist  on  this,  that  a 
successful  defense  must  remain  conscious  of 
the  difference  between  what  belongs  to  the 
circumference  and  to  the  centre,  and  may 
not  make  a  non-essential  article  of  faith  a 
condition  of  salvation.  The  true  method  is 
that  which  will  not  allow  a  grain  of  saving 
truth  to  escape  its  grasp,  Avhich  gives  to 
faith  what  belongs  to  it,  but  also  does  not 
withhold  from  freedom  its  due. 

We  now  proceed  to  consider  the  chief 
groups  of  "our  innumerable  adversaries,  and 
to  ask  after  the  best  and  most  effectual  line 
of  scientific  defense  as  against  each  one  of 
them.  We  immediately  see  that  our  citadel, 
the  Christian  idea  of  God  and  of  the  redemp- 
tion, is  undermined  and  attacked  chiefly  by 
philosophy,  the  enceinte  by  historical  criti- 
cism, and  the  outworks — but,  in  fact,  the 
whole  as  well — by  our  modern  natural  sci- 
ence. 

The  chief  maxim  for  our  scientific  defense 
to  be  drawn  from  the  above  is — without  in 
the  least  timidly  avoiding  matters  of  detail 
— at  once  to  reduce  all  isolated  controversies 


208 


CHRISTIANITY  AND  ITS  ANTAGONISMS. 


to  a  difference  in  first  principles,  and  to  com- 
pare the  views  of  the  opponents,  in  all  their 
consequences,  with  those  of  a  Biblical  Chris- 
tianity. This  will  invariably  result  in  an 
idea  of  God,  and  a  conception  of  evil  differ- 
ing from  that  of  the  Bible.  A  distorted  con- 
ception of  God  lies  at  the  root,  not  only  of 
the  pantheistic  and  naturalistic  systems,  but 
also  of  the  attacks  on  the  truth  of  the  Gos- 
pel  history,  the  Godhead  of  Christ,  and  the 
Divine  origin  of  Christianity.  And  an  un- 
biblical  conception  of  sin  and  its  conse- 
quences it  is  which  forms  the  fundamental 
assumption  of  the  attacks  on  the  Christian 
doctrine  of  redemption  and  atonement,  as 
well  as  on  the  Biblical  anthropology. 

These  turning-points  must  decide  the  fate 
of  the  battle,  aud  here  we  should  take  our 
stand.  And  first  we  should  use  the  broad 
shield  of  the  united  and  entire  Christian 
view  of  the  world ;  then  with  the  sword  at- 
tack the  opponent's  position,  and  fearlessly 
expose  his  weak  aud  vulnerable  points. 

Thus  we  take  our  stand  against — 

1.  Unchristian  philosophy,  by  demonstra- 
ting the  inner  logical  consequence  and  uni- 
ty, the  harmony  and  symmetrical  beauty  of 
the  Christian  doctrinal  system;  the  wisely 
planned  and  holy  progress  of  the  Divine 
Revelation,  from  "the  first  creation  to  the 
restoration  of  all  things.  How  sublime  and 
yet  how  simply  comprehensible,  how  suited 
to  the  deepest  needs  of  our  hearts,  are  the 
teachings  of  the  Bible  as  to  the  Divine  na- 
ture, as  compared  with  the  abstract,  arti- 
ficially twisted,  incomprehensible,  modern 
philosophical  conceptions  of  God,  which 
leave  the  heart  entirely  cold !  At  the  same 
time,  it  should  be  shown — and  this  I  would 
urgently  recommend  to  the  notice  of  apol- 
ogists— how  the  isolated  elements  of  truth 
contained  in  the  non- Biblical  conceptions 
of  God  converge  in  the  Biblical  doctrine,  as 
in  a  focus,  and  how  in  the  latter  alone  God 
appears  as  the  All-perfect,  in  whom  the  idea 
of  the  Absolute  is  realized,  while  in  the  for- 
mer there  is  always  an  important  element 
wanting,  either  spirituality  (as  in  Material- 
ism), or  self-consciousness  (as  in  Pantheism), 
or  the  living,  omnipresent  activity  (as  in 
Deism) :  all  of  them  elements  indispensable 
to  the  complete  conception  of  the  Absolute.* 

In  all  this  our  position  will  be  a  safer  one, 
if  we  lean  more  upon  the  fundamental  ideas 
contained  in  Scripture  than  upon  terms  from 
the  dogmatic  schools.  This  is  especially 
true  with  reference  to  the  point  which  phi- 
losophers delight  to  attack— the  Christian 
doctrine  of  the  Trinity.  Let  us  at  once  con- 
fess that  the  expression  three  persons  (which 
is  not  Biblical)  may  cause  misunderstand- 
ings, since  it  is  so  easily  confounded  with 


*  Ct  the  details  of  this  argument  in  the  author's 
work,  "Moderne  Zweifcl  am  Christ  lichen  Glauben" 
(2d  edition,  Bonu,  1870),  pp.  227-248  (soon  to  be  pub- 
lished in  English  by  Messrs.  Clark,  of  Edinburgh) 


three  individuals ;  as  St.  Augustine  himself 
has  remarked,  "  tres  personaj,  si  ita  dicendte 
sunt ;"  and,  moreover,  that  the  expression 
Trinity  is  but  an  attempt  at  a,  short  des- 
ignation of  a  mystery,  for  the  clear  concep- 
tion and  designation  of  which  in  this  life 
neither  intellect  nor  language  will  ever  be 
adequate.  On  the  other  hand,  however,  let 
us  show  how  in  the  triune  personality  of 
God  is  contained  both  his  true  infinity  and 
the  possibility  of  his  self-  impartment  in 
Revelation :  the  true  bridge  between  God 
and  the  world.  For  in  this  doctrine  the 
unbending  conception  of  abstract  Monothe- 
ism has  obtained  vitality  through  the  idea 
of  a  Divine  Will  of  love.  Hence  this  doc- 
trine furnishes  a  preventive  against  the  dei- 
fication of  nature,  and  is  the  only  perfect 
bulwark  of  vital  Theism  in  the  idea  of  God 
as  the  highest  plenitude  of  life  and  love, 
aud  it  is  only  philosophical  short-sighted- 
ness which  can  refuse  this  key  to  the  great 
world -enigma,  a  key  often  -well  used  by 
many  a  great  philosopher.  Only  when  this 
gulf  between  the  Creator  and  the  created  is 
bridged  over  will  the  breach  between  man 
and  man  be  closed.  Here  only  have  we  a 
firm  ground  for  the  realization  of  the  idea 
of  humanity,  the  brotherly  unity  and  equal- 
ity of  all  men  as  regards  origin  and  destiny. 
This  shows  the  immeasurable  importance  of 
the  Christian  doctrine  of  the  Trinity  for  the 
world's  culture,*  a  doctrine  which  is  also 
remarkably  attested  by  the  history  of  hea- 
then religions. 

No  less  firmly  and  deeply  founded  should 
our  position  in  these  days  be  with  regard 
to  the  defense  of  miracles.  The  negation 
of  the  miraculous  proceeds  partly  from  a 
false  idea  of  God,  partly  from  an  incorrect, 
mechanical  conception  of  the  world ;  and, 
we  may  add,  for  the  most  part  from  the  ar- 
bitrary assumption  that,  because  no  miracles 
happen  nowadays,  none  have  ever  happened. 
If  God  be,  as  we  Christians  believe,  a  free, 
personal,  extra-mundane  Will,  whose  influ- 
ence, nevertheless,  is  omnipresent  through- 
out the  whole  creation,  then  the  approach 
to  every  point  of  this  creation  must  be  al- 
ways open  to  him,  and  this  necessitates  the 
possibility  of  miracles.  Doubtless  the  cre- 
ated world  is  relatively  independent;  but 
can  the  laws  of  nature — which  only  act  by 
God's  good  pleasure — form  a  barrier  for  him, 
•when,  in  pursuance  of  the  highest  moral 
and  religious  ends,  it  is  his  will  to  use  ex- 
traordinary means  ?  You  talk  of  a  "  breach 
of  the  laws  of  nature."  But  first  of  all  tell 
me,  what  limit  is  there  to  the  intensification 
of  natural  forces  by  the  power  of  the  Divine 
Will?  And  does  not  the  product  of  the 
miracle  immediately  subject  itself  to  the 
ordinary  course  of  nature  f  You  object  that 


*  Cf.  Hundeshagen,  "Die  Natnr  und  sescliichtliche 
Entwickelnng  der  Hutnauitatsidee." 


CHRISTLIEB :   COUNTERACTING  MODERN  INFIDELITY. 


200 


miracles  would  rend  the  "world's  economy 
asunder.  Ay,  but  the  first  great  rent  in  the 
original  order  and  harmony  was  made  not 
by  God,  but  by  the  sin  of  man.  The  abnor- 
mal development  of  our  freedom  can  not 
only  bear,  but  imperatively  demands  the  sal- 
utary interference  of  God  as  a  work  of  pity 
and  love.  Miracles,  therefore,  do  not  unnat- 
urally destroy  true  nature,  but  supernatu- 
rally  heal  distorted  nature.  Instead  of,  as 
formerly  was  customary,  using  isolated  mir- 
acles as  apologetic  arguments,  we  should  as- 
sign to  each  miracle,  according  to  its  evi- 
dent dispensational  aim,  a  place  in  the  great 
organic  plan  of  salvation,  the  living  heart 
of  which  is  Christ. 

You  object,  finally,  that  no  miracles  oc- 
cur at  the  present  day.  But  can  not  and 
must  not  the  periods  of  the  Church's  birth 
find  of  its  growth  be  governed  by  somewhat 
different  laws  ?  Cast  a  glance  into  the  his- 
tory of  modern  missions,  and  you  will  see 
how,  at  this  very  day,  in  the  course  of  found- 
ing new  churches,  things  happen  which  re- 
mind us  of  the  Apostolic  times. 

Having  thus  shielded  the  Christian  belief 
in  God  and  his  personal  relation  to  the  world 
from  infidel  assaults,  let  us  grasp  the  sword 
and  attack  the  weak  points  of  our  opponents, 
by  demonstrating  the  scientific  untenable- 
ness  of  their  principles.  What  is  Atheism 
but  an  arbitrary  denial  of  the  universal  and 
immediate  certainty  of  the  existence  of  God, 
a  certainty  necessarily  following  from  the 
conditioned  character  of  our  self-conscious- 
iiess,  which  we  feel  to  be  dependent  on  an 
absolutely  Higher  Being  ?  This  view  is 
without  any  deep  insight  into  the  nature  of 
the  factors  which  constitute  our  own  con- 
sciousness, and  it  is  condemned  by  the  fact 
of  the  universality  of  religion.  What  is  Ma- 
terialism but  an  audacious  hypothesis,  an 
unsuccessful  attempt  to  explain  the  whole 
complex  of  our  thought,  the  origin  of  our 
self-consciousness,  nay,  even  our  moral  ideas, 
as  a  product  of  sensuous  perception  and  the 
action  of  matter  ?  Does  it  not — in  doing 
away  with  the  freedom  of  the  will  and  in- 
dividual responsibility — practically  destroy 
all  the  moral  elements  of  our  life,  and  render 
the  idea  of  a  spiritual  and  moral  progress 
illusory  ?  And  Pantheism,  too — to  say  noth- 
ing of  all  its  other  foibles — does  it  not  mani- 
festly move  in  a  logical  circle  so  soon  as  it 
endeavors  to  bring  the  principle  which  it 
presupposes  (whether  it  be  the  "substance" 
of  Spinoza,  or  the  "absolute  Idea"  of  He- 
gel) into  relation  with  the  world-matter  as 
its  causa  effidens  f  God  is  supposed  over  to 
be  evolving  the  world  from  himself,  and 
yet  He  is  only  realized  in  its  development. 
Where,  in  this  case,  is  the  ratio  sufficicns  of  the 
reality  of  the  Avorld,  and  especially  of  our 
self-consciousness?  and  where  is  there  an 
absolute  final  purpose  in  this  eternal,  aim- 
less circuit  of  the  universe? 
U 


And  with  what  unnatural  limitations  of 
the  conceptions  of  God  do  we  meet  in  the 
case  of  Deism  and  Rationalism !  How  do 
they  deprive  God  of  his  true  vitality  and 
divinity,  just  as  much  as  they  do  the  world 
of  its  dependence  as  a  creature !  And  do 
not  these  systems — by  their  denial  of  a  spe- 
cial Divine  Providence — take  the  innermost 
nerve  out  of  all  moral  and  religious  action, 
and  remove  the  true  key  to  the  understand- 
ing of  the  world's  or  of  individual  history  ? 

While  acknowledging  the  isolated  ele- 
ments of  truth  contained  in  these  systems, 
we  draw  the  general  conclusion,  that  by 
their  endeavors  naturally  to  explain  the 
world's  enigmas  they  only  multiply  them ; 
and  that  they  expect  us  to  believe  things 
much  more  repugnant  to  reason  and  con- 
science than  the  Scriptures  with  all  their 
miracles ;  e.  g.,  a  self-creative  world-matter ; 
the  origin  by  self-development  of  the  first 
organisms;  the  self  -  emancipation  of  man 
from  the  condition  of  an  ape,  etc.  He  who 
doubts  and  denies  where  he  ought  to  be- 
lieve will  often  have  to  believe  implicitly 
where  critical  doubts  would  be  most  fitting; 
as,  e.g.,  Strauss,  in  his  last  and  most  radical 
work,  "The  Old  and  the  New  Belief,"  has 
found  himself  compelled  to  bow  to  the  most 
uncertain  hypotheses  of  modern  scientists. 

Finally,  we  may  embarrass  these  oppo- 
nents by  inquiring  as  to  the  positive  and 
solid  results  of  their  speculations.  We  are 
very  far  from  wishing  to  deny  the  general 
merits  of  philosophy.  But,  we  ask,  where 
are  the  tangible  results  arrived  at  by  the 
philosophy  which  is  hostile  to  Christianity, 
and  which  alone  we  are  considering  here  ? 
Has  it  solved,  finally,  any  fundamental  ques- 
tion ?  How  have  the  different  systems  dur- 
ing their  various  changes  struggled  with 
and  overthrown  one  another,  while  the  sim- 
ple Gospel  remains,  "  Jesus  Christ,  the  same 
yesterday,  to-day,  and  forever !"  Or  is  it 
possible  that  mere  philosophical  speculation 
could  be  its  own  aim,  apart  from  any  useful 
results  ?  No ;  every  science  which  is  not 
scientia  ad  praxin — i.  c.,  which  does  not  bear 
fruit  for  our  life  —  is  inwardly  unhealthy, 
and  no  longer  nourishes,  but  only  puffs  up 
the  spirit. 

And  what  is  the  present  condition  of  phi- 
losophy? Since  the  systems  of  "absolute 
Idealism  "  have  utterly  broken  down,  and 
the  reaction  against  them  has  led  men  into 
the  slough  of  materialism,  philosophy  is  at 
a  loss.  The  one  party  loudly  cries  that  we 
must  return  to  the  old  teacher,  Kant ;  oth- 
ers wearily  labor  to  arouse  some  interest  by 
means  of  historical  representations  of  past 
systems,  by  excursions  into  the  history  of 
literature,  or  into  the  natural  scientific  re- 
search of  the  day.  Others,  however — and 
these  it  is  who  most  attract  the  world's  at- 
tention— draw  from  all  that  has  gone  before 
an  awful  conclusion,  and  before  the  aston- 


210 


CHRISTIANITY  AND  ITS  ANTAGONISMS. 


ished  world  hoist  the  flag — or  rather  let  me 
nay  the  distress-signal — of  the  most  extreme 
Pessimism.  Schopenhauer  sees  in  all  exist- 
ence nothing  but  misery  and  suffering,  and 
can  find  true  happiness  only  in  self-dissolu- 
tion into  an  absolutely  empty  Nothing,  the 
Nirvana  of  tho  Buddhists.  And  Edward 
von  Hartmanu,  who,  in  his  rapidly  sold  book 
on  the  "  Philosophy  of  the  Unconscious  "  (a 
book  of  which  I  shall  certaiuly  not  deny 
that  it  has  some  real  merits),  exhibits  to  us 
the  workings  of  this  great  "  Unconscious " 
in  the  corporeal  and  spiritual  world,  de- 
clares it  to  be  a  mistake  that  a  world  should 
ever  have  sprung  into  existence  at  all,  and 
even  an  inexcusable  crime  if  it  had  been 
created  by  a  self-conscious  God.  All  hope 
of  happiness  in  this  or  in  another  stage  of 
tho  Avorld's  history  is,  according  to  Hart- 
manu, a  pure  illusion :  before  us  stands  the 
senile  age  of  mankind,  in  which,  after  all 
hope  has  died  away,  our  race  "  finally  aban- 
dons all  claim  to  positive  happiness,  and 
only  yearns  for  absolute  painlcssness ;  for 
the  Nothing,  Nirvana." 

Thus  far  have  our  most  recent  philoso- 
phers advanced.  On  the  tree  of  knowledge 
they  now  show  us,  with  strange  aptitude, 


!  gel),  and  the  philosophers  who  inarch  be- 
hind may  be  able  to  mark  and  admire  tho 
rhythmic  movement  of  the  "Idea"  through 
Thesis,  Antithesis,  and  Synthesis  ? 

Vainly  do  we  dream  of  man's  personal 
and  living  value,  and  nourish  a  living  hope ! 
And  inexorable  is  the  dilemma  which  we  see 
before  us :  either  to  receive  Him  who  says, 
"  I  am  the  Way,  the  Truth,  and  the  Life," 
or,  rejecting  Him,  to  choose  our  portion  with 
those  other  spirits,  the  most  honest  of  whom 


Truth,  and— Death!" 

For  the  scientific  defense  of  our  faith 
against — 

2.  Destructive  historical  criticism,  I  would 
recommend  the  following  measures  to  insure 
a  firm, position: 

Above  all,  do  not  let  us  place  unnecessary 
difficulties  in  our  own  way,  and  furnish  our 
adversaries  with  dangerous  weapons,  by  an 
exaggerated  theory  of  inspiration,  which  in 
its  equal  application  to  all  the  books  of  our 
present  Canon  can  be  justified  neither  by 
Scripture  nor  by  historical  evidence.  The 
very  limits  of  our  Canon  are  riot  an  ordi- 
nance of  Divine  right,  inasmuch  as  no  proph- 
et ever  declared  the  list  of  inspired  Old  Test- 


the  seductively  beautiful  and  variegated  ament  writings  closed  in  the  name  of  God  ; 
tints  of  autumn,  tokens  of  despair  and  utter  j  and  no  apostle  superintended  the  collection 
hopelessness,  which  with  silent  eloquence 


once  more  proclaim,  "  Vanity  of  vanities : 
all  is  vanity."  Are  not  such  views,  I  boldly 
ask,  the  most  striking  proof  that  it  is  only 
that  which  Divine  Revelation  gives  and 
promises  to  man  which  makes  his  life  worth 
living  ?  Here,  again,  we  clearly  see  that 
the  faith  of  tho  Christian  is,  in  the  last  re- 
sort, the  only  star- banner  of  hope  amidst 
the  gloom  of  our  existence ;  ay,  the  only 
protection  of  our  moral  dignity.  Boldly, 
my  Christian  friends,  let  ns  attack  our  op- 
ponents on  this  weak  point,  which  is  fitted 
more  than  any  other  to  discredit  unchris- 
tian philosophy  in  the  eyes  of  all  who  feel 


of  the  New  Testament  books.  But  must 
not  the  Spirit,  who  leadeth  into  all  truth, 
have  guided  those  who  had  to  decide  as  to 
the  limits  of  the  Canon,  in  order  to  insure 
the  genuine  tradition  of  saving  truth  to  the 
later  world  ?  As  a  proof  with  what  correct 
judgment  they  acted,  we  should  adduce  the 
fact  of  the  startling  difference  in  spirituali- 
ty which  exists  between  canonical  and  apoc- 
ryphal, or,  indeed,  all  non-canonical  writ- 
ings, even  those  of  the  centuries  next  after 
the  Apostolic  Age.  Herein  the  Canon  shows 
itself  to  be  a  unique  and  compact  whole. 

And  from  this  inner  spirit  of  these  writ- 
ings let  us  draw  the  chief  argument  for  tho 


their  deeper  needs.  Let  us  show  the  world  j  inspiration  and  normative  authority  of  the 
that  it  is  not  Christianity,  but  the  Anti-  j  Scriptures.  Tho  Protestant  Church  con- 
christian  philosophy  which  finally  degrades  siders  the  testimony  of  the  Holy  Ghost  to 


the  dignity  of  man  ;  that  this  dignity  in  its 


be  the  chief  criterion  of  canonicity.     First 


fullness  flourishes  only  on  the  soil  of  Divine   of  all,  then,  we   defenders   should  ,  regard 
Revelation,  that  it  is  only  possible  as  a  de-   the  Scriptures  as  a  whole,  and  proceed  to 


duction  from  the  Christian  conception  of 
God,  and  only  to  be  realized  by  the  Chris- 
tian plan  of  salvation  ;  and  hence  that  any 


show  how  they  form  a  compact  organism, 
although  the  different  authors  wrote  at  such 
long  intervals  ;  how  they  record  the  prog- 


unbelieving  subtraction  from  the  fundament-   ress  of  Revelation,  unfolding  step  by  step, 
al  Biblical  views  of  God  and  the  Divine  des-  j  in  history,  doctrine,  and  prophecy,  the  Di- 


tiny  of  man  must  lead  to  an  idea  of  man 
and  the  mundane  process  which  most  deep- 
ly degrades  us  in  our  capacity  of  spiritual 
and  moral  beings.  For  in  all  naturalistic 
and  pantheistic  systems  what  is  the  world's 
history  but  "  the  Golgotha  of  the  Absolute 
Spirit ;  the  fearfully  tragic  slaughter-house 
in  which  all  individual  life  and  happiness  is 
sacrificed  only  that  tho  development  of  the 


vine  plan  of  salvation  from  the  world's  be- 
ginning to  its  end,  and  withal,  in  a  simply 
sententious  style,  pregnant  with  meaning; 
how  they  everywhere  breathe,  in  a  greater 
or  less  measure,  the  spirit  of  sacred  earnest- 
ness, and  all  tend  to  one  great  purpose — the 
honor  of  God  and  the  welfare  of  mankind. 
What  a  fullness  of  light  and  life  is  contain- 
ed in  them,  like  a  spring  flowing  throughout 


universe  may  go  forward  undisturbed  "  (He- '  all  ages.     What  wondrous  all-sufficiency  for 


CHRISTLIEB :   COUNTERACTING  MODERN  INFIDELITY. 


211 


every  need,  every  age,  and  every  stage  of 
knowledge;  how  infinitely  above  all  mere 
human  products !  At  the  same  time,  atten- 
tion should  be  drawn  to  the  regenerating 
influences  of  the  Bible  in  the  case  of  indi- 
viduals, as  of  entire  nations,  to  the  self- 
manifestation  of  its  Divine  truths  in  the 
heart  and  conscience  of  the  reader  or  hear- 
er. How  can  all  this  be  explained  without 
the  fact  of  inspiration  ? 

This  criterion  of  the  inward  testimony 
of  the  Spirit  must  be  kept  free  from  all  sub- 
jective arbitrariness  by  its  objective  cor- 
roboration,  according  to  the  "analogy  of 
faith,"  with  respect  to  the  several  books; 
and  by  a  historical  criticism  (in  addition 
to  this  inner  one)  as  to  their  actual  origin. 
The  testimony  of  the  Holy  Ghost  and  the 
Church,  the  attributes  of  freedom  from  er- 
ror, sufficiency,  and  perfection,  pertain  pri- 
marily to  the  Canon  as  a  whole. 

This  objective  criterion  of  the  analogy  of 
our  faith  was  clearly  enunciated  by  Luther, 
who  says :  "  The  right  touch-stone  whereby 
a  Christian  man  may  try  all  books  (of  Scrip- 
ture) is,  that  he  inquire  whether  they  treat 
of  Christ  or  not,  forasmuch  as  all  Scripture 
telleth  of  him."  We  must  look  at  and  de- 
fend Scripture  from  its  central  point,  Christ, 
by  applying  the  above-mentioned  central 
truths,  in  which  all  Scripture  coincides,  as 
a  criterion  in  judging  of  the  value  and  au- 
thority of  the  various  books  and  portions. 
To  this  kernel  of  the  Scriptures,  and  this 
only,  does  the  Holy  Spirit  bear  witness  in 
the  hearts  of  believers,  and  grants  in  respect 
of  it  an  immediate  and  immovable  certainty. 

In  matters  of  detail  we  should  not  forget 
that  the  Divine  Revelation  in  Scripture  is 
vouchsafed  to  us  in  a  form  not  purely  di- 
vine, bnt  at  the  same  time  human  ;  and  that 
even  St.  Paul  distinguishes  what  he  has  re- 
ceived from  the  Lord  from  that  which  is 
merely  his  own  opinion  as  well-meant  coun- 
sel coming  from  one  who  has  the  Spirit  of 
the  Lord  (1  Cor.  xi.,23 ;  vii.,25, 40),  and  that 
there  is  certainly  an  important  difference 
between  a  portion  of  Scripture,  the  author 
of  which  distinctly  describes  his  utterances 
to  a  direct  Divine  Revelation  or  command, 
and  one  which  is  entirely  silent  on  this 
point.  Do  not  let  us  forget  that  no  theo- 
ry of  inspiration — however  convenient  this 
might  seem  to  many — can  dispense  us  from 
the  duty  of  a  reverent  criticism  of  Scripture, 
a  criticism  which  must  extend  not  only  to 
texts  and  translations,  bnt  also  to  a  search- 
ing comparison  of  the  different  types  of  doc- 
trine (e.  jr.,  Pauline,  Johanuean,  etc.),  and  of 
the  various  ethnographical,  historical,  and 
other  data,  with  one  another  and  with  pro- 
fane history.  And  if  this  criticism  should 
here  and  there  discover  later  additions,  in- 
terpolations, chronological  discrepancies,  and 
the  like,  to  such  we  may  well  apply  the  words 
of  Luther :  "  If  there  be  found  a  strife  in 


Scripture,  and  the  same  can  not  be  settled, 
let  it  alone,  it  is  of  little  moment,  so  as  it 
runneth  not  counter  to  the  articles  of  our 
faith."  We  must  not  be  too  timid  in  such 
matters.  If  we  indeed  believe  Christianity 
to  be  the  revelation  of  the  absolute  truth, 
then  an  isolated  truth  may  occur  when  and 
how  it  pleases ;  it  can  not  be  dangerous,  but, 
in  the  end,  only  helpful  to  the  Christian 
faith.  What  can  not  be  denied  need  not  be 
feared ! 

But  if  criticism  seeks  to  east  suspicion 
on  the  whole  for  the  sake  of  a  few  isolated 
discrepancies,  or  if  it  arbitrarily  attempts 
to  measure  the  substance  of  Revelation  by 
mere  human  standards,  then  it  becomes  de- 
structive, and  then  we  must  draw  a  hard 
and  sharp  line  against  its  false  pretensions. 

Above  all  things,  we  demand  that  sancta 
sancte  tractentur,  with  the  becoming  rever- 
ence, with  an  upright  and  humble  desire  for 
truth.  He  who  will  not  let  himself  be  ap- 
prehended by  the  spirit  of  Scripture,  will 
never  comprehend  its  contents.  Spiritual 
things  must  be  spiritually  judged.  Scrip- 
ture, therefore,  must  be  meted  with  its  own 
measure.  To  apply  the  standards  of  merely 
natural  and  human  events  to  the  self-reveal- 
ing actions  of  God  is  to  begin  by  doing  vio- 
lence to  Scripture.  This  is  the  fundamental 
error  of  all  false  rationalistic  criticism. 

Our  first  step  in  opposing  this  practice  is, 
to  expose  the  false  principle  on  which  it  rests. 
Since  the  days  of  the  TUbingen  School,  this 
criticism  has  arrogated  to  itself  the  title  of 
historical,  though  it  is  often  only  philosoph- 
ical. It  claims  to  examine  with  historical 
impartiality,  and  is  often  from  the  first  bi- 
ased by  arbitrary  philosophical  assumptions. 
These  men  approach  the  records  of  Chris- 
tianity, imbued  with  a  pantheistic  or  ration- 
alistic aversion  to  the  miraculous,  with  the 
intention  of  rendering  the  supernatural  facts 
recorded  therein  as  merely  human  as  possi- 
ble, by  means  of  connecting  them  with  and 
deriving  their  origin  from  contemporary  his- 
torical phenomena — and  of  acknowledging 
as  historically  certain  only  what  is  perfect- 
ly transparent  and  intelligible  to  them,  be- 
cause it  does  not  exceed  man's  capacity ;  just 
as  if  God  the  Lord  could  not  make  history 
with  his  deeds,  Avhich  far  transcend  our 
comprehension — he  who  is  Cause  and  Aim 
of  all  history !  This,  in  good  sooth,  is  not 
impartial  historical  investigation,  but  rather 
the  result  of  looking  through  highly  distort- 
ed philosophical  spectacles ! 

This  criticism  can  not,  however,  compass 
its  ends  without  innumerable  coups  de  force 
and  unbounded  arbitrariness.  And  this  is 
the  second  quarter  to  which  our  scientific 
defense  has  to  direct  its  attacks.  To  say 
nothing  of  the  way  in  which  the  rationalists 
and  Baur  have  distorted  the  specific  nature 
of  Christianity,  we  would  merely  point  out 
how  the  efforts  of  the  latter  and  his  disci- 


•Jlv! 


CHRISTIANITY  AND  ITS  ANTAGONISMS. 


pies  have  been  directed  toward  transferring 
the  origin  of  Christianity  as  the  universal 
religion  from  Christ  and  the  first  Apostles 
to  the  authorship  of  St.  Paul,  just  as  if  he 
himself  had  not  openly  declared  that  he  did 
not  preach  himself,  but  Christ  Jesus  (2  Cor. 
iv.,  5),  and  that  no  man  can  lay  another 
foundation  than  that  which  is  laid  (1  Cor. 
Hi.,  11),  as  if  one  who  declares  even  an  an- 
gel to  be  accursed  if  he  preach  another  Gos- 
pel than  that  of  Christ  (Gal.  i.,  8)  would  not 
indignantly  have  declined  the  fame  of  in- 
venting a  new  Christianity ! 

In  order  to  deprive  the  Founder  of  Chris- 
tianity of  his  specific  dignity  as  the  Son  of 
God,  this  false  criticism  has,  as  we  all  know, 
endeavored  to  turn  his  miracles  into  natural 
events  or  myths,  and  to  give  his  testimonies 
and  teachings  respecting  himself  the  im- 
press of  fabrications  and  opinions  of  a  later 
age ;  and  especially  to  cast  a  slur  upon  his 
absolute  sinlessness.  As  if  it  were  not  im- 
possible— witness  even  the  confession  of  a 
Rousseau — to  invent  such  a  picture  of  Christ 
as  that  which  the  gospels  give  us !  As  if — 
even  supposing  all  four  gospels  to  be  spuri- 
ous— the  four  uuimpeached  epistles  of  St. 
Paul  were  not  enough  to  prove  clearly  the 
God-manhood  and  the  perfectly  holy  media- 
tory character  of  the  Crucified  and  Risen 
One!  And  as  if  even  the  most  arbitrary 
criticism  of  the  gospels  had  not  left  as  gen- 
uine some  self-testimonies  of  Christ,  in  which 
he  lays  claim  to  attributes  which  positive- 
ly exceed  any  mere  human  standard,  e.g.,  in 
the  passages  which  relate  to  his  second  com- 
ing as  the  Judge  of  the  world !  Here  we  see 
criticism  reach  the  crowning  point  of  arbi- 
trariness, and  talk  of"  fanaticism"  and  "  un- 
justifiable self-glorification  "  (Strauss).  Be 
it  so ;  but  let  these  critics  bear  the  crushing 
burden  of  bringing  evidence  which  may  give 
us  the  faintest  glimmering  of  an  understand- 
ing how  such  serious  moral  and  intellectual 
defects  could  co-exist  in  the  same  individu- 
al with  the  otherwise  perfect  sobriety,  clear- 
ness, and  quietness  of  His  words  and  actions, 
and  with  the  lofty  moral  dignity  of  His 
whole  nature.  Is  it  not  wholly  absurd,  we 
ask,  to  suppose  that  the  religion  of  humility 
and  love  could  have  taken  its  origin  from  a 
fanatic  so  eaten  up  by  pride  ?  $ut  if  Christ 
uttered  these  testimonies  of  himself,  like  all 
his  other  words,  with  deliberation  and  truth, 
then  he  must  be  the  One  for  whom  the  Church 
has  ever  taken  him— the  only-begotten  Son 
of  the  living  God. 

Time  would  fail  us  to  detail  all  the  futile 
blows  which  this  criticism  has  dealt  against 
the  New  Testament  history,  the  most  fla- 
grant of  which  were  the  efforts  (finally  giv- 
en up  by  Baur  himself)  to  explain  natural- 
ly the  conversion  of  St.  Paul,  even  at  the 
cost  of  making  him  an  utterly  inexplicable 
psychological  monstrosity,  or  even  an  epi- 
leptic!  I  would  only  remind  you  what  a 


firm  barrier  we  have  against  all  such  attacks 
in  passages  like  2  Cor.  xii.,  12,  where  St.  Paul, 
in  an  epistle  confessedly  genuine,  appeals  to 
his  signs  and  wonders  and  mighty  deeds  be- 
fore those  under  whose  eyes  they  had  taken 
place.  And,  I  ask,  would  not  a  writer  who 
asserts  such  things  of  himself  be  utterly  de- 
mented if  he  were  not  perfectly  certain  that 
they  were  true  ? 

All  these  attacks  based  on  an  aversion  to 
the  miraculous,  and  especially  the  denial  of 
the  Resurrection,  may  be  consigned  to  a  well- 
merited  grave  by  the  one  unanswerable  ar- 
gument :  You  can  never  explain  the  enigma 
of  primitive  Christian  belief,  its  world-con- 
quering power,  and  its  world-regenerating 
effects,  nor  the  existence  of  the  Christian 
Church  itself,  if  Christ  was  not  and  did  not 
do  what  the  gospels  tell  of  him.  By  trying 
to  explain  primitive  Christian  history  as  a 
chain  of  merely  natural  occurrences,  you 
turn  it  upside  down,  and  make  it  an  insolu- 
ble enigma.  By  your  denial  of  the  super- 
human element  in  Christ,  and  especially  of 
his  resurrection,  you  are  compelled  to  seek 
the  mainspring  of  so  immense  a  movement 
as  that  of  Christianity  in  persons,  circum- 
stances, and  relations  which  can  not  bear 
the  weight  of  such  a  superstructure ;  and  in 
the  end  you  ask  us  to  believe  that  the  king- 
dom of  Truth  took  its  origin  from  misunder- 
standing, error,  self-deception,  and  dishon- 
esty !  The  logical  law  of  the  sufficing  cause 
makes  all  your  efforts  vain. 

At  this  point  we  may  call  attention  to  the 
inwardly  inevitable  process,  in  which  this 
criticism  often  overleaps  itself,  and  not  sel- 
dom becomes  utterly  absurd.  Thus,  no 
sooner  had  Strauss  endeavored  to  derive  the 
chief  motive  of  the  myths  ascribed  by  him 
to  the  primitive  disciples  and  churches,  from 
the  idea  then  current  among  the  Jews  as  to 
the  Messiah,  than  Bruno  Bauer  treads  on  his 
heels,  declaring  that  the  idea  of  the  Messiah, 
as  far  as  regards  its  existence  before  the  rise 
of  Christianity,  is  also  a  myth !  Again,  af- 
ter many  critics  have  for  years  doubted  the 
truth  of  the  reports  of  the  Resurrection, 
there  comes  Noack,  and  informs  us  that 
Christ  was  crucified,  not  iu  Jerusalem,  but 
on  Mount  Gerizim ! 

Hence  negative  criticism  has  been  con- 
siderably beaten  back  upon  several  points. 
Just  compare  the  present  state  of  results  iu 
the  criticism  of  the  gospels  with  that  of  a 
few  decades  since.  The  Synoptics,  which 
had  then  been  pushed  onward  into  the  sec- 
ond century,  have  already  step  by  step  been 
brought  back  into  the  first.  Even  in  the 
question  as  to  the  time  when  the  Gospel  of 
St.  John  was  written,  the  Critical  School  has 
receded  from  the  year  160  (Baur)  to  the  be- 
ginning of  the  second  century  (Keim  100- 
117),  i.  e.,  a  time  when  St.  John  may  still  have 
been  alive.  And  if  Keim  in  a  recent  work 
declares  that  the  prevailing  theology  of  the 


CHEISTLIEB :  COUNTERACTING  MODERN  INFIDELITY. 


213 


day  can  not,  without  sacrificing  the  truth, 
ascribe  to  this  gospel  a  direct  historical 
value,  he  thereby  shows  that  he  himself 
does  not  object  to  sacrifice  the  truth,  which 
is  that  at  the  present  day  more  than  ever 
the  ascription  of  its  authorship  to  St.  John 
is  being  defended  not  only  by  such  critics 
as  Ewald,  Diisterdieck,  Meyer,  Riggeubach, 
Van  Oosterzee,  Godet,  but  even  by  Weiziick- 
er,  Ritschl,  and  others.* 

That  favorite  instance  of  our  opponents, 
the  inner  relation  of  the  Synoptics  to  the 
fourth  Gospel,  has  far  less  weight,  since  the 
fact  has  been  generally  recognized  that  a 
superhuman  view  of  Christ's  person  can  not 
possibly  be  ignored  as  contained  in  the  first 
three  Gospels.  To  say  nothing  of  the  ac- 
count of  our  Lord's  childhood  (the  authen- 
ticity of  which  has  lately  been  convincingly 
proved  by  Steinmeyert),  we  have  passages 
such  as  Matt,  xi., 27  ("All  things  are  deliv- 
ered unto  me  of  my  Father :  no  man  know- 
cth  the  Son  but  the  Father,"  etc.) ;  cf.  Luke 
x.,  22,  respecting  which  even  a  critic  like 
Reuss  confesses  that  "the  whole  of  St.  John's 
Gospel  is,  as  it  were,  but  a  circumscription 
of  these  utterances."  And  the  works  of  our 
clay  on  New  Testameut  doctrinal  teaching 
show  that  all  the  germs  of  the  Pauline  and 
Johannean  doctrines  are  contained  in  the 
words  of  our  Lord.t 

Another  help  against  the  arbitrariness  of 
criticism,  and  the  scientific  light-mindedness 
with  which  it  often  seizes  on  mere  isolated 
notices  from  profane  history  as  proof  posi- 
tive against  the  Scriptural  accounts,  is  often 
afforded  by  the  most  recent  archaeological 
research.  I  would  remind  you,  e.  g.,  of  the 
proofs  for  the  truth  of  many  facts  recorded 
respecting  Egyptian  history  in  Genesis  and 
Exodus,  which  have  lately  been  furnished 
by  Ebers,§  in  the  interests  not  of  Christian 
faith,  but  of  science,  and  the  deciphering  of 
old  Chaldaic  inscriptions  respecting  the  flood 
by  Mr.  G.  Smith,  of  London.  But  especially 
I  would  refer  you  to  E.  Schrader's  late  work,|| 
in  which  a  number  of  the  notices  scattered 
throughoiit  the  Old  Testament,  respecting 
the  history  of  the  Assyro-Babylonian  empire 
and  the  Assyrian  monuments  (from  the  tower 
in  the  plain  of  Shinar  down  to  the  fall  of 
Babylon),  are  remarkably  confirmed,  even  in 
their  details ;  so  much  so  that  Egyptologists 
have  been  corrected  by  Assyrologists  in  re- 
spect of  their  chronology  where  it  differs 
from  that  of  Scripture.  Have  we,  then,  not 
a  right  to  say  with  Gellius :  "  Obscuritatcs 


*  And  most  lately  of  all  against  Keim  and  Scholtcn, 
by  Lenschner,  in  his  work,  "  Das  Evangelium  St.  Jo- 
hannis,  mid  seine  neuesten  Widersacher."  1S73. 

t  "  Die  Geschichte  der  Geburt  des  Herrn,  uiid  seiner 
ersten  Schritte  im  Leben."  1S73. 

t  Cf.  Bernhard  Weiss,  "Lehrbnch  der  biblischen 
Theologie  des  nenen  Testaments."  2d  edition. 

5  "  JSgypten  und  die  Bucher  Mosis."    I.  Bd.,  1SCS. 

1  "Die  Keiliuschrifteu  und  das  alte  Testament." 
1872. 


non  assignemus  culpce  scribentium,  sed  inscitiw 
non  assequentium  f" 

In  such  questions  the  scientific  defense  of 
our  faith  must  not  shirk  the  trouble  of  going 
into  details,  for  it  is  in  these  that  negative 
criticism  seeks  its  strength.  But  the  rep- 
resentatives of  the  latter  should  be  shown 
how  often  they  make  small  differences  into 
great  contradictious ;  how  they  endeavor,  by 
means  of  uncertain  hypotheses,  to  decide 
questions  which  it  is  impossible  to  settle 
authoritatively ;  how  often  they  give  them- 
selves the  air  of  being  able  precisely  to  char- 
acterize the  inner  development  of  an  author 
or  of  his  age,  so  as  to  be  justified,  in  the  case 
of  certain  differences  between  earlier  and 
later  writings,  to  deny  the  possibility  of  their 
originating  from  the  same  man.  What  they 
announce  as  a  "  certain  result  of  theological 
science,"  not  seldom,  in  truth,  owes  its  ori- 
gin to  subjective  taste  and  arbitrary  choice. 
They  are  far  too  little  conscious  of  the  limits 
to  real  scientific  demonstration ;  and  often, 
when  they  suppose  that  they  have  produced 
the  non  plus  ultra  of  scientific  acuteness,  it 
is  but  a  flight  in  the  airy  regions  of  imagi- 
nation. Truly,  often  "  much  learning  hath 
made  them  mad." 

In  view  of  all  this,  we  must  protest  aloud 
against  the  arrogance  of  this  modern  theo- 
logical school,  especially  against  the  manner 
in  which  they  present  to  the  public  in  pop- 
ular exegetical  works — cf.,  e.  g.,  "  Die  Pro- 
testantenbibel  ueuen  Testaments,"  a  work 
now  appearing  under  the  auspices  of  the 
Protestantenverein  —  as  Gospel  truth,  "the 
ascertained  results  of  historical  and  Bibli- 
cal investigation ;"  while  these  are  accepted 
only  by  a  minority  of  theologians,  and  many 
of  them  men  of  waning  credit.  And  if  they 
go  so  far  as  to  give  themselves  credit  for 
being  the  promoters  of  greater  life  in  the 
Church,  they  should  be  clearly  shown  how 
miserably  unpractical  and  insufficient  their 
stand-point  is  to  attain  this  end ;  how,  by 
their  denial  of  inspiration,  they  utterly  de- 
stroy the  living  interest  of  the  mass  of  men 
in  the  Bible,  by  changing  it  into  a  merely 
historical  and  literary  interest.  Not  a  few 
students  of  theology  are,  by  means  of  this 
method  of  treating,  or  rather  maltreating 
Scripture,  becoming  thoroughly  disgusted 
with  the  study  of  exegesis. 

Finally,  we  should  seek  to  deprive  this 
school  of  criticism  of  the  charm  of  novelty. 
What  more  is  it — with  its  resolution  of  ac- 
tual facts  into  mere  insipid  religious  ideas 
— than  a  new  edition  of  the  old  Gnosticism  ? 
And  will  it  not  die  away  just  as  this  did,  if 
it  offers  for  the  religious  need  of  the  Chris- 
tian people  evaporating  ideas  or  crumbling 
stones,  instead  of  the  living  Bread  from 
Heaven  ?  This  school,  indeed,  seeks  to  re- 
tain Christ  as  an  ideal.  But  can  a  mere 
idea  redeem  the  world?  Sin,  unhappily,  is 
a  mighty  reality,  and  only  Divine  realities 


214 


CHRISTIANITY  AND  ITS  ANTAGONISMS. 


can  overcome  it.  This  is  the  true  reason 
why,  ns  long  as  there  are  sinners  in  need  of 
salvation,  the  world  can  not  give  up  the 
Word  of  Life. 

Our  defense  against  the  attacks  of 

3.  Modern  anti- miraculous  natural  science 
will  have  to  be  conducted  in  a  somewhat 
similar  manner,  since  its  principle  of  the 
denial  of  the  miraculous  is  identical  with 
that  of  the  destructive  critical  school.  Dar- 
win and  his  followers  are  working  out  the 
same  fundamental  idea  as  Baur  and  his  dis- 
ciples, viz.,  to  bridge  over  by  natural  means 
all  the  chasms  in  history  and  nature,  so  as 
to  get  rid  of  all  supernatural  agencies.  And 
both  schools,  though  originally  quite  inde- 
pendent of  one  another,  have  at  length  hap- 
pily met  in  the  person  of  Strauss,  as  we  see 
iu  his  last  work,  "  The  Old  and  New  Belief." 

In  order  to  maintain  a  firm  position  against 
the  attacks  of  natural  science,  we  must  first 
consider  the  purpose  for  which  the  Scrip- 
tures, as  a  whole,  were  given,  and  thus  draw 
a  sharp  line  between  this  aim  and  that  of 
scientific  investigation. 

The  aim  of  Scripture  is  to  show  us  the  way 
of  salvation,  and  this  it  does  by  communi- 
cating religious  and  moral  truths,  which  the 
apprehension  of  man,  darkened  as  it  is  by 
sin,  could  never  have  discovered  by  itself. 
But  in  no  respect  is  Scripture  intended  to 
play  the  part  of  a  hand-book  of  natural  his- 
tory or  philosophy,  or  to  give  us  physical 
information  which  is  of  no  essential  impor- 
tance for  our  faith.  The  Bible  should  not, 
therefore,  be  called  upon  as  arbiter  in  ques- 
tions of  pure  natural  science,  which  do  not 
in  the  least  affect  morals  or  faith.  Not  even 
the  highest  inspiration  could  have  been  in- 
tended to  lift  the  Biblical  writers  above  the 
view  of  nature  current  in  their  day,  or  to 
give  them  the  clear  insight  into  natural 
science  which  was  reserved  as  a  reward  for 
the  patient  toil  of  later  generations.  Its 
purpose  was  to  enable  them  to  enunciate 
the  truths  of  Divine  Revelation,  as  far  as 
they  were  connected  with  physical  rela- 
tions, in  a  form  which  should  not  militate 
against  the  objective  truth  of  these  relations, 
and  should  leave  room  for  all  future  discov- 
eries in  that  region.  For  this  reason  the  Bi- 
ble speaks  of  natural  phenomena  simply  in 
the  language  of  every-day  life,  which  gives 
impressions  as  they  are  received. 

Certainly,  however,  Scripture,  iu  its  enun- 
ciation of  religious  truths,  can  not  altogeth- 
er avoid  touching  on  physical  ground,  es- 
pecially in  the  history  of  creation.  But 
where  it  does  enter  upon  the  region  of  na- 
ture, it  only  does  so  as  far  as  is  absolutely 
necessary  to  ground  and  establish  our  faith 
— to  instruct  man  as  to  his  true  destiny, 
and  to  make  way  for  correct  notions  of  the 
relation  of  God  to  the  world,  while  exclud- 
ing all  false  ones.  Tims  Materialism  and 
Naturalism,  as  well  as  Pantheism  and  Ema- 


natiouism,  are  equally  excluded.  Then  the 
physical  processes  are  f ragmen  tarily  sketch- 
ed in  a  few  bold  strokes,  as  far  as  they  are 
necessary  to  form  the  basis  of  the  history  of 
Revelation,  to  which  the  record  forthwith 
proceeds.  Evidently,  then,  this  record  is  by 
no  means  complete  from  a  physical  point  of 
view.  On  the  contrary,  innumerable  ques- 
tions are  left  open,  to  be  answered  by  our 
investigation.  But  in  no  case  are  physical 
relations  brought  in  for  their  own  sake.* 
Entire  silence  is  kept  on  all  points  which  do 
not  form  part  of  the  foundation  of  religious 
truth.  How  few  physical  details  do  the 
first  and  second  chapters  of  Genesis  contain 
in  comparison  with  heathen  cosmogonies! 

It  is  important  to  remark  the  distinction 
that,  while  the  statement  of  religious  truth 
is  always  precise  and  clear,  that  of  physical 
facts  is  so  broad  and  general  that  room  is 
left  for  all  later  discoveries  of  details.  In- 
deed, they  are  given  in  such  a  shape  as  to 
unfold  their  hidden  truths  with  the  ad- 
vances of  sciencet — and  this,  I  think,  is  no 
small  proof  of  their  inspiration.  Take,  e.  g., 
the  creation  of  light  on  the  first,  and  the 
sun  riot  until  the  fourth  day — for  which 
statement  the  Bible  cosmogony  has  been 
ridiculed  by  innumerable  infidels,  from  Cel- 
sus  down  to  Strauss.  How  brilliantly  has 
this  been  justified  by  modern  natural  sci- 
ence, which  has  shown  that  the  earth  pos- 
sesses light  in  itself,  and  did  so,  probably, 
iu  a  far  greater  degree  at  the  time  when  the 
trees  now  found  in  the  coal-beds  were  grow- 
ing ;  for  these  have  no  annual  rings,  a  fact 
which  points  to  the  conclusion  that  the 
earth  did  not  then  derive  her  light  from 
the  sun,  and  consequently  had  no  change 
of  seasons.  The  sun  itself  is  now  generally 
believed  to  be  an  opaque  body,  the  light  of 
which  is  produced  by  the  combustion  of  its 
atmosphere;  and  light  itself  is  attributed 
to  the  undulations  of  ether,  which  would 
account  for  its  not  being  created,  but  mere- 
ly called  forth  from  the  chaos  to  exist  in  a 
separate  form.  Physical  discoveries  will 
often  prove  to  be  keys  to  the  understand- 
ing of  Scriptural  data,  and  show  how  these 
could  not  possibly  have  been  furnished  by 
their  authors  without  Divine  enlightenment. 
But  we  must  not  be  too  quick  in  the  inter- 
pretation of  such  passages,  and,  above  all, 
"not  make  Scripture  say  things  which  it 
does  not  distinctly  enunciate.  How  often  " 
— as  Whewell  truly  sayst — "  has  one  thought 
himself  to  bo  defending  a  Scriptural  truth, 
when  he  was  merely  fighting  for  an  inter- 
pretation of  his  own,  which  was  presently 
shown  to  be  false !" 

If  wo  have  drawn  a  limit,  beyond  which 


•  Of.  Rensch,  "  Bibel  und  Natur,"  3te  Aufl.,  p.  34. 
t  Cf.  8.  Garratt,  "Veins  of  Silver,"  chap.  i. :  "In- 
spired Words  and  Unfolding  Truths." 
t  "  History  of  the  Inductive  Sciences,"  i.,  p.  403. 


CHRISTLIEB :   COUNTERACTING  MODERN  INFIDELITY. 


215 


the  appeal  to  Scriptural  authority  should 
riot  go,  we  must  also  indicate  the  bouuds  of 
natural  science  as  against  religious  teach- 
ing. We  must,  from  the  very  first,  take  ex- 
ception to  the  claims  of  natural  scientists, 
when  they  ignore  all  religious  and  moral 
truths,  and  apply  to  incommensurable  mag- 
nitudes the  standard  of  mathematics ;  when 
they  commit  the  absurdity  of  making  our 
belief  in  the  supersensuous  and  spiritual 
world  depeudeut  on  the  results  of  micro- 
scopic or  telescopic  researches ;  Avheu  they 
go  beyond  the  investigation  of  present  phe- 
nomena, aud  pretend  to  give  an  authentic 
account  of  the  processes  by  which  the  world 
originated — processes  which  are  entirely  out 
of  the  reach  of  exact  investigation,  and  only 
permit  of  speculative  theories ;  aud  when 
they  will  not  acknowledge  the  fundamental 
fallacy  of  all  naturalistic  theories  as  to  the 
world's  origin,  viz.,  that  they  make  the  pres- 
ent order  of  things  the  criterion  of  the  proc- 
ess of  creation,  and  will  not  acknowledge 
the  influence  of  other  forces  than  those 
which  are  still  at  work.  lu  all  this  natu- 
ral science  oversteps  its  limits,  aud  argues 
from  analogies  which  we  can  not  allow. 

If,  however,  botlx  sides  keep  within  the 
limits  of  their  respective  tasks,  then  they 
must  necessarily  be  united  at  last.  If  the 
Bible  and  Nature  both  contain  a  Revelation 
from  God,  they  can  not  really  contradict  one 
another.  Where  this  \vould  seem  to  be  the 
case,  it  is  because  either  God's  words  or  his 
works  have  been  misinterpreted.  In  such 
a  case  we  must  not  immediately  cast  away 
the  Word,  in  order  not  to  give  offense  to  the 
cultivated,  but  quietly  wait  for  a  reconcilia- 
tion ;  again  examine  the  exegesis  of  the  pas- 
sage in  question ;  but  at  the  same  time  see 
whether  natural  scientists  are  not  giving  us 
doubtful  conjectures,  in  which  they  have 
often  been  mistaken,  iustead  of  really  cer- 
tain results. 

This  is  all  the  easier  for  us,  from  the  fact 
that  there  have  always  been  distinguished 
natural  scientists  who  did  not  believe  in  the 
possibility  of  a  contradiction  between  the 
Bible  and  Nature,  from  pious  patriarchs  of 
science,  like  Copernicus,  Newton,  and  Kep- 
ler, down  to  men  of  our  own  day,  like  A.  von 
Haller,  Euler,  Littrow,  Von  Schubert,  Wag- 
ner, Roper,  in  Germany  ;  or  Buckland,  Hugh 
Miller,  Sir  John  Herschel,  Brewster,  Whew- 
cll,  in  England;  or  Cuvier,  Lavoisier,  Mar- 
cel de  Serres,  La  Faye,  etc.,  in  France. 

Indeed,  we  can  answer  the  contempt  with 
which  the  science  of  the  day  looks  down 
upon  Holy  Scripture,  by  pointing  to  a  num- 
ber of  important  matters  in  which  a  union 
has  been  effected,  or  at  least  made  way  for. 
As  far  as  we  know  the  chief  stages  of  the 
earth's  development,  they  agree  in  point  of 
order  with  the  six  days'  work  of  Genesis  i. 
The  fact  that  a  fluid  state  of  the  earth's 
crust  preceded  the  formation  of  the  mount- 


ains answers  to  the  description  of  the  sec- 
ond day.  The  first  numerous  appearance 
of  the  terrene  flora  in  the  comparatively 
early  coal-period,  and  the  later  appearance 
en  masse  of  the  terrene  fauna  in  the  tertiary 
period,  corresponds  in  its  chief  features  to 
the  secoud,  third,  fifth,  aud  sixth  days.  As- 
tronomy, again,  has  proved  in  a  startling 
manner,  by  means  of  the  spectral  analysis, 
the  unity  of  the  Cosmos,  and  the  near  rela- 
tionship which  the  elements  of  the  othej  ce- 
lestial bodies  bear  to  those  of  the  solar  sys- 
tem. We  begin  to  see  proof  positive  for  Cu- 
vier's  far-seeing  utterance:  "Moseo  has  left 
us  a  cosmogony,  the  exactitude  of  which  i.« 
confirmed  day  by  day  in  an  admirable  man- 
ner." With  regard,  moreover,  to  the  Bibli- 
cal computation  of  the  age  of  the  human 
race,  geologists  aud  palaeontologists  are  de- 
claring that,  according  to  the  newest  data, 
the  period  of  about  six  thousand  years  is  in 
all  probability  correct.  And,  finally,  mod- 
ern astronomy  and  physics  decidedly  sup- 
port the  probability  of  the  cessation  in  due 
time  of  the  motion  of  our  solar  system,  and 
the  destruction  of  the  earth  through  the  ex- 
haustion of  the  forces  hitherto  at  work. 

No  wonder  that,  as  things  stand,  a  con- 
siderable number  of  theologians  declare  the 
harmony  between  Scripture  and  science  to 
be  complete,  or  at  least  capable  of  becoming 
so.  And  we  may  at  least  gather,  as  the  re- 
sult of  their  efforts,  the  declaration  that  an 
ideal  harmony  in  respect  of  the  chief  fea- 
tures may  be  established  without  doing  vi- 
olence to  either  side. 

Meanwhile,  truth  demands  that  we  should 
confess  that  this  harmony  at  present  does 
not  extend  to  all  details ;  e.  g.,  theologians 
are  not  agreed  as  to  whether  the  days  of 
Genesis  i.  maybe  stretched  out  so  as  to  meet 
the  requirements  of  the  immeasurably  long 
period  postulated  by  geology.  The  first 
specimens  (not  the  masses)  of  the  different 
stages  of  creation  do  not,  as  far  as  scientific 
research  has  extended,  follow  strictly  in  the 
order  of  the  six  days,  for  the  lowest  plants 
and  the  lowest  animals  appear  simultane- 
ously in  the  geological  strata ;  aud  to  bring 
all  the  data  in  the  Scriptural  account  of  the 
deluge  into  accordance  with  the  present  re- 
sults of  science  would  be  rather  difficult. 

But  may  we  not  hope  for  a  future  solu- 
tion of  these  difficulties,  seeing  that  neither 
exegesis  nor,  still  less,  natural  science,  are 
by  any  means  complete?  God  does  not 
grant  to  one  generation  to  solve  all  enig- 
mas :  coming  ones  will  have  to  work  at 
them,  too.  But  the  measure  of  corrobora- 
tiou  hitherto  afforded  by  science  to  Scrip- 
ture gives  us  a  right  to  treat  with  well- 
merited  contempt  the  ridicule  cast  upon 
Scripture  by  so  many  scientists. 

And  as  against  such  attacks  we  may  pro- 
ceed to  point  out  the  foibles  of  natural  sci- 
ence, which  she  has  of  late  often  exhibited 


216 


CHRISTIANITY  AND  ITS  ANTAGONISMS. 


with  the  rashness  of  youth,  especially  in  her 
younger  departments. 

How  categorically,  e.  g.,  was  the  volcanic 
theory  in  geology  pronounced  to  be  the  only 
trno  one,  in  opposition  to  the  Neptunian, 
and  how  signally  has  it  been  deposed  from 
the  position  of  sole  ruler  by  the  chemical 
investigations  of  Fuchs,  Schafhiiutl,  Bischof, 
and  others!*  What  uncertainty  is  shown 
in  the  calculations  of  geologists — c.  g.,  as 
to  the  time  required  for  the  cooling  of  the 
earth's  crust,  their  estimates  differing,  not 
by  thousands,  but  by  millions  of  years! 
How  much  jugglery,  in  fact,  has  been  car- 
ried on  by  natural  scientists  in  respect  of 
enormous  numbers!  How  often  have  they 
endeavored  to  give  their  calculations  as  to 
the  formation  of  the  different  strata  a  learn- 
ed gloss  by  amounting  to  millions  of  years ! 
And  now  sober  investigators  are,  on  the 
ground  of  careful  observations,  beating  a  re- 
treat ;  and,  instead  of  the  favorite  millions 
of  years  usually  held  up  to  the  astonished 
public,  are  computing  much  more  moderate 
periods.  The  age  of  the  mammoth,  the 
great  bear,  and  the  reindeer,  which  scien- 
tists (especially  Frenchmen)  have  been  try- 
ing to  separate  by  thousands  of  years,  are 
now  by  thorough  investigators,  like  that  of 
Fraas,  placed  quite  close  together.  And  the 
lake  dwellings,  too;  how  has  their  origin 
been  relegated  to  immemorable  antiquity, 
in  order  to  throw  discredit  on  the  Biblical 
account  of  man!  And  now  scientists  are 
beginning  to  turn  up  their  noses  at  the  idea 
of  the  stone,  bronze,  and  iron  ages  being 
successive  epochs;  so  that  we  may  confi- 
dently assert  that  none  of  these  remains  ex- 
tend back  more  than  a  few  centuries  beyond 
Csesar,  and  hence  are  not  even  older  than 
historical  times.  And  so,  after  all,  the  six 
thousand  years  of  the  Bible  are  not  so  utter- 
ly insufficient  to  accommodate  all  the  re- 
mains of  ancient  civilization.  But  in  what 
hot  haste  were  scientists  at  the  time  to 
spread  these  now  exploded  notions  in  all 
kinds  of  popular  publications ! 

Without  heeding  the  outcry  of  the  scien- 
tific rabble  against  our  "  vulgar  belief,"t  let 
us  quietly  expose  before  the  eyes  of  our 
flocks  this  mode  of  proceeding,  and  let  us 
show  them  how  large  a  portion  of  scientific 
"knowledge"  is  based  only  upon  grounds 
of  likelihood,  which  may  very  well  some  day 
give  way. 

And  how  has  our  task  been  lightened  in 
the  chief  controversy  of  our  day — that  as  to 
the  origin  of  man — by  the  extravagancies 
which  naturalists  would  have  had  us  be- 
lieve. Our  firm  defense  of  the  Biblical  doc- 
trine is  this  :  That  the  derivation  of  man's 
.•\iM.-iu-r  us  a  ivlimous  aiid  moral  being 


•  Proving,  e.  g.,  that  the  formation  of  quartz  could 
only  have  originated  from  the  action  of  water. 

t  "  Koblerglaubc,"  an  opprobrious  epithet  applied 
by  German  iufldels  to  the  Christian  faith. 


from  the  creative  act  of  God,  who  formed 
him  in  his  own  likeness,  and  destined  him 
to  attain  to  it,  agrees  so  clearly  with  our 
whole  moral  and  religious  self-conscious- 
ness, with  the  historical  development  of  the 
human  race,  and  with  the  personal  experi- 
ence of  all  true  Christians,  that  it  is  the  only 
reasonable  doctrine,  and  alone  worthy  of 
man's  dignity.  We  need  but  place  it  side 
by  side  with  the  scientific  fancies  of  for- 
mer times  on  this  subject,  now  often  ridi- 
culed by  sober  naturalists  themselves,  and 
the  choice  will  not  be  a  hard  one. 

But  the  controversy  has  assumed  a  more 
serious  aspect  since  Darwin  and  his  school 
have  endeavored  to  connect  the  genealogy 
of  man  with  the  highest  mammals,  viz.,  the 
anthropoid  apes.  The  counterproof  is  not 
our  affair,  but  that  of  savants  by  profession. 
Fortunately,  the  most  recent  discussion  of 
the  question  seems  unfavorable  to  the  re- 
lationship.* But,  even  supposing  the  out- 
ward differences  were  proved  to  be  ever  so 
small,  would  not  the  present  intellectual 
and  moral  (to  say  nothing  of  the  religious) 
condition  of  man,  notwithstanding  the  small 
superiority  in  his  organism,  be  all  the  more 
a  riddle?  No  representation  of  the  psy- 
chical processes  in  inferior  animals,  their 
instincts,  notions,  memory,  etc.,  however  it 
may  sublimate  them,  will  be  able  to  dis- 
prove that  in  this  respect  the  lower  animals 
have  made  no  progress  for  the  last  several 
thousand  years;  that  they  have  never  dis- 
covered the  inner  laws  of  these  phenomena, 
nor  have  been  able  to  distinguish  their  in- 
dividual Ego  from  their  momentary  condi- 
tion. 

For  such  facts — and  this  is  our  firm  posi- 
tion of  defense — there  is  no  other  explana- 
tion than  this,  that  in  the  soul-life  of  the 
beast  there  is  no  comprehension  of  the  in- 
dividual Ego ;  there  is  no  self-consciousness 
of  the  spirit  distinguishing  itself  from  its 
isolated  affections,  functions,  conditions,  as 
well  as  from  all  objects  without  it.  And 
this  is  the  specific  distinction,  the  impassa- 
ble gulf  between  man  and  beast.  The  same 
is  no  less  absolute  from  a  moral  point  of 
view :  on  the  one  hand  we  see  free,  person- 
al, self-determining  life ;  on  the  other  the 
iron  rule  of  nature's  law,  by  means  of  sensu- 
al affections  and  instincts.  Even  millions 
of  years,  and  the  innumerably  minute  stages 
of  progress  which  naturalists  postulate,  can 
never  bridge  over  the  chasm  which  divides 
the  natural  from  the  moral  law.  And  if 
these  men  (and  Strauss  also)  flatter  them- 
selves that  it  is  the  greatest  possible  honor 
for  man  to  have  raised  himself  from  the 
depths  of  animal  life  to  the  present  height 
of  moral  consciousness,  wo  reply :  If  man  is, 


*  Witness  the  defeat  of  Carl  Vogt  at  the  Stuttgart 
Conference  of  Natural  Scientists  (autumn,  1872)  by 
Virchow,  Luschka,  and  others  at  the  head  of  a  large 
majority. 


CHRISTLIEB :  COUNTERACTING  MODERN  INFIDELITY. 


217 


as  you  say,  a  mere  creature  of  nature,  then 
all  that  he  does  takes  place  by  virtue  of  ab- 
solutely binding  natural  laws,  and  it  is  no 
merit  iu  him  thus  to  have  raised  himself, 
since  he  could  not  help  it.  Unless  our  mor- 
al consciousness  proceeds  from  an  absolute- 
ly good  and  holy  will  of  God,  all  our  moral 
ideas  are  merely  conventional  and  change- 
able, and  there  is  no  such  thing  as  good  and 
ovil.per  se.  Thus  all  morality  is  radically 
destroyed,  and  he  who  believes  in  a  generic 
difference  between  the  morally  good  and 
evil  must  also  believe  in  the  specific  pre- 
eminence and  Divine  origin  of  man. 

Similar  moral  arguments  obtain  against 
those  who  deny  the  homogeneous  descent 
of  the  human  race  from  a  single  pair.  He 
who  tears  asunder  the  human  race  in.  its  or- 
igin makes  the  different  branches  of  it  ene- 
mies instead  of  brothers,  and  destroys  with 
their  consanguinity  the  last  bond  of  mutual 
love  and  esteem. 

The  physiologists,  however,  who  maintain 
this*  may  fight  our  battle  against  the  Dar- 
winists ;  for,  if  the  latter  are  trying  to  anni- 
hilate every  boundary  between  the  species, 
the  former  make  demarkations  where,  ac- 
cording to  Scripture,  none  exist.  We  may 
quietly  allow  our  opponents  to  direct  their 
attacks  against  each  other,  till  the  truth 
which  lies  in  the  middle  alone  remains. 
Darwinism  may  perhaps  result  in  the  re- 
duction of  the  present  multitude  of  species 
to  considerably  fewer  principal  types  (which 
can  only  be  favorable  to  the  Biblical  account 
of  the  Flood),  but  the  weighty  arguments  of 
polygenists  will  prevent  these  types  from  be- 
ing annihilated.  The  latter  class  of  natural- 
ists should,  however,  remember  that  the  ques- 
tion as  to  the  origin  of  the  human  race  is,  in 
the  last  resort,  a  matter  of  history ;  and  this 
science,  as  applied  to  languages  and  religions, 
is  pointing  with  increasing  probability  to  one 
original  tribe,  the  cradle  of  whichlayiu  West- 
ern Asia,  so  that  the  possibility  of  the  Bibli- 
cal theory  is  becoming  more  and  more  estab- 
lished. Here,  too,  we  may  say,  What  God  hath 
joined,  let  not  man  put  asunder. 

As  things  stand,  we  shall  not  join  in  the 
apprehension  expressed  by  Schleiermacher, 
that  natural  science,  when  fully  developed 
to  a  complete  system  of  cosmology,  might 
result  in  an  intellectual  starvation  of  theol- 
ogy. Nay — if  I  am  not  deceived — the  rela- 
tions between  natural  science  and  theology 
appear  of  late  to  have  taken  a  turn  for  the 
better.  This,  because  the  stand-point  on  ei- 
ther side  is  beginning  to  become  clearly 
marked.  Many  prudent  and  far-seeing  nat- 
ural philosophers  have  begun  to  acknowledge 
that  their  science  has,  in  many  cases,  over- 
stepped its  boundaries,  and  therefore  warn 
their  younger  ormore  hot-blooded  colleagues 


to  abstain  from  undue  interference  in  other 
departments.  May  we,  then,  not  nourish  the 
hope  that  in  due  time  both  these  bright  stars 
shall  revolve  around  a  common  centre,  in 
mutual  harmony  and  friendly  rivalry  dis- 
covering the  great  deeds  of  God  ? 

But,  besides  these  comparatively  detailed 
methods  of  offense  against  the  different  sci- 
entific attacks,  there  remains  to  be  consid- 
ered the  defense  of  our  whole  line  against 
infidel  theory  and  practice  combined.  For 
these  tendencies  are  now  showing  themselves 
in  practice  and  form  as — 

III.  A  GROWING  SOCIAL  POWER  IN  THE  LIFE 
OF  OUR  DAY  BOTH  IN  CHURCH  AND  STATE. 

This  form  of  unbelief  is,  without  question, 
far  more  dangerous  than  infidelity  in  individ- 
uals or  in  philosophical  systems.  I  would  rec- 
ommend, in  this  respect,  a  double  method  of 
defense.  First,  a  more  negative  one,  which 
has  hitherto  been  carried  on  only  sporadically, 
but  which,  in  order  to  take  due  effect,  should 
be  treated  as  a  whole :  viz.,  an  exposure  of 
the  miserable  consequences  of  infidelity  as  shown 
in  history,  in  contradistinction  to  the  whole- 
some effects  of  healthy  Christian  faith.  This 
may  be  called  the  historical  method  of  defense ; 
it  is,  however,  at  the  same  time  a  cutting 
attack.  Our  Lord  himself  pointed  it  out 
when  he  said, "  By  their  fruits  ye  shall  know 
them  "  (Matt,  vii.,  16) ;  and  the  proof  of  the 
actual  corruptness  of  these  fruits  will  make 
impression  upon  many  who  are  deaf  to  all 
other  arguments. 

How  should  we  furnish  this  proof?  Not 
by  setting  up  ourselves  as  judges  over  the 
persons  of  our  opponents,  nor  so  as  to  do 
them  injustice,  by  forgetting  how  many  of 
them  are  upright  and  leanied  men ;  but  by 
showing  the  influence  of  their  tendency  of 
thought  as  actually  exhibited  in  the  collect- 
ive life  of  Church  and  State  since  the  last 
century,  and  comparing  its  effects  in  the  dif- 
ferent spheres  of  society. 

On  an  attentive  consideration  of  the  spir- 
it which  animates  our  opponents  as  a  body, 
the  first  thing  which  strikes  us  is  the  ex- 
traordinary overweening  pride  with  which 
most  of  them  treat  all  positive  believers.* 
They  lay  claim  to  bo  the  only  representa- 
tives of  science,  and  have  repeated  this  so 
often  to  the  people,  that  in  Holland,  Germa- 
ny, and  Switzerland  the  greater  part  of  the 
press  echoes  this  opinion  as  a  matter  of 
course,  and  lays  all  "  orthodoxy,"  i.  e.,  belief 
iu  the  Bible,  under  the  reproach  of  ignorance 
and  narrow-mindedness.  And  with  this 
haughty  spirit  the  theologians  among  them 
plentifully  imbue  their  congregations.  They 
flatter  the  spirit  of  the  times,  and  puff  up  the 
"  educated  "  consciousness  of  an  age  already 
intoxicated  with  culture,  till  its  pride  reaches 


As  Edwards,  Forbes,  Agassiz,  Burmeister,  and 


>ther?. 


•Cf.  Hofstede  de  Groot,  "Die  moderne  Theologie 
iu  den  Niederlanden,"  1870,  p.  29,  et  seq. 


218 


CHRISTIANITY  AND  ITS  ANTAGONISMS. 


an  unbearable  pitch,  by  means  of  their  high- 
flying critical  treatment  of  the  Gospel  his- 
tory ;  indeed,  many  of  them  often  go  so  far 
as  to  rouse  all  the  passions  of  intolerance 
against  the  "parsons,"  t.e.,  the  representa- 
tives of  the  old  faith.  When  they  are  iu  a 
minority,  they  cry  for  tolerance,  and  preach 
the  doctrine  of  equal  rights  for  every  per- 
suasion. But  when  they  are  the  ruling  par- 
ty, sovereign  Reason  shows  herself  to  bo 
most  intolerant,  and  denounces  those  who 
cling  to  the  old  faith  as  the  enemies  of  prog- 
ress, and  of  all  truly  humane  culture. 

If  we  go  on  to  consider  their  method  of 
attack  (and  except  the  merely  scientific  rep- 
resentatives), we  can  not  help  seeing  what 
a  despotism  of  phrases  and  commonplaces 
they  have  founded,  so  that  thousands  blind- 
ly applaud  the  half  or  not  at  all  understood 
mottoes  of  the  day ;  and  what  a  confusion 
of  ideas  must  be  laid  to  their  charge !  The 
clear  meaning  of  sharply  definite  Scriptural 
ideas  accepted  by  the  Church  is  gradually 
put  aside,  and  another  meaning  substituted 
for  it,  so  that,  while  the  shell  remains,  the 
true  kernel  is  gone.  During  one  thousand 
eight  hundred  years,  e.  g.,  the  word  "  resur- 
rection "  has  been  understood  in  the  whole 
of  Christendom  to  apply  to  the  body  of 
Christ  ;  now,  however,  they  change  the 
meaning  of  the  word  into  that  of  a  contin- 
ued existence  of  any  kind,  and  declare  as 
irrelevant  the  question  whether  our  Lord's 
body  was  raised  to  a  new  life  or  not.  In 
the  Church  the  old  forms  are  for  the  most 
part  preserved ;  and  in  this  case  they  con- 
tinue to  pray  to  Christ  as  ordered,  though 
otherwise  they  consider  him  to  be  only  the 
son  of  Joseph,  and  prayer  itself  a  subjective 
outpouring  of  the  heart's  emotions,  without 
objective  effect  on  the  course  of  affairs.  Is 
this  perfectly  iipright  and  truthful  ?  Some 
are  soon  tired  of  this  incongruence  between 
the  rites  and  liturgy  of  the  Church  and  their 
own  inward  convictions,  and  enter  other 
more  congenial  callings;  but  the  growing 
generation  is  by  these  means  (though  not 
exclusively  by  them)  disgusted  \vith  the 
study  of  theology.  In  many,  however  (es- 
pecially during  the  first  half  of  this  centu- 
ry), this  incongruence  has  been  overcome  by 
the  earnest  demands  of  life  and  holy  office, 
which,  though  they  left  the  university  as 
Rationalists,  convinced  them  of  their  error, 
and  led  them  to  preach  salvation  through 
Christ  alone.  Does  all  this  bear  witness  to 
the  healthy  character  of  unbelieving  prin- 
ciples ? 

But  let  us  look  more  closely  at  their 
fruits  in  the  inner  congregational  life  of  the 
Church.  Infidelity  has  of  old  emptied  the 
churches  and  given  an  impetus  to  schismat- 
ics, because  it  can  not  satisfy  the  deeper 
spiritual  needs.  What  a  display  has  infi- 
delity made  of  its  weakness  in  the  pulpit  by 
reason  of  its  denial  of  the  miraculous  ele- 


ment iu  the  great  facts  of  salvation !  Let 
him  who  wishes  to  see  instances  take  but  a 
look  at  the  utilitarian  preachers  of  the  times 
of  "  illumination."  It  is  well  known  that 
these  men  did  not  disdain,  even  on  high  fes- 
tivals, to  stoop  so  low  as  to  instruct  the  peo- 
ple iu  their  sermons  about  farming,  hygiene, 
vaccination,  or  cattle -feeding.  And  now? 
There  is  no  scarcity  of  high-flown  words. 
But  does  the  one  thing  needful — faith  in 
Christ,  conversion,  and  regeneration — still 
form  the  central  object  in  the  modern  pul- 
pit? Alas!  not  even  for  an  earnest  peni- 
tential sermon  can  one  of  these  men  collect 
his  energies.  Is  not  this  a  serious  state  of 
affairs  ? 

And  Avhat  of  the  liturgical  fruits  of  un- 
belief? Just  glance  into  the  liturgies  cur- 
rent during  the  zenith  of  Rationalism  in 
the  last  century ;  read  those  finely  rounded 
phrases  and  paraphrases  about  God,  virtue, 
and  immortality,  self-ennoblement,  and  Je- 
sus Christ,  the  Eastern  sage  of  olden  times, 
and  confess  that  you  would  hardly  have  be- 
lieved so  utter  a  want  of  taste  to  be  pos- 
sible. Or  glance  over  the  hymn-books  of 
that  time,  with  their  miserably  watered  old 
hymns,  and  their  practically  as  well  as  the- 
ologically shallow  and  pitiable  humanita- 
rian odes.  And  how  is  it  in  our  day?  Why, 
if  formerly  there  was  at  least  the  shadow  of 
a  worship,  now  the  attempts  made  in  Haar- 
lem, Grouingen,  Neuchatel,  to  establish  a 
truly  "  modern "  Divine  service,  have,  by 
their  miserable  failure,  gone  far  to  prove  the 
utter  futility  of  all  such  endeavors.  In  due 
time,  then,  worship  would  have  to  cease  al- 
together. 

In  the  matter  of  Church  constitution  and 
government  (in  which  believing  theology,  it 
is  true,  has  made  many  mistakes  also),  the 
chief  historical  achievement  of  unbelief  (in 
Germany)  is  the  "Territorial  System" — a 
theory  which  considers  the  Church  and  its 
government  to  be  only  a  part  of  the  State 
and  its  constitution  as  such,  and  must  lead 
to  the  former  being  entirely  emerged  in  the 
latter.  And  at  this  day  unbelief  seeks  to 
betray  the  inalienable  rights  of  the  Church 
to  the  State,  and  to  prove  the  omnipotence 
of  the  latter,  as  against  any  act  of  Church 
discipline  meant  to  defend  the  positive  doc- 
trine, hoping  that  the  State  may  soon  pro- 
nounce for  the  equal  rights  of  all  parties 
within  the  Church.  Modern  unbelief  seeks 
to  efface  the  specific  distinction  between 
Church  and  State,  and  thereby  robs  the  for- 
mer of  its  vital  power.* 

Again,  look  at  the  influence  of  unbelief  in 
the  active  congregational  life  of  the  Church, 
in  the  institutions  for  the  extension  of  God's 
kingdom,  and  see  the  paralysis  which  fol- 
lows its  ascendency.  The  German-Danish 


*  This  paragraph  applies  more  especially  to  Ger- 
many. 


CHRISTLIEB :  COUNTERACTING  MODERN  INFIDELITY. 


219 


mission  ill  Tranquebar  flourished  vigorously 
during  the  former  part  of  last  century,  till 
the  triumph  of  Rationalism  at  home  dried 
np  its  supports  and  caused  it  to  wither  away. 
And  how  do  these  liberal  unbelievers  seek  to 
hinder  and  malign  the  work  of  missions  at 
the  present  day  by  distorted  criticisms !  But 
as  to  doing  better  themselves,  which  would 
'  be  the  best  criticism,  they  have  not  lifted 
up  a  finger.  The  institutions  of  onr  inner 
missions,  too,  have  almost  all  of  them  been 
founded  and  supported  solely  by  the  love 
and  liberality  of  believers,  while  unbelievers 
have  done  little  else  than  embitter  their  ex- 
istence by  repeated  attacks.*  . 

But  perchance  unbelief  has  proved  itself  to 
be  a  firm  support  of  the  State,  and  a  source 
of  moral  strength  in  public  and  political 
life  ?  The  best  tests  of  a  principle  are  fur- 
nished by  times  of  public  distress  and  dan- 
ger. As  soon,  e.  g.,  as  a  war  is  imminent, 
the  power  of  unbelief  in  a  nation  immedi- 
ately sinks  in  a  marked  manner,  and  even 
unchristian  journals  at  once  begin  to  speak 
more  of  God  and  divine  help.  An  involun- 
tary instinct  fills  the  churches ;  the  need  of 
a  higher  assistance  is  plainly  felt,  and  the 
fine  phrases  of  unbelief  can  not  give  this. 
These  facts  are  questionable  enough  for  the 
support  under  trouble  which  unbelief  can  af- 
ford. And  when  the  thousands  upon  thou- 
sands of  wounded  need  spiritual  consolation, 
how  little  can  unbelief  afford  this  ?  In  the 
last  war — I  say  it  deliberately,  for  I  have 
witnessed  it  myself  in  the  Avar — this  task 
devolved  almost  entirely  on  believing  minis- 
ters, often  at  the  request  of  their  free-think- 
ing colleagues.  Here  the  pastoral  bankrupt- 
cy of  the  rationalistic  clergy  was  clearly  evi- 
dent in  their  total  inability  to  satisfy  the 
spiritual  cravings  of  the  suffering  and  dy- 
ing. It  would  be  laughable,  were  it  not 
rather  to  be  wept  over,  that  unbelief  should 
ever  attempt  to  minister  to  the  spiritual 
needs  of  man. 

But,  putting  aside  such  seasons  of  dis- 
tress, what  are  the  political  and  social  fruits 
of  unbelief  in  a  general  way  ?  History  very 
plainly  tells  us  that  apostasy  from  the  faith 
very  soon  deprives  a  nation  of  its  power  and 
authority.  As  in  the  family,  when  its  life  is 
not  based  upon  the  fear  of  God,  all  domestic 
bonds  are  soon  destroyed  by  the  unfettered 
power  of  selfishness,  so  that  dangerous  laxi- 
ty or  arbitrariness  is  substituted  for  earnest 
discipline  in  the  education  of  children — so, 
too,  in  civil  and  national  life.  The  people 
that  will  not  bow  to  divine  authority  will 
eventually  break  through  the  bounds  of  all 
human  order  in  endless  revolutions.  The 
self-love,  which  would  fain  be  wiser  than  di- 
vine revelation,  at  last  snaps  all  the  bonds 
of  society.  The  new  faith  (of  Strauss),  prac- 


*  Witness  the  venomous  attacks  on  the  "  Ranhe 
Hans"  at  Hamburg  (Dr.  Wicheru's  institution). 


tically  carried  out,  is  the  Commune,  which 
during  its  ascendency  was  always  talking 
of  philosophy.  Unbelief  will  ruin  every  na- 
tion which  does  not  in  time  resist  its  all- 
poisoning  influences. 

The  result  of  historical  investigation  shows 
that  all  these  results  of  unbelief  have  the  same 
inner  ground,  viz.,  that  it  is  without  the  Spir- 
it of  God,  which  alone  creates  and  preserves 
all  true  life.  But  if  the  fruit  be  evil,  then 
the  tree  and  its  roots  are  evil  also ;  and  fool- 
ish, indeed,  is  he  who  would  gather  grapes 
of  thorns  or  figs  of  thistles. 

In  our  attack  on  unbelief  we  must  expose 
these  its  fruits :  It  boasts  itself  of  helping 
progress,  and  hinders  it ;  it  inscribes  "  cul- 
ture" on  its  banner,  and  threatens  us  with 
a  new  and  a  worse  barbarism ;  it  promises 
to  bring  in  the  age  of  true  humanity,  and 
yet  it  injures  the  dignity  of  man,  so  as  to 
deprive  him  of  any  specific  moral  value,  be- 
cause it  overlooks  the  fact  that  humanity 
can  only  be  saved  and  prosper  by  means  of 
Divinity. 

We  must  protest,  then,  against  unbelief 
in  the  name — not  only  of  Scripture,  of  faith, 
and  of  God's  honor,  which  it  tramples  in  the 
dust ;  not  only  of  our  spiritual  experience, 
which  it  does  not  understand — but  also  of 
reason,  which  it  leads  astray.  We  must 
protest  against  it  in  the  name  of  a  healthy 
Church  life,  of  frnit-beai'ing  preaching  and 
care  of  souls ;  of  the  truth  and  purity — ay, 
even  of  the  good  taste  and  aesthetics  of  our 
worship ;  in  the  name  of  a  healthy  disci- 
pline and  constitution  of  our  congregation- 
al life  ;  of  the  independence  of  the  Church, 
which  by  it  is  betrayed  to  the  State  ;  of  the 
Church's  energy  and  power  of  increase  ;  of 
self-sacrificing  and  self-denying  love ;  of 
Home  and  Foreign  Missions,  which  it  tries 
to  paralyze ;  in  the  name  of  all  practical 
tasks  of  the  Christian  life,  for  which  it  has 
neither  a  deeper  understanding  nor  yet  en- 
ergy to  carry  them  out ;  in  the  name  of  mor- 
als and  all  true  humanity,  which  it  under- 
mines and  destroys,  since  it  separates  them 
from  religion,  and  saps  its  divine  founda- 
tions. We  must  protest  against  it,  not  only 
as  Christians,  but  as  citizens  and  patriots 
who  truly  love  their  country,  because  the 
prosperous  future  of  a  nation,  its  freedom 
and  power,  its  flourishing  and  healthy  de- 
velopment, essentially  depend  upon  its  hon- 
estly holding  fast  to  the  Gospel  as  the  Truth 
and  the  Life  from  God. 

But  this  historical  defense  will  not  meet 
all  objections,  by  reason  of  its  negative  na- 
ture ;  and  I  would  therefore  point  out  to  you 
a  more  excellent,  positive  way,  which  I  may 
call  the  practical  religious  method  —  I  mean 
the  actual  proof  of  the  Christian  truth  by  means 
of  a  Christian  life. 

When  we  look  at  the  growing  power  of 
unbelief,  and  the  infinite  variety  of  agencies 
employed  in  its  propagation,  from  the  jour- 


220 


CHRISTIANITY  AND  ITS  ANTAGONISMS. 


nals  and  associations  of  mere  Human itarian- 
ism,  down  to  those  of  the  most  radical  Com- 
m nn ism,  with  its  secret  societies,  and  trav- 
eling agents  and  lecturers,  it  is  evident  that 
such  a  social  power  can  not  be  met  merely  by 
scientific  and  historical  arguments.  These 
may  suffice  to  convince  individuals;  but 
against  the  close  columns  of  unbelief  the 
Church  must  use  her  last  and  most  effective 
weapon,  i.  e.,  the  practical  and  moral  supe- 
riority of  her  representatives  in  an  all-em- 
bracing love  and  holy  life.  This  practical 
religious  method  is  the  most  convincing  of 
all,  and  truly  irresistible,  and  must  in  the 
end  gain  over  all  those  who  are  of  the  truth. 
This  it  was  that  worked  so  mightily  in  the 
first  ages  of  the  Christian  Church,  and  will 
continue  to  do  so  to  the  end.  Without  it, 
infidelity  will  nowhere  be  defeated ;  and  the 
growth  of  the  latter  is  owing,  in  a  great  meas- 
ure, to  the  fact  that  the  Church  has  too  much 
neglected  this  branch  of  testimony.  Truth 
is  plentifully  witnessed  for  in  words  and 
books,  but  not  enough  in  life. 

But  speaking  as  I  am  before  those  who,  I 
trust,  have  long  since  been  striving  to  give 
practical  effect  to  this  testimony,  I  may  con- 
fine myself  to  a  few  hints  as  to  the  way  iii 
which  it  may  be  rendered  most  effectual. 

And,  first  of  all,  let  us  remove  from  theo- 
logical and  Church  life  the  stumbling-blocks 
which  have  hindered  so  many  from  believ- 
ing— the  everlasting  quarrels  about  things 
upon  which  salvation  does  not  depend ;  the 
jealousy  of  one  another ;  the  narrow-mind- 
edness at  home  and  (alas,  too)  abroad,  which 
can  not  lovingly  enjoy  the  brother's  success, 
because  he  does  not  wear  quite  the  same  ec- 
clesiastical uniform ;  and,  instead  of  all  this, 
let  the  flame  of  believing  and  wide-hearted 
evangelical  love  among  the  various  denom- 
inations burn  more  brightly  than  hitherto. 
A  great,  positively  believing  Ecumenical 
Evangelical  Alliance — notwithstanding  all 
variety  in  matters  ecclesiastical,  and  esteem 
for  the  forms  of  faith  delivered  to  us — is 
in  itself  a  practical  apology,  which  makes 
impressions  upon  thousands,  a  justification 
of  the  indestructibility  of  our  fundamental 
faith,  a  Christian  Evangelical  International, 
which  may  oppose  the  atheistic  Internation- 
al with  superior  spiritual  weapons.  Let  us, 
in  order  to  establish  more  firmly  the  unity 
of  our  one  fundamental  position,  ever  draw 
more  clearly  the  line  between  the  Essential 
and  the  Non-essential;  and  let  us  protest 
against  the  destructive  error  which  main- 
tains that  no  such  line  is  to  be  drawn,  but 
that  all  tendencies  have  equal  rights  in  the 
Church.  Our  German  liberalism  has  not,  in 
this  respect,  attained  to  so  correct  a  judg- 
ment as  the  same  party  in  England  and 
America,  These  would  say  to  those  in  our 
Evangelical  Church,  who,  e.  </.,  attacked  the 
Apostles'  Creed, «  Why  do  you  not  go  to  the 
Unitarians!"  while  with  us  they  are  stmo-- 


gling  to  prove  the  admissibility  of  their  con- 
tinuance in  a  Trinitarian  Church,  by  which 
means  we  shall  eventually  legalize  Ration- 
alism. You  must  help  us  to  attain  greater 
precision,  even  at  the  cost  of  a  numerical 
diminution  in  the  Church.  Better  for  a 
Church  to  be  small,  but  united  and  decided, 
than  large  and  broad,  but  inwardly  torn  and 
divided  against  itself. 

And  when  we  have  drawn  the  necessary 
boundary  lines,  let  us,  for  the  sake  of  the 
unity,  seek  to  give  a  more  extensive  visible 
representation  of  it  (by  means,  e.  g.,  of  an 
interchange  of  pulpits),  so  that  the  various 
Churches'inay  be  strengthened  by  the  faith- 
ful testimony  of  men  of  another  communion. 
Let  us  force  the  imbelieving  world  to  con- 
fess, as  did  the  heathen  of  old,  "  See  how 
these  Christians  love  one  another,''  and 
thereby  -we  shall  overcome  a  hundred  prej- 
udices. 

This  spirit  it  is  which  we  should  seek  to 
implant  in  our  evangelical  congregations  and 
people.  Let  us  seek  to  bring  about  a  more 
living  communion  between  the  churches,  a 
greater  interchange  of  their  special  gifts  and 
experiences,  and  place  the  single  congrega- 
tion in  connection  with  the  course  of  events 
in  the  universal  kingdom  of  Christ.  We 
should  make  them  better  acquainted  with 
the  most  important  of  these  events,  so  that, 
if  one  member  suffer,  all  the  others  may  suf- 
fer with  it ;  and  if  one  be  glorified,  all  the 
others  may  rejoice,  as  belonging  to  one  body 
whose  head  is  Christ. 

In  addition  to  this,  it  is  our  duty  at  the 
present  day  to  arm  the  members  of  our 
churches  more  fully  against  the  specious  ar- 
guments of  infidelity.  This  should  be  done 
by  laying  a  deep  foundation  in  religious  in- 
struction, especially  in  that  for  Confirma- 
tion and  preparation  for  Holy  Communion, 
by  weekly  Bible  classes  or  lectures,  in  which 
the  members  of  our  flocks  should  be  taught 
more  of  the  unity  of  Scripture,  by  Sunday- 
schools,  young  men's  associations,  reading- 
rooms,  circulating  libraries,  associations  for 
missions,  the  poor,  the  sick,  etc.  Thus  a 
vigorous  Christian  social  and  congregatiou- 
al  life  would  be  put  forward  in  opposition 
to  the  infidel  associations,  and  it  would  act 
as  a  firmly  forged  chain,  from  which  one  link 
could  not  easily  be  lost. 

When  we  have,  by  all  these  means,  built 
a  powerful  dam  of  Christian  life  against 
the  swelling  floods  of  unbelief,  we  should — 
Avhile  not  forgetting  always  to  keep  these 
our  foundations  in  repair — strive  to  win 
back  lost  ground  by  words  and  deeds.  We 
must  fearlessly  witness  for  the  faith,  not 
only  in  the  pulpit  before  our  own  congre- 
gations, but  also  in  public  lectures  (as  is 
now  frequently  done)  before  the  unbeliev- 
ing world.  The  mere  fact  of  a  man  stand- 
ing up,  in  the  face  of  all  the  scorn  of  an  in- 
fidel press,  and  openly  declaring  his  belief 


CHRISTLIEB :  COUNTERACTING  MODERN  INFIDELITY. 


221 


in  the  Christian  faith,  notwithstanding  his 
perfect  acquaintance  with  all  the  arguments 
of  its  opponents,  is  an  encouragement  to 
many  undecided  ones.  Then,  again,  let  us 
confess  what  a  mistake  in  many  places 
Christians  (especially  in  Germany)  have 
made  in  leaving  the  development  of  the 
public  press  almost  entirely  in  the  hands  of 
infidels  or  semi -infidels,  especially  of  Jews 
and  their  confederates.  To  meet  this  need 
we  must  found  Christian  journals,  which 
shall  correct  the  lamentably  misguided  pub- 
lic opinion ;  and,  since  this  is  beyond  the 
power  of  isolated  persons,  we  should  form 
more  Evangelical  Societies,  whose  object  it 
must  be  to  spread  Christian  literature  in 
every  form,  from  the  largest  to  the  smallest 
works.  And  let  us  seek  to  connect  all  these 
associations,  as  much  as  possible,  for  the 
sake  of  mutual  assistance.  In  this  respect 
I  would  recommend  to  your  notice  a  pro- 
posal, emanating  from  Holland,  to  form  an 
"  International  Association  for  the  defense 
of  the  Christian  faith  against  its  actual  ag- 
gressors." 

A  most  important  point  in  this  practical 
work  (especially  for  Germany)  is  that  lay- 
men should  be  more  induced  to  assist  in 
the  work  of  the  Church,  and  that  the  latter 
should  not  tire  in  laboring  for  the  better 
keeping  of  the  Sabbath,  and  for  the  release 
of  millions  of  white  slaves  kept  in  bondage 
by  Sunday  labor,  which  can  only  be  accom- 
plished by  a  legal  protection  of  Sunday  rest 
and  freedom. 

But,  amidst  all  this  work,  never  let  us  for- 
get the  personal  preparation  in  secret.  If 
we  are  to  conquer  in  our  struggle  against 
unbelief,  it  must  be  less  exclusively  than 
hitherto  Avith  word  and  pen,  and  more  on 
our  knees.  Often  while  we  fight  hard  wo 
pray  too  little.  Instead  of  at  once  fulmi- 
nating against  unbelievers,  let  us  first  wres- 
tle for  them  with  the  power  of  intercessory 
prayer,  that  they  may  be  enlightened  by  the 
Lord.  No  word  or  writing  should  go  forth 
in  this  Holy  War  unaccompanied  by  prayer. 
Let  no  combatant  enter  the  arena  without 
putting  on  the  spiritual  as  well  as  the  in- 
tellectual panoply,  that  he  may  not  fare  as 
did  the  seven  sons  of  Sceva.  And  let  none 
who  strive  in  the  right  spirit  be  left  alone. 
Though  we  may  not  everywhere  be  able  to 
succor  and  defend,  yet  the  arms  of  our  prayer 
can  embrace  the  whole  globe.  Thus  only 
can  we  become  so  filled  with  the  Spirit  that 
the  imago  of  Christ,  the  great  Captain  and 
Conqueror  in  the  battle,  shall  shine  out  of 
every  action  and  victoriously  enlighten  our 
opponents,  when  they  see  in  our  whole  walk 
aud  conduct  greater  love  and  self-denial, 
greater  self-sacrifice,  greater  quietness  and 
firmness  in  distress  and  danger.  The  Chris- 
tian is  the  world's  Bible,  and  the  only  one 
which  it  reads.  If  wo  take  care  that  in  this 
book  be  plainly  shown  the  loving  spirit,  the 


!  grandeur,  aud  the  winning  friendliness  of 
Christ,  then  we  shall  see  many  hearts  open 
to  receive  this  actual  testimony  of  Christian 
life  and  suffering.  For  many  of  our  oppo- 
nents in  secret  envy  us  our  Christian  com- 
fort in  misfortune  and  under  heavy  losses. 
Their  hearts  are  often  stirred  by  a  deep 
yearning  after  the  support  which  bears  us 
up,  and  this  superiority  of  Christian  life  can 
often  drive  the  hardest  heart  to  seek  help 
of  our  Lord. 

In  fine,  only  life  can  beget  life.  Where 
we  wish  to  defend  the  Word  of  Life,  our  own 
life  can  not  be  separated  from  the  Word. 
The  strongest  argument  for  the  truth  of 
Christianity  is  the  true  Christian,  the  man 
filled  with  the  Spirit  of  Christ.  The  best 
means  of  bringing  back  the  world  to  a  be- 
lief in  miracles  is  to  exhibit  the  miracle  of 
regeneration  and  its  power  in  our  own  life. 
The  best  proof  of  Christ's  resurrection  is  a 
living  Church,  which  itself  is  walking  in 
new  life,  and  drawing  life  from  him  who 
has  overcome  death. 

Cyprian  writes  of  Christians  in  the  third 
century:  "In  their  dress,  their  food,  their 
manner  of  life,  they  follow  the  customs  of 
the  country,  and  yet  they  are  distinguished 
by  a  universally  remarkable  way  of  living. 
They  take  part  in  every  thing  as  citizens, 
and  they  endure  every  thing  as  strangers. 
Every  country  is  their  native  laud,  aud  in 
every  country  they  are  foreigners.  They 
live  in  the  flesh,  but  not  after  the  flesh. 
They  dwell  upon  earth,  but  they  live  in 
heaven.  They  love  all  men,  though  all  men 
persecute  and  malign  them.  When  they  are 
cursed,  they  bless  ;  and  when  they  are  kill- 
ed, they  hail  the  day  of  their  death  as  their 
true  birthday." 

Before  such  arguments  ancient  Rome  her- 
self— the  mightiest  empire  of  the  world,  and 
the  most  hostile  to  Christianity — could  not 
stand.  Let  us  live  in  like  manner,  and  then 
— though  hell  should  have  a  short-lived  tri- 
umph— eventually  must  be  fulfilled  what  St. 
Augustine  says, "  Love  is  the  victory  of  the 
truth." 

Already  the  world  is  beginning  to  be  di- 
vided into  the  two  great  camps  of  the  unbe- 
lieving and  the  faithful.  In  many,  unbelief 
has  probably  become  incurable.  Before  such 
we  can  only  confess  the  truth  for  a  testimo- 
ny against  them.  The  Antichrist  who  de- 
nies Father  aud  Son  can  bo  destroyed,  not 
by  men,  but  only  by  the  Lord  in  the  bright- 
ness of  his  coming.  But  the  holy  task  that 
falls  to  the  lot  of  every  Christian  is  to  con- 
tinue to  do  battle  for  the  truth  after  the 
measure  of  his  strength,  in  the  power  of  that 
victory  which  Christ  has  already  gained  for 
us,  and  which  he  has  promised  one  day  to 
complete.  May  not  only  individuals,  but 
may  every  Protestant  people  recognize  that 
it  ought  to  contribute  its  special  gift  toward 
the  great  world-apology  for  Christianity: 


222 


CHRISTIANITY  AND  ITS  ANTAGONISMS. 


German y,  her  deep  and  earnest  science ;  En- 
gland, her  trustful  meditation  on  Scripture, 
her  faithfulness  in  pastoral  work,  her  open- 
handed  charity ;  America,  her  energetic  ac- 
tivity and  liberality,  her  fearlessness  in  pub- 
lic testimony  for  the  truth,  her  indelible  love 
of  freedom  ;  and  all  others,  great  or  small, 
the  talent  intrusted  to  them.  If  all  thus 


unite  in  holy  zeal  for  God,  the  victory  can 
not  be  wanting.  Forward,  then,  my  breth- 
ren, and  let  ns  not  weary  of  the  strife !  Our 
field  of  battle  is  the  wide  world ;  our  aim, 
the  honor  of  God ;  our  support  amidst  strife 
and  suffering,  the  certainty  that  our  faith 
already  is  tho  victory  which  hath  overcome 
the  world ! 


THESES. 


I.  To  be  true  to  her  essential  spirit  and  char- 
acter, the  Evangelical  Church  must  eschew  all 
methods  of  defending  her  faith  which  do  not  rest 
upon  a  spiritual  and  moral  basis,  and  do  not  aim 
at  bringing  opponents  to  accept  the  truth  as  it  is 
in  Christ  by  means  of  free  personal  persuasion 
and  conviction. 

II.  The  most  effectual  method  of  combating 
unbelief  in  individuals  is  the  moral  isagogic,  i.  e. , 
that  by  which  the  conscience  is  touched,  the  re- 
ligious need  awakened,  and  salvation  in  Christ 
heartily  and  lovingly  testified,  from  personal  ex- 
perience, to  be  the  truth  which  alone  can  satisfy 
the  inward  cravings  of  the  soul. 

III.  In  combating  the  systems  of  unbelief,  suc- 
cess is  only  to  be  hoped  for  from  a  really  scien- 
tific method  of  defense.     This  consists,  on  the 
one  hand,  in  a  constant  employment  of  the  ever- 
improving  apparatus  of  modern  investigation ;  on 
the  other  hand,  in  that  quiet  objective  spirit,  the 
only  aim  of  which  is  to  attain  to  the  truth  ;  both 
these  being  combined  with  the  joyous  certainty 
that  the  scientific  struggle  has  in  all  ages  con- 
tributed not  a  little  toward  grounding  the  Church 
in  her  holy  faith,  and  showing  how  firm  are  its 
foundations. 

IV.  The  chief  systematic  tendencies  of  modern 
infidelity  may  be  comprised  under  these  three 
heads:  Unchristian  philosophy,  destructive  his- 
torical criticism,  and  anti-miraculous  natural  sci- 
ence.    The  first  step  in  an  effectual  scientific 
defense  against  these  must  be  to  define  clearly 
the  extent  of  those  doctrines  which  constitute  the 
specific,  and  therefore  inalienable  nucleus  of  the 
Christian  faith,  and  thus  to  distinguish  plainly 
between  the  fundamental  and  central  truths  nec- 
essary to  salvation,  and  those  less  central  ones, 
which  allow  of  various  shades  of  subjective  opin- 
ion ;  in  a  word,  to  recognize  the  difference  be- 
tween the  Biblical  substance  of  our  religious  be- 
lief and  its  dogmatic  formulation. 

V.  Against  Antichristian  speculative  philoso- 
phy, our  scientific  apology  should  especially  de- 
fend the  Christian  idea  of  God,  as  that  which 
alone  corresponds  to  the  conception  of  the  Abso- 
lute, and  the  Christian  view  of  the  world  in  gen- 
eral, as  a  compact  and  organic  unity  in  all  its 
beauty  and  grandeur.     The  central  truth  of  this 
system  we  take  to  be  the  help  vouchsafed  by  God 
in  Christ  to  a  sinful  world,  which  approves  itself 
to  our  conscience  as  an  inward  necessity  for  the 
true  satisfaction  of  our  religious  and  moral  needs, 
in  view  of  the  impotence  of  all  human  self-help 
111  overcoming  evil.    The  uncertainty  and  unten- 
ableness  of  all,  even  modern  philosophy,  should 
be  proved  from   the  constant  fluctuation   and 
change  of  its  principles,  the  undcmonstrated  char- 


acter of  its  assumptions,  the  inner  contradictions 
in  its  construction  of  the  relations  between  God 
and  the  world,  and  its  failure  to  yield  any  posi- 
tive and  lasting  results. 

VI.  The  duty  of  our   scientific  apology,  as 
against  destructive  historical  criticism,  is  to  show 
that  the  Scriptures  become  unintelligible  if  their 
inspiration  be  denied,  while  at  the  same  time  we 
should  uphold  their  humano-divine  (not  solely 
divine)  character,  and  distinguish  between  a  jus- 
tifiable and  reverent  criticism,  and  one  which 
shows  a  false  aversion  to  the  miraculous.     The 
latter  must  be  combated  by  exposing  its  false 
philosophical  principles,  which  apply  merely  hu- 
man standards  to  incommensurable  divine  mag- 
nitudes, its  subjective  arbitrariness  and  coups  de 
force  in  the  treatment  of  details,  by  pointing  to 
the  growing  testimony  of  modern  archaeological 
research  in  favor  of  Scripture,  but  especially  by 
demonstrating  the  impossibility  of  inventing  the 
picture  which  the  Gospels  give  of  Christ,  or  of 
any  sufficient  explanation  of  the  original  Chris- 
tian belief,  or  the  existence  of  the  Christian 
Church,  without  accepting  the  Gospel  narrative 
as  historical  fact. 

VII.  Against  the  attacks  of  anti-miraculous 
natural  science,  we  must  first  of  all  draw  a  sharp 
line  between  the  aim  and  object  of  the  Scriptures 
and  that  of  natural  science,  showing  that  the 
former,  as  a  record  of  Divine  Revelation,  only 
touches  upon  the  region  of  physics  in  a  fragment- 
ary manner,  and  with  a  few  general  outlines,  for 
the  purpose  of  laying  a  foundation  for  its  moral 
and  spiritual  teachings,  while  the  latter  is  con- 
fined to  an  empirical  observation  of  things  as 
they  are,  and  can  therefore  only  make  conjec- 
tures as  to  the  processes  by  which  the  world  orig- 
inated, but  can  not  possibly  render  the  existence 
of  a  spiritual  and  invisible  world  a  doubtful  mat- 
ter by  any  results  of  microscopic  or  telescopic 
investigations.     After  having  rejected  the  anti- 
miraculous  axioms  of  modern  science  by  resting 
on  the  Christian,  as  the  only  reasonable  idea  of 
God  and  his  relation  to  the  world,  we  should  pro- 
ceed to  take  our  stand  upon  the  harmony  which 
has  already  been  established  in  general  outlines 
between  the  Biblical  cosmogony  and  the  results 
of  natural  science,  as  a  fact  which  justifies  the 
hope  of  a  future  solution  of  all  differences  which 
yet  remain.    Further,  we  have  to  expose  the  un- 
certainty and  rashness  of  many  of  their  conclu- 
sions, which,  though  supposed  to  be  exact,  yet 
rest  upon  mere  hypotheses,  and  are  constantly 
being  modified  by  stricter  investigations.    Final- 
ly, we  must  repulse  their  hypothesis  as  to  the 
generation  of  man  from  mere  natural  forces,  as 
being  an  attack  on  his  true  dignity,  by  argu- 


CHRISTLIEB :   COUNTERACTING  MODERN  INFIDELITY. 


223 


ments  drawn  from  our  moral  and  spiritual  self- 
consciousness,  confirming  the  Scriptural  doc- 
trine of  the  divinity  of  human  nature,  and  by 
pointing  to  the  physiological,  but  still  more  to 
the  historical,  arguments  for  the  unity  of  our  race. 
VIII.  Our  defense  against  the  appearance  of 
infidelity  as  a  social  power  must,  in  order  to  be 
effectual,  be  conducted  according  to  the  rule, 
"By  their  fruits  ye  shall  know  them."  To  this 
end  we  must  furnish  practical  historical  proofs 
of  the  dcstructiveness  of  infidelity  far  more  ex- 
tensively than  has  hitherto  been  done,  by  a  fear- 
less exposure  of  its  positive  fruits  in  spreading 
an  unlimited  pride,  confusing  all  moral  and  re- 
ligious ideas,  and  founding  a  despotism  of  hollow 
phrases :  further,  in  exhausting  all  vigorous  and 
independent  congregational  life,  as  regards  both 
worship,  discipline,  and  Church  government;  in 
paralyzing  all  energetic  and  self-sacrificing  work 
for  the  extension  of  God's  kingdom.  Especially 
we  should  point  out  the  utter  inability  of  unbe- 
lief to  minister  to  the  wants  of  souls,  or  to  sup- 
ply any  practical  religious  need,  particularly  in 


times  of  trouble,  and  its  destructive  effects  in 
undermining  and  ruining  education  and  family, 
civil  and  political  society,  and  all  national  or  so- 
cial prosperity. 

IX.  The  most  irresistible  method  of  defense 
against  the  last-named,  and  all  other  forms  of  in- 
fidelity, is  the  actual  proof  of  a  Christian  life. 
The  duty  of  furnishing  this  proof  falls  partly  to 
the  lot  of  the  Church,  by  the  removal  of  all  un- 
necessary quarrels  and  jealousies  at  home  and 
abroad,  and  by  cherishing  a  wide-hearted  broth- 
erly love  and  union  among  all  evangelical  denom- 
inations :  partly  it  falls  to  the  lot  of  the  congre- 
gation, by  openly  and  joyfully  witnessing,  in  word 
and  deed,  for  Christ  before  the  world,  by  devel- 
oping a  vigorous  Christian  associational  life,  by 
exercising  a  Christian  influence  on  the  press  anil 
popular  literature  :  partly,  also,  it  falls  to  the  lot 
of  individuals,  by  arming  themselves  more  fully 
with  spiritual  weapons  through  prayer,  by  moral 
and  religious  personal  conduct  which  shall  out- 
shine that  of  the  opponents ;  by  faithfulness  in 
work,  patience  in  suffering,  and  peace  in  death. 


BEST  METHODS  OF  COUNTERACTING  MODERN 

INFIDELITY. 

BY  THE   REV.  STANLEY  LEATHES, 

Professor  of  Hebrew,  King's  College,  London. 


WHAT  may  be  the  best  practical  methods 
of  counteracting  the  unbelief  of  the  present 
day  is  a  question  at  once  so  large  and  so 
important  that  we  may  well  shrink  from  at- 
tempting to  answer  it.  For  is  not  that  un- 
belief itself  hydra-headed  ?  No  sooner  is  one 
head  destroyed  than  many  others  appear  in 
its  place.  There  is  unbelief  on  metaphysical 
grounds,  and  unbelief  on  natural  grounds. 
There  is  moral  unbelief,  and  historical  unbe- 
lief. There  is  the  unbelief  of  criticism,  which 
may  be  called  a  posteriori  unbelief,  and  there 
is  the  unbelief  of  abstract  and  preliminary 
objections,  which  may  be  called  unbelief  on 
a  priori  grounds. 

It  is  probable,  however,  that,  despite  the 
various  forms  unbelief  may  assume,  there 
is  more  or  less  unity  in  the  ultimate  cause 
producing  it.  When,  moreover,  we  speak 
of  modern  infidelity,  it  must  not  bo  as- 
sumed that  the  relative  growth  of  infidel- 
ity is  greater  now  than  it  was  of  old,  or 
that  the  forms  it  exhibits  in  the  present 
day  are  altogether  original,  and  have  never 
been  presented  before.  To  say  at  once  that 
the  growth  of  modern  unbelief  is  greater 
now  than  it  has  hitherto  been,  would  be  to 
allow  that  the  battle  of  faith  is  declining  to 
the  side  of  our  adversaries,  and  that  our 
own  cause  is  failing,  which  would,  at  least, 
be  impolitic,  if  it  were  not  untrue. 

An  essential  preliminary  step  to  deciding 
upon  the  best  methods  of  counteracting  mod- 
ern unbelief  is  to  arrive  at  some  definite  no- 
tion of  what  is  meant  by  unbelief,  and  what 
are  its  essential  characteristics.  Now  it  ap- 
pears that  the  essential  virus  of  the  several 
forms  of  unbelief  that  are  prevalent  nowa- 
days is  the  refusal  to  acknowledge  that  an 
actual  divine  revelation  has  been  in  any 
sense  vouchsafed  to  man.  This  is  apart  al- 
together from  any  questions  which  may  le- 
gitimately arise  on  the  wide  and  delicate  sub- 
ject of  inspiration.  We  may  well  have  a 
revelation  that  is  authoritative  and  final, 
and  yet  bo  totally  unable  to  define  what  in- 
spiration is  or  how  it  works.  These  are 
very  reasonable  questions,  which  may  be  rev- 
erentially handled,  and  decided  in  various 
ways ;  but  the  prior  question, "  Have  we  a 
revelation  at  all !"  is  vastly  more  important, 
and  must  really  involve  all  that  is  essen- 
tial in  the  others. 


And  it  is  needless  to  observe  that  the 
question,  "Have  we  a  revelation?"  is  one 
that  does  not  admit  of  any  answer  that 
can  be  proved  to  demonstration  either  way. 
Even  the  most  strenuous  opponents  of  Chris- 
tianity are  not  prepared  with  any  demon- 
stration of  a  negative  answer.  This  is  too 
often  forgotten  by  the  disputants  on  either 
side.  It  has  been  admitted,  over  and  over 
again,  that  the  proof  for  revelation  is  not, 
properly  speaking,  demonstrative ;  but  it  is 
too  often  overlooked  that  the  disproof  of 
revelation,  or  the  proof  against  revelation, 
is  not  demonstrative  either.  The  question 
must,  after  all,  resolve  itself  into  a  balance 
of  probabilities. 

But  then,  again,  from  the  nature  of  the 
case,  the  answer  to  the  question,  "  Have  we 
a  revelation  ?"  must  really  depend  upon 
facts  rather  than  theories.  This  also  is  a 
point  that  is  habitually  disregarded  by  the 
oppononto  of  Christianity.  And  it  is  here 
that  we  would  endeavor  to  find  one  of  the  first 
answers  to  our  thesis  —  What  are  the  best 
methods  of  counteracting  modern  unbelief? 
First,  wo  would  say,  "  By  always  maintain- 
ing that  the  question  of  revelation  is  not 
really  a  matter  of  opinion,  but  a  matter  of 
fact."  It  is  a  question  of  the  interpretation 
of  facts.  There  are  certain  broad  and  pat- 
ent facts  which  are  virtually  independent 
of  the  various  doubts  that  have  been  ad- 
vanced on  critical  or  other  grounds,  and  it 
is  on  these  that  the  proof  of  revelation  act- 
ually rests.  For  example,  to  take  one  notori- 
ous fact  which  is  patent  to  all.  There  is  no 
question  as  to  what  has  been  the  condition 
of  the  Jewish  nation  for  the  last  eighteen 
hundred  years.  There  is  no  question  as  to 
what  their  state  is  now.  They  are  a  dis- 
tinct and  separate  people,  and  yet  they  have 
no  national  existence.  They  are  a  people 
dispersed  throughout  all  the  nations  of  the 
earth.  This  has  been  more  or  less  their  con- 
dition for  upwards  of  two  thousand  years. 
It  first  began  from  that  dark  period  of  their 
history  which  is  known  as  the  Captivity, 
which  took  place  under  Shalmaneser  and 
Nebuchadnezzar.  And  it  is  perfectly  cer- 
tain that  this  condition  was  very  signifi- 
cantly portrayed  in  their  national  literature 
many  centuries  before  it  was  realized  in  fact. 
There  are  many  passages  in  Leviticus  and 


LEATHES :  METHODS  OF  COUNTERACTING  MODERN  INFIDELITY. 


225 


Deuteronomy  which  declare  distinctly  what 
is  to  le  the  condition  of  the  people,  which  on 
no  critical  theory  can  be  brought  down  low 
enough  to  be  drawn  from  the  life,  and  yet 
which  are  not  less  graphic  than  if  they  were. 
These  passages  are  cast  in  the  form  of  proph- 
ecy, and  obviously  profess  to  be  prophetic. 
But  it  can  not  for  a  moment  be  pretended 
that  they  are  prophecies  after  the  event.  If, 
however,  they  are  not  prophecies  after  the 
event,  they  must  be  prophecies  before  it. 
But  if  they  are  prophecies  before  the  event, 
nothing  is  more  certain  and  manifest  than 
that  the  event  has  fulfilled  them  to  the  letter. 

If,  however,  it  is  affirmed  that  the  whole 
theory  of  prophecy  is  one  that  requires  to 
be  remodeled,  and  that  it  must  not  be  pro- 
pounded in  a  form  too  bald  or  naked,  yet 
this  fact  remains  in  its  broad  and  evident 
features  —  "  That  alike  in  the  Old  Testa- 
ment and  in  the  New,  there  is  to  be  per- 
ceived continually  the  latent  consciousness 
of  a  coming  future  for  Israel,  which  shall, 
be  in  painful  contrast  with  the  past."  This 
is  stated  in  a  manner  so  marked  and  spe- 
cial, and  in  forms  so  various,  that  it  can 
not  be  disregarded.  It  is  impossible  that 
the  expression  can  be  fortuitous ;  and  seeing 
that  we  have  before  our  very  eyes  now  the 
evidence  of  the  correspondence  of  the  events 
with  the  enunciation  of  them  ages  and  ages 
before  their  occurrence,  there  is  but  one  con- 
clusion possible — that  these  denunciations, 
which  claimed  to  be  prophetic,  haA^e,  in  the 
long  result  of  history,  established  their 
claim  to  be  so  regarded. 

Now,  I  have  heard  it  asserted  that  the 
ethnological  characteristics  of  the  Jewish 
nation  are  not  so  exceptional  as  common- 
ly supposed.  But  here  it  must  be  borne  in 
mind  that  we  have  not  only  the  singular- 
ity of  the  fact  to  rest  on,  which  may  or 
may  not  be  unique,  but  we  have  also  the 
previous  declaration  of  .the  fact,  which  is 
absolutely  and  entirely  unique.  To  take 
an  illustration  :  Professor  M.  Miiller,  in  his 
recent  work  on  the  "  Science  of  Religion," 
has  shown  in  a  very  interesting  manner  the 
very  remarkable  parallel  that  exists  be- 
tween the  descent  of  Buddhism  from  Brah- 
manism,  and  of  Christianity  from  Mosa- 
ism ;  and  he  has  shown,  also,  that  just  as 
Buddhism  became  the  prevailing  religion  of 
those  races  among  whom  Brahman  ism  was 
not  indigenous,  so  also  Christianity  struck 
root,  not  among  the  Jewish  nation  or  the 
Shemitic  races  from  which  it  sprung,  but 
found  its  home  among  the  Gentile  nations 
of  alien  origin.  Now  this  is  an  historic  par- 
allel which,  no  doubt,  more  or  less  accu- 
rately holds  good,  and  is  very  remarkable. 
But  the  parallelism  is  incomplete,  because 
in  Mosaism  and  Christianity,  we  have  not 
only  the  natural  pedigree  which  may  be 
traced  in  Brahmanism  and  Buddhism,  but, 
much  more  than  this,  we  have  in  Mosaism 
15 


the  distinct  germ  of  Christianity,  Avhich  can 
not  be  said  of  the  other  two ;  and  yet,  fur- 
ther, we  have  also  in  the  Scriptures  of 
the  Jews  the  definite  assurance  that,  while 
that  people  themselves  are  rejected,  the 
Gentile  nations  shall  inherit  their  spiritual 
wealth,  and  become  heirs  of  the  promises 
which  they  have  not  believed.  And  it  is 
this  explicit  announcement  which  differ- 
entiates altogether  and  conclusively  the  re- 
lation between  Mosaism  and  Christianity 
from  any  historical  parallel  which  may  be 
drawn  to  illustrate  it. 

And  it  is  the  same  with  the  historic  condi- 
tion of  the  Jewish  people,  and  the  circumstan- 
tial portraiture  of  it  which  their  Scriptures 
contain.  If  the  one  find  any  true  historic 
parallel  elsewhere,  the  other  most  assured- 
ly does  not;  and  it  is  the  co- existence  of 
the  two  which,  being  as  it  is  equally  broad 
and  definite,  constitutes  that  moral  evidence 
of  divine  foreknowledge  and  design  which 
it  becomes  impossible  to  set  aside. 

The  same  may  be  said  likewise  of  the 
broad  and  general  characteristics  of  the 
Jewish  literature.  There  is  no  literature 
which  has  been  subjected  to  so  severe  and 
searching  a  criticism  as  that  of  the  Jewish 
nation.  It  has  been  tried  in  a  fiery  ordeal. 
Its  several  parts  have  been  torn  piece  from 
piece,  and  the  authorship  of  them  assigned  to 
all  conceivable  writers  ;  and  yet,  in  spite  of 
all  this,  the  broad  features  of  them  are  unde- 
niable and  indestructible.  For  example, 
there  is  no  nation  possessed  of  so  remarkable 
an  historic  record  as  the  Jewish  nation.  I 
speak  now  not  of  the  facts  comprised  in  the 
history,  but  of  the  historic  record  itself; 
and  yet  this  record,  as  a  whole,  is  undoubt- 
edly trustworthy.  We  dare  not  on  critical 
grounds  assume  it  to  be  otherwise,  because, 
if  so,  we  cut  the  very  foundation  away  on 
which  our  criticism  itself  must  rest.  But 
this  historic  record  is  confirmed  both  by  the 
national  songs  which  we  possess  in  the  Book 
of  Psalms,  and  also  by  the  independent  writ- 
ings of  the  fourteen  prophets.  It  can  not  be 
affirmed  that  in  any  important  respect  this 
threefold  testimony  is  divergent ;  and  yet, 
taking  it  as  we  find  it,  the  salient  features 
of  it  are  so  marked  and  so  exceptional,  that 
it  is  impossible  to  say  that  we  are  deal- 
ing with  facts  or  circumstances  of  no  more 
than  ordinary  significance.  For  example, 
the  narrative  of  the  Exodus,  treat  it  as  we 
will,  and  pare  down  the  supernatural  as  we 
may,  becomes  after  all  indicative  of  agencies 
at  work  which  are  not  those  of  every-day  life, 
or  of  godless,  undirected  chance.  It  is  im- 
possible to  divest  the  narrative  of  the  Ex- 
odus of  the  evidence  of  purpose,  and  it  is 
equally  impossible  to  accept  even  the  frame- 
work of  the  narrative  as  true,  and  not  sec 
that  the  only  explanation  of  the  facts  is  the 
assumption  of  a  purpose. 

The  only  way  in  which  it  is  possible  to  ac- 


CHRISTIANITY  AND  ITS  ANTAGONISMS. 


couut  for  the  phenomeim  we  meet  with  iu  the 
Jewish  history  on  a  merely  natural  basis,  is 
by  saying  that  the  special  characteristics  of 
the  history  were  the  creation  of  the  faith 
of  the  people.  It  was  their  mental  habit  to 
discover  the  supernatural  every  where,  and 
to  recognize  divine  interference  on  their  be- 
half;  and,  starting  with  this  assumption, 
even  the  most  ordinary  events  became  trans- 
formed in  a  marvelous  way.  But  it  is  im- 
possible to  affirm  that  the  redemption  of  an 
entire  nation  from  the  oppression  of  a  hos- 
tile and  warlike  people  is  in  any  sense  an 
ordinary  event;  and  it  is  just  this  event 
which  remains  the  surest  and  most  obvious 
after  every  thing  of  a  miraculous  character 
has  been  rejected.  The  redemption  of  Israel 
out  of  Egypt  was,  as  a  matter  of  indisputa- 
ble fact,  accomplished  by  Moses.  It  was  ac- 
complished on  his  part  reluctantly.  It  was 
accomplished,  as  he  believed,  in  obedience 
to  a  divine  command.  It  was  accomplish- 
ed without  bloodshed  or  the  drawing  of  a 
sword.  It  was  accomplished  at  once,  and 
without  failure  or  delay.  It  was  accom- 
plished in  connection  with  certain  circum- 
stances— such  as  the  institution  of  the  Pass- 
over, for  example — which  gave  it  a  peculiar 
significance.  For  fifteen  hundred  years  the 
Passover  was  kept,  and  it  was  utterly  de- 
void of  meaning  if  it  did  not  point  back- 
ward to  the  deliverance  out  of  Egypt.  But, 
unless  the  record  of  its  institution  is  alto- 
gether untrustworthy,  it  rested  on  precisely 
the  same  authority  as  that  deliverance  it- 
self; and  yet  that  deliverance  is  the  most 
remarkable  event  iu  all  history.  The  Ex- 
odus can  not  be  reduced  to  the  dimensions 
of  ordinary  history,  if  in  all  its  features  it 
transcend  them ;  and  yet,  if  it  transcend 
them  no  less  iu  the  features  of  its  details 
than  in  the  principles  on  which  it  was  ac- 
complished, it  is  hard  to  say  that  it  affords 
no  illustration  or  confirmation  of  its  princi- 
ples, and  is  to  be  regarded  merely  as  ordi- 
nary history,  which  does  not  claim  to  illus- 
trate or  confirm  a  given  principle. 

But  that  which  is  true  of  the  Exodus  is 
true  also  of  many  another  episode  in  Old 
Testament  history ;  and,  in  fact,  from  begin- 
ning to  end,  it  is  developed  so  clearly  in  obe- 
dience to  enunciated  principles,  that  the 
principles  and  the  history  must  stand  or  fall 
together.  It  is  not  easy  to  reject  the  his- 
tory, and  consequently  the  acceptance  of 
the  principles  is  inevitably  involved  in  any 
fair  treatment  of  the  history.  Every  great 
stage  in  the  historic  development  of  Israel 
s  distinctly  announced  beforehand.  The 
thraldom  in  Egypt  was  announced  to  Abra- 
ham ;  the  deliverance  from  Egypt  was  an- 
nounced to  Moses ;  the  establishment  of  the 
throne  of  Jndah  was  announced  to  David ; 
the  captivity  was  announced  to  Hezekiah  ; 
the  return  was  announced  to  Jeremiah  ;  the 
ingathering  of  the  Gentiles  was  announced 


to  Hosea  and  to  Malachi.  The  fulfillment 
of  the  last  elucidates  the  fulfillment  of  the 
others.  Hosea's  prophecy  was  eight  centu- 
ries before  the  fact.  We  dare  not,  in  the 
face  of  that,  assert  that  the  record  of  all  the 
others  was  written  after  the  event  to  which 
it  referred — to  say  nothing  of  such  a  the- 
ory involving  so  much  acquiescence  of  the 
nation  in  the  open  falsehood  of  the  writers 
as  is  absolutely  inconceivable.  In  short,  it 
becomes  a  balance  of  probabilities  between 
the  requisite  amount  of  intricate  collusion 
and  the  admission  upon  conclusive  evidence 
of  the  communication  to  chosen  recipients 
of  the  divine  foreknowledge.  It  is  not  eas- 
ier to  maintain  upon  mere  a  priori  grounds 
the  abstract  impossibility  of  prophecy  than 
it  is  to  receive  upon  an  accumulation  of  mor- 
al evidence  which  points  to  it  the  fact  that 
such  prophecy  has  been  vouchsafed  upon 
highly  exceptional  occasions,  when  the  im- 
portance of  the  matter  communicated  was 
in  harmony  with  the  exceptional  character 
of  the  means  employed. 

In  dealing,  then,  with  the  flippant  and  su- 
perficial infidelity  which  too  often  seeks  to 
commend  itself  to  popular  favor  in  the  pres- 
ent day,  it  is  highly  essential  to  dwell  upon 
broad  facts  which  are  above  the  fluctuating 
results  of  an  uncertain  criticism.  It  is 
never  safe  to  trust  ourselves  to  a  too  nar- 
row issue,  when  one  that  is  very  broad  and 
general  is  near  at  hand.  If  God  has  not  writ- 
ten the  evidence  of  his  truth  upon  undenia- 
ble facts  and  the  wide  current  of  history, 
he  has  written  it  upon  nothing.  The  Bible 
as  a  whole  is  precluded  from  the  possibility 
of  bearing  witness  to  itself,  because  the  Bi- 
ble can  not  define  its  own  limits,  but  is  de- 
pendent upon  other  authorities  for  the  defi- 
nition of  its  limits.  But  the  Bible  as  a 
whole  is  sufficiently  distinguishable  from 
all  other  production?,  and  to  the  substantial 
truth  of  the  Bible  message  as  a  whole  there 
is  a  testimony  borne  by  history  such  as  is 
borne  by  it  to  nothing  else.  We  must  de- 
cide in  the  face  of  this  clear  and  unimpeach- 
able testimony,  if  we  would  decide  that  the 
substantial  truth  of  the  Bible  record  and 
message  as  a  whole  is  undeserving  of  cred- 
it. There  is  a  mass  of  corroborative  evi- 
dence in  support  of  the  framework  of  Old 
Testament  history  such  as  does  not  exist  in 
support  of  the  narrative  of  Tacitus  or  Thu- 
cydides,  and  the  mass  of  this  evidence  is  con- 
tinually becoming  greater,  and  continually 
receiving  fresh  elucidation.  The  strength 
of  unbelieving  criticism  consists  in  the  per- 
tinacity with  which  certain  points  of  detail 
are  dwelt  upon  ;  but  the  strength  of  that 
which  is  opposed  to  it  consists  in  the  breadth 
of  the  issue,  which  is  based  upon  the  broad 
and  general  principles  and  facts  which  are 
untouched  by  criticism.  The  mass  of  evi- 
dence for  the  fact  of  a  special  and  unique 
revelation  being  contained  in  the  Scriptures 


LEATHES :  METHODS  OF  COUNTERACTING  MODERN  INFIDELITY.       227 


of  the  Old  and  New  Testaments  is  so  great 
that  it  is  iuipossihle  for  a  rightly  instructed 
and  unbiased  mind  to  resist  the  force  of  it. 

The  example  of  the  relation  between  the 
Old  Testament  and  the  New  is  of  such  a  kind 
as  to  be  entirely  -without  parallel.  There 
is  no  other  instance  in  literature  of  one 
book  of  a  highly  composite  nature,  which 
was  yet  regarded  as  one,  being  the  origin, 
and  becoming  the  literary  parent  of  another 
book,  also  composite  in  its  nature,  and  that 
after  an  interval  of  four  hundred  years,  as  in 
the  case  of  the  Old  Testament  and  the  New. 
The  oue  is  in  some  sense  the  natural  de- 
scendant of  the  other,  and  yet  no  one  could 
have  anticipated  such  a  development  as 
likely  or  possible.  All  this  is  au  instance 
of  the  kind  of  facts  upon  which  the  theory 
of  an  actual  God-given  and  authoritative 
revelation  rests.  They  are  at  once  broad, 
deep,  and  solid  in  their  character.  They  are 
invulnerable  to  the  attacks  of  criticism,  and 
they  are  inexplicable  on  any  merely  natural 
principles.  They  point  clearly,  naturally, 
and  conclusively  to  one  explanation,  and  to 
one  only ;  and  though  they  do  not  mathe- 
matically demonstrate  it,  they  ofter  a  moral 
proof  which  is  much  more  nearly  complete 
than  any  disproof  that  can  be  set  against  it. 
Not  only  is  revelation  in  its  subject-matter 
a  witness  to  its  own  origin,  but  so  also  is 
the  record  in  which  the  revelation  is  set 
forth  in  its  generic  and  unalterable  features 
a  witness  to  the  fact  that  a  similar  combi- 
nation of  phenomena,  equally  significant 
and  various,  could  not  have  been  produced 
by  chance.  And,  from  the  nature  of  the 
case,  there  is  no  alternative  between  a  de- 
nial that  these  phenomena  have  any  mean- 
ing at  all,  and  an  admission  that  the  mean- 
ing they  have  is  the  one  alleged. 


In  attempting,  then,  to  stern  the  tide  of 
unbelief  which  rises  in  all  directions  around 
us,  it  is  essential  to  plant  our  feet  firm  upon 
the  rock  whose  foundation  is  as  far  beneath 
its  deepest  channels  as  the  summit  thereof 
rises  far  above  its  roaring  waves  and  foam- 
ing billows.  Unless  we  stand  upon  the  rock 
that  is  higher  than  we  are,  it  is  impossible 
not  to  be  borne  away  by  them.  It  is  not 
in  ourselves,  or  in  our  arguments,  our  logic, 
and  eloquence,  that  our  hope  lies,  but  in  the 
revelation  of  the  arm  of  the  Lord.  If  he 
do  not  manifest  himself  in  his  revelation, 
it  will  speak  in  vain ;  but  revelation  is  a 
thing  of  the  spirit  and  the  heart,  and  not  of 
the  reasoning.  When  God  has  revealed  him- 
self to  the  conscience  and  the  heart,  the  rea- 
son brings  her  offering  to  attest  and  to  con- 
firm the  message;  but  when  the  conscience; 
is  deaf  to  the  voice  of  God,  the  reason  also 
is  blind  to  the  grace  and  message  of  his  truth. 
The  destructiveuess  of  a  skeptical  criticism 
must  be  met  by  a  constructive  association 
of  facts  that  are  independent  of  it.  This 
and  that  denial  may,  as  occasion  serves,  be 
met  and  answered  in  detail ;  but  special 
controversy  of  this  kind  is  within  the  reach 
only  of  a  few,  and  that  which  is  to  operate 
on  the  public  at  large  is  the  exhibition  of 
the  broad  front  of  truth  in  its  many  and 
manifold  bearings ;  and  whenever  this  is 
given  in  faith  and  sincere  dependence  upon 
God,  it  brings  forth  its  fruit  in  due  sea- 
son. The  word  of  truth,  spoken  from  a  be- 
lieving heart  in  the  spirit  of  earnest  love, 
will  not  die,  for  it  is  the  word  of  the  liv- 
ing God,  and  of  that  word  he  hath  said, 
"  It  shall  not  return  unto  me  void,  but 
it  shall  accomplish  that  which  I  please, 
and  it  shall  prosper  in  the  thing  whereto  I 
sent  it." 


THE  CAUSES  OF,  AND  BEST  METHODS  OF  COUN- 
TERACTING, MODERN  INFIDELITY. 


BY  THE  REV.  JOHN  CAIRNS,  D.D., 

Berwick,  England. 


A  SUBJECT  so  extensive  as  has  been  iu- 
trusted  to  me  for  discussion  can  only  be 
treated  in  a  fragmentary  way,  and  -with  a 
view  to  supply  materials  for  further  consid- 
eration to  those  who  are  present  at  this 
day's  proceedings,  or  who  may  read  the  Re- 
ports of  the  Conference.  A  separate  essay, 
and  that  a  long  one,  would  be  required  for 
the  full  elucidation  of  such  a  topic. 

I  limit  the  infidelity  the  causes  of  which 
are  to  be  inquired  into  to  unbelief  in  the 
Christian  revelation,  excluding  inquiry  into 
t  he  causes  of  Atheism,  Pantheism,  and  spu- 
rious Theism,  except  iu  so  far  as  these  bear 
upon  the  rejection  of  Christianity  as  a  mes- 
sage from  God.  Even  with  this  restriction, 
the  inquiry  is  very  extended,  and  this  search 
into  causes  is  only  the  half  of  it ;  for  much 
would  need  to  be  occupied  with  considera- 
tion of  remedies. 

The  infidelity  whose  causes  need  to  be 
opened  up  is  in  this  thesis  designated 
"  modern."  It  is  not  like  that  against  which 
the  early  defenders  of  Christianity  contend- 
ed— a  rejection  of  Christianity  founded  on 
adherence  to  another  positive  religion,  or  to 
the  supernatural  iu  some  other  form,  but  a 
rejection  of  it,  without  leaving  room  for,  or 
at  least  embracing,  any  other  professed  rev- 
elation. It  has,  therefore,  more  affinity  to 
the  philosophical  unbelief  of  the  ancient 
world,  against  which  also  the  early  apolo- 
gists, though  to  a  less  degree,  used  their 
weapons;  and  we  may  include  in  it  the 
forms  of  Christianity  itself  vaguely  compre- 
hended in  the  general  denomination  of  Ra- 
tionalism, which,  professing  to  admit  Chris- 
tianity in  some  exalted  sense,  really  deny 
its  supernatural  origin  and  strike  out  its 
distinctive  features.  No  very  definite  idea 
as  to  extent  of  time  is  suggested  by  this  ep- 
ithet "modern,"  as  employed  in  the  heading 
of  the  paper  offered  me  for  discussion.  It 
evidently  can  not  denote  the  whole  period 
included  in  modern  history,  leaving  behind 
the  entire  manifestation  of  unbelief  in  Chris- 
tianity before  the  close  of  the  Middle  Ages, 
and  taking  up  its  whole  appearance  since 
the  Reformation.  I  think,  rather,  that  the 
word  "  modern  "  is  intended  in  the  sense  of 
"  recent,"  and  at  least  shall  so  take  it.  I 
diall  not,  however,  be  careful  to  distinguish 


between  the  infidelity  of  the  last  century 
and  of  the  present.  To  me  the  contrast 
often  drawn  on  this  head  is  less  evident.  No 
doubt  there  is  more  reverence  and  tender- 
ness toward  Christianity,  on  the  whole,  even 
on  the  part  of  its  deniers,  than  in  the  En- 
glish Deistic  period  or  at  the  French  Revo- 
lution. But  as  great  concessions  to  Chris- 
tianity were  made  in  the  eighteenth  cent- 
ury by  writers  unhappily  negative  on  the 
whole,  like  Lessing  and  Kant,  as  have  since 
been  yielded ;  and  the  tone  in  many  places 
of  Francis  \V.  Newman  and  of  Renan  is  as 
deeply  painful  to  Christian  sensibilities  as 
that  of  Reimarus  or  of  Voltaire.  These  pre- 
liminary explanations,  limiting  the  object 
of  our  inquiry  to  the  more  recently  origi- 
nated and  still  continued  forms  of  the  denial 
or  non-admission  of  supernatural  Christian- 
ity, will  prepare  us  for  the  adduction  of 
their  causes. 

I.  Of  these  causes,  the  widest  classification 
is  that  which  ranks  them  as  imcard  and  out- 
ward, or,  iu  technical  language,  subjective  and 
objective.  The  first  and  deepest  class  of 
causes  lies  in  the  state  of  mind  which  deals 
with  Christianity  ;  the  second,  and  far  from 
unimportant,  lies  in  the  kind  of  exhibition 
of  Christianity  and  its  evidences  which  is 
made  to  that  receiving  mind.  We  all  hold 
that  if  the  state  of  mind  were  right,  and  if 
the  Christianity  presented  were  true  Chris- 
tianity, unbelief  would  be  impossible — as 
impossible  as  unbelief  in  heaven.  It  is  from 
the  wrongness  iu  the  mind  or  in  the  object, 
or  iu  both  variously  combined,  that  all  un- 
belief emerges ;  and  it  is  to  this  that  its  re- 
cent, like  all  its  past  manifestations,  are  to 
be  ascribed.  I  am  at  a  loss  for  words  ade- 
quately to  designate  these  two  kinds  of 
causes  of  unbelief;  but,  for  want  of  a  better, 
I  shall  call  them  pi-ejudiccs  and  scandalx, 
using  the  word  scandal  more  in  the  Greek 
sense  of  outward  hinderauce  or  stumbling- 
block. 

1.  Taking  up,  then,  prejudices,  or  states  of 
mind  which  predispose  against  Christianity, 
or  even  preclude  it  altogether,  they  may  be 
reduced  again  to  two  classes — intellectual 
aud  moral ;  or,  rather,  as  these  never  exist 
separately,  those  in  which  intellectual  pre- 
disposition against  Christianity,  and  those 


CAIRNS:  CAUSES  OF  MODERN  INFIDELITY. 


229 


in  \vhich  moral  predisposition,  is  the  pre- 
ponderating element.  There  are  other  Avays 
in  which  intellectual  preconceptions  oper- 
ate on  the  side  of  unbelief,  but  they  chiefly 
lead  to  the  rejection  of  Christianity  as  a 
revelation  in  common  with  all  alleged  reve- 
lations; while  the  moral  predispositions 
lead  more  to  the  rejection  of  Christianity 
because  of  its  substance  and  peculiarities. 

Looking,  then,  to  intellectual  prejudices 
which  lead,  to  infidelity,  the  most  common 
in  our  times  is  the  disbelief  of  the  possibil- 
ity of  any  revelation,  or  such  a  persuasion  of 
its  extreme  unlikelihood  as  nearly  amounts 
to  the  same  result.  Much  of  this,  no  doubt, 
springs  from  an  atheistic  or  pantheistic  root. 
Revelation  is  a  miracle ;  and,  on  the  scheme 
cither  of  atheism  or  pantheism,  a  miracle  is 
an  absurdity,  for  it  is  an  effort  of  nature  to 
transcend  itself;  and  hence  Spinoza  justly 
remarked  that  the  admission  of  a  miracle 
such  as  the  resurrection  of  Lazarus  would 
shatter  his  whole  system.  But  even  on  the 
ground  of  professed  theism,  so  defective  and 
incoherent  are  the  views  of  many  theists  in 
our  times,  that  they  regard  a  miracle,  and 
hence  the  fundamental  miracle  of  a  revela- 
tion, as  incompatible  with  the  reign  of  law. 
This  tendency  is  greatly  confirmed  by  the 
wide  diffusion  of  scientific  culture,  fixing 
the  mind  on  the  uniformity  as  a  matter  of 
fact  of  sequences  in  the  physical  world,  and 
even  to  a  certain  extent  in  the  mental  and 
moral  world ;  whence  it  is  hastily  con- 
cluded that  the  thing  which  is,  must  have 
been  always,  and  ever  shall  be.  It  is  not 
considered,  as  Mozley  in  his  Bampton  Lect- 
ure on  Miracles  has  so  strongly  urged,  that 
the  belief  in  the  uniformity  of  nature  is  not 
a  principle  of  such  intellectual  rigor  as  to 
exclude  the  admissibility  of  evidence  as  to 
exceptions;  and,  still  more  injuriously  for 
the  Christian  cause,  it  is  not  considered  that 
the  reign  of  law  in  the  moral  world  is  in 
point  of  fact  a  reign  of  disorder,  which  the 
exclusion  of  divine  intervention  would  stamp 
with  dismal  and  eternal  uniformity.  Not- 
withstanding the  assertion  of  all  Christian 
apologists  that  revelation  is  in  the  highest 
and  best  sense  an  example  and  vindication 
of  law — notwithstanding  the  presence  of  a 
disturbing  element  in  the  universe  which  all 
but  the  atheist,  the  pantheist,  and  the  moral 
skeptic  must  admit,  and  with  which  a  liv- 
ing God,  in  whose  nature  sovereign  and 
righteous  will  is  included,  may  be  expected 
to  deal — and  notwithstanding  that  the  high- 
est names  in  philosophy,  even  of  opposite 
schools,  as  Hamilton  and  Mill,  with  equal 
frankness  admit  the  possibility  and  credibil- 
ity of  miracles,  a  position  which  is  taken 
with  not  less  decision  by  equally  eminent 
leaders  in  science — there  can  be  no  doubt 
that  this  intellectual  prejudice  as  to  the 
reign  of  law  excluding  miracles  lies  deep  at 
the  foundation  of  much  of  our  current  unbe- 


lief, especially  among  minds  of  a  one-sided 
culture,  and  has  to  be  grappled  with  before 
a  revelation  can  be  received.  It  is  not  al- 
lowed that  any  thing  has  been  added  to  the 
objections  of  Hume  on  this  point.  The  essay 
of  Mr.  Baden  Powell,  in  "  Essays  and  Re- 
views," simply  reaffirms  with  prolonged  ut- 
terance the  uniformity  of  nature,  as  our 
present  science  reveals  it;  and  here  the 
Christian  and  unbeliever  are  perfectly  at 
one,  the  sophism  lying  in  translating  this 
and  other  experience,  numerically  all  but 
overwhelming  in  point  of  extent  and  dura- 
tion, into  the  "all  experience"  of  Hume's 
theorem.  But  it  is  easy  to  see  how  minds 
not  strictly  fixed  on  the  confessedly  excep- 
tional character  of  miracles,  and  on  the  de- 
mand on  science  to  scan  exceptions,  not  less 
than  rules,  may  be  carried  away  by  the  ap- 
pearance of  absolute  uniformity,  and  on  this 
ground  may  widely  refuse  Christianity  as  u 
revelation  so  much  as  a  hearing. 

In  thus  representing  the  prejudice  against 
any  revelation  as  the  prevailing  intellectual 
habit  of  our  times  which  generates  infidel- 
ity, I  may  seem  to  some  to  be  overlooking 
the  intellectual  difficulties  in  Christianity 
itself,  which,  when  looked  at  from  a  one- 
sided point  of  view,  undoubtedly  strengthen 
the  previous  bias  against  it.  These  arc 
such  doctrines  as  the  Trinity  and  the  Incar- 
nation, which,  probably,  to  the  mere  intel- 
lect, are  the  hardest  mysteries  in  Christian- 
ity. Yet  I  can  not  look  on  these  difficulties, 
though  undoubtedly  they  have  some  adverse 
influence,  as  exerting  nearly  so  much  influ- 
ence as  the  original  prejudice  against  any 
revelation.  They  are,  in  some  respects,  a 
mere  continuation  of  that  original  difficulty ; 
and  if  it  be  overcome,  they  do  not  emerge  as 
difficulties,  since  it  is  justly  felt  that  a  reve- 
lation, which  really  is  such,  must  involve 
things  as  incomprehensible  as  the  data,  al- 
ready granted,  of  natural  religion.  And 
hence,  in  point  of  fact,  where  revelation  as  a 
postulate  is  ex  animo  granted,  the  hardest 
mysteries  of  Christianity  are  generally  re- 
ceived ;  and  the  older  Uuitarianism,  which 
less  logically  allowed  revelation  and  ex- 
cluded the  Trinity  and  the  Incarnation, 
with  other  mysteries  of  Christianity,  has  for 
some  time  been  approximating  more  and 
more,  with  the  Continental  Rationalism,  to 
the  entire  negation  of  a  revelation  in  any 
genuine  and  effectual  sense  whatever. 

If,  now,  we  turn  to  the  moral  class  of  prej- 
udices against  Christianity,  which  either 
neutralize  the  force  of  its  other  evidences, 
or  become  the  sources  of  positive  objection 
to  it  and  the  causes  of  its  rejection,  we  shall 
find  them  to  be  of  a  various  character ;  but 
perhaps  all  reducible  to  two  classes,  viz., 
such  feelings  and  sentiments  as  are  morally 
wrong  in  themselves,  and  such  feelings  and 
sentiments  as  are  right  in  themselves,  but 
wrongly  directed  against  Christianity.  We 


•230 


CHRISTIANITY  AND  ITS  ANTAGONISMS. 


may  call  these  tho  darker  and  the  brighter 
of  the  morally  predisposing  causes  of  infidel- 
ity. 

To  the  darker  class  of  moral  prejudices 
against  Christianity  as  a  revelation,  we 
must  refer  those  sinful  lusts  and  passions 
which  Christianity  so  strongly  condemns. 
No  doubt  many  unbelievers  have  been  and 
are  men  of  outwardly  pure  and  decent  life. 
And  it  is  also  true  that  multitudes  of  nom- 
inal Christians  have  not  been  urged  on  to 
open  infidelity  by  tho  love  of  forbidden  in- 
dulgences which  they  cherished  or  display- 
ed. Still  the  natural  landing-place  of  all 
sin  which  Christianity  denounces  is  open  re- 
jection of  its  authority ;  and  it  would  ba  af- 
fectation and  false  charity  to  conceal  the  be- 
lief that,  as  in  other  ages,  so  in  our  own, 
vast  masses  are  precipitated  to  this  result 
by  their  conscious  disconformity  to  the 
Christian  standard.  The  innumerable  lax- 
ities and  transgressions  by  which  the  moral 
state  of  the  Continent  of  Europe,  and  also 
of  Great  Britain  and  America,  is  deformed, 
furnish  a  soil  in  which  unbelief  in  Christian- 
ity, together  -with  atheism,  materialism, 
and  denial  of  judgment  to  come,  must  arise 
as  the  reflex  in  doctrine  of  license  in  prac- 
tice ;  nor  is  the  evil  influence  confined  to  the 
less  educated  section  of  society.  As  in  the  last 
century,  so  in  the  present,  names  of  command- 
ing place  in  the  world  of  letters,  and  sepa- 
rated by  strong  disavowals  from  all  distinc- 
tively Christian  belief,  have  revealed  in  their 
lives  the  secret  of  this  antagonism,  and  have 
shown  how  impossible  it  was  for  the  Chris- 
tian demand  of  self-crucifixion  to  meet  in 
their  case  with  any  thing  but  violent  antip- 
athy and  recoil. 

Where  the  reception  of  Christianity  may 
not  be  obstructed  by  the  prevailingly  sens- 
uous tendencies  of  human  nature,  a  hinder- 
ance  not  less  formidable  is  found  in  our  day, 
as  always,  in  the  protest  of  human  pride 
against  a  scheme  so  humbling  and  adverse 
to  every  form  of  self-righteousness.  This  is 
the  Pharisaic,  as  the  other  is  the  Sadducean 
origin  of  unbelief.  The  need  of  a  revelation 
involves  a  reflection  on  the  inherent  capaci- 
ties of  our  nature  in  its  present  state,  which 
is  not  easily  borne ;  and  the  whole  structure 
of  genuine  Christianity,  including  as  it  does 
such  stupendous  provisions  for  the  pardon 
of  guilt  and  the  renewal  of  the  soul  by  the 
atonement  of  Christ  and  the  grace  of  the 
Holy  Spirit,  demands  such  a  recognition  of 
the  deadly  evil  of  sin  and  the  lost  condition 
of  a  world  of  sinners,  as  is  most  unwelcome 
and  mortifying  to  human  pride.  Hence  Pe- 
lagiauism  is  an  ever-recurrent  corruption  of 
Christianity,  and  where  it  exists,  as  it  al- 
ways does  beyond  the  Christian  pale,  it  is  a 
most  prolific  source  of  infidelity.  In  our 
own  times  there  is  much  that  specially  fa- 
vors these  Pelagiauizing  tendencies.  The 
advance,  so  rapid  and  wonderful,  of  science 


and  art,  tho  progress  of  education  aud  dif- 
fusion of  literature,  the  self-assertion  by 
long-oppressed  nationalities  of  their  rights 
and  liberties,  tho  approximation  to  a  com- 
mercial and  political  unity  of  tho  human 
race — all  tend  to  foster  the  idea  of  man's  in- 
herent capacities,  aud  to  set  afloat  wild  and 
chimerical  schemes  and  hopes  of  moral  re- 
generation, irrespective  of  Christianity.  The 
dream  of  an  independent  morality  finds 
countenance.  Theories  of  spiritual  develop- 
ment, more  exaggerated  and  fictitious  by  far 
than  those  of  physical  development,  are  ac- 
cepted. The  march  of  intelligence  or  the 
revolutionary  impulse  is  to  make  all  things 
new.  Meanwhile  the  sad  and  humbling  as- 
pects of  the  nineteenth  century — its  hideous 
vices  and  crimes — its  luxury,  selfishness,  and 
greed,  set  over  against  pauperism,  debase- 
ment, and  discontent — its  wars  aud  interna- 
tional feuds,  with  ever-increasing  conscrip- 
tions and  standing  armies — are  overlooked. 
The  remedial  influence  of  Christianity  in 
abating  many  of  the  evils  of  tho  century 
and  accelerating  its  best  triumphs  is  disre- 
garded. The  very  victories  of  the  Gospel 
are  claimed  as  the  evidences  of  the  needless- 
ness  of  a  revelation.  The  stones  from  its 
quarry  are  exalted  to  a  chief  place  in  the 
temple  of  reason ;  and  tho  Christ  of  God  is 
converted  into  the  crowning  witness  of  the 
inherent  capacities  of  man  and  the  leader  in 
the  race  of  natural  perfectibility.  However 
we  may  rejoice  in  the  progress  of  the  nine- 
teenth century,  this  perverted  application 
of  it,  in  aggravating  the  natural  reluctance 
to  accept  a  divine  remedy  for  sin  and  evil,  is 
most  deeply  to  be  deplored.  It  is  a  profa- 
nation of  the  same  kind,  as  when  the  Roman 
Empire,  providentially  raised  up  to  prepare 
tho  way  of  Christianity,  was  served  by  Jose- 
phus  heir  to  all  the  prophecies  of  a  Messiah. 
It  is  a  fresh  verification  of  the  words  so  pro- 
found and  far-reaching,  which  prove  their 
author  to  be  no  mere  human  teacher,  but  a 
divine  Healer:  "They  that  bo  whole  need 
not  a  physician,  but  they  that  are  sick." 

As  a  moral  hiuderance  to  the  reception  of 
Christianity  as  a  revelation,  a  sense  of  duty 
constrains  me  to  touch  on  the  abated  sense 
of  the  obligations  of  truth  which  unbeliev- 
ers still  indicate.  Christianity  has  exalted 
beyond  all  parallel  in  its  successive  martyr- 
ologies  the  absolute  claim  of  truth  on  the 
human  conscience.  But  -while  it  would  be 
uncandid  to  deny  that  some  unbelievers 
have  displayed  also  rare  self-sacrifice,  and 
while  the  penal  laws  against  unbelief  which 
once  disgraced  Christian  statute-books  may 
be  pleaded  as  some  excuse  for  the  suppres- 
sion of  convictions  adverse  to  Christianity, 
it  must  also  be  contended  that  the  history 
of  unbelief  as  a  whole  has  been  barren  of 
manly  and  avowed  confession,  and  fertile  of 
insinuation,  innuendo,  and  accommodation 
to  Christian  phraseology,  almost  without 


CAIRNS:  CAUSES  OF  MODERN  INFIDELITY. 


231 


precedent  in  literature.  Such  a  state  of 
iniud  is  not  open  to  Christian  light  and  evi- 
dence. The  indulgent  and  almost  admiring 
strain  in  which  Reuan  treats  our  Lord's  al- 
leged accommodation  to  Jewish  errors,  re- 
veals an  obliquity  in  the  panegyrist  which 
unfits  for  all  genuine  appreciation ;  and  the 
appeal  to  the  skeptical  among  the  French 
clergy  to  suppress  their  douhts  and  keep 
their  places,  indicates  a  moral  paralysis  on 
which  the  sublime  appeal  of  Christianity  to 
forsake  all  for  truth  and  for  Christ  can  fall 
with  no  quickening  power.  It  is  but  fair  to 
add  that  from  this  degradation  of  truth  the 
more  stoical  nature  of  Strauss  is  free,  and 
that  no  unbeliever  of  our  age  is  more  out- 
spoken and  resolute ;  still  the  wide-spread 
relaxation  of  this  supreme  law  is  without 
doubt  a  great  hinderance  to  the  acceptance 
of  the  Gospel ;  and  the  languid  and  shallow 
waters  of  that  iudifferentism  which  over- 
spreads so  much  of  the  ancient  territory  of 
faith  have  sprung  also  from  this  source. 

If  now  we  speak  of  the  less  censurable 
moral  prejudices  which  give  rise  to  unbelief, 
we  shall  find  them,  I  think,  chiefly  in  tend- 
encies to  make  too  much  of  supposed  devia- 
tions of  Christianity,  either  in  the  mere  fact 
of  its  being  a  revelation,  or  in  its  special  doc- 
trines and  records,  from  those  moral  laws 
and  principles  which  a  pnre  theism  incul- 
cates. The  Christian  advocate  never  can 
concede  that  these  deviations  are  made  out, 
or  can  be  supposed  to  be  so,  without  some 
workiug  of  unfairness  or  prejudice;  but  as, 
in  point  of  fact,  many  do  hold  them,  how- 
ever mistakenly,  to  be  made  out,  or  at  least 
do  not  see  the  difficulties  connected  with 
them  to  be  adequately  met,  these  preconcep- 
tions and  adverse  tendencies  must  be  regard- 
ed as  ranking  in  no  unimportant  degree 
among  the  causes  of  infidelity.  The  briefest 
enumeration  of  these  less  ignoble  sources  of 
doubt  and  opposition  is  all  that  can  be  given. 
It  is  not  necessary  to  do  more  than  glance  at 
the  objections  raised  by  the  theist  to  Chris- 
tianity as  partial  in  its  very  idea  as  a  reve- 
lation, and  in  its  ultimate  success  as  a  rem- 
edy, aud  therefore  inconsistent  with  the  di- 
vine goodness.  The  answers  to  this  class  of 
difficulties  by  Butler  and  other  great  apolo- 
gists still  fail  of  arresting  the  haste  aud 
eagerness  with  which  men  pronounce  on 
points  not  competent  to  human  judgment, 
aud  even  hold,  as  conclusive  against  Chris- 
tianity, arguments  which  equally  destroy 
their  own  theism.  There  is,  however,  noth- 
ing specially  "  modern  "  in  these  difficulties. 
They  are  as  old  as  abortive  efforts  to  solve  the 
great  mystery  of  evil.  The  only  "modern  "as- 
pect of  them,  as  Isaac  Taylor  has  justly  re- 
marked, is  the  prominence  which  they  as- 
sume, not  from  any  increase  in  their  own 
magnitude,  but  as  seen  through  the  more 
tender  atmosphere  of  Christian  philanthropy 
so  generally  diffused.  The  remedy  for  this 


in  Christian  minds  is  not  to  deny  the  limita- 
tion of  the  Christian  remedy,  or  by  any  fruit- 
less speculation  to  lighten  the  mystery,  but 
to  seek  relief  in  a  deeper  faith,  and  to  "wait 
the  great  teacher  Death,  and  God  adore."  But, 
unhappily,  on  the  ground  of  mere  theism, 
multitudes  illogically  demand  from  Chris- 
tianity a  present  solution,  and  that  in  the 
direction  of  universalism,  and  because  this 
can  not  be  giveu,  they  refuse  its  actual  rem- 
edy and  the  only  uuiversalism  which  it  of- 
fers them — a  nuiversalisin  co-extensive  with 
its  own  reception  by  faith. 

Of  objections  to  Christianity  founded  on 
the  divine  justice,  I  do  not  think  that  recent 
unbelief  has  made  any  special  handle.  There 
still  continues,  in  many  quarters,  the  de- 
clared opposition  on  this  ground  to  the  cen- 
tral Christian  doctrine  of  atonement ;  and 
perhaps  the  unhappy  tendencies  in  the  Chris- 
tian Church  itself  to  relax  this  cardinal  ar- 
ticle or  bring  it  into  debate  may  have  ag- 
gravated the  evil.  But,  so  far  as  I  am  aware, 
neither  in  regard  to  this  nor  to  any  other 
vital  part  of  Christianity  has  any  peculiar 
difficulty  been  nrged  of  this  nature ;  and 
therefore  we  may  hold  that  Christianity  as 
a  doctrinal  system,  abating  however  its  de- 
cisive limitation  of  salvation,  has  not  in  our 
days  giveu  rise  to  more  than  the  reaction 
and  recoil  of  human  prejudice,  which  it  has 
always  had  to  encounter  even  from  the  best 
of  unrenewed  men  in  all  ages. 

On  its  strictly  ethical  side  Christianity 
has  not  been  recently  assailed  with  objec- 
tions that  have  found  much  currency.  The 
most  noticeable  are  those  of -John  Stuart 
Mill,  complaining  of  its  defects  in  the  direc- 
tion of  asceticism,  and  its  discouragement  of 
the  social  and  political  virtues,  and  those  of 
Strauss,  in  his  last  "  Leben  Jesu,"  in  a  some- 
what similar  strain.  But  it  is  equally  need- 
less to  refute  these  allegations  and  to  trace 
their  causes.  The  much  higher  authority 
of  Kant  that  Christianity  has  practically  ex- 
hausted the  moral  law — though,  doubtless, 
in  excess  of  prevailing  opinion  on  this  head  in 
more  negative  circles — better  represents  it 
than  the  language  of  depreciation  ;  and  the 
complaint  is  rather  against  the  doctrines  and 
institutions  with  which  the  morality  is  sup- 
posed to  be  encumbered  than  its  constituent 
precepts.  But  of  this  complaint,  as  the  causes 
have  been  already  touched  on,  no  farther  in- 
vestigation is  required. 

There  may  be  mentioned  here  last,  at  this 
point,  the  opposition  to  Christianity  from 
supposed  loyalty  to  truth,  cind  the  God  of 
truth,  on  matters  of  fact  and  history.  Geo- 
logical and  ethnological  difficulties  come  in 
here,  and  the  various  alleged  divergences  of 
the  Bible  records  from  secular,  history,  or 
their  internal  contradictions.  It  is  the  duty 
of  the  Christian  to  respect  and  to  rival  the 
love  of  truth  from  which  it  can  not  be 
doubted  that  these  difficulties  so  far  spring. 


CHRISTIANITY  AND  ITS  ANTAGONISMS. 


But  at  the  same  time  it  is  only  just  to  ani- 
madvert on  the  signs  of  prejudice  by  which 
it  is  alloyed.  It  is  not  fair  to  argue  con- 
clusively from  sciences  so  unsettled,  more 
especially  when  it  is  uot  proved  that  their 
testimony  is  irreconcilable  with  every  legit- 
imate construction  of  the  Bible  documents ; 
and  it  is  still  more  unfair  to  set  aside  on 
such  grounds  the  whole  body  of  Christian 
evidence,  equally  resting  on  fact  and  history, 
unless  the  prejudice  be  yielded  to,  that  the 
supernatural  can  not  be  matter  of  fact  and 
history — either  by  its  not  occurring  at  all, 
or  not  being  capable  of  historic  verification. 
It  is  not  fair  to  confound  the  general  credi- 
bility of  a  revelation  with  the  infallible  ac- 
curacy of  its  records,  questions  which  the 
strictest  advocates  of  inspiration  justly  keep 
distinct ;  and  it  is  riot  fair  to  overlook  the 
innumerable  points  at  which  the  Bible  rec- 
ords coincide  with  history,  and  even  with 
science,  and  the  constant  tendency  of  re- 
search to  multiply  harmonies,  and  also  to 
eliminate  apparent  internal  discrepancies.  It 
is,  therefore,  impossible  to  deny  that  preju- 
dice largely  mingles  in  the  absolute  rejec- 
tion of  Christianity  on  such  grounds;  nor 
could  a  dispassionate  student  of  the  Gospel 
history,  if  asked,  whether-that  history,  even 
with  all  its  alleged  and  unresolved  contra- 
dictions, or  the  mythic  theory  of  Strauss,  or 
any  other,  were  the  most  credible  (as  of  such 
alternatives  one  side  only  can  be  true),  fail 
to  give  but  one  answer. 

2.  When  we  proceed  to  the  second  division 
of  causes  of  infidelity — those  which  I  have 
denominated  scandals — it  must  be  borne  in 
mind  that  not  even  the  best  and  purest  ex- 
hibition of  Christianity  and  its  evidences, 
will  repress  unbelief.  The  history  of  the 
Saviour  is  itself  decisive  on  this  point ;  for 
a  doctriue  and  a  life  so  remote  from  human 
wisdom  and  greatness,  so  adverse  to  human 
passion  and  pride,  necessarily  caused  him  to 
be  despised  and  rejected  of  men.  The  faults 
and  errors,  then,  of  his  Church  never  can 
be  pleaded  as  the  sole  or  even  chief  cause  of 
infidelity,  which  grows  rather  out  of  what 
Scripture  calls  the  "  evil  heart ;"  but  still 
they  have  exerted  a  mighty  and  disastrous 
influence  in  confirming  its  workings,  and  in 
giving  it  some  kind  of  justification,  so  that 
it  does  not  stand  self-confessed  as  a  crime 
and  outrage  against  the  Holy,  such  as  naked 
unbelief  in  the  presence  of  the  Son  of  God 
must  have  been. 

In  considering  the  scandals  which  may  be 
supposed  to  have  had  the  chief  part  in  ag- 
gravating the  natural  aversion  to  Christian- 
ity in  recent  times,  I  shall  not  attempt  any 
more  philosophical  classification,  but  shall 
enumerate  a  few  as  these  group  themselves 
around  the  two  great  aggregates  which  rep- 
resent modern  Christianity— Romanism  and 
Protestantism. 

It  would  be  unjust  to  deny  that  Roman- 


ism has  trained  some  excellent  defenders  of 
Christianity ;  and  the  greatest,  perhaps,  of 
all  Christian  apologists,  Pascal,  sprung  up — 
though  more  like  an  alien  than  a  native — 
on  Romish  soil.  But  it  can  uot  be  concealed 
that  the  whole  strain  of  that  system  is  ad- 
verse to  the  proper  exhibition  of  the  evi- 
dences of  Christianity ;  while  its  doctrinal 
errors  and  practical  abuses  have  interposed 
a  positive  hinderance  to  faith  of  the  most  la- 
mentable kind,  alike  in  respect  of  degree, 
extent,  and  duration.  To  concede  and  prac- 
tically to  carry  out  the  right  of  private 
judgment  in  the  discussion  of  the  Christian 
evidences,  and  more  especially  to  allow  the 
self-evidencing  light  and  clearness  of  the  Bi- 
ble, would  be  practically  to  abolish  the  in- 
itiative and  the  infallible  guidance  of  the 
Church ;  and  hence  Romanism,  true  to  its 
own  genius,  habitually  neglects  this  divine 
bulwark,  and  trnsts  all  to  the  citadel  of  its 
own  infallibility.  A  striking  instance  of  this 
in  more  recent  times  is  the  exclusion  by 
Romish  influence  from  the  Irish  schools  of 
the  admirable  and  perfectly  uusectarian 
manual  on  Christian  evidence  by  Archbish- 
op Whately.  And  in  many  cases  the  advo- 
cates of  Rome  have  not  been  satisfied  with  ex- 
cluding Christian  evidences,  but  have  open- 
ly assaulted  them,  and  played  dangerously 
into  the  hands  of  unbelief  in  the  hope  of 
driving  the  unbeliever  to  their  city  of  ref- 
uge. Nor  are  these  the  only  injuries  which 
this  systern  inflicts  on  the  Christian  argu- 
ment, properly  so  called.  The  argument  from 
miracles,  through  perpetual  counterfeits,  be- 
comes cheap,  common,  and  frivolous.  The 
argument  from  prophecy  is  annulled  by  the 
withholding  of  the  Scriptures ;  and  the 
whole  appeal  founded  on  their  moral  and 
spiritual  qualities  is  made  void  by  the  same 
prohibition.  These  conditions  of  faith,  in- 
sisted on  in  the  Church  of  Rome,  act  in  a 
way  the  most  unfavorable  to  its  intelligence 
and  permanence ;  and  those  who  have  come 
up  to  the  ideal  of  Bellariuin,  and  adopted 
at  the  bidding  of  the  Church  the  Bible,  sine 
examine*  are  often  found,  on  the  starting  of 
any  difficulty,  or  from  any  other  disgust, 
as  readily,  sine  examine,  abandoning  it,  and 
sinking  into  the  crowd  of  unbelievers.  These 
evils  are  all  likely  at  this  moment  to  be 
greatly  increased ;  and  the  first  effect  of 
the  recoil  from  the  dogma  of  an  infallible 
popedom  will  be  the  multiplication  of  de- 
niers  of  an  infallible  Bible. 

Were  the  overstraining  of  the  miraculous 
to  the  extreme  of  irrationality  and  supersti- 
tion the  only  grand  vice  of  Romanism,  this 
evil,  reaching  its  culmination  in  the  doctrine 
of  transubstantiation,  and  the  virtual  deifi- 
cation of  the  priesthood,  might,  besides  the 
mischief — which,  however,  can  uot  be  too 
gravely  estimated — of  shutting  out  the  sim- 
ple Bible  doctrine  of  reliance  for  pardon  on 


DeVerboDel,  iii.,10(}12). 


CAIRNS:  CAUSES  OF  MODERN  INFIDELITY. 


233 


a  finished  sacrifice  without  priestly  interme- 
diation, call  forth  only  an  intellectual  protest 
against  a  Christianity  thus  misrepresented 
and  caricatured.  But,  unhappily,  the  grand 
doctrinal  errors  of  Romanism,  which  all  cen- 
tre in  this  priestly  perversion  of  sacrifice, 
have  been  associated  with  moral  evils  more 
or  less  growing  out  of  them — with  hierarch- 
ical ambition  and  avarice,  with  a  moral  un- 
scrupulousness  of  which  Jesuitism  is  not  the 
only  manifestation,  and  with  a  traditional 
and  inveterate  habit  of  co-operation  with 
every  despotism  to  resist  the  enlightenment 
and  liberty  of  mankind.  When  the  remnant 
of  living  Christianity,  which  has  always 
clung  to  this  mainly  anti-Christian  system, 
has  become  more  than  ordinarily  feeble,  and 
when  the  contempt  generated  by  its  child- 
ish and  legendary  elements  and  the  deeper 
incredulity  stirred  by  its  doctrinal  extrav- 
agances and  pretensions  have  been  re-en- 
forced, by  some  unwonted  excitement  of  in- 
dignation against  its  oppressive  and  des- 
potic tendencies,  there  have  arisen  periodic 
revolutionary  crises,  and  of  these  Roman- 
ism has  always  been  the  first  martyr,  and 
with  it  the  whole  fabric  of  Christianity.  The 
unbelief  of  men  reared  in  quieter  times,  like 
Hume,  might  be  even  tolerant  of  Roman- 
ism, or,  like  Bayle,  might  assail  it  without 
holding  Christianity  responsible ;  but  in  a 
revolutionary  period,  the  fierce  antipathies 
of  a  Voltaire  and  a  Rousseau  extend  along 
the  whole  line,  and  the  blessed  religion  of 
mercy,  purity,  and  love  is  confounded  with 
its  worst  adulteration  and  counterfeit.  The 
tendencies  of  present  revolutions  are  still 
mainly  the  same.  Let  us  not  be  deceived 
by  compliments  to  Protestantism,  and  by  the 
professed  admiration  of  the  religion  of  Prot- 
estant nations.  The  Protestantism  and  pure 
Christianity  that  are  admired  are  seen  only 
on  their  negative  or  political  side.  Let  Prot- 
estantism turn  round  its  doctrinal  and  insti- 
tutional side — its  homage  to  revelation — its 
salvation,  if  not  by  rites,  yet  by  mysteries — 
its  Church,  with  a  creed,  a  miuistry,  a  disci- 
pline—  and  let  it  commend  this  system  as 
simply,  wisely,  and  lovingly  as  it  will  to  a 
people  first  Romanized  and  then  revolution- 
ized, it  will  still  find  to  its  cost,  as  in  France, 
Italy,  Austria,  and  even  already  in  Spain, 
how  terrible  is  the  scandal  created  by  the 
perversion  of  centuries,  and  how  the  very 
soil  seems  destroyed  on  which  alone  vital 
Christianity  can  grow.  The  inundation  of 
the  Nile  leaves  behind  fertility ;  but  the 
lengthened  overflowing  of  Romanism,  as  of 
some  bitter  sea,  though  at  last  exhaled  in 
the  heats  of  revolution,  leaves  a  harsh  and 
saline  quality,  which  threatens  long  to  doom 
the  lands  thus  visited  to  barrenness. 

The  scandals  of  Protestantism  have  not 
equaled  those  of  Romanism,  but  still  they 
have  been  very  great,  and  have  ministered 
to  a  sad  extent  to  infidelity.  The  Protestant 


Church  in  all  its  sections  has  never  suffi- 
ciently realized  this  heavy  responsibility. 
The  unbeliever  has  not  been  justified,  but 
the  Church  has  not  been  guiltless.  A  very 
rapid  enumeration  of  these  stumbling-blocks 
—  which  all  arise  from  the  deviation  of 
Protestantism  from  its  own  ideal,  and  which 
make  it  in  practice  lame  and  inconsistent 
with  the  perfect  Christianity  of  which  it 
professes  to  be  an  exhibition — is  all  that  is 
here  required. 

I  do  not  enter  at  large  into  the  doctrinal  ex- 
aggerations or  defects  of  Protestantism,  which 
have  tended  to  prejudice  the  minds  of  men 
against  the  Gospel.  The  greatest  danger  on 
the  one  side  has  been  in  an  exaltation  of  doc- 
trine, and  the  assertion  of  a  strict  and  in- 
flexible orthodoxy,  without  sufficient  stress 
being  laid  on  life  and  practice,  till  it  has  al- 
most seemed  as  if  mere  accuracy  of  opinion 
were  the  only  ground  of  difference  between 
believers  and  unbelievers;  and  on  the  other 
side,  and  even  more  fatally,  in  a  descent 
from  all  the  doctrinal  peculiarities  of  Chris- 
tianity, till  its  essence  was  laid  in  a  good  and 
virtuous  life,  in  which  case  the  unbeliever 
was  only  fortified  by  its  negations  in  his 
own  position.  Speaking  broadly,  the  charge 
of  doctrinal  exaggeration  lies  most  heavily 
against  the  older  Protestantism,  that  of  doc- 
trinal defect  against  the  later;  and  in  re- 
gard to  the  relations  of  doctrine  and  prac- 
tice, the  Protestant  Church  has  still  much 
to  learn,  that  these  may  be  a  visible  source 
of  strength  and  not  of  weakness. 

Among  the  scandals  of  Protestantism,  a 
prominent  place  must  be  assigned  to  its  divi- 
sions. The  scandal  of  its  first  separation 
must  be  laid  to  the  door  of  Romanism,  which 
enforced  it ;  but  can  the  long  series  of  its 
own  strifes  and  controversies  and  separa- 
tions be  exempted  from  blame  and  from 
just  lamentation,  more  especially  when  it 
has  stood  forth  as  a  re-exhibition  of  Chris- 
tianity freed  from  its  corruptions  ?  No  doubt 
it  has  had  a  hard  problem  to  solve — to  rec- 
oncile unity  in  essentials  with  liberty  in 
non-essentials  ;  and  the  unbeliever  is  to 
blame  in  expecting,  in  a  humanly  composed 
society,  even  with  divine  light,  a  perfect 
practical  solution  of  the  questions  which  dis- 
tract all  other  societies.  But  it  can  not  be 
maintained  that  the  Protestant  Church,  as  u 
whole,  has  so  visibly  outshone  all  other  soci- 
eties in  the  settlement  of  its  differences,  as 
might  have  been  expected  from  a  society 
having  a  divine  revelation  to  begin  with, 
and  a  divine  Spirit  in  the  midst  of  it  to  help 
its  infirmities;  and  this  defalcation,  which 
is  due  to  human  sin,  is  to  this  day  one  of  the 
greatest  handles  of  infidelity.  This  is  often 
forgotten  as  a  practical  argument  for  Chris- 
tian union.  Protestantism  can  not  too  soon 
repair  its  breaches ;  and  where  these  re- 
main, the  spirit  of  its  separated  sections 
can  not  be  too  loving  and  brotherly,  as  a 


234 


CHRISTIANITY  AND  ITS  ANTAGONISMS. 


set-off  to  the  hinderances  and  scandals  of 
centuries. 

Another  not  inconsiderable  cause  of  unbe- 
lief has  been  the  unsatisfactory  relation  of  the 
Christian  Church  to  the  State.  I  do  not  enter 
here  on  the  general  question  of  alliance  be- 
tween Church  and  State — I  only  mention, 
what  I  have  no  doubt  will  be  concurred  in 
by  all  intelligent  advocates  of  the  closest 
union  between  these  powers,  that  Protes- 
tantism, having  from  the  first  had  to  fight 
the  Church  of  Rome  by  State  protection,  has 
fallen  too  much  under  State  dictation,  and 
concealed  too  much  from  the  unbeliever  its 
spiritual  independence  and  glory  as  a  king- 
dom not  of  this  world.  A  Church  like  that 
of  our  times — happily  awaking  in  all  lauds 
and  in  all  communions,  established  and  non- 
established,  to  a  sense  of  its  own  strength 
and  freedom — must  deplore  the  unfavorable 
impression  so  widely  made  on  minds  other- 
wise prejudiced  against  Christianity  by  the 
spectacle  of  its  most  sacred  affairs  being  vis- 
ibly regulated  by  worldly  statesmen  for  po- 
litical ends,  and  of  its  very  doctrines  being 
in  times  not  very  remote  guarded  by  penal 
laws  against  the  utterance  of  infidelity. 
Many  of  these  scandals  the  march,  of  tolera- 
tion has  abated;  but  the  autonomy  of  the 
Christian  Church  is  not  yet  so  universally 
recognized  and  acted  on  as  to  have  swept  all 
away. 

As  a  great  and  constant  scandal,  not  pe- 
culiar to  Protestantism,  but  resting  upon  it 
with  Christianity  in  every  age,  I  would  men- 
tion moral  inconsistencies  within  its  pale.  These 
are,  through  the  falls  of  real  Christians, 
and  the  confusion  of  the  nominal  with  the 
spiritual  Church  of  Christ,  so  various  and 
multiform  as  hardly  to  admit  of  any  ar- 
rangement. The  innumerable  sins  and  short- 
comings of  individual  Christians  are  all 
placed,  however  illogically,  as  an  argument 
on  the  side  of  infidelity  ;  and  in  proportion 
to  the  influence  and  standing  of  those  who 
offend  is  the  burden  which  lies  on  Protes- 
tant Christianity  hard  to  bear.  This  holds 
especially  true  of  the  ministers  of  religion  of 
all  denominations.  No  one  at  all  acquaint- 
ed with  the  literature  of  unbelief  can  fail  to 
have  noticed  what  a  deeply  hostile  spirit 
toward  the  clerical  body  has  for  the  most 
part  pervaded  it ;  and,  however  unjust  and 
censurable  this  may  have  been,  it  can  not  in 
candor  be  denied  that  the  worldliness,  the 
laxity,  and  the  insincerity  of  too  many  of 
those  assailed — though  in  some  ages  more 
than  in  others — have  given  too  much  ground 
for  the  allegation  that  their  Christianity 
was  only  a  cloak  of  selfishness,  and  that  the 
unbeliever  in  orders  differed  from  the  un- 
believer without  them  only  by  the  addition 
of  hypocrisy.  The  noble  reply  of  Richard 
Baxter  to  Lord  Herbert  of  Cherbnry  may 
be  accepted  by  the  earnest  of  Christ's  min- 
isters in  all  ages  as  their  sufficient  vindica- 


tion. But  without  uncharitableness  it  may 
be  conceded  that  offenses  still  come  which 
bind  all  Christian  teachers  to  do  their  ut- 
most to  abate  the  charge  of  hireling  and 
professional  advocacy  brought  against  their 
support  of  Christianity.  I  mention  last  in 
thia  connection  the  inconsistencies  of  pro- 
fessedly Christian  nations.  Unjust  and  ag- 
gressive wars,  unrighteous  colonization  and 
commerce  encroaching  on  the  possessions  of 
unprotected  races,  and  infecting  them  with 
the  vices  of  civilization ;  class  legislation 
oppressing  and  irritating  the  poor ;  and,  to 
crown  all,  the  terrible  evil  of  slavery  cast- 
ing its  shadow  over  all  Protestant  nations, 
have  darkened  in  them  the  light  of  Chris- 
tianity, and  strengthened  every  prejudice 
adverse  to  its  claims.  May  I,  in  mentioning 
this  last  offense,  congratulate  this  great 
country  and  the  human  race  on  the  mighty 
sacrifice,  unparalleled  in  the  history  of  any 
Christian  people,  whereby  it  has  been  final- 
ly and  forever  put  away  ?  • 

The  last  set  of  hinderances  in  Protestant 
Christianity  which  I  shall  touch  on  have 
been  mistakes  in  dealing  with  unbelief.  A  very 
common  error  has  been  to  separate  the  evi- 
dences of  Christianity  too  much  from  Chris- 
tianity, so  as  to  exhibit  them  in  an  isolated 
and  one-sided  manner,  laying  too  much 
stress  on  the  so-called  external  or  historical 
evidences,  which  then  have  to  bear  the  whole 
weight  of  the  building.  Another  error  has 
been  to  commit  the  Christian  cause  too 
much  to  points  of  detail — supposed  difficul- 
ties emerging  in  relation  to  science,  or  his- 
tory, or  otherwise,  raised  by  the  Bible  rec- 
ord—  without  weighing  these  against  the 
whole  mass  of  the  evidences,  and  shoAving 
that  Christianity  could  afford,  from  time  to 
time,  to  leave  these  points  unsettled  till  fur- 
ther investigation  of  itself  cleared  the  mat- 
ters of  doubt  away.  And  the  only  other  er- 
ror which  I  mention — and  it  is  not  so  much 
an  error  of  procedure  as  of  spirit  and  tem- 
per— has  been  the  uusympathizing  and  dog- 
matic spirit  in  which  the  conflict  with  un- 
belief has  too  often  been  maintained.  I 
am  not  forgetful  of  the  great  provocation 
given  by  the  unfair  and  disingenuous  style 
in  which  Christianity  has  been  attacked. 
But  too  often  the  Christian  argument  has 
been  lowered  by  the  tone  adopted  in  reply, 
which,  if  it  has  not  rendered  railing  for  rail- 
ing, has  been  very  sparing  in  blessing,  in 
tenderness,  and  in  pity  for  those  who  erred 
so  much,  to  their  own  grievous  loss  and  in- 
jury. The  truculent  spirit  of  a  work  like 
I3entley's  reply  to  Collins  —  a  work  other- 
wise almost  unmatched  in  vigor  and  brill- 
iancy— has  not  yet  altogether  disappeared ; 
and  though  happily  examples  also  exist 
which  show  that  the  finest  raillery  on  the 
Christian  side  can  be  combined  with  the 
purest  sympathy  and  the  fairest  argument, 
the  danger  is  constant,  not  only  for  writers 


CAIRNS:  CAUSES  OF  MODERN  INFIDELITY. 


235 


thus  gifted,  but  for  all  others,  of  wounding 
and  repelling  where  it  is  so  desirable  to  win, 
and  of  falling  short  of  that  "  meekness  and 
fear"  which  the  apostle  represents  as  the 
ideal  spirit  of  the  Christian  apologist. 

II.  Having  thus  endeavored,  however  de- 
fectively, to  lay  open  some  of  the  causes  of 
our  modern  infidelity,  it  would  be  necessary 
to  speak  at  almost  as  great  length  of  remedies 
or  counteracting  agencies.  But  happily  this 
fullness  is  not  required  in  such  a  paper ;  and 
if  the  causes  have  been  rightly  indicated,  a 
few  hints  will  suggest  where  the  means  of 
escape  and  redress  are  chiefly  to  be  found. 
I  shall  enumerate  them  under  three  heads, 
arranged  according  to  the  order  of  their  im- 
portance, viz.,  prayer,  t4je  general  improve- 
ment of  the  Christian  Church,  and  the  use 
of  specific  measures  for  the  defense  of  Chris- 
tianity against  unbelief. 

1. 1  begin  with  prayer,  as  of  all  remedies 
the  most  important,  needing  to  be  used  with 
every  other,  but  itself,  in  regard  to  all  the 
deepest  sources  of  infidelity,  the  one  and 
only  remedy  which  exists.  It  is  quite  plain 
that  in  regard  to  the  most  rooted  and  dark- 
est class  of  prejudices  against  Christianity, 
which  are  moral  in  their  origin,  nothing  but 
the  direct,  gracious  action  of  God  can  favor- 
ably influence  the  human  heart ;  and  as  the 
only  means  whereby  man  can  elicit  that  ac- 
tion is  prayer,  this  consideration  is  enough 
to  show  that,  beyond  all  instrumentalities 
whatsoever,  prayer  demands  the  most  ear- 
nest and  zealous  employment  on  the  part  of 
all  true  Christians.  This  state  of  matters, 
it  is  to  be  feared,  is  not  sufficiently  realized; 
and  hence  direct  and  specific  prayer  for  the 
conversion  of  avowed  rejectors  of  revela- 
tion occupies  generally  a  subordinate  place 
even  in  schemes  and  topics  of  Christian  sup- 
plication. This  charge  can  not,  however, 
be  brought  against  the  appeals  of  the  Evan- 
gelical Alliance,  which  has  hitherto  acted  in 
the  spirit  of  that  noble  Good  Friday  collect  of 
the  Church  of  England,  to  which  all  Chris- 
tian hearts  must  respond :  "  Have  mercy 
upon  all  Jews,  Turks,  infidels,  and  heretics, 
and  take  from  them  all  ignorauce,  hardness 
of  heart,  and  contempt  of  thy  word ;  and  so 
fetch  them  home,  blessed  Lord,  to  thy  flock, 
that  they  may  be  saved  among  the  remnant 
of  the  true  Israelites,  and  be  made  one  fold 
under  one  Shepherd,  Jesus  Christ  our  Lord." 

2.  The  necessity  of  the  second  remedy  in- 
dicated—  the  general  improvement  of  the 
Christian  Church — must  be  not  less  obvious. 
If  any  thing  is  certain  in  the  history  of  un- 
belief, it  is  that  it  has  been  nursed  and 
strengthened  by  Christian  errors  and  abuses. 
Exactly  in  the  degree,  therefore,  in  which 
Protestants  can  work  for  the  repression  and 
downfall  of  Romanism,  are  they  abating  also 
the  prevalence  of  infidelity ;  and  as  they 
naturally  have  mirch  more  influence  over 
their  own  churches,  they  are  bound  to  seek 


in  these  a  still  nearer  field  of  warfare  with 
every  corruption  and  every  evil.  The  exal- 
tation of  the  authority  of  Scripture  in  mat- 
ters of  faith ;  the  assertion  of  the  harmonies 
of  all  Protestant  confessions,  more  than  the 
development  of  their  differences ;  and  the 
cultivation  of  kindly  intercourse  among  all 
|  sections  of  the  great  Protestant  family,  would 
'  have  a  powerful  effect,  not  only  upon  the  Ro- 
|  manist,  but  upon  the  skeptic.  The  differ- 
ences of  Christians,  which  have  been  a  fa- 
vorite argument  of  unbelief  ever  since  the 
days  of  Celsus — who  not  only  enumerated 
existing  sects,  but  even  added  new  ones  un- 
known to  Origen  —  would  thus  be  reduced 
to  their  true  magnitude.  Nor  would  doctri- 
nal unity  at  all  suffice  ;  but,  where  possible, 
such  unity  of  organization  as  has  happily 
lately  been  attained  by  the  Presbyterians 
of  this  country — since  this  strikes  the  eye 
even  of  the  unfriendly,  and  gives  doctrinal 
unity  the  prominence  of  a  visible  and  tan- 
gible reality.  Whatever  vindicates  the  in- 
dependence and  self-sufficiency  of  the  Chris- 
tian Church  should  also  be  encouraged — not 
certainly  with  a  view  to  lessen  the  influ- 
ence of  Christianity  over  the  State,  but  to 
open  a  wider  path  for  the  exercise  of  that 
healthful  Christian  opinion  which  is  sure  to 
stamp  its  impress  on  the  legislation  and 
public  acts  of  all  free  nations.  Even  more 
than  in  relation  to  nations  which  are  not 
formally,  and  as  such,  members  of  it,  should 
the  Protestant  Church  strive  vigorously  to 
carry  out  the  law  of  Christ  in  regard  to 
those  individuals  who  are  directly  within 
its  own  pale.  The  evils  of  lax  communion, 
of  decayed  discipline,  and  of  prevailing  for- 
malism and  apathy,  should  be  more  strenu- 
ously Avarred  against  in  all  sections  of  Prot- 
estantism, and  a  general  and  sympathetic 
effort  made  to  exhibit  the  Gospel  of  Christ 
as  a  living, purifying,  aud  conquering  power. 
The  tone  of  Christian  example  should  be  el- 
evated, and  thus  each  living  epistle  of  Christ 
would  become  a  better  apologist  of  Chris- 
tianity. Nor  can  a  secondary  place  be  here 
assigned  to  Christian  missions.  Undoubt- 
edly the  multiplication  of  missionary  and 
philanthropic  effort  at  home  and  abroad  has 
within  the  last  seventy  years  immensely 
strengthened  Christianity  against  unbelief. 
It  would  have  been  impossible  to  vindicate 
a  stagnant  Christianity ;  but  by  movement 
it  became  not  only  more  diffused,  but  more 
vital.  Protestantism,  awaking  from  its  tor- 
por amid  the  convulsions  of  the  French  Rev- 
olution, accepted  the  challenge  of  infidelity, 
rose  up  and  walked,  and,  going  into  all  the 
world,  renewed  the  early  miracle  of  prop- 
agation. Its  great  aud  growing  successes 
in  the  mission  field  are  far  more  than  a 
counterpoise  to  recent  difficulties  created  by 
science  or  minute  criticism.  Strong,  and 
ever  strengthening  itself  in  these,  it  can 
calmly  await  the  solution  of  more  formidable 


CHRISTIANITY  AND  ITS  ANTAGONISMS. 


questions  than  have  ever  yet  been  raised. 
Unbelief  will  point  in  vain  to  notches  in  its 
sword,  while  it  is  daily  extending  its  con- 
quests ;  and  alleged  flaws  in  its  title-deeds 
will  avail  little  in  the  teeth,  not  only  of  pos- 
session, but  of  ever-growing  acquisition  at 
the  expense  of  its  most  inveterate  enemies. 

3.  The  third  and  last  class  of  measures  for 
the  counteracting  of  infidelity,  viz.,  direct 
efforts  for  the  strengthening  of  Christian  ev- 
idence, involves  two  things  —  the  improve- 
ment of  apologetical  science,  and  the  in- 
crease of  means  for  the  diffusion  and  asser- 
tion of  its  results.  Leaving  the  latter  to  the 
care  of  churches  and  voluntary  associations, 
as  it  may  so  safely  be  left  in  an  age  which 
fails  less  in  the  organization  of  philanthro- 
py than  in  many  other  practical  virtues,  I 
shall  close  this  paper  with,  a  few  hints  on 
the  improvement  of  apologetical  science,  as 
still  demanded  by  the  necessities  of  Chris- 
tian warfare.  It  humbly  seems  to  me  that 
chiefly  at  three  points  our  apologetical  sci- 
ence at  this  time  needs  most  attention  to  its 
culture.  The  first  is  the  settlement  of  what 
I  may  call  the  postulates  of  Christian  evi- 
dence ;  the  second  is  the  unity  and  concen- 
tration of  evidence ;  and  the  third  is  the  ex- 
hibition of  Christian  evidence  in  relation  to 
its  own  history.  .  .  •%.- 

Nothiug  is  more  urgently  demanded  in  our 
times  than  the  settlement  of  the  postulates 
of  Christian  evidence,  and  the  rigid  adher- 
ence to  them.  Our  apologetical  science  has 
wandered  vaguely  into  a  boundless  contro- 
versy with  atheism,  pantheism,  and  every 
form  of  defective  theism.  This  is  no  more 
its  business  than  it  is  the  business  of  philos- 
ophy or  rational  theism.  And  the  result  is 
not  only  the  loss  of  time,  but  a  great  confu- 
sion and  weakening  of  the  Christian  argu- 
ment ;  as  if  objections  which  lie  no  more 
against  Christianity  than  against  all  theism 
were  some  special  burden  which  the  Chris- 
tian apologist  needed  first  to  remove.  Our 
greatest  English  apologist,  Butler,  has  taught 
us  a  better  lesson ;  and  it  is  specially  need- 
ed in  our  days.  The  fundamental  objections 
of  Strauss  to  Christianity  rest  on  panthe- 
ism, and  of  Kenan  on  a  distorted  and  im- 
moral conception  of  God.  For  these  men 
the  Christian  evidences,  properly  so  called, 
have  no  place ;  and  it  is  not,  properly  speak- 
ing, a  defense  of  Christianity  that  they  need, 
but  a  defense  of  theism.  This  state  of  the 
question  they  mask  or  virtually  deny ;  and 
no  doubt  much  that  they  say  is  also  direct- 
ed against  the  special  evidences  of  Chris- 
tianity. But  this  only  makes  it  the  more 
indispensable  that  the  Christian  apologist 
should  clear  his  ground ;  and,  though  he  may 
be  and  ought  to  be  also  in  some  place  or 
other  the  apologist  of  theism,  to  keep  it  ever 
before  his  own  mind  and  the  minds  of  oth- 
ers that  this  is  not  his  special  work,  and  can 
not  be  rigorously  asked  at  his  hands.  It 


would  immensely  simplify  the  Christian  ar- 
gument in  our  days  to  take  ordinary  theism 
for  granted,  and  to  resolve  some  of  the  most 
pretentious  attacks  on  Christianity  into 
their  elements,  and  to  show  that  their  au- 
thors are  only  assailing  the  Gospel  through 
the  sides  of  Plato  and  Kant,  or  even  of  Tin- 
dal  and  Voltaire.  No  greater  service  could 
in  our  times  be  rendered  to  Christianity 
than  to  go  through  the  leading  schemes  of 
unbelief,  and  to  show  that  they  either  direct- 
ly or  indirectly  threw  themselves  beyond 
the  pale  of  any  argument  for  a  revelation 
by  denying  a  Deity  from  whom  alone  it 
could  come,  or  such  a  Deity  as  could  possi- 
bly send  it.  The  antithesis  between  Chris- 
tianity and  atheism  would  then  be  palpable, 
and  would  be  in  itself  a  powerful  argument. 
The  next  point  at  which  the  Christian  ev- 
idences seem  capable  of  strengthening  is  by 
presenting  them  with  greater  unity  and  con- 
centration. Hitherto  they  have  for  the 
most  part  been  exhibited  in  separate  array, 
without  any  effort  to  group  them  under  one 
consistent  and  coherent  scheme.  Miracles, 
prophecy,  morality,  adaptation,  experience 
—  these  have  been  some  of  the  headings 
generally  chosen ;  and  the  character  of  the 
Saviour  and  the  success  of  Christianity  have 
come  in  at  some  point  or  other  of  the  argu- 
ment. It  has  occurred  to  the  present  writer 
that  a  more  connected  method  might  be  pur- 
sued, and  this,  in  lecturing  on  his  special 
branch  as  a  Professor  of  Apologetics,  he  has 
attempted  to  carry  out.  He  has  sought  a 
starting-point  and  principle  of  classification 
in  the  manifestation  of  the  divine  attributes 
which  the  Christian  evidences  involve,  and 
by  the  sense  of  which  they  carry  convic- 
tion to  the  human  breast.  Hence,  accord- 
ing to  the  appeal  connected  predominantly 
with  each  attribute,  he  has  arranged  the  ev- 
idences ;  ranking  under  the  head  of  Divine 
Power— the  arguments  from  miracles,  from 
the  propagation  of  Christianity  in  general, 
and  from  the  personal  experience  of  its  sav- 
ing efficacy  ;  under  the  head  of  Divine 
Knowledge — the  argument  from  prophecy, 
and  other  indications  in  Scripture  of  super- 
natural knowledge ;  under  the  head  of  Di- 
vine Wisdom  —  the  visible  adaptation  of 
Christianity  to  human  want  and  ruin,  with 
the  historic  manifestation  of  the  same  attri- 
bute in  preparing  the  world  for  its  introduc- 
tion ;  under  the  heads  of  Divine  Holiness 
and  Love — all  the  transcendent  moral  ex- 
cellences of  Christianity,  and  those  features 
of  benignity  whereby  it  outshines  all  philos- 
ophy and  natural  theism,  and  makes  a  vir- 
tual, though  only  provisional  reply  to  the 
difficulties  connected  with  the  origin  and 
prevalence  of  evil ;  and,  last  of  all,  the  com- 
bination and  summation  of  all  these  ele- 
ments of  the  supernatural  and  divine  in  the 
life  and  history  of  Jesus  Christ,  as  presented 
in  the  Gospel  narratives.  These  statements 


CAIRNS:  CAUSES  OF  MODERN  INFIDELITY. 


237 


are  submitted,  not  as  an  example  of  the  best 
possible  method  of  redressing  the  evils  of 
presenting  the  Christian  argument  in  a  de- 
tached and  isolated  form,  but  as  an  indica- 
tion of  the  work  •which  remains  to  be  done 
in  this  field,  and  an  incentive  to  other  labor- 
ers to  reach  after  that  unity  in  variety  which 
strengthens,  while  it  adorns,  all  sacred,  as 
all  secular  science. 

The  third  point  in  which  the  treatment 
of  the  Christian  evidences  might  be  im- 
proved is  in  the  exhibition  of  the  whole  ar- 
gument in  the  light  of  its  own  history.  We 
no  doubt  have  excellent  histories  of  Apolo- 
getics, though  there  is  much  in  this  depart- 
ment still  to  be  effected.  But  these  histo- 
ries faij  most  in  making  the  history  of  the 
defense  of  Christianity  on  this  field  itself  a 
defense  of  Christianity — a  task  which  has 
hardly  yet  been  systematically  attempted. 
It  might  be  shown  with  great  advantage 
how  much  of  the  lengthened  and  apparently 
endless  attacks  on  the  divine  origin  of  the 
Gospel,  from  Celsus  to  Renan,  is  mere  repro- 
duction ;  and  that,  while  there  are  a  few 
original  minds,  like  Spinoza  and  Hume,  that 
give  the  faded  arguments  some  air  of  orig- 
inality, the  great  mass  of  the  negative  liter- 
ature— their  own  part  of  it  not  excepted — 
is  repetition.  In  like  manner  the  variations 
of  infidelity  might  be  handled  with  much 
force ;  the  variations  of  the  ancient  and  mod- 
ern schools  —  the  one  accepting  with  Por- 
phyry and  the  Jews  miracles  and  oracles  to 
any  extent,  the  other  rejecting  the  super- 
natural at  one  stroke  ;  the  variations  of  the 
eighteenth  century  and  the  nineteenth — the 
one  in  almost  all  its  organs,  English,  French, 
and  German,  treating  Christianity  with  in- 
tolerant rudeness,  the  other  according  to  it, 
though  by  no  means  invariably,  a  measure 


of  reverence  and  recognition ;  and  even  the 
variations  in  the  works  of  the  same  assail- 
ant— as  where  Spinoza  bases  his  earlier  ne- 
gations on  theism,  and  his  later  on  panthe- 
ism ;  where  Voltaire  passes  from  an  ardent 
deism,  to  a  satirizing  of  natural  religion  as 
well  as  revealed ;  and  where  Strauss  begins 
as  a  Hegelian  enthusiast  to  end  iu  material- 
istic atheism.  A  large  place  iu  such  a  his- 
torico-apologetic  argument  might  be  given 
to  the  use  made  of  the  corruptions  of  Chris- 
tianity to  invalidate  its  authority,  and  to  the 
dependence  of  infidelity  not  only  for  its  ob- 
jections, but  for  the  whole  form  and  color 
of  its  existence,  on  the  diseased  and  defect- 
ive state  of  the  Christian  Church  at  any 
particular  time.  The  reactions  of  unbelief 
upon  Christianity,  Protestant  and  Romish, 
and  even  upon  Judaism,  as  well  as  upon  the 
moral  and  social  state  of  nations,  might  also 
be  illustrated  iu  this  point  of  view ;  and 
the  failure  of  its  greatest  experiments  as  a 
reforming  and  reconstructive  power  would 
confirm  the  divine  mission  of  the  Gospel. 
It  is  believed  that,  in  these  and  other  ways, 
the  history  of  the  defense  of  Christianity 
against  its  numerous  and  successive  antag- 
onists— vindicating,  as  it  would  also  do,  the 
unity  of  the  Christian  cause  from  age  to  age, 
and  the  fertility  of  the  Church  of  Christ  in 
competent  and  zealous  advocates,  as  also  its 
power  to  convert  as  well  as  silence  gainsay- 
ers — would,  if  rightly  prosecuted,  exert  a 
salutary  influence  in  arresting  the  course  of 
infidelity,  and  would  give  that  crowning 
verification  to  argument  which  history  can 
alone  afford,  and  which  in  the  case  of  the 
greatest  history  of  all — the  history  of  the 
conflict  between  the  truth  of  God  and  human 
error — may  be  expected  to  be  most  emphat- 
ic and  decisive. 


THE  GOSPEL  HISTORY  AND  MODERN  CRITICISM. 


BY  THE  REV.  J.  J.  VAN  OOSTERZEE,  D.D., 

Professor  of  Theology  at  the  University  of  Utrecht  (Holland). 

[Born  at  Rotterdam,  1817.] 


THE  subject  on  which  I  am  permitted, 
though  but  for  a  few  moments,  to  speak  to 
you  is  Gospel  History  and  Modern  Criticism. 
Surely  the  mere  mention  of  the  subject  will 
suffice  to  fix  your  attention  and  interest; 
for  the  history  of  the  Gospel  is,  indeed,  the 
greatest  treasure  that  faith  possesses,  and 
modern  criticism  is  the  enemy  that  evident- 
ly threatens  to  rob  us  of  that  treasure.  I 
shall  immediately  enter  upon  my  subject. 
Allow  me,  however,  to  claim,  not  only  your 
usual  indulgence,  but  a  double  portion  of  the 
same,  for,  first,!  am  addressing  you  in  a  lan- 
guage which,  though  not  unknown  to  me,  is, 
nevertheless,  not  my  own  ;  and,  secondly,  a 
few  moments  only  are  allotted  me  to  speak 
on  a  subject  that  would  require  days  to  dis- 
cuss, and  perhaps  years  to  be  thoroughly  ex- 
amined into. 

We  have  a  proverb  that  says,  "He  who 
distinguishes  well,  teaches  well."  It  is  of  the 
greatest  importance  that  we  should  bear  this 
in  mind  at  the  very  outset.  The  critic  and 
criticism,  though  often  confounded,  are  things 
of  a  very  different  signification.  He  that  is 
spiritual  judgeth  all  things  (2  Cor.  ii.,  15); 
and  in  so  far  he  is  also,  at  the  same  time,  the 
greatest  and  soundest  critic.*  There  does, 
indeed,  exist  a  theological  criticism,  which  is 
the  offspring  of  the  spirit  of  trnth  and  lib- 
erty, and  which  has  rendered,  from  the  first, 
the  most  invaluable  services  to  the  science 
of  faith.  But,  my  hearers,  citizens  of  this  hos- 
pitable land,  modern  criticism  is  as, much  dis- 
tinguished from  this  in  substance  and  form, 
in  reality  and  appearance  —  essentials  and 
non-essentials — as  your  political  and  relig- 
iousliberty  differs  from  revolution  and  radical 
licentiousness.  By  modern  criticism  we  under- 
stand that  peculiar  tendency  of  the  mind  which, 
proceeding  from  hypotheses  foreign  to  Christian- 
ity, and  devoid  of  the  capacity  of  regarding  sa- 
cred history  as  a  whole,  nevertheless,  under  pre- 
tense of  impartiality,  submits  parts  thereof  to 
a  so-called  critical  examination,  in  reality,  how- 
ever, endearonng  to  demonstrate  that  the  entire 
historical  fundamental  view  on  which  the  whole 
Church  and  its  theoloqu  is  based  can  not  be  up- 
held. 

Though  wo  call  this  criticism  modern,  we 
however  by  no  means  wish  to  imply  that  its 
origin  and  influence  dates  from  to-day  or 
yesterday.  It  already  existed  when  Cehus 
branded  rising  Christianity  as  one  of  the 
•  "  SpirituoliB  homo  KPITIUWTOTOS."— Baigel. 


greatest  follies  in  this  great  world's  mad- 
house; nor  will  it  ever  be  annihilated  as  long 
as  this  world  contemptuously  regards  the 
Gospel  of  the  Cross  as  folly  and  as  an  offense. 
But  although  throughout  all  ages  the  con- 
flict between  light  and  darkness  has  always 
been  the  same  in  principle,  yet  the  fonn  in 
which  this  struggle  is  at  present  being  car- 
ried on  is  a  very  different  one;  so  also  its 
tactics,  its  weapons,  and  the  armor  in  which 
it  so  vaingloriously  appears.  Like  the  Pro- 
teus of  mythology,  so  the  Spirit  of  negation 
is  continually  changing  its  shape  and  color. 
It  is  especially  in  our  times  that  the  word  of 
the  apostle  is  applicable — that  even  Satan 
himself  transforms  himself  into  an  angel  of 
light  (2  Cor.  xi.,  12).  It  is,  therefore,  the  call- 
ing of  those,  wTho  understand  the  signs  of  the 
times,  attentively  to  observe  those  shifting 
forms,  carefully  to  Avatch  against  the  decep- 
tion which  appearances  produce,  and  to  sub- 
mit modern  criticism  again  to  a  second  crit- 
icism, which  never  should  be  found  trans- 
gressing either  against  truth  or  charity. 

It  is  now  our  wish  to  contribute  something 
in  elucidating  this  subject ;  and  thus  to  speak 
to  you  on  two  important  questions :  I.  Hoir 
does  Modern  Criticism  stand  in  regard  to  the 
Gospel  History  f  and,  II.  How  does  the  Gospel 
History  stand  in  regard  to  Modern  Criticism  f 

I.  How  does  Modern  Criticism  stand  in  regard 
to  the  Gospel  History  f  In  order  to  answer  this 
question,  it  is  absolutely  necessary  that  we 
should  choose  some  chronological  date  or  oth- 
er to  proceed  from,  which  shall  not  reach  too 
far  back,  but  still  be  distant  enough  to  enable 
us  to  obtain  a  sufficient  range  for  our  view. 
In  addressing  this  assembly,  we  are  most 
naturally  brought  back  to  the  year  1845 — 
the  year  in  which  the  Evangelical  Alliance 
held  its  first  meeting,  as  it  now  celebrates  its 
sixth.  As  we  look  back,  as  from  a  bird's-eye 
view,  upon  a  period  of  something  more  than 
twenty -five  years,  we  ask,  What  position 
has  modern  criticism  been  taking  during 
that  time  in  regard  to  the  history  of  the 
Gospel  I  and,  consequently,  in  what  position 
does  it  at  present  stand  ?  Criticism — mod- 
ern criticism — stands  opposed  to  the  history 
of  the  Gospel  in  mightier  array,  with  greater 
forces,  or  numbers,  and  more  powerful  allies, 
than  has  ever  been  known  to  be  the  case  in 
the  annals  of  the  Church  or  of  theology  be- 
fore. These  forces  are  arraying  themsel  ves  at 
present  against  the  Gospel;  and,  in  order  to 


VAN  OOSTERZEE :  THE  GOSPEL  HISTORY  AND  MODERN  CRITICISM.    239 


survey  them,  we  have,  first  of  all,  to  direct 
our  eye  to  Germany,  from  whence,  as  the  chief 
point,  the  impulse  has  been  given  to  that 
great  movement  -which  now  divides  so  many 
hearts  and  lands.  Already,  at  the  time  when 
the  Evangelical  Alliance  was  first  estab- 
lished, it  seemed  as  if  the  star  of  the  most 
famous  apostle  of  unbelief  of  our  age — of 
D.  F.  Strauss  (1835-1840)— was  ou  the  point 
of  setting  in  the  hazy  atmosphere,  after  his 
work,"  The  Life  of  Jesus,"  had  passed  through 
four  editions,  and  after  his  "Glaubeuslehre" 
(1840)  had  most  arrogantly  threatened  to  in- 
flict on  Christian  dogmatics  an  irreparable 
breach.  But  a  light  of  another  hue  was  about 
to  break  forth,  and  to  illuminate  the  gloomy 
sky  of  criticism.  Its  first  rays  were  shed  on 
the  University  of  TUbingen,  in  Wiirtemberg. 
A  new  period  commenced  with  the  labors  of 
the  eminent  head  of  this  school,  in  Dr.  Ferdi- 
nand Christian  Baur,  who,  just  iu  the  year 
1845,  published  his  work  on  St.  Paul.  Posi- 
tive criticism  was,  in  future,  to  take  the  place 
of  purely  negative  criticism — so,  at  least,  it 
was  said — and  it  was  to  solve  all  the  enig- 
mas of  the  apostolic  age  and  the  one  imme- 
diately following  it.  It  is  well  known  to 
us  all  how  that  history  was  reconstructed  a 
priori,  and  how,  with  a  degree  of  audacity 
till  now  without  its  parallel,  the  whole  of 
the  New  Testament,  with  the  exception  of 
four  Apostolical  Epistles  and  the  Apocalypse, 
was  declared  to  be  spurious.  But  there  is 
another  thing  that  should  not  by  any  means 
be  lost  sight  of,  namely,  that  the  reconstruc- 
tion of  primitive  Christianity  had  an  all- 
important  influence  on  the  treatment  of  the 
Gospel  narratives  themselves ;  for  our  four 
canonical  Gospels,  too,  declared  to  be  as  little 
authentic  as  the  greater  part  of  the  Epistles 
of  the  Apostles,  were  ignomiuiously  placed 
on  the  list  of  the  so-called  "Tendency  Writ- 
ings" of  later  times,  and  were  declared  to 
have  been  written  by  an  unknown  hand, 
thus  depriving  them,  for  the  greater  part, 
of  their  historical  character.  The  progres- 
sion followed  in  this  system  of  decomposi- 
tion consisted  in  simply  abandoning  a  for- 
mer assertion  that  the  holy  writings  consist- 
ed of  merely  "  tales  unconsciously  forming," 
and  by  now,  on  the  contrary,  acknowledg- 
ing that  the  pseudonym  evangelists  had  com- 
posed their  miraculous  stories  "  with  a  spon- 
taneous consciousness" — that  is,  had  inten- 
tionally invented  them,  and  consequently  had 
not  been  ignorant  fanatics,  but  sly  deceivers. 
Entire  Christianity  was  regarded  as  a  purely 
intellectual  and  dialectical  development  of 
parties  and  opinions  of  the  second  ago  of 
onr  era.  If  the  celebrated  Baur  himself  had 
always  spoken  with  the  greatest  degree  of 
reserve  ou  the  founder  of  Christianity  itself, 
this  was  much  less  the  case  with  his  more 
advanced  disciples  or  scholars,  who  saw 
themselves  compelled — forced  by  pure  con- 
sistency with  their  own  system — to  assign 


the  date  of  the  beginning  of  Christianity 
with  St.  Paul,  thus  robbing  our  Lord  of  ev- 
ery higher  title  than  that  of  "  the  first  Ebi- 
ouite."  It  is  true,  the  science  of  faith  vig- 
orously opposed  many  points,  and  when,  in 
1860,  the  theology  of  Tubingen  beheld  its 
crown  fallen  from  its  head  by  the  death  of 
Baur,  many  a  one  could  not  conceal  from 
himself  that  this  school,  regarded  as  an  en- 
tire system,  would  not  long  survive  its  mas- 
ter and  chief ;  but,  nevertheless,  the  seed 
shed  abroad  by  Strauss  and  Banr  had  pro- 
duced fatal  effects,  not  only  in  Germany,  but 
also  in  many  other  countries  of  Europe,  as 
well  as  in  America.  Like  a  fearful  pestilence, 
causing  death  and  desolation  in  its  course, 
it  hastened  from  laud  to  land,  from  city  to 
city.  In  reference  to  my  own  country,  which 
I  here  mention  merely  as  an  instance,  and 
not  by  preference,  I  vividly  remember  how, 
full  thirty  years  ago,  the  most  liberal  theo- 
logians gave  one  another  the  hand  of  broth- 
erhood iu  unequivocally  acknowledging  the 
supernatural  character  of  Christianity,  and 
the  veracity  of  the  Gospel  History,  giving  to 
their  opponents  no  other  name  than  that  of 
Apostles  of  Unbelief.  Gradually,  however, 
there  came  a  change  in  the  minds  of  many, 
especially  after  1858,  the  natal  year  of  so- 
called  Modern  Theology,  when  one  of  his  dis- 
ciples, living  in  our  country,  declared  that 
if  Strauss  were  to  honor  our  church  with  a 
visit,  he  would — among  the  theologians,  at 
least — be  much  more  troubled  by  his  friends 
than  by  his  enemies ;  and  it  soon  became  evi- 
dent, especially  on  Renan  publishing  his  his- 
torical novel,'" The  Life  of  Jesus"  (1863), 
how  immense  a  territory  the  doctrine  of  Nat- 
uralism had  conquered  within  a  short  space 
of  time.  True,  there  was  no  lack  of  protes- 
tations and  opposition  ;  but  no  less  of  sym- 
pathy and  applause,  both  within  and  without 
the  Church.  It  is  true  that  some  preachers 
did  complain  that,  in  some  matters,  their 
"cher  et  savant  ami"  had  really  gone  a  lit- 
tle too  far.  Others — for  instance,  those  of  the 
"progressive  party"  —  declared  Renan.  was 
far  too  conservative,  especially  as  regards 
the  fourth  Gospel,  in  particular.  Still  he  was 
regarded  by  many  rather  as  a  collaborator 
than  as  an  enemy.  Not  a  single  cry  of  pain, 
of  indignation,  did  this  party  utter  at  the 
blasphemy  ;  though  here  and  there  some- 
what opposed  against  the  excrescence  of  the 
parasite,  no  sincere  objection  was  felt,  in 
reality,  against  its  root  and  its  soil.  It  was 
especially  in  1864  that  modern  criticism 
could  vaunt  of  many  a  triumph — if,  at  least, 
rebellious  cries  against  the  truth  can  really 
|  bo  regarded  as  notes  of  triumph.  It  was  in 
that  same  year,  too,  that  an  edition  of 
Strauss's  "Life  of  Jesus"  for  the  million 
(people)  was  published, while  Dr.  D.  Schenkel, 
a  former  apostle  of  the  faith,  but  afterward 
an  apostate,  could  not  resist  the  temptation 
of  becoming  "in  dieseni  Bnude  der  dritte;" 


240 


CHRISTIANITY  AND  ITS  ANTAGONISMS. 


and,  although  wcll-iiigh  annihilated,  but  not 
rendered  better,  by  a  fearful  castigation  of 
Strauss,  he  published  in  his  "  Characterbild 
Jesu"  a  caricature  of  the  history  of  the 
Gospel,  which  ho  misrepresented  with  dem- 
ngogio  aspiration,  thereby  doing  good  serv- 
ice to  the  party  spirit  reigning  in  the  Church. 
About  this  time,  too,  the  lectures  on  the  life 
of  Jesus  left  by  Schleiermacher  (t  1834)  were 
published,  and  they  evinced  more  leaning 
toward  Rationalism  —  considered  by  many 
at  that  time  as  a  worn-out  thing  —  than 
seemed  desirable  for  the  honor  of  the  late 
celebrated  divine.  Owiug  to  these  opinions, 
and  the  influence  they  exercised,  it  was  a 
matter  of  course  that  the  conflict  involving 
principles  concerning  the  supernatural  and 
natural  interpretation  of  the  history  of  the 
Gospel  was  daily  becoming  more  and  more 
vehement.  Though  the  conflict  varied  in 
form,  yet  the  thesis  put  forth  by  Strauss, 
and  which  was  proclaimed  as  if  it  were  an 
axiom  when  he  first  published  his  opinion 
"that,  according  to  sound  philosophy,  as 
well  as  experience,  the  regular  chain  of 
conditional  causes  is  never  interrupted  by 
the  absolute  Causality  through  special  acts," 
and  that  therefore  every  incident  or  fact 
which  is  said  to  have  been  produced  by 
God  himself  can  not  be  called  historic- 
al. Did  not  even  some  who  confessed  this 
theological  Machiavelism  go  to  the  length 
of  asserting  that  the  "  supernaturale "  - 
—  i.  e.,  the  belief  in  a  God  who  stands 
independently  raised  above  the  laws  of  nat- 
ure, and  who  remains  Lord  in  his  own  cre- 
ation—  was  declared  to  be  not  only  anti- 
Christian,  and  against  the  spirit  of  Protes- 
tantism, but — however  incredulous  it  may 
sound  —  un  scriptural  ?  What  would  have 
been  the  fate  assigned  to  Gospel  history,  if 
it  had  been  left  in  such  hands,  is  no  diffi- 
cult matter  to  foretell.  It  was  particularly 
against  the  Gospel  of  St.  John  that  the  ar- 
rows of  infidelity  were  hurled,  producing  a 
shock  which  was  not  only  felt  in  all  Protes- 
tant churches  on  the  Continent,  but  its  vi- 
brations were  felt  on  the  distant  shores 
of  Iceland.  Well-nigh  superhuman  efforts 
were  made,  no  cost  was  considered  too  great, 
to  do  away  with  every  iwternal  and  furter- 
nal  evidence  of  the  authenticity  and  trust- 
worthiness of  the  "  unique  tender  Gospel " 
(Luther).  The  apologetic  Gospel  of  St.  John 
(since,  regarded  as  an  apology,  it  bore  in 
itself  every  trace  of  being  unscientific),  and, 
soon  afterwards,  every  thing  in  the  other 
three  Gospels  relating  to  Christology  and 
breathing  too  much  of  St.  John's  spirit— that 
is, having  too  metaphysical  an  appearance — 
were  expunged.  In  the  same  way  now  as  this 
kind  of  criticism  treated  the  miracles,  so  it 
did  the  sources  from  whence  they  had  been 
taken,  and  concerning  the  mutual  relations 
between  the  synoptical  Gospels,  hypothesis 
was  built  on  hypothesis,  like  in  ancient  my- 


thology the  Ossa  on  Olympus  and  Pelion.  The 
grand  object  was  to  reach,  by  dint  of  dili- 
gent delving  in  the  sacred  writings,  a  pure- 
ly historical  stratum,  so  that  the  trouble- 
some restraint  which  the  miraculous  always 
causes  might  be  removed ;  but  at  the  same 
time  to  retain  such  historical  facts  as  wouW 
be  considered  sufficient  to  explain  Christian 
faith  in  a  purely  natural  manner.  These 
men  endeavored  to  strip  the  tree  of  history 
of  all  the  luxuriant  lotuses  of  creative  fancy 
with  which  it  has  been  adorned  during  cent- 
uries, and  once  more  to  place  the  original 
trunk,  though  weak  and  tender  it  might  be, 
in  such  a  place  that  the  light  of  the  sun 
might  once  more  completely  shine  upon  it. 
With  sovereign  contempt  for  the  intimate 
connection  existing  between  each  portion  of 
the  sacred  writings,  each  separate  part  was 
placed  under  their  microscope  with  colored 
lenses ;  nay,  more,  with  unflinching  hand 
the  scalpel  was  wielded  in  sounding  the 
most  delicate  arteries  of  this  organic  body, 
every  where  destroying  life  in  the  vain  en- 
deavor to  discover  where  life's  remotest 
source  lay.  It  is,  however,  impossible,  and 
even  unnecessary,  to  follow  the  operation 
step  by  step.  Suffice  it  to  say,  the  result  of 
the  examination  was  the  same  as  the  sup- 
position from  whence  the  examination  had 
proceeded,  and  the  Christ  of  the  New  Testa- 
ment dwindled  down  to  a  person  of  the 
greatest  insignificance.  What  remained  of 
this  Christ  was  the  figure  of  a  Jewish  Soc- 
rates in  the  garb  of  a  Galilean  rabbi.  No 
more  is  he  the  Christ  of  Bethlehem,  but  Je- 
sus of  Nazareth ;  if  not  a  bastard,  yet  the 
son  of  Joseph,  the  carpenter — in  every  re- 
spect the  child  of  his  age,  but  only  in  relig- 
ious conceptions  and  ideas  far  advanced  be- 
yond his  own  and  future  times — truly  excel- 
lent, but  not  without  sin  —  a  head  taller 
than  ourselves,  but  in  all  things  human, 
and  nothing  more  —  by  no  means  exempt 
from  the  weaknesses  of  the  flesh — above  .all 
things,  a  friend  of  the  people  and  of  chil- 
dren. Partly  through  misunderstanding, 
partly  by  his  'own  fault,  he  became  the  vic- 
tim of  the  inrooted  hatred  of  the  great ;  and 
after  having  fallen  into  their  hands,  he  died 
in  the  most  sublime  manner,  was  buried, 
and  continued  to  live — that  is  to  say,  in  the 
adoring  memory  of  his  disciples.  Thus  it  re- 
mains permitted  for  us  to  speak  freely  of 
this  Jesus  Ben  Joseph,  in  many  respects  a 
most  mysterious  personage  ;  his  sepulchre 
is  with  us  unto  this  day  (Acts  ii.,  29) ;  but 
through  some  mysterious  cause  or  other,  his 
body  was  not  found  after  it  had  a  short  time 
before  been  laid  in  it.  At  all  events,  the  ac- 
count of  his  resurrection  and  ascension  do 
not  belong  to  the  history  of  his  life,  but  to 
the  life  and  faith  of  those  who  were  his  fol- 
lowers. Every  possible  supposition  may  bo 
freely  ventured  on  by  way  of  explaining 
this  fact,  except  one,  namely,  that  there  was 


VAN  OOSTERZEE:  THE  GOSPEL  HISTORY  AND  MODERN  CRITICISM.    241 


any  supernatural  agency  employed — that  is, 
that  a  miracle  occurred.  Every  thing  that 
can  not  be  explained  on  natural  grounds 
must,  once  for  all,  be  regarded  as  spurious 
—  incredible,  in  short  —  as  not  worthy  of 
consideration.  These  critics  maintained  that 
the  only  true  historical  (that  is,  merely  nat- 
ural) account  of  Jesus,  was  to  make,  to  force 
the  facts  or  sources  to  speak  for  themselves. 
If  it  be  asked,  What  is  the  scientific  and 
moral  value  of  this  modern  criticism  ?  we  an- 
swer: To  give  a  satisfactory  answer  to  this 
question,  it  is  necessary  to  distinguish  two 
things.  To  be  impartial,  we  must  well  ob- 
serve that  this  school  is  represented  by  two 
parties,  each  following  a  different  direction. 
The  first,  whose  road  evidently  tends  down- 
ward, ultimately  leads  into  the  abyss  of  ne- 
gation. The  second,  though  undoubtedly  pro- 
ceeding from  naturalistic  principles,  shows 
a  higher  aspiration  to  be  its  object, "  some- 
thing beyond  its  own  sphere."  This  latter 
direction  is  especially  distinguished  for  the 
earnestness  and  depth  it  displays  in  a  scien- 
tific point  of  view.  There  is  a  desire  to  be 
and  to  remain  religious,  even  where  the 
name  of  Christian  has  lost  much  of  its  prim- 
itive signification,  or  at  least  is  no  longer 
used  in  its  former  sense ;  and  its  object  is  not 
only  to  pull  down,  but  also  to  build  up,  as 
well  and  as  far  as  it  can  possibly  do  so. 
Here  and  there  anatomical  criticism  has  em- 
ployed a  vast  treasure  of  learneduess  and 
acuteuess  in  its  labors,  of  which  it  may  be 
said  that  it  is  truly  lamentable  it  has  not 
been  dedicated  to  better  purposes.  The  re- 
newed historical  researches  concerning  the 
times  of  Jesus  and  the  Apostles,  especially 
encouraged  by  the  school  of  the  moderns, 
have  produced  rays  of  light  to  which  the 
science  of  faith  should  not  close  its  eye,  and 
it  has  raised  considerations  which  a  consci- 
entious system  of  apologetics  should  most 
carefully  weigh.  Ou  the  other  hand,  there 
is  every  reason  to  repeat  the  complaint  ut- 
tered by  Vinet :  "  On  nous  fait  uno  histoire 
nouvelle  au  profit  de  la  thCologie  nouvelle." 
And  in  this  work  of  radical  restoration  there 
has,  indeed,  been  no  lack  of  big  words,  call- 
ed in  America,  I  think,  "  humbug."  The  fol- 
lowing may  certainly  be  reckoned  as  such : 
"The  post-apostolic  origin  of  the  fourth  Gos- 
pel is  among  the  most  certain  results  of  mod- 
ern theological  science"  (Hilgenfeld);  and 
even  the  assertion  is  put  forth  that  the  Gospel 
of  St.  Mark,  which  had  till  then  been  consider- 
ed by  the  ablest  theologians  to  be  the  most 
ancient  of  the  Gospels,  by  no  means  contained 
pure  history,  as  so  many  had  till  then  most 
foolishly  fancied,  but  that  it  is  merely  a 
moral  poem,  in  which  the  Christ  is  delinea- 
ted— half  a  century  after  his  death — as  he 
lived  in  the  fancy  or  imagination  of  the  early 
Christians  (Volkmar).  Indeed,  all  the  tricks 
of  which  the  former  doctrine  of  Gospel  har- 
mony has,  not  unjustly,  been  accused,  are  as 
1C 


nothing  compared  with  the  arbitrary  com- 
binations in  which  these  would-be  critics  (in 
reality  nothing  more  than  mere  romancers) 
do  not  find  the  slightest  difficulty  in  indulg- 
ing. Nevertheless,  this  inebriated  science  ap- 
pears before  us  with  the  arrogant  assertion 
that  through  the  medium  of  its  operations 
or  agency,  the  problem,  if  not  entirely,  is  at 
least  on  the  way  of  being  most  satisfactorily 
solved ;  and  it  is  almost  amusing  to  observe 
how,  from  time  to  time,  the  most  violent  op- 
ponents, both  in  folio  and  duodecimo — great 
and  small — most  solemnly,  though  without 
any  real  authority  whatever,  maintain,  on 
the  assertions  of  their  chief  men  and  leaders 
only,  that  the  most  renowned  apologists  are 
miserable  ignoramuses,  and  that  a  man  like 
C.  Tischendorf,  for  instance,  has  not  the 
slightest  right  to  put  in  a  word  on  isagogic 
and  patristic  questions.  On  the  whole,  the 
boldness  with  which  modern  criticism  de- 
clares that  it  is,  once  for  all,  a  settled  matter 
that  a  miracle  is  an  impossibility,  has  at- 
tained a  degree  of  audacity  of  which  some 
yctirs  ago  we  should  hardly  have  been  able 
to  form  any  adequate  idea.  Voices  like 
those  which  were  heard  in  the  second  half 
of  the  eighteenth  century  in  the  saloons  and 
writings  of  the  French  Encyclopedists  and 
their  followers  only,  may  now  be  heard  pro- 
ceeding not  only  from  Christian  chairs,  but 
also  from  hundreds  of  pulpits ;  and  it  is  at 
present  nothing  unusual  for  members  of  a 
Christian  congregation,  on  meeting  in  their 
places  of  worship  on  the  festive  days  of  the 
Church,  to  hear  their  pastors  contradict,  and 
not  seldom  ridicule,  the  belief  of  the  congre- 
gation ;  and  even  in  many  lower  schools,  the 
miracles  contained  in  the  Gospel  are  put 
on.  a  par  with  the  fables  and  legends  of 
the  heathen  world.  I  could  mention  worse 
things,  but  let  this  suffice.  However  desir- 
ous I  may  be  of  being  lenient  and  tolerant 
toward  persons,  still  my  opinion  concerning 
the  principles  put  forth  can  not  be  else  but 
the  most  unfavorable  possible,  for  unto  us 
the  day  uttereth  to  the  day  that  systematic 
miraculophobia  is  being  continually  punish- 
ed with  periodical  absurdity.  The  criticism 
we  speak  of  is  in  reality  nothing  else  but  a 
system  of  bad  tactics,  which,  based  on  so- 
called  philosophical  premises,  boasts  of  be- 
ing free  ;  but  in  reality  it  is  the  slave  of  in- 
rooted  prejudice,  and  under  the  influence 
thereof  it  decides  beforehand,  in  advance, 
and  "  as  it  pleases,"  what  is  and  what  is 
not  history.  It  is  a  system  of  criticism  that 
takes  the  present  as  a  standard  for  the  past, 
what  is  human  as  the  touch-stone  for  the 
divine  and  eternal,  effacing  the  line  which 
separates  the  profane  from  the  sacred,  and, 
while  promising  to  heal  its  most  holy  pa- 
tient, first  amputates  its  most  precious  limbs, 
and  then  plunges  its  dagger  into  its  most 
vital  artery.  Again,  it  is  a  system  of  criti- 
cism that  has  banished  itself  within  a  magic 


242 


CHRISTIANITY  AND  ITS  ANTAGONISMS. 


circle,  and  now,  by  way  of  punishment,  is 
condemned  to  see  naught  but  livid  spectres 
in  all  that  is  without  and  above  that  circle. 
In  a  word,  it  is  tho  criticism  of  Festus 
on  the  conversion  of  St.  Paul ;  of  Bahrt,  by 
Goethe,  on  the  four  Evangelists ;  it  ia  the 
criticism  of  the  purely  analytic  mind  and  of 
uusanctified  science  concerning  things  that 
"eye  hath  not  seen  nor  ear  heard,  neither 
have  entered  into  tho  heart  of  man"  (1  Cor. 
ii.,9). 

It  would  very  reasonably  excite  ranch  sur- 
prise if  so  much  arbitrariness,  splendidly  ar- 
rayed in  the  garb  of  science,  could  meet  with 
so  much  and  such  loud  applause  if  modern 
criticism  was  a  perfectly  isolated  phenome- 
non in  our  times,  abounding  in  enigmas.  But 
it  should  not  for  a  moment  be  forgotten  that 
never  were  more  powerful  writers  supported 
by  mightier  allies.  Freely  call  their  number 
legion — for,  indeed,  they  are  many.  Hero 
I  will  briefly  mention  three  of  them.  First, 
the  present  tendency  of  philosophy.  I  do  not 
wish  to  say  or  to  assert  that  philosophy  was 
formerly  so  much  more  favorable  to  the 
good  cause  of  Christianity  and  of  Christ 
than  at  present.  The  false  peace  between  a 
fraction  of  the  school  of  Hegel  and  the  Gos- 
pel lasted  but  a  short  time,  and  has  brought 
forth  bitter  fruits.  Yet  I  fear  the  present 
contempt  for  metaphysics,  in  addition  to  the 
exceeding  partiality  evinced  for  the  method 
and  result  of  so-called  natural  philosophy, 
will  be  still  more  fatal  in  its  consequences. 
Not  that  a  profound  study  of  nature  is  in 
itself  inconsistent  with  the  Christian  faith 
of  Revelation.  A  vast  number  of  instances 
prove  the  contrary,  and  it  may  be  consider- 
ed as  something  very  remarkable  that  gen- 
erally the  word  impossible  is  heard  to  be  pro- 
nounced much  sooner  by  naturalistic  the- 
ologians, than  by  naturalists  who  have  made 
a  profound  research  into  their  subject.  But 
it  may  be  considered  as  a  fact  that  when 
spiritual  sciences  are  treated  in  the  same 
way  as  the  exact  sciences,  and  the  experi- 
ence of  to-day  and  yesterday  is  taken  as 
the  highest  standard  whereby  sacred  history 
is  to  be  judged,  that  ultimately  there  will 
not  remain  the  slightest  room  for  the  so- 
called  supernatural  contemplation  of  the 
world.  He  Avho  only  and  alone  regards  and 
portrays  the  history  of  man,  of  civilization, 
and  of  religion  exclusively  from  the  stand- 
point of  natural  science,  does  away  with 
every  thing  like  the  free  exercise  of  the  will, 
either  divine  or  human.  Morality  becomes 
the  ally  of  determinatism,  determinatism 
determines  not  only  man  but  God  to  be  the 
slave  of  his  own  laws  of  nature.  If  now 
empiricism  becomes  the  highest  wisdom, 
then  the  whole  question  concerning  the  mi- 
raculousbecomesa  thing  of  sheer  folly,  which 
these  wise  people  simply  put  aside  as  not 
worthy  of  discussion— a  thing  as  little  to  be 
considered  as  the  question  whether  once  Si- 


renes  and  Centauri  really  existed.  And  so 
eventually  it  becomes  no  difficult  matter  to 
conclude,  with  the  disciples  of  the  Positivists, 
that  all  the  grand  questions  that  belong  to 
tho  realm  of  things  invisible  are  to  be  placed 
in  the  sphere  of  fantastic,  dreamy  visions, 
and  to  declare  with  the  disciples  of  Materi- 
alism that  all  fundamental  moral  notions 
are  merely  natural  products,  just  in  tho  same 
way  as  we  speak  of  the  origin  of  sugar  or 
of  vitriol.  Here  I  do  not  speak  of  the  fatal 
doctrine  of  Pessimism  and  Nihilism,  which, 
under  the  influence  of  unbounded  pride,  in 
proclaimed  by  celebrated  philosophers  and 
applauded  by  millions,  tending,  however,  to 
the  misery  and  destxuction  of  individuals 
and  of  society  in  general.  Well,  then,  I  ask 
what  room  is  there,  when  we  behold  such  a 
philosophical  direction,  for  the  doctrine  of 
sin  as  guilt,  and  for  a  belief  in  the  necessity, 
the  possibility,  and  the  acknowledging  of  a 
special  historical  revelation  of  salvation  f 

We  may  mention,  as  another  fresh  ally  of 
modern  criticism,  the  present  condition  of 
the  Church.  Of  course  there  is  no  particu- 
lar Church  that  I  now  have  in  view  ;  but  I 
speak  of  the  Christian  Church  as  a  whole, 
and  its  principal  divisions,  and  then  I  main- 
tain that  in  many  respects  its  present  condi- 
tion is  in  a  high  degree  most  subsidiary  to 
the  criticism  of  negation.  Roman  Catholi- 
cism, that  as  a  punishment  for  its  unprece- 
dented hardness  of  heart,  has  been  struck 
with  perfect  infatuation,  has  by  its  assump- 
tion with  which  it  has,  in  tho  face  of  tho 
19th  century,  ventured  to  defend  the  fantas- 
tic doctrines  of  the  Immaculate  Conception 
of  Mary  and  the  Infallibility  of  the  Pope,  and 
by  manufacturing  miracles  by  dozens,  ren- 
dered the  chasm  which  existed  between  it 
and  many  thousands  of  thoughtful  minds 
an  unfathomable  abyss,  drawing  an  innu- 
merable number  of  men  out  of  the  lap  of 
superstition,  and  casting  them  into  the  arms 
of  unbelief.  Naturalism  has  become  the 
place  of  refuge  for  all  who  desire  with  all 
possible  speed  to  escape  from  bigotry,  and 
every  effort  to  justify  it  on  scientih'c  grounds 
is  loudly  applauded.  Protestantism,  on  the 
contrary,  internally  divided  and  enervated, 
severed  from  the  foundation  of  the  Holy 
Scriptures  and  her  own  Confession  of  Faith, 
is  in  the  eye  of  the  greater  part  of  the  people 
something  quite  negative,  so  that  her  crit- 
icism of  negation  is  considered  to  be  noth- 
ing else  but  the  legitimate  development  of 
the  Protestant  principle,  and  the  most  eman- 
cipated spirits  of  the  nineteenth  century  are 
but  tho  bold  coutiuuers  of  that  work  of  the 
sixteenth  century.  As  among  tho  conserva- 
tive party,  too.  there  is  nobody  who  consid- 
ers himself  bound,  entirely  and  literally, 
to  the  Confession  of  Faith,  and  it  therefore 
seems  impossible — even  as  regards  the  lead- 
ing facts  of  Christianity — to  fix  any  positive 
limits  to  the  liberty  of  instruction  to  the  cii- 


VAN  OOSTERZEE :  THE  GOSPEL  HISTORY  AND  MODERN  CRITICISM.    243 


tire  satisfaction  of  all  parties.  Here  and 
there,  again,  the  life-giviug  doctrine  of  the 
Church  has  become  a  petrifaction  of  such 
rigid  orthodoxy  that  materialism  may  cer- 
tainly be  expected  to  be  embraced  by  all  who 
begin  to  doubt  in  the  doctriue  of  a  mechan- 
ical inspiration  of  the  sacred  writings.  I 
doubt  very  much,  indeed,  if  the  "  Essays  and 
Reviews  "  in  England  would  have  met  with 
such  warm  sympathy  if  the  theology  of  that 
country  had  borne  a  more  progressive  char- 
acter— that  is,  in  the  right  or  sound  sense  of 
the  word.  But  wherefore  expatiate  any 
longer  on  this  subject  ?  If,  now,  in  such  a 
condition  of  the  Church,  in  which  we  meet 
with  such  perfect  rigidity,  on  the  one  hand, 
and  such  confusion  on  the  other,  talented 
preachers,  as,  for  instance,  some  years  ago, 
your  Parker,  declare  that  only  and  alone 
in  the  interest  of  true  religion  and  mo- 
rality they  are  desirous  of  delivering  the 
world  from  the  antiquated  notions  of  super- 
naturalisin,  then  it  is  a  matter  of  course 
that  they  should  find  sympathy  among  se- 
rious, more  noble  minds,  and,  above  all, 
among  the  multitude,  that,  although  on  the 
whole  pretty  indifferent  to  truth,  immedi- 
ately feels  its  zeal  kindling,  if  but  a  fin- 
ger be  stretched  forth  to  deprive  an  indi- 
vidual of  his  liberty  to  negate  whatever  he 
lists. 

And  now  I  have  not  yet  spoken  of  the 
present  tendency  of  literature,  which  so  pow- 
erfully assists  modern  criticism.  All  honor 
be  rendered  to  the  powerful  development 
which  Christian  literature,  especially  in  En- 
gland and  America,  has  lately  displayed 
for  the  welfare  of  the  people.  But,  on  the 
other  hand,  there  is  no  possibility  of  denying 
that  anti-Christian  and  atheistic  literature 
has  displayed,  and,  indeed,  is  still  displaying, 
a  degree  of  development  that  may  be  consid- 
ered truly  appalling.  Nothing  would  be 
easier  than  to  mention  here  names  and  ti- 
tles that  would  make  your  blood  run  cold. 
Those  productions  of  unbelief  and  immoral- 
ity have  the  more  pernicious  influence  in- 
asmuch as  they  are  presented  to  the  public 
decked  out  in  the  most  brilliant  colors  and 
iu  the  most  attractive  forms ;  these  self- 
same productions  are  disseminated  by  a  jour- 
nalism that,  for  the  greater  part,  is  either 
directly  or  indirectly  in  the  service  of  anti- 
Christianity.  Among  these  men  no  weapon 
is  considered  too  base  to  combat  divine 
truth.  The  fanaticism  of  negation  often 
makes  men  liars,  and  often  against  their 
own  consciences,  at  least  as  long  as  their 
consciences  are  not  seared  as  if  by  a  branding- 
iron.  Whole  novels  are  fabricated,  also,  con- 
cerning the  Founder  of  Christianity.  They 
are,  as  it  is  pretended,  based  on  old  man- 
uscripts, that,  however,  have  never  existed. 
These  productions  are  sold  to  tens  of  thou- 
sands— from  which  fact  we  clearly  see  how 
the  world  will  be  deceived.  I  am  not  saving 


too  much  when  I  here  maintain  that  there  is 
existing  a  systematic  propaganda  of  unbe- 
lief and  doubt,  which  considers  no  means  too 
abject  to  obtain  its  object :  at  present  Chris- 
tians are  not  only  threatened  with  the  sword, 
but  they  are  beaten  with  sticks,  as,  in  the 
passion-night,  the  Lord  in  Gethsemane.  Add 
to  this — for  I  must  necessarily  be  brief— the 
entire  tendency  of  society,  with  its  restless 
striving  after  sensual  pleasures,  and  its  tan- 
gible longing  to  level  every  thing  that  rises 
but  a  little  above  its  every-day  notions  and 
ideas.  Consider,  too,  the  influence  of  the  in- 
struction governments  provide  for  in  the 
schools — both  high  and  low ;  in  appearance 
it  is  neutral,  but  iu  reality  inimical  to  the 
Gospel.  In  conclusion,  add  to  this  the  pro- 
found ignorance  in  matters  concerning  re- 
ligion, not  only  among  the  lower  classes,  but 
also  among  the  higher  spheres  of  society, 
that  considers  mental  and  moral  develop- 
ment quite  satisfactory,  if  it  can  but  show  a 
broad  surface,  whereas  depth  and  height  are 
daily  becoming  things  of  less  importance. 
Put  all  these  things  together,  and  tell  me 
now  if  it  can  surprise  us  that  modern  criti- 
cism places  itself  in  the  position  of  a  victor, 
of  a  conqueror  as  regards  Gospel  history ; 
of  a  conqueror  who  has  already  gained  the 
ramparts  of  the  fortress,  has  made  himself 
master  of  its  gates,  has  opened  a  passage  to 
the  very  centre  of  the  place ;  and  now,  drunk 
with  his  feelings  of  superiority,  prepares 
himself  to  plant  the  unfurled  banner  on  its 
ruins,  which  are  well-nigh  undefended. 

II.  And  yet,  notwithstanding  all  this,  we 
venture  calmly  to  look  into  the  supercilious 
enemy's  face,  and  to  exclaim  with  the  words 
of  Holy  Writ:  "Take  counsel  together,  and 
it  shall  come  to  naught ;  speak  the  word, 
and  it  shall  not  stand :  for  God  is  with  us" 
(Isa.  viii.,  10).  So  it  is,  my  hearers,  and  AVC 
now  turn  over  the  leaf  and  ask :  How  does, 
amid  this  all,  the  history  of  the  Gospel  stand 
in  regard  to  modern  criticism  f  In  reference 
to  this  question,  too,  wo  desire  to  give  an 
answer  that  may  be  contained  in  two  or 
three  words.  It  stands  as  firm  as  ever;  the 
second  answer  is — but  this  we  shall  mention 
somewhat  later.  It  was  an  affecting  mo- 
ment in  the  newer  history  of  my  fatherland, 
the  heroic  period  of  which  Las  been  so  mas- 
terly depicted  by  yonr  Motley  in  his  "  Rise 
of  the  Dutch  Republic,"  wrhen,  in  1815,  after 
the  battle  of  Waterloo,  and  after  the  Prince 
of  Orange  had  been  dangerously  wounded, 
on  his  being  asked  how  he  felt,  he  gave  this 
striking  answer:  "God  be  praised,  we  have 
not  lost  an  inch  of  ground."  And  may  the 
science  of  faith  not  employ  the  same  words 
as  regards  the  entirety  of  the  Gospel  his- 
tory ?  We  appeal  to  your  own  understand- 
ing, feeling,  and  conscience.  Whatever  may 
be  enigmatical  or  doubtful  as  regards  some 
minor  points,  the  well-known  words,  "  Ce 
n'cst  pas  ainsi  qu'ou  a  invents,"  arc  still 


CHRISTIANITY  AND  ITS  ANTAGONISMS. 


even  true  and  certain,  as  in  the  time  of 
Rousseau,  concerning  the  whole  of  tho  Gos- 
pel. Nothing  is  so  inexorable  as  a  fact,  aft- 
er it  has  been  undeniably,  unquestionably 
proved.  Thick  and  dense  clouds  of  fog 
may  for  a  time  hide  the  mountain  summits 
of  Switzerland  from  our  view,  but  never- 
never  will  those  clouds  destroy  them !  Or  is 
it  really  become  something  doubtful,  some- 
thing inconceivable,  that  tho  Son  of  God 
became  flesh,  was  conceived  in  miraculous 
manner,  came  into  the  world,  died  on  the 
cross,  rose  again,  and  now  is  dwelling  in 
glory,  because  a  certain  number  of  men,  at 
such  and  such  a  time,  chose  to  decree  "nous 
avons  chang6  tout  cela  f  "  Have  all  the  in- 
numerable internal  and  external  evidences 
of  the  credibility  and  veracity  of  this  his- 
tory all  been  annihilated,  as  if  by  magic, 
because  a  certain  school  of  criticism,  that 
changes  with  the  day,  and  that  is  contin- 
ually contradicting  itself,  does  not  choose  to 
affix  the  seal  of  its  approbation  thereto? 
But  you  yourselves  feel  that  here  the  ques- 
tion is  not  whether  few  or  many  contradict 
a  thing,  but  whether  this  thing  can  be  just- 
ly contradicted ;  here  it  does  not  depend  on 
the  enemy  himself  acknowledging  his  de- 
feat, but  on  his  being  obliged  to  keep  si- 
lence, convinced  by  the  inexorable  force  of 
logic  and  honest  argument,  and  though  he 
positively  refuse  to  acknowledge  himself 
vanquished  by  that  truth.  And  this  is  now 
here  the  case,  if  we  are  not  quite  mistaken. 
If  there  be  any  thing  positively  sure  and  cer- 
tain in  this  undermined  position,  so  fiercely 
assaulted,  it  is  this :  that,  according  to  the 
testimony  of  the  Epistles  of  St.  Paul,  univer- 
sally recognized  as  authentic,  there  were 
in  the  Apostolic  age,  and  especially  in  the 
Church  of  Corinth,  certain  phenomena,  which 
one  has  never  been  able  to  explain  in  mere- 
ly natural  manner  (1  Cor.  xii.,  9,  10,  28 ;  see 
also  Gal.  iii.,  5;  Heb.  ii.,  4).  Paul  himself, 
who  affirms  this,  was  a  person  who  will 
everlastingly  remain  an  enigma,  unless  we 
attribute  the  receiving  of  his  spiritual  life 
to  a  superhuman  operation.  Signs,  won- 
ders, and  mighty  deeds  he  mentions  among 
the  signs  of  the  coming  Apostleship,  reveal- 
ed also  in  himself  (Rom.  xv.,  18,  19;  2  Cor. 
xii.,  12);  and  all  these  signs  find  life  and 
foundation  in  the  personal  faith  in  the  res- 
urrection and  glorification  of  Christ.  To 
explain  this  declaration  of  St.  Paul  concern- 
ing this  matter — an  explanation  of  consid- 
erably earlier  date  than  the  Gospels,  and 
probably  originating  some  ten  years  after 
tho  first  Pentecost—to  explain  this  declara- 
tion in  any  other  way  than  a  bodily  resur- 
rection from  out  of  the  grave,  is  only  and 
alone  possible  from  the  stand -point  of  ex- 
egetical  arbitrariness,  testifying  of  the  most 
wretched  embarrassment.  This  fact  must, 
therefore,  l>e  accepted  on  his  testimony,  and 
on  that  of  the  Apostles,  because  otherwise 


their  belief  in  the  resurrection  is  perfectly 
incomprehensible.  Never  has  it  been  so  evi- 
dent as  in  our  days  that  the  theory  of  the 
so-called  vision-hypothesis,  defended  in  all 
kinds  of  ways,  is  not  to  be  maintained,  and  it 
may  be  considered  at  the  least  very  remark- 
able that  the  most  recent  biographer  of 
Christ*  has  seen  himself  obliged  to  put  a 
hypothesis  of  objective  Christophanie  at  the 
place  of  mere  subjective,  defended  by  Strauss 
and  others.  He  admitted  such  revelations 
and  operations  of  the  spirit  of  the  deceased 
Saviour  on  his  first  followers,  that  he  him- 
self made  tho  impression  on  them  that  lie 
had  really  risen  and  was  glorified.  Ac- 
cording to  this  sentiment,  which  Weisse  and 
Scheukel  had  already  adopted  in  former 
times,  the  deceased  Nazarene  himself  appear- 
ed from  time  to  time  to  the  eye  of  his  dis- 
ciples in  the  form  of  a  ghost;  in  other  words, 
the  supernatural,  which  had  been  shown  tho 
front  door,  enters  again  by  a  back  door.  Will 
it  now  last  long — matters  standing  thus — 
before  we  shall  be  obliged  to  put  our  signa- 
ture to  the  thesis  of  the  Tubingen  professor 
Baur,  when,  spite  himself,  and  in  an  un- 
guarded moment,  he  wrote:  "Nur  das  Wun- 
der  der  Auferstehuug  konnte  die  Zweifel 
zerstreuen  welche  den  Glauben  selbst  in  die 
ewige  Nacht  des  Todes  verstossen  zu  mttsseu 
schieneu?"t  This,  at  all  events,  becomes 
clearer  and  clearer  that  the  greatest  difficul- 
ties present  themselves  OH  the  side — not  of 
those  who  recognize  this  miracle  —  but  on 
the  side  of  those  who  deny  it;  and  that  from 
the  stand-point  of  negation  one  must  accept 
a  psychological  miracle,  which  positively  is 
not  less  great  than  the  metaphysical  mira- 
cle which  one  resolutely  opposes;  in  other 
words,  the  opposing  party  gives  that  which 
is  incomprehensible  only  another  place,  but 
does  not  take  it  away,  and  much  less  satisfac- 
torily explains  it.  Thus  the  struggle  concen- 
trates itself  more  and  more  round  the  tomb 
of  Christ ;  the  enigma  can  only  be  solved  in 
one  way,  the  only  way  which  modern  natural- 
ism obstinately  refuses  to  accept,  inasmuch 
as  from  its  point  of  view  it  can  not  accept 
this  miracle,  though  it  should  be  substan- 
tiated not  by  500,  but  even  5000  or  50,000 
witnesses.  As  long  as  the  opposite  party 
will  obstinately  maintain  this  point  of  view, 
the  maxim,  "Contra  principia  negautem 
non  valet  disputatio,"  may  be  applied  to 
them.  It  is  thus  evident  to  every  one  open 
to  reasonable  conviction,  that  as  soon  as  the 
miracle  of  the  resurrection  must  be  cou- 
ceded,  that  the  doctrine  and  the  triumph  of 
Christian  supernatnralism  is  secured,  in 
principle  at  least.  For  as  then  the  super- 
natural no  longer  appears  to  us  as  merely  a 
philosophical  hypothesis,  but  as  an  undeni- 
able fact,  on  which  the  light  clearly  shines, 


•  Professor  Keim. 

t  F.  C.  Bnur,  Das  Chrintenth.  und  die  Chrintl.-Kirche 
der  drei  crstcn  Jahrhunderte,  2  Aufl.  (1SGO),  5  39. 


VAN  OOSTERZEE :  THE  GOSPEL  HISTORY  AND  MODERN  CRITICISM.    245 


it  has  become  an  historical  fact,  and  thus 
it  will  become  possible,  after  Laviug  obtain- 
ed that  strong  position,  to  conquer  step  by 
step,  as  it  were,  the  fiercely  attacked  terri- 
tory. Now  it  is  evident  that,  as  regards  a 
vast  number  of  details,  many  difficulties,  seen 
at  a  distance,  seem  giants,  but  on  their  be- 
ing closely  inspected  they  dwindle  down  to 
mere  dwarfs ;  while  others,  though  they  can 
not  just  now  be  perfectly  and  satisfactorily 
explained,  the  science  of  faith  is  nowise  real- 
ly impaired  thereby.  We  can  already  men- 
tion with  pleasure  the  names  of  Apologists 
who  have  most  brilliantly  maintained  the 
honor  and  veracity  of  sacred  history  against 
the  contempt  with  which  it  is  most  arbitra- 
rily treated,  among  the  less  recent  ones,  for 
instance,  Tholuck  and  Lange  and  Ebrard; 
among  the  more  recent  ones,  Luthardt, 
Christlieb,  Auberlen,  Riggenbach  and  Pres- 
sense",  also  Godet.  Names  of  most  excellent 
repute,  belonging  to  the  New  World,  can  be 
added  to  these  ornaments  of  the  Old  World, 
and  it  is  just  this  contemptuous  hatred 
with  which  some  of  the  modern  critics 
regard  it  beneath  their  dignity  "  to  fight 
such  a  mob,"  because  their  empty-sounding 
arguments  are  not  worth  refuting — it  is 
exactly  their  bitterness  which  proves  that 
we  do  not  fight  as  those  that  beat  the  air 
(1  Cor.  ix.,  26) ;  it  is  only  when  the  enemy 
feels  he  has  received  a  mortal  wound  that 
he  feels  infuriated.  If  in  former  times  it 
was  a  rule  that  he  who  denies  must  also 
prove  ("neganti  iucumbit  probatio"),  uowr 
this  very  rule  seems  to  be  reversed,  for  he 
who  believes  and  confesses  is  also  expected 
to  give  an  account  of  the  right  he  has  to  do 
so,  but — be  it  said  to  the  honor  of  Christian 
faith — till  now  it  has  by  no  means  shown 
itself  incompetent  to  fulfill  this  arduous  and 
vitally  important  task;  and  though  daily 
called  to  struggle  and  to  fight,  the  conflict 
is  not  without  victory  attending  it.  Do 
you  desire  us  to  show  what  we  mean  by  the 
well-secured  advantages  it  has  gained  in 
the  most  recent  times  ?  We  voluntarily 
venture  to  do  so,  at  all  times  ready  to  de- 
feud  our  most  holy  conviction,  although  we 
by  no  means  lay  claim  to  that  praise  which 
the  complete  accomplishment  of  such  a  task 
might  well  deserve.  It  has  been  most  clear- 
ly shown,  as  regards  the  criticism  of  the  New 
Testament,  that  the  historiography  of  the 
New  Testament  bears  far  more  evidences  of 
antiquity  and  authenticity  than  is  generally 
supposed,  so  that  the  friends  of  classic  liter- 
ature might  well  speak  of  good  fortune  if 
the  authenticity  and  integrity  of  many  of 
their  treasures  could  bo  so  clearly  proved 
as  that  of  the  four  Gospels.  It  has  appear- 
ed that  the  opponents  of  the  Gospel  of  St. 
John  play  the  unenviable  part  that  the  ham- 
mer does  to  the  anvil,  and  that  its  assertion 
that  the  origin  of  this  Gospel  dates  from  the 
middle  or  even  beginning  of  the  second  cent- 


ury is  not  only  undemonstrable,  but  quite 
inexplicable.  It  has  been  seen  that  the  few 
things  which  negative  criticism  has  left  us 
of  the  first  three  Gospels — I  mean  the  am- 
putated declarations  of  the  Lord  in  the  Gos- 
pel of  St.  Matthew,  and  the  supposed  origin- 
al writings  of  St.  Mark — are  more  than  suf- 
ficient to  combat  unbelief  with  the  desired 
effect,  and  to  render  a  merely  human  history 
of  the  Prophet  of  Nazareth  an  impossibility, 
so  that  the  enemy  will  at  last  see  himself 
obliged  uublushingly  to  deny  the  small  re- 
maining minimum  of  the  Gospel  if  every  ob- 
stacle in  the  high-road  of  negation  is  deter- 
minately  to  be  got  rid  of.  And  in  respect, 
again,  to  the  historical  narratives  them- 
selves, transmitted  to  us  through  the  same 
sources,  we  attach  high  value  to  the  result 
of  the  most  recent  researches  —  researches 
that  now  have  almost  the  force  of  an  axio- 
ma.  More  than  ever  it  has  become  evident 
that  it  is  perfectly  impossible,  on  purely 
historical  grounds,  to  make  in  the  history  of 
the  Lord  a  separation  between  its  natural  and 
supernatural  elements  without  being  most 
unjust  or  dictatorial,  inasmuch  as  both  are 
not  only  closely  interwoven,  and  proved  by 
the  same  evidence,  but  are  so  intrinsically  and 
inseparably  one,  that  in  this  case  the  denying 
of  the  supernatural  renders  the  other,  the 
natural,  perfectly  incomprehensible.  Show 
us,  we  reiterate  to  the  heroes  of  Modernism 
— show  us,  after  you  have  foresworn  religion, 
what  remains  of  your  natural  Christ  if  yon 
deny  the  God-man  ?  but  till  thus  far  no  sat- 
isfactory answer  has  been  returned.  Ra- 
tionalism, Mysticism,  Naturalism,  have  each, 
in  their  turn,  during  the  course  of  this  cent- 
ury, ventured  the  trial,  but  it  has  so  unmis- 
takably failed,  that  none  of  the  spectators — 
nay,  not  even  one  of  the  artists  themselves — 
have  felt  satisfied  with  the  newly  sculptured 
figure  of  Christ.  Neither  the  wise  rabbi  of 
Rationalism,  nor  the  vague,  shadowy,  and 
nebulous  figure  of  Mysticism,  (a  ghost  with- 
out flesh  or  bone),  nor  the  Galilean  woman 
and  national  friend  of  Naturalism,  seem  to 
be  permanently  able  to  replace  the  Apostolic 
Christ,  much  less  to  satisfy  the  want  felt  in 
him,  and  which  he  only  is  able  to  satisfy. 
And  when  they  proclaim  to  us  a  Christ,  who 
is  the  most  perfect  man  in  the  ethical,  but 
not  the  Sou  of  God  in  the  metaphysical  and 
historical  sense  of  the  word,  then  it-  very 
soon  appears  that  all  these  unfounded  asser- 
tions lead  to  the  most  pitiful  contradictions, 
and  that  one  has  placed  one's  self  on  an  in- 
cline, on  which  it  is  perfectly  impossible  to 
remain  standing,  but  that,  on  the  contrary, 
inexorable  logic  necessitates  a  person  to  take 
a  step — backward  or  forward.  If  miracles 
are  positively  rejected — and  how  is  it  pos- 
sible to  believe  in  miracles  from  a  purely 
naturalistic  stand-point?  —  it  follows  that 
the  doctrine  of  the  man  Jesus  Christ  being 
without  sin  must  be  contradicted,  for,  as  it  is 


246 


CHRISTIANITY  AND  ITS  ANTAGONISMS. 


maintained,  it  is  contrary  to  all  analogy  and 
experience  that  there  is  a  single  instance, 
from  lirst  to  last,  that  through  medium  of  a 
pmvly  natural  development  one  perfectly 
pair  should  come  forth  from  among  and 
from  the  impure.  If,  on  the  contrary,  Christ 
be  acknowledged  the  perfect  man,  the  ideal 
of  humanity,  then  sooner  or  later  we  shall 
feel  ourselves  constrained  to  a  change  of  the 
Ecce  Homo  in  an  Ecce  Dcus  Homo,  as  such  an 
individual  can  only  be  regarded  as  the  new 
shoot  on  the  diseased  trunk  of  humanity ; 
thus  a  moral  miracle,  the  key  to  all  that  is 
natural,  a  peculiar  gift,  and  at  the  same 
time  the  highest  degree  of  self-revelation  of  a 
God  who  performs  miracles  and  wonders. 
To  this  latter  conclusion  every  one  must  nec- 
essarily come  -who,  without  prejudice,  gives 
himself  up  to  the  purely  ethical  impression 
which  the  harmonious  figure  of  Christ,  as 
displayed  in  the  Gospel,  produces  on  the 
heart  and  the  conscience,  whereas  those,  like 
Renau,  among  others,  who  have  but  an  eye 
for  the  aesthetic  side  of  sacred  history,  prove 
on  well-nigh  every  page  of  their  -writings 
their  internal  incompetence  to  form  any 
thing  like  a  right  judgment  in  this  matter. 
And  if  in  this  conflict  of  principles  this  only 
true  stand-point  is  thus  gained,  if  one  has 
once  more  learned  to  confide  in  the  personal 
testimony  of  the  historical  Christ  concerning 
himself,  even  there  where  the  understanding 
can  not  fully  fathom  its  complete  contents, 
because  our  hearts  and  our  consciences  must 
unconditionally  assent  to  it,  and  deem  it  in- 
conceivable that  this  Son  of  man  should  de- 
ceive himself  and  us,  if  we  once  more  begin  to 
.contemplate  the  other  words,  deeds,  and  dec- 
larations of  the  Lord  by  the  light  of  Christ's 
own  testimony,  then — and  who  does  not  feel 
it  really  to  be  so  ? — then  the  magic  of  the 
grandiloquent  assertions  of  modern  criticism 
have  lost  their  power,  at  least  in  principle. 
A  just,  a  proper  view  is  obtained  of  the 
whole  in  all  its  indivisibility  and  precious- 
ness.  That  whole  casts  its  light  on  each  of 
the  remaining  parts,  be  they  near  or  remote ; 
that  which  regarded,  singly  and  alone,  might 
justly  excite  surprise,  becomes  clear  to  us 
in  its  characteristic  connection  with  the 
whole,  not  only  clear,  but  worthy  of  God. 
Behind  every  seeming  contradiction  to  which 
the  finger  of  criticism  points  us,  we  soon  dis- 
cover a  higher  harmony,  and  on  this  har- 
mony again  rays  of  heavenly  beauty,  truth, 
and  holiness  fall ;  then  at  every  turn  we  feel 
repeatedly  convinced  that  not  only  of  the 
•whole,  but  also  of  each  of  its  indispensable 
parts,  that  it  stands  as  firm  as  ever. 

And  now  -we  feel  ourselves  at  perfect  lib- 
erty to  add,  in  the  second  and  last  place,  it 
demands  more  than  ever.  Or  will  a  lengthy 
demonstration  be  necessary  to  show  that  it 
is  only  possible  to  wrench  the  holy  land  of 
sacred  history— which  the  enemy  has  most 
illegally  taken  possession  of — out  of  his 


hands,  if  every  one  of  us  is  faithful  to  his 
most  holy  calling  f  The  words  of  Lord  Nel- 
son before  the  battle  of  Trafalgar — "En- 
gland expects  every  man  to  do  hie  duty" — 
are,  in  a  higher  sense,  the  order  of  the  day 
of  the  King  of  kings  in  this  great  conflict 
of  the  present  day.  Never  has  the  Church 
— never  has  theology — known  a  more  crit- 
ical period  in  reference  to  this  struggle  than 
at  present ;  and  it  would,  indeed,  be  a  source 
of  intense  regret  if  these  grand  times  should 
produce  little  men  only.  Nor  has  the  his- 
tory of  the  Gospel,  so  inexpressibly  dear  to 
every  Christian,  ever  demanded  of  each  of 
us  so  much  as  at  present ;  and  if  any  body 
wishes  to  know  what  it  is  that  it  demands, 
and  of  whom  in  particular  it  is  demanded,  I 
will  answer  the  question  in  a  few  words, 
and  beg  you,  like  Shakespeare  of  old,  to  re- 
gard my  couple  of  soldiers  as  a  whole  army. 
If  I  now  had  the  honor  of  exclusively  ad- 
dressing in  this  place,  and  by  preference, 
only  priests  and  Levites  in  the  Temple  of 
Theological  Science,  I  would  as  energetically 
as  possible,  both  for  my  own  and  their  sakes, 
exclaim:  Behold  a  field  without  compare — 
a  field  in  which  we  are  at  liberty  to  exer- 
cise our  noblest  mental  energies !  Men  and 
brethren !  let  us  avoid  even  the  appearance 
of  leaving,  for  the  sake  of  our  ease,  the  dis- 
cussion of  these  litigious  questions  to  those 
who  are  inclined  to  follow  a  road  that  leads 
to  destruction.  Christianity  was  introduced 
into  this  world  without  any  show  of  learu- 
edness,  but  not  without  the  powerful  sup- 
port of  science  can  its  good  cause  be  possi- 
bly maintained  in  our  days.  "  Knowledge 
is  power."  This  is  more  than  evident  in 
those  who  at  present,  with  mighty  hand, 
shake  the  pillars  of  the  divine  building ;  but 
knowledge  sanctified  by  faith  affords  supe- 
rior power,  in  which  we  should  not  by  any 
means  allow  any  body  to  surpass  us  on  ac- 
count of  our  own  neglect.  We  must  oppose 
false  science  with  true  science,  and  we  can 
do  so  at  present  the  more  easily  as  the  time 
of  false  mediation  and  transaction  seems  to 
have  passed  for  good.  In  this  sense,  the 
last  work  of  Strauss,  "  Der  Alte  uud  Neuo 
Glaube,"  seems  to  have  vast  significance ; 
and  the  science  of  faith  has  good  cause  to 
be  thankful  to  the  aged  Apostle  of  Unbelief 
that  he  has  at  last,  and  with  perfect  hon- 
esty, called  things  by  their  right  names.  As 
clearly  as  every  eye  can  at  present  see  the 
chasm  between  Modernism  and  Christianity, 
as  evident  it  is  that  it  is  positively  neces- 
sary that  apologetical  labors  should  bo  con- 
tinued with  renewed  energy.  More  than 
ever  the  present  times  require  that  the  line 
of  the  Pascals  and  Vinets,  on  the  one  hand, 
and  of  the  Grotiuses,  Lardners,  and  Paleys, 
on  the  other,  should  be  continued  with  en- 
ergy, and  in  that  direction — in  that  charac- 
teristic direction — which  the  wants  of  the 
time  require.  The  conflict  that  has  been 


VAN  OOSTERZEE:  THE  GOSPEL  HISTORY  AND  MODERN  CRITICISM.    247 


raging  so  long,  aud  that  is  now  being  re- 
newed with  fresh  vigor,  must  be  waged,  it 
is  true,  with  our  former  arms,  but  not  with- 
out their  first  being  examined  and  whetted 
anew :  as  far  as  it  is  possible,  they  should 
also  be  increased  with  new  ones.  The  ques- 
tion as  to  what  is  the  best  method  of  Apol- 
ogy should  be  repeatedly  inquired  into  ;  all 
private  differences  should  be  -waived  and 
forgotten  for  a  time  in  the  momentous  strug- 
gle of  principles.  Awake,  ye  Christians ! — 
especially  ye  Protestant  theologians  —  rise 
to  the  battle!  Many  an  honorable  wound 
may  indeed  be  inflicted  by  the  enemy,  but 
an  incorruptible  crown  is  the  prize  held  out 
to  you ! 

But,  in  thought,  I  am  mixing  matters  be- 
longing to  science  with  those  of  the  Church 
— both,  indeed,  most  intimately  connected 
with  each  other.  It  is  true,  I  am  here  speak- 
ing to  men  of  the  Church.  I  do  not  speak 
of  any  particular  community  or  denomina- 
tion ;  for  in  this  great  struggle  in  which  we 
all  have  a  common  interest,  every  kind  of 
party  badge  should  disappear.  In  my  heart 
is  deeply  engraven  the  words  of  your  emi- 
nent theologian,  Dr.  Neviu,  "  The  sectarian 
spirit  is  always  fanatical,  or  affects  strength 
aud  has  none."  I  have  now  iu  view  the 
men  of  the  Holy  and  Catholic  Christian 
Church,  built  on  the  foundation  of  the  apos- 
tles and  prophets,  who  have  their  servants 
on  this  side,  as  well  as  on  the  other  side  of 
the  ocean ;  and  I  do  not  hesitate  to  exclaim 
in  the  name  of  their  holy  and  everlasting 
King :  Assist  the  Church  iu  keeping  the 
treasure  that  is  committed  unto  her;  and 
assist  her  iu  giving  a  good  account  of  the 
faith  iu  the  historic  Christ.  There  is  no 
truth  iu  the  assertion  often,  but  so  thought- 
lessly, and  by  hearsay,  repeated — that  faith 
is  perfectly  independent  of  the  course  of  his- 
torical, critical  examination.  On  the  contra- 
ry, Christianity  is  either  seriously  disturbed 
or  established  thereby ;  practical  Christian- 
ity stands  or  falls  with  the  recognition  of 
the  miraculous  character  of  the  historic  rev- 
elation of  salvation.  But  if  this  now  be 
the  case,  then  the  Church,  that  is  watching 
this  struggle  with  profound  emotion,  aud 
often  feels  her  very  foundation  rocking, 
ought  to  be  suitably  armed.  Iu  the  present 
time  the  Church  has  wants  that  can  not  be 
met  or  satisfied  with  preaching,  catechizing, 
or  pastoral  addresses  only — however  excel- 
lent these  may  be  in  themselves,  and  how- 
ever faithfully  those  duties  may  be  perform- 
ed. She  requires  a  more  decided  prophylac- 
tic against  the  venom  of  infidelity  that  is 
presented  to  her  on  all  sides,  or  there  is  ev- 
ery cause  to  fear  and  to  believe  that  the 
present  crisis  will  lead  to  a  more  fatal 
phthisis.  In  what  form  must  this  preserva- 
tive be  administered  to  the  Church  ?  Per- 
haps in  that  of  popular  scientific  lectures ; 
of  apologetic  societies ;  of  polemic  litera- 


ture. I  do  not  venture  to  give  any  positive 
answer  to  the  question,  seeing  that  in  this 
case  so  much  depends  on  special  talents  and 
circumstances.  I  merely  put  forth  the  gen- 
eral principle  that  extraordinary  circumstances 
require  extraordinary  measures,  and  that  we 
who  are  thoroughly  acquainted  with  the 
subject  should  zealously  endeavor  to  enlight- 
en those  who  are  relatively  placed  below  us, 
as  well  as  the  more  enlightened  among  the 
community.  Through  our  medium  the  con- 
viction must  also  be  established  in  the 
Church  that,  behind  the  unbelieving  science, 
there  is  also  a  believing  science,  which,  if 
not  able  to  obtain  the  assent  of  its  adver- 
saries, still  does  obtain  its  respect  and  re- 
gard ;  and  that  we  ourselves,  at  all  events, 
do  not  doubt  or  despair  that  victory  will 
be  ours — a  victory  that  will  the  sooner  be 
obtained  if  we  but  exert  ourselves  to  the 
utmost.  The  modern  critical  direction  de- 
mands great  things  of  intellectual  and  mor- 
al life,  which  demands  it  is,  however,  unable 
itself  to  satisfy.  These  requirements  we 
must,  however,  not  meet  with  other  de- 
mands, but  endeavor  to  fulfill  them  in  a  bet- 
ter way  than  it  is  possible  for  the  opposing 
party  to  do.  Like  a  violent  and  turbulent 
stream  of  a  Mississippi,  the  flood  of  infidel- 
ity is  rising ;  but  it  must  be  curbed,  purified, 
aud  eventually  compelled  to  pour  its  wa- 
ters into  the  ocean  of  the  faith  of  the  Church 
— that,  by  this  fresh  supply,  must  at  last  in- 
crease in  depth  aud  volume. 

But  wherefore  should  I  continue  to  ad- 
dress individuals  concerning  a  matter  that 
is  of  most  vital  importance  to  every  Chris- 
tian ?  No,  indeed ;  here  is  no  difference  be- 
tween Church  and  theology,  between  the 
pastor  and  the  members  of  the  Church .  The 
evangelical  history  demands  of  every  Miccer, 
without  any  distinction,  increasing  interest, 
and  the  positive  conviction  that  it  is  the 
sure  foundation  of  Christiauity,  resting  not 
on  abstract  ideas,  but  on  facts  that  are  iu- 
confutable.  Christianity  demands  renewed 
examination  of  its  contents,  of  the  grounds 
whereon  it  rests,  of  its  connection  with  the 
grand  whole  of  the  revelation  of  God's  plan 
of  salvation,  so  that  none  may  despise  it. 
Alas,  matters  are  come  to  such  a  pass  iu  the 
present  time  that  the  most  exalted  truth- 
queen  by  birth — has  to  go  about  as  a  beg- 
gar already  condemned,  saying  to  judge  aud 
witnesses :  "  Do  not  condemn  me,  at  least 
before  you  have  heard  me  once  more."  And 
what  does  truth  demand?  First  and  fore- 
most a  confession  which  every  Christian  is 
capable  of  giving  —  the  testimony  of  a  lift- 
which  is  at  the  same  time  the  most  su- 
preme revelation,  the  highest  revelation  of 
the  truth.  Would  infidelity  venture  on 
such  bold  negations  if  it  did  not,  on  behold- 
ing so  many  of  its  so-called  Christians,  con- 
stantly receive  the  sad  impression  that  the 
fact  of  facts  stands  so  completely  above 


248 


CHRISTIANITY  AND  ITS  ANTAGONISMS. 


and  beyoud  them  that  it  may  bo  denied  or 
contested  without  any  real  harm  to  any  one, 
as  it  seems  merely  a  matter  of  contention, 
and  uot  golden  fruit  of  the  Tree  of  Life! 
Christians — brethren,  sisters  in  Him  whom 
unbelief  would  willingly  rob  of  his  crown, 
iu  order  to  place  it  on  the  sullied  head  of 
whole  Humanity — never  was  there  a  more 
glorious  opportunity  than  the  present  one, 
but  never  was  your  calling  so  holy,  too,  as 
just  now,  to  show  the  world  that  your  faith 
in  the  complete,  historic  Christ  is  not  a  hol- 
low sound,  but  a  living  power,  which  can 
impossibly  be  explained  by  nature  and  mat- 
ter only.  I  say  to  the  Christians  of  the  Old 
World:  The  more  friends  and  enemies  see 
that  all  that  is  old  is  passing  away  from 
you,  the  less  will  they  have  the  courage  to 
repeat  that  the  Gospel  with  all  its  miracu- 
lous narratives  did  very  well  for  former 
times,  but  that  it  is  worth  nothing  for  the 
present.  I  speak  to  the  Christians  of  the 
New  World,  and  add :  You  would  be  break- 
ing with  your  own  glorious  history  if  ye 
were  to  abandon  your  belief  in  the  Gospel 
history — that  divine  and  miraculous  history 
which  was  the  life-giving  stream  and  the 
dying  consolation  to  the  Pilgrim  Fathers,  of 
the  friends  of  liberty,  of  Washington,  of  Lin- 
coln of  imperishable  memory.  America, 
thou  art  a  Eepublic,  but  thou  hast  a  King  in 
the  Heavens,  who  alone  giveth  and  preserv- 
eth  true  liberty ;  watch  well  that  thou  dost 
not  forsake  him,  and  become  one  common- 
wealth of  Christ.  I  speak  to  the  friends 
and  members  of  the  Alliance  of  the  Old  and 
New  World  assembled  here  in  the  bonds  of 
brotherhood,  and  I  comprise  all  in  these 
words,  which  I  also  address  to  myself, "  Hold 
fast  that  which  thou  hast,  that  no  man 
take  thy  crown"  (Rev.  iii.,  11);  give  each 
other  the  hand  of  fellowship  across  every  bar- 
rier— even  across  the  barrier  of  the  waves — 
in  the  united  struggle  against  falsehood,  un- 
righteousness, and  sin.  The  times  are  be- 
coming very  serious  —  a  crisis  is  certainly 
approaching;  exercise  criticism;  above  all, 
search  and  examine  yourselves;  become  truly 
modern — that  is,  in  a  higher  sense  of  the 
word — be  regenerated  in  the  inner  and  out- 
er man,  and  form  one  great  nation  that  rises 
as  one  man  to  take  up  arms,  perfectly  pre- 


pared when  the  last — the  last  all-deciding 
struggle  of  the  future  must  be  fought. 

There  is  one  thought  more  that  arises 
within  me;  allow  me  to  express  it.  The 
sixth  general  meeting  of  the  Evangelical 
Alliance  beholds  the  conflict  between  Be- 
lief and  Unbelief,  which  —  to  employ  the 
words  of  a  well-known  writer — "is  a  theme 
of  most  profound  depth :  in  reality,  the  all- 
absorbing  theme  of  the  history  of  the  world, 
taking  dimensions  as. never  were  known  be- 
fore." How,  I  now  ask,  will  matters  stand 
when  the  time  for  the  seventh  meeting 
comes  round  ?  Shall  we  enjoy,  after  six 
days  of  labor,  a  seventh  day  of  comforting 
and  refreshing  rest?  And  when  will  that 
great  universal  Sabbath  break  forth  for  the 
struggling  Church,  for  the  whole  creation 
that  now  groaneth?  a  Sabbath  on  which 
the  eye  of  Faith  and  Hope  cau  not  avoid 
gazing  with  ever -increasing  longing.  Wo 
can  not  say ;  but  before  parting,  before  that 
peace  is  concluded,  let  us  give  each  other 
the  hand  of  fellowship,  and  then  let  every 
one  of  us  renew  the  combat  at  the  post  as- 
signed him.  But  let  it  suffice.  When  above 
us  the  clouds  of  Infidelity  become  darker 
and  darker,  and  still  more  threatening,  may 
both  America  and  Europe  remember  the 
words  of  John  Eliot,  the  apostle  of  the  In- 
dians :  "  Those  are  some  of  the  clouds  that 
must  lc  seen  before  the  Son  of  man  appears" 
And  indeed  the  night  seems  descending  upon 
the  wrestling  Church ;  and  sometimes  it 
would  seem  as  if  the  word  of  the  poet  was 
becoming  verified  as  regards  the  kingdom 
of  God :  "  Westward  the  star  of  empire  takes 
its  way" — words  generally  applied  to  Amer- 
ica. But  this  fear,  the  offspring  of  little 
faith,  shall  not  be  fulfilled;  this  star  is  not 
destined  to  sink  in  the  West,  but,  after  hav- 
ing in  appearance  set,  it  will  rise  again  in 
the  East.  Or,  rather,  like  the  Polar  Star  in 
the  North,  it  glows  in  ever-refulgent  glory ; 
it  is  the  star  which  evermore  will  lead  every 
mariner  who  intently  fixes  his  gaze  upon  it 
into  a  haven  of  refuge  and  safety ;  and  when 
at  last  this  star  shall  illuminate  the  whole 
world  with  the  splendor  of  tlie  sun,  then  in 
its  transplendent  rays  the  united  shout  of 
friend  and  foe  will  be  heard:  "  Christe,-n- 
tisti .'" 


AMERICAN  INFIDELITY:  ITS  FACTORS  AND  PHASES. 


BY  THE  EEV.  WILLIAM  F.  WARREN,  D.D., 

President  of  Boston  University. 


WHAT  are  the  forces  and  forms  of  Amer- 
ican unbelief?  Whence  have  they  proceed- 
ed? What  is  their  relation  to  American 
Christianity  ? 

These  are  some  of  the  questions  which 
naturally  thrust  themselves  upon  the  atten- 
tion of  the  first  Ecumenical  Conference  of 
the  Evangelical  Alliance  convened  on  Amer- 
ican soil. 

To  answer  them  intelligibly,  especially  to 
our  foreign  visitors,  it  will  be  necessary  to 
glance  at  the  genesis  and  development  of 
the  social  and  religious  life  of  the  nation. 
Historic  forces  and  effects  can  only  be  un- 
derstood historically. 

Going  back,  then,  to  the  colonial  period 
of  our  country's  history,  we  are  struck  at 
the  outset  by  the  remarkable  fact  that  the 
first  effective  preparation  of  the  original 
British  American  colonists  for  social  and 
political  unity  was  due  to  a  great  religious 
awakening,  the  revival  which  commenced 
in  1740.  Down  to  that  time,  the  spirit  of 
intercolonial  jealousy,  isolation,  and  repel- 
lency  had  prevailed  over  every  centripetal 
and  nationalizing  influence.  Till  that  time 
there  had  been  neither  ethnological,  politic- 
al, social,  nor  religious  unity.  On  the  con- 
trary, the  numberless  international,  civil,  so- 
cial, and  religious  antagonisms  of  all  Europe 
seemed  concentrated  upon  a  narrow  strip  of 
this  Atlantic  coast.  Shut  in  between  the 
territories  of  France  upon  the  north  and 
west,  and  Spanish  Florida  on  the  south, 
bisected  near  the  middle  by  large  Dutch 
and  Swedish  populations  in  New  York  and 
Delaware,  overdotted  with  settlements  of 
every  European  nationality,  the  little  Brit- 
ish colonies  of  two  hundred  years  ago  pre- 
sented in  most  respects  the  least  hopeful 
aspect  of  all  the  European  dependencies  in 
the  New  World.  No  two  existed  under  a 
common  charter,  scarce  two  had  a  like  re- 
ligion. Here  a  Romanist  colony  was  nearest 
neighbor  to  settlements  of  fugitive  Hugue- 
nots, there  the  plain  and  quietistic  Quaker 
was  separated  only  by  a  boundary  line  from 
the  formal  and  rite-loving  Anglican.  Noble- 
men and  peasants,  Papists  and  Protestants, 
Roundheads  and  Cavaliers,  Royalists  and 
haters  of  royalty,  believers  and  unbelievers, 
all  found  themselves  standing  on  a  common 
platform  —  all  faithful  to  their  Old  World 
affinities.  Out  of  elements  so  utterly  het- 


erogeneous, whence  could  unity  and  order 
come?  It  could  come  only  from  that  Au- 
thor of  peace  and  Giver  of  concord  who  de- 
lights to  reconcile  all  antagonisms  and  unify 
all  that  sin  has  dissevered. 

Toward  the  middle  of  the  last  century 
came  the  fullness  of  God's  time  for  genera- 
ting a  new  Christian  nationality.  First  a 
soul  was  needed  to  organize  the  rich  though 
motley  elements  into  one  living  national 
body.  That  soul  was  communicated,  as  by 
a  divine  afflatus,  in  the  great  Whitefieldian 
Revival.  In  its  mighty  heat  the  old  in- 
tellectual and  spiritual  partition  walls,  by 
which  the  colonies  had  been  so  long  isola- 
ted, fused  and  let  one  tide  of  gracious  influ- 
ence roll  through  the  whole  domain.  For  the 
first  time  in  their  history,  the  British  colo- 
nies were  agitated  by  one  thought,  swayed 
by  one  mind,  moved  by  one  impulse.  Again 
and  again  through  all  these  colonies,  from 
New  Hampshire  to  Georgia,  this  most  fa- 
mous evangelist  of  history  moved  in  tri- 
umph. Puritan  New  Englanders  forgot  that 
he  was  a  gowned  priest  of  the  very  Church 
from  whose  oppressions  they  had  fled  to  the 
wilds  of  a  new  Avorld.  Dutch  New  York 
and  German  Pennsylvania  almost  unlearn- 
ed their  degenerating  vernaculars  as  they 
listened  to  his  celestial  eloquence.  The 
Quaker  was  delighted  with  his  gospel  sim- 
plicity, the  Covenanter  and  Huguenot  with 
his  "  doctrines  of  grace."  The  Episcopalians 
were  his  by  rightful  church  fellowship,  and 
thus  it  came  to  pass  that  when,  after  cross- 
ing the  ocean  eighteen  times  in  his  flying 
ministry,  he  lay  down  in  death  at  Newbury- 
port,  he  was  unconsciously,  but  in  readity, 
the  spiritual  father  of  a  great  Christian  na- 
tion. The  fact  has  never  been  duly  acknowl- 
edged by  the  historian,  but  a  fact  it  is. 

The  outward  providential  discipline  by 
which  the  new  national  spirit  was  nurtured 
and  strengthened,  and  gradually  made  to 
take  on  the  form  and  functions  of  an  organ- 
ic body  politic,  was  admirably  fitted  to  its 
end.  From  1744  to  1762  the  French  and 
Indian  wars  drilled  the  young  nation  in  the 
use  of  arms,  preparatory  to  the  great  strug- 
gle of  the  war  of  liberation.  The  soon-en- 
suing agonies  of  the  revolutionary  period 
substantially  completed  the  work  of  nation- 
al unification. 

Thenceforth  there  was  an  American  peo- 


250 


CHRISTIANITY  AND  ITS  ANTAGONISMS. 


pie — a  self-conscious  nationality.  Colonies 
had  given  place  to  emancipated  States,  tbese 
to  a  unified,  consolidated  Republic. 

How  now  stood  the  Evangelical  and  anti- 
Evangelical  forces  in  this  nation  at  the  com- 
mencement of  its  political  independence? 
Ecclesiastically  considered,  by  no  means  un- 
favorably. Almost  the  entire  population 
belonged  to  Evangelical  churches,  and  what 
was  still  more  favorable,  to  Evangelical 
churches  with  which  they  were  identified 
by  all  the  ties  of  education  and  long-stand- 
ing tradition.  In  New  England,  Puritan  in- 
dependency, or  Congregationalism,  was  not 
only  the  religion  established  by  law,  but  the 
real  faith  of  almost  the  entire  community. 
In  the  Middle  and  Southern  States,  with  the 
exception  of  Pennsylvania,  the  Church  of 
England  had  been  the  established  Church, 
though  in  many  sections  the  Reformed 
Church,  including  its  three  great  branches, 
the  Scotch,  Dutch,  and  German,  equaled 
or  surpassed  in  numbers  and  influence  the 
communion  established  and  favored  by  law. 
Though  the  disruption  of  the  new  nation 
from  the  mother  country  left  all  communi- 
cants of  the  Church  of  England  disorganized 
and  churchless,  they  remained  so  for  a  very 
brief  period  only.  In  1784  and  1789  they 
organized  themselves  into  two  new  Episco- 
pal Churches,  the  Methodist  Episcopal  and 
the  ProtestautEpiscopal,eachretaining,  with 
slight  modifications,  the  Articles  of  Religion, 
the  Liturgy,  and  many  of  the  traditions  of 
the  Anglican  mother.  Liitheranism  at  this 
time  was  not  strong.  Even  including  the 
ten  or  twelve  Moravian  societies,  the  whole 
strength  of  the  American  Lutheran  Church 
did  not  exceed  some  seventy-five  parishes. 
Still  it  was  not  greatly  disproportioued  to 
the  German  population.  To  sum  up,  with  a 
population  of  about  three  millions,  there  was 
very  nearly  an  Evangelical  minister  to  every 
two  thousand  souls.  There  were  healthful 
traditions  of  the  godly  character  and  Chris- 
tian heroism  of  the  original  settlers ;  there 
were  living  recollections  of  the  mighty  re- 
vivals of  the  last  generation.  Such  were 
the  hopeful  elements  in  the  new  national 
life,  religiously  considered. 

Notwithstanding  this  favorable  religious 
aspect  and  prospect,  however,  the  cause  of 
Evangelical  religion  has  probably  never  seen 
darker  days  in  America  than  precisely  at  this 
period. 

The  French  infidelity  of  the  era  of  Vol- 
taire was  a  formidable  antagonist.  The  soil 
of  the  American  mind  was  peculiarly  fitted 
for  the  reception  of  this  form  of  false  doc- 
trine. Almost  half  a  century  had  passed 
since  the  great  awaken  ing  of  1740-44.  Near- 
ly all  of  this  period  the  country  had  been 
the  theatre  of  exciting  warfare.  The  de- 
moralizing influences  of  camp  life  had  been 
experienced  to  the  full.  The  Revolution 
through  which  the  people  had  passed  had 


broken  the  prestige  of  ancient  institutions. 
The  intoxication  of  success  had  drowned 
serious  thoughts  of  eternal  things.  The 
French  allies  had  brought  along  with  their 
friendship  and  aid  the  frivolity  and  unbe- 
lief which  characterized  the  French  mind  at 
that  period.  The  religious  life  of  the  peo- 
ple was  at  so  low  an  ebb  that  they  were 
ready  to  contract  any  and  every  contagion 
of  error.  French  deism,  witty,  sentimental, 
brilliant,  revolutionary,  chanced  to  be  the 
ruling  epidemic  of  the  Christian  world,  and 
America  did  not  escape. 

Three  men  stand  out  in  history  as  the 
hierophants  of  this  new  gospel  in  America. 
Two  of  them  were  of  English  birth  and  ed- 
ucation, one  only  of  American.  Singularly 
enough  they  all  had  the  same  Christian  name, 
and  that  the  name  of  the  skeptical  apostle. 
The  three  men  were  Thomas  Jefferson,  Thom- 
as Cooper,  and  Thomas  Paine.  These  three 
doubting  Thomases  were  born  democrats 
and  social  revolutionists.  Their  opposition 
to  the  Church  was  largely  a  result  of  their 
iconoclastic  natures.  The  first  was  the  po- 
litical, the  second  the  scientific,  the  third  the 
social  representative  of  the  contemporary 
Antichristian  movement.  The  first  was  in- 
fluential by  virtue  of  his  political  statical  as 
President  of  the  Republic,  the  second  by  rea- 
son of  his  office  as  educator,  the  third  in  con- 
sequence of  his  early  and  ardent  advocacy 
of  the  cause  of  American  Independence.  On 
one  occasion,  Jefferson  sent  a  government 
vessel  to  France  to  convey  Mr.  Paine  to  this 
country  as  the  nation's  guest.  Favored  with 
such  an  historical  preparation,  so  related  to 
the  national  sentiments,  so  adapted  to  the 
national  aspirations,  so  sanctioned  and  ad- 
vocated by  popular  favorites,  it  is  little  won- 
der that  the  gospel  of  the"  Age  of  Reason" 
became  a  great  popular  power  among  the 
American  people  during  the  last  two  decades 
of  the  closing  century.  Its  powerful  sway 
was  first  but  effectually  broken  by  the  wide- 
spread and  sweeping  revivals  of  1801  to 
1803. 

The  next  notable  movement  in  the  relig- 
ious history  of  the  country  was  that  moment- 
ous one  which  gave  to  the  latent  Unitarian- 
ism  and  Universalism  of  the  New  England 
Churches  ecclesiastical  organization  and  con- 
scious aggressive  power.  This  was  in  the 
years  1800  to  1815.  A  graver  movement  has 
never  marked  our  history.  In  Maine,  New 
Hampshire,  and  Massachusetts,  it  carried 
away  the  oldest,  wealthiest,  and  strongest 
churches.  It  bore  away  from  evangelical 
control  the  oldest,  richest,  and  most  influen- 
tial college  of  the  whole  land.  It  gave  to 
the  new  denominations,  particularly  to  the 
Unitarians,  all  the  prestige  of  Boston  wealth 
and  culture.  Though  originating  in  a  jus- 
tifiable reaction  against  the  dead  scholastic 
orthodoxy  of  the  period,  with  no  thought  of 
overturning  the  normative  authority  of  the 


WARREN :   AMERICAN  INFIDELITY. 


251 


Bible  or  of  denying  the  Divine  mission  of 
Jesus  Christ,  it  soon  became  apparent  that 
neither  the  repristinated  Ariauism  of  Chan- 
niug  nor  the  novel  theology  of  Ballou  could 
long  constitute  a  tenable  standing  place  for 
bodies  of  men  and  women  so  intelligent  and 
thoughtful  as  those  of  whom  we  speak.  Just 
here,  however,  before  these  new,  reactional 
churches  could  undisturbedly  ripen  the  seeds 
of  error  in  them,  a  new  historic  force  was  in- 
troduced into  the  spiritual  life  of  the  nation, 
which,  both  on  account  of  its  relation  to  our 
theme,  and  also  because  of  its  potent  effect 
upon  the  development  of  New  England 
thought,  must  here  be  mentioned.  I  allude 
to  infidel  Socialism  and  its  American  propa- 
gandists. 

In  1824,  the  great  English  Socialist,  Rob- 
ert Owen,  landed  upon  our  shores  to  pro- 
claim his  "  New  Moral  Order,"  and  to  prac- 
tically initiate  the  reconstruction  of  human 
society.  In  October  of  the  following  year 
he  was  at  the  head  of  a  "Family"  of  nine 
hundred  souls,  on  a  fruitful  domain  of  thirty 
thousand  acres  on  the  banks  of  the  Wabash. 
On  the  ensuing  Fourth  of  July,  being  the 
semi-centennial  of  the  declaration  of  Na- 
tional Independence,  he  issued  a  pompous 
manifesto,  entitled  "  Declaration  of  Mental 
Independence."  This  was  the  commence- 
ment of  a  Socialistic  fever,  amounting  at 
times  and  in  places  to  a  genuine  mania, 
which  for  twenty  years,  in  one  form  or  an- 
other, inflamed  the  public  mind.  Its  first 
phase  was  its  most  outspokenly  antirelig- 
ious,  its  last  its  most  obnoxiously  immoral. 
Beginning  with,  the  Owenist  excitement 
(1824-30),  blossoming  out  in  the  infidel 
association  at  Northampton,  in  Unitarian 
"Brook  Farm,"  and  Univcrsalist  "Hope- 
dale,"  all  founded  in  1842,  running  to  seed 
at  last  in  the  extravagances  of  Fourierism 
(1843),  the  Free  Love  of  Oneida  (1847),  and 
the  necromantic  diabolism  of  late-bom  Broc- 
ton,  it  was,  all  in  all,  the  most  formidable 
demonstration  which  the  spirit  of  Antichrist 
had  ever  made  among  ns.  The  latest  histori- 
an of  the  movement  enumerates  no  less  than 
eleven  experiments  at  social  reconstruction 
during  what  he  calls  the  Owen  period,  and 
thirty-four  during  the  Fourier  one.  Nor  is 
this  an  exhaustive  list.  As  nearly  as  can  be 
ascertained,  not  less  than  eight  to  ten  thou- 
sand people  actually  broke  with  convention- 
al Christian  society  and  entered  these  com- 
munities. Many  periodical  organs  were  es- 
tablished, and  tons  of  Socialistic  literature 
circulated  through  the  land.  Their  domains 
in  the  different  States  where  they  existed 
amounted  to  over  130,000  acres.  Nowhere 
in  Europe  were  the  wild  dreams  of  Owen 
and  the  French  Socialists  so  magnificently 
tested  as  in  this  country.  Their  quick-suc- 
ceeding failures  were  all  the  more  conspicu- 
ous. For  this,  among  other  reasons,  Amer- 
icans have  far  less  than  European  peoples 


to  fear  from  the  belated  Communists  and 
"  Internationals  "  of  to-day. 

Contemporaneously  with  this  Socialistic 
agitation,  often  hand  in  hand  with  it,  yet 
often  entirely  distinct,  went  another  which, 
though  it  could  point  to  no  such  striking  out- 
ward achievements  as  Socialism,  has  doubt- 
less more  lastingly  affected  certain  strata 
of  our  population.  This  was  a  grand  incur- 
sion of  foreign  Naturalism  and  Materialism, 
organized  and  officered  for  the  most  part 
by  German  and  British  apostles  of  what  is 
called  Phrenology.  First  proclaimed  in  the 
United  States,  from  1821  to  1832,  by  a  Dr. 
Caldwell,  an  American  pupil  of  Gall,  then 
re-enforced  by  the  presence  and  lectures  of 
Spurzheim,  further  expounded  and  advoca- 
ted from  1838  to  1843,  by  the  noted  George 
Combe,  this  new  evangel  of  natural  law  and 
man's  self-perfectibility  won  many  adher- 
ents among  crude  and  curious  and  half-edu- 
cated men.  These,  aspiring  to  the  honors 
and  emoluments  of  public  teachers,  speedily 
spread  themselves  all  over  the  country  as 
itinerant  lecturers,  offering  to  expound  the 
new  science,  to  demonstrate  it  by  describing 
with  blindfolded  eyes,  from  a  mere  manipu- 
lation of  their  "  bumps,"  the  noted  characters 
of  the  locality,  and  finally  to  examine  and 
advise  all  candidates  for  eminence  or  hap- 
piness at  twenty-five  cents  a  head.  These 
precious  enlighteners  of  the  people  grad- 
ually gave  place  first  to  traveling  mesmer- 
izers,  and  then  to  the  mediums  and  apostles 
of  spirit-rapping  and  spirit -trances.  As 
often  before,  the  reaction  from  Materialism 
and  its  unbelief  carried  unballasted  minds 
clean  over  to  necromantic  superstition. 

This  remarkable  transition  in  the  nnchris- 
tiauized  elements  of  our  population  com- 
menced as  early  as  1830,  if  we  may  believe 
the  author  of  the  "Autobiography  of  a 
Shaker,"*  who  was  in  that  year  converted 
by  the  agency  of  spirits,  as  he  alleges,  from 
an  Oweuito  Materialist  and  Socialist  to  u 
spiritualist  of  the  Shaker  order.  The  same 
writer  affirms  that  for  seven  years  before 
the  new  spiritualistic  demonstrations  ap- 
peared in  the  outside  world,  namely,  from 
1837  to  1844,  they  abounded  in  all  the  Shak- 
er communities,  that  mediums  were  to  be 
counted  by  the  dozen,  and  that  the  spirits 
foretold  the  grand  and  universal  manifesta- 
tions which  were  about  to  burst  upon  the 
world.  In  1844  commenced  the  seership  of 
Andrew  Jackson  Davis,  and  in  1848  the 
"rappings"  at  Rochester  attracted  the  at- 
tention of  the  civilized  world.  Robert  Owen 
himself  in  his  last  days  became  a  believer, 
and  his  son  and  successor,  Robert  Dale 
Owen,  is  to-day  an  influential  representa- 
tive of  that  faith.  By  one  road  or  another, 
nearly  all  the  original  communists,  phre- 
nologists, and  mesmerists  found  their-  way 


A'lantic  Monthly,  April  and  May,  1809. 


252 


CHRISTIANITY  AND  ITS  ANTAGONISMS. 


into  the  Spiritualistic  camp.  Hero  they  still 
plot  and  pronounce  against  Christianity, 
favored,  as  they  believe,  with  invisible  al- 
lies. 

A  little  before  and  after  the  year  1840  we 
\vituess  the  first  considerable  effects  of  Ger- 
man philosophy  and  criticism  on  American 
religious  thought.  This  oceanic  current 
reached  us  by  two  channels,  one  direct,  the 
other  by  way  of  Great  Britain.  The  least 
vital  and  coherent  religious  body  of  the 
country  naturally  experienced  the  first  dis- 
turbance. In  the  bosom  of  Unitariauism 
there  arose  new  parties.  Ralph  Waldo  Em- 
erson and  Theodore  Parker  strode  past  So- 
ciuns  and  Channing,  the  one  to  the  cold 
heights  of  a  poetic  Pantheism,  the  other  to 
the  citadel  of  an  eclectic  Antichristiau  The- 
ism. Emerson's  first  complete  breach  with 
his  brother  ministers  was  in  his  famous  ad- 
dress before  the  Divinity  College,  at  Cam- 
bridge, July  15, 1838 ;  Parker's,  in  his  instal- 
lation sermon,  entitled  "  The  Transient  and 
Permanent  in  Christianity,"  preached  in  the 
spring  of  1841.  The  teachings  and  personal 
influence  of  a  German,  Dr.  Karl  Follen,  who 
was  for  ten  years  connected  with  Harvard 
College  and  Divinity  School,  and  for  five 
years  more  was  a  Unitarian  pastor,  were  not 
without  effect  in  bringing  about  the  new 
departures.  For  a  time  the  denomination 
was  sorely  torn  by  controversy ;  but,  historic- 
ally committed  to  the  most  uncompromising 
hostility  to  all  "  tests,"  not  only  of  belief  but 
even  of  authorized  teaching,  it  soon  became 
evident  that  all  who  chose  to  affiliate  with 
the  body  must  be  tolerated,  however  unpop- 
ular their  beliefs  or  heterodox  their  doc- 
trine. The  result  has  been  summed  up — 
somewhat  over-harshly  perhaps — by  a  recent 
and  sympathetic  writer,  the  editor  of  The 
Modern  Thinker,  as  follows:  "Theodore  Par- 
ker was  a  pure  destructive.  He  left  no 

school,  no  church  —  only  a  memory 

Emerson  has  preached  the  gospel  of  indi- 
vidualism, and  so  doing  has  helped  to  exag- 
gerate some  of  the  worst  tendencies  of  the 
American  mind The  Unitarian  move- 
ment has  spent  its  novel  force,  and  the  sect 
which  bears  its  name  is  only  notable  for 
agreeing  to  disagree.  Its  latest  and  logical 
development  is  in  the  person  of  the  Rev.  O. 
B.  Frothingham,  who  is  seriously  at  work 
to  make  disorganization  organic;  in  other 
words,  he  is  endeavoring  to  get  people  to 
act  together,  whose  only  bond  of  union  is 
the  irreconcilable  divergences  of  their  fun- 
damental beliefs :  this  is  the  logical  out- 
come of  the  whole  Unitarian  or  'Liberal 
Christian'  school." 

Unable  to  obtain  a  satisfactory  control  of 
the  entire  Unitarian  organization,  the  most 
destructive  and  Antichristian  ministers  and 
members  of  the  body,  without  withdrawing 
from  it,  have,  with  others  of  like  sentiments 
and  spirit,  united  in  establishing  what  is 


called  "The  Free  Religions  Association," 
which  by  means  of  the  press  and  pulpit,  the 
platform  and  club,  labors  to  uudermine  all 
distinctively  Christian  ideas  and  institutions. 
This  is  now  in  its  sixth  year.  It  does  not 
pretend  to  any  unanimity  touching  the  prop- 
er substitute  for  the  cherished  faith  of  the 
Christian  world,  but  it  seems  to  believe  that 
the  utter  demolition  of  all  existing  religions 
is  the  indispensable  prerequisite  to  the  estab- 
lishment of  the  true.  Delenda  est  Christianitas 
is  therefore  rightly  represented  as  the  first, 
last,  and  almost  only  article  of  its  creed. 
This,  at  the  present  time,  is  the  only  posi- 
tively Autichristiau  organization  among  us 
of  any  perceptible  influence.  Even  this  has 
no  official  organ,  and  only  an  annual  public 
demonstration.  It  differs  from  the  "Freie 
Geineinden"  of  Germany  in  that  it  essays 
to  be  national,  while  those  are  local ;  it  dif- 
fers from  the  German  "  Protestauteuverein," 
in  that  it  does  not  organize  auxiliary  asso- 
ciations, or  assume  to  operate  in  the  interest 
of  the  Protestant  Church. 

Glancing  back  for  a  moment  over  these 
successive  waves  of  opposition  to  the  king- 
dom of  Christ  in  America,  one  is  struck  first 
of  all  by  the  itu-t  that  none  of  them  were  of 
American  origin.  The  successive  types  of 
unbelief  and  misbelief  which  have  arisen  and 
prevailed  in  Europe  have  in  every  case  de- 
termined the  successive  types  of  unbelief 
and  misbelief  in  America.  In  most  cases  the 
first  effectual  introduction  of  a  new  type  has 
been  due  to  Europeans  coming  to  our  shores. 
Thus,  our  first  popular  infidelity  was  directly 
due  to  European  soldiery,  and  to  such  immi- 
grants as  Thomas  Paine.  The  great  New  En- 
gland defection  was,  to  a  certain  extent,  pio- 
neered by  British  Sociniaus,  and  decidedly 
aided  by  the  coming  of  Joseph  Priestley  and 
John  Murray.  The  communistic  crusade  was 
preached  by  Owen  in  person,  and  seconded  by 
scores  of  such  foreign-born  adjutants  as  G.H. 
andF.  W.  Evans,  Fanny  Wright  and  A.  J.  Mac- 
donald.  The  phrenological  revival  of  natu- 
ralism was  introduced  by  a  pupil  of  Gall,  and 
disseminated  by  the  labors  of  Prussian  Spurz- 
heim  and  Scotch  Combe.  Mother  Ann  Lee, 
whom  England  gave  us,  was  the  early  fore- 
runner of  American  "  Spiritualism,"  while 
the  ghost  of  Scandinavian  Swedeuborg  ap- 
pearing to  Andrew  Jackson  Davis  in  a  grave- 
yard near  Poughkeepsie,  in  1844,  so  affected 
the  deliria  of  that "  seer"  and  the  whole  sys- 
tem of  his  followers  that  the  historian  of 
American  Socialisms  declares  "  Spiritualism 
is  Swedenborgianism  Americanized."*  Fi- 
nally, the  transition  of  the  "  Free  Religion- 
ists," from  a  professedly  Scriptural  Uuitari- 


*  "  Spiritualism  is  Swedenborgianism  Americanized. 
Andrew  Jackson  Davis  began  us  a  medium  of  Swedeu- 
borg, receiving  from  him  his  commission  and  inspira- 
tion, and  became  an  independent  seer  and  revelator 
only  becanse,  as  a  son,  he  outgrew  his  father." — J.  H. 
NOYEO,  History  of  American  Socialism*,  p.  WO. 


WARREN :  AMERICAN  INFIDELITY. 


253 


anism  to  au  open  repudiation  of  all  positive 
revelation,  was  an  effect  of  German  specula- 
tion and  criticism,  meditated  partly  by  such 
men  as  Follen,  more  effectively  by  American 
students  and  tourists  abroad,  most  potently 
of  all  by  the  writings  of  Germans  and  of  ad- 
mirers of  German  literature.  Thus  all  these 
threatening  surges  of  Antichristian  thought 
and  effort  have  come  to  us  from  European 
seas :  not  one  arose  in  our  hemisphere.  Like 
other  peoples,  we  have  erred  in  the  sphere  of 
religion ;  but  our  admitted  errors,  as  in  the 
case  of  the  wild  excrescences  of  Mormouism, 
Millerism,  and  Shakerism,  are  all  in  the  di- 
rection of  superstition  rather  than  in  that  of 
unbelief.  America  has  given  the  Old  World 
valuable  theological  speculations,  admirable 
defenses  of  the  faith,  precious  revival  influ- 
ences, memorable  exhibitions  of  internation- 
al charity,  but  she  has  never  cursed  human- 
ity with  a  new  form  of  infidelity. 

Confining  our  view  to  the  present,  it  is  a 
striking  and  a  cheering  fact  that  no  form 
of  infidelity  among  us  can  boast  of  a  single 
champion  of  cosmoplitan,  or  even  of  nation- 
al reputation.  We  have  no  Strauss,  no  Re- 
nan,  not  even  a  Carl  Vogt.  We  never  have 
had.  The  nearest  .approach  to  it  we  ever 
had  was  the  forceful  Unitarian  preacher  who 
ministered  to  the  "Twenty -eighth  Congre- 
gational Society"  in  Boston,  from  1845  to 
1859.  Even  he  had  not  the  requisite  learn- 
ing or  genius  to  enable  him  to  propound 
a  solitary  new  difficulty  to  the  Christian 
scholarship  of  his  age.  We  have  infidel  littti- 
rateurs  of  respectable  attainments  and  all- 
too-wide  influence,  but  in  all  the  ranks  of 
American  unbelievers  the  Christian  apologist 
of  learning  and  ability  can  nowhere  find  a 
foemau  worthy  of  his  steel. 

The  oldest  American  periodical  devoted 
to  the  abolition  of  all  religion  is  The  Investi- 
gator, an  organ  of  pure  atheism,  of  very  lim- 
ited circulation,  though  now  in  its  forty- 
third  year.  It  was  for  some  time  conduct- 
ed by  the  noted  Abner  Kueeland.  The  only 
professedly  religious  weekly  of  open  Anti- 
Christian  character  is  The  Index,  established 
by  a  Mr.  Abbot  in  Toledo,  Ohio,  but  recent- 
ly removed  to  an  Eastern  city.  It  repre- 
sents in  the  main  the  spirit  and  views  of  the 
"  Free  Religious  Association."  A  monthly  of 
somewhat  pretentious  character  was  com- 
menced in  Boston  under  the  title  of  The 
Badical,  but  it  soon  died  a  natural  death. 
Though  resuscitated  after  a  few  months,  its 
second  lease  of  life  was  shorter  even  than 
the  first,  and  it  is  now  twice  dead.  The 
two  weeklies  above  mentioned  are,  there- 
fore, at  present  the  only  proper  organs  of 
American  infidelity.  The  Golden  Age,  The 
Woodhull  and  Claflin  Weekly,  and  The  Oneida 
Circular  are  mouth- pieces  not  so  much  of 
Antichristian  faith  as  of  Antichristiau  mor- 
als. 

Comparing  our  current  American  infideli- 


ty with  that  of  other  Christian  countries, 
we  find  little  to  distinguish  it.  It  is  less 
learned  and  systematic  than  the  German, 
less  political  and  communistic  than  the 
French,  less  chafed  and  fretful  than  the 
British.  Still,  in  all  Christian  lauds  the 
ideas,  and  aims,  and  agencies  of  the  party 
are  essentially  alike ;  in  all  they  labor  to 
rob  the  individual  soul,  the  family,  the 
school,  and  the  state  of  all  distinctively 
Christian  characteristics,  to  secularize  hu- 
manity in  every  sphere.  In  one  important 
respect  there  is  a  difference.  Our  larger  so- 
cial, political,  and  religious  liberty  gives  to 
American  infidels  important  advantages  over 
their  European  brethren,  but  this  same  lib- 
erty of  thought  and  profession  and  agita- 
tion deprives  them  of  half  of  their  power  to 
destroy.  The  cask  of  powder  which,  if  ex- 
ploded within  this  building,  would  shatter 
it  to  a  heap  of  rubbish,  may  be  exploded 
without  harm  to  any  thing  on  the  distant 
hill-top  in  the  open  air.  So  half,  at  least,  of 
the  destructive  power  of  European  infidelity 
in  past  generations  has  been  due  to  the  pres- 
ence of  the  party  within,  instead  of  without, 
the  Church. 

This  extra-ecclesiastical  position  of  infi- 
delity in  America  has  greatly  assisted  Ameri- 
can Christians  in  rightly  estimating  its  na- 
ture and  remedy.  With  us  more  than  with 
any  other  modern  Christian  people  has  un- 
belief been  recognized  as  the  natural,  and  in 
a  sense  normal  characteristic  of  unawakened 
and  unregenerate  souls.  Its  many  forms,  so 
far  as  they  are  genuine  products  of  a  man's 
own  thought,  and  not  mere  slavish  parrot- 
ings,  only  correspond  to  different  stages  of 
spiritual  insight.  There  is  a  state  of  spiritual 
purblindness  and  insensibility  and  bondage 
to  sense  to  which  Atheism  and  Pantheism 
are  perfect  counterparts.  The  atheistic  or 
pantheistic  theory  of  the  universe  fully  and 
satisfactorily  accounts  for  all  the  facts  com- 
ing within  the  narrow  range  of  such  a  mind, 
and  clearly  apprehended  by  it.  It  has  a 
right,  therefore,  for  the  time  being,  to  rest 
satisfied  in  that  system.  The  fault  is  not  in 
the  system,  but  in  the  condition  of  the  mind. 
If  the  subject,  by  his  own  active  or  passive 
agency,  induced  the  condition,  or  if,  born  in 
it,  he  has  persistently  resisted  the  good  in- 
fluences designed  by  his  Creator  to  deliver 
him  from  it,  he  is  blameworthy,  but  in  any 
case  the  system  must  not  be  dissevered  from 
the  subjective  state  from  Avhich  it  origi- 
nates. Wherever  the  subjective  state  is 
found,  there  the  system  is  legitimate;  so 
long  as  the  former  is  uuremedied,  so  long 
the  latter  has  a  right  to  exist.  The  same  is 
true  of  speculative  or  naturalistic  Theism. 
It  represents  a  type  of  intellectual  and  spir- 
itual experience.  If  the  system  is  defective, 
it  is  because  the  experience  is  defective.  So 
long  as  men  stop  with  such  experience,  so 
long  will  they  stop  with  speculative  Theism. 


CHRISTIANITY  AND  ITS  ANTAGONISMS. 


Such  being  their  view,  American  Chris- 
tians arc  not  especially  disturbed  by  the 
fact  that  there  are  different  forms  of  unbe- 
lief and  misbelief  in  the  land.  The  fact  is  a 
sad  one,  but  it  is  only  a  small  fraction  of  tbe 
infinitely  sadder  fact  of  man's  universal 
blindness  and  corruption. 

We  expect  that  there  will  bo  infidels  and 
errorists  in  the  world  as  long  as  there  are 
unrenewed  men  in  the  world.  We  expect 
to  abolish  infidelity  only  by  bringing  all 
natural  men  into  the  experience  of  a  spir- 
itual life,  whose  supernatural  facts  will  ad- 
mit of  no  explanation  short  of  that  given  us 
in  the  supernatural  Word  and  in  the  holy 
Catholic  Church.  Believing  that  there  nev- 
er was  a  time  when  so  many  shared  this 
spiritual  life,  and  the  intellectual  world- 
view  which  properly  answers  to  it — believ- 
ing also  that  there  never  was  a  time  when 
the  leavening  progress  of  Christ's  kingdom 
among  men  was  so  rapid  and  irreversible  as 


at  present,  we  preach  Christ  with  all  bold- 
ness, as  the  grand  and  only  effectual  anti- 
dote of  unbelief.  To  every  taunting  query, 
"Can  any  good  thing  come  out  of  Naza- 
reth f"  wo  answer,  "  Come  and  see."  To  ev- 
ery conceited  sneer  at  Christ's  authority,  wo 
respond,  "  If  any  man  will  do  His  will,  he 
shall  know  of  the  doctrine  whether  it  be 
of  God."  To  every  candid  seeker  after  truth 
and  righteousness,  however  lost  in  error  and 
in  sin,  we  offer  Christ,  the  power  of  God  and 
the  wisdom  of  God.  The  Holy  Spirit  at- 
tends the  word.  Blessed  be  God!  Blas- 
phemers are  silenced,  scoffers  are  made  doc- 
ile inquirers,  atheists  are  converted  to  God, 
deuiers  of  Christ  experience  his  power  and 
shout  his  praise.  Hallelujah !  The  Lord 
God  omnipotent  reigneth.  Therefore  unto 
the  ever  blessed  Father,  the  reigning  Son, 
the  world-transforming  Spirit,  be  ascribed 
all  glory  and  blessing,  world  without  end. 
Amen  and  amen. 


REASON  AND  FAITH. 

BY  THE  REV.  E.  A.  WASHBURN,  D.D.,  OF  NEW  YORK. 


IT  may  seem  to  some  who  hear  me  that 
ray  subject  is  only  a  renewal  of  the  worn- 
out  theological  battle  of  centuries.  Yet, 
brethren  and  friends,  it  touches  the  deepest 
intellectual  as  well  as  religious  want  of  the 
time.  It  is  but  yesterday  since  the  Council 
of  Latin  Christendom  met  to  decree  that  in- 
fallibility, the  attribute  of  the  all-wise  God 
alone,  is  officially  incarnate  in  the  person  of 
the  Pontiff;  and  absurd  as  we  may  hold  it, 
it  is  impossible  to  believe  that  a  decision 
Avhich  bore  with  it  so  many  learned  and  de- 
vout minds,  which  swept  at  last  into  the 
tide  able  opponents  like  a  Gratry,  and  is  now 
lighting  for  life  or  death  with  the  heroic 
chiefs  of  the  Old  Catholic  party,  can  have 
come  from  the  mere  vanity  of  a  Pope  or  the 
craft  of  the  Jesuit.  It  was  the  conviction 
of  that  Church  that  here  was  the  only  posi- 
tion against  the  inroads  of  Protestant  free- 
dom. And  on  the  other  side  you  see  a  mod- 
ern, growing  school  of  science,  which,  with 
a  dogmatism  as  strong  as  that  of  the  Papal 
decrees,  affirms  that  our  faith  in  those  old- 
fashioned  phrases,  God,  soul,  cause,  substance, 
in  any  thing  beyond  phenomena,  has  no 
worth  for  reason  at  all.  In  a  word,  it  is 
the  same  unsettled  conflict  between  the  two 
powers  of  superstition  and  unbelief.  The 
form  of  it  differs  with  the  modes  of  thought 
in  every  time,  but  the  strife  was  never  more 
earnest  than  now.  And  if,  then,  it  be  asked, 
What  can  be  the  hope  of  adjusting  the  end- 
less quarrel  of  the  past  ?  I  reply  that  the 
whole  growth  of  Christian  thought  in  the 
study  of  the  Scriptures,  in  the  history  of  doc- 
trine, in  the  relations  of  revealed  truth  to 
science,  leads  mo  to  believe  that  we  are  abler 
than  before  to  meet  it.  I  speak  as  one  of 
those  who  earnestly  hope  for  such  media- 
tion between  the  Church  and  the  criticism 
of  the  time.  I  believe  that  the  principle  of 
a  Protestant  freedom  is  a  sober  and  sacred 
one.  And  if  I  can  so  handle  the  question  as 
to  take  it  out  from  the  older  formulas  in 
which  it  has  been  imbedded,  and  reach  the 
living  thought  of  men  ;  if  I  can  help  any, 
however  humbly,  to  know  that  our  faith  in 
a  Divine  Christ  and  Christianity  is  as  rea- 
sonable as  it  is  heart-felt,  I  shall  speak  what 
thousands  of  minds  are  seeking  in  the  twi- 
light of  opinion. 

I  shall  begin,  therefore,  with  showing  the 
aim  and  province  of  revealed  truth,  as  the 
way  to  understand  the  harmony  of  reason 
with  faith.  It  is  from  a  want  of  a  clear  view 


of  this,  as  I  believe,  that  the  mistake  arises 
which  seems  hopelessly  to  divide  the  cham- 
pions of  religion  and  of  science. 

It  will,  then,  be  the  admission  of  all  who 
hold  the  divine  origin  of  Christianity,  that 
its  essential  purpose  is  to  reveal  redemption 
from  sin,  and  the  life  of  holiness  through  an 
incarnate  Redeemer.  In  such  a  view,  its 
truth  has  a  direct  bearing  on  the  manifold 
questions  of  human  thought.  It  concerns 
our  deepest  knowledge  of  the  being  of  God ; 
the  laws  of  his  action  in  nature  and  the 
soul ;  the  inward  facts  of  our  own  conscious- 
ness; and  still  more,  as  a  religion  that 
comes  down  to  us  in  its  sacred  books,  it  has 
a  connection  with  our  large  inquiries  of  the 
origin  of  the  world  and  the  primitive  state 
of  man.  We  have  here  the  groundwork  of 
Christian  science.  Theology  is  its  noblest 
fruit.  We  can  never  fall  into  that  shallow 
scorn  of  it  so  common  among  the  talkers  of 
our  modern  time.  It  was  the  theology  of 
the  Church  that  led  the  intellectual  as  well 
as  religious  civilization  of  the  world  through 
its  great  ages  of  life,  as  it  bloomed  in  Oil- 
gen  in  Athanasius ;  and  fed  the  whole  Latin 
mind  through  Augustiu,  before  it  became  the 
barren  logic  of  the  schools. 

Yet  we  are  always  to  distinguish,  although 
we  can  not  divide,  the  theology  of  the  Church 
from  the  essential  truth  of  the  Gospel.  The 
New  Testament  is  not  and  was  not  meant 
to  be  a  system  of  philosophy.  As  a  revela- 
tion of  life  to  men,  it  is  only  concerned  with 
the  questions  of  our  theoretical  study  in  so 
far  as  they  affect  the  one  central  fact  of  God 
in  Christ  reconciling  the  world.  It  is  not 
an  absolute  knowledge  of  the  natm-e  of  God, 
but  as  he  reveals  his  incarnate  love  in  His 
Son  ;  not  a  psychology  of  man,  but  the  truth 
of  his  divine  origin,  and  his  sin  as  it  is 
broadly  evidenced  in  the  moral  conscious- 
ness of  the  race ;  not  the  science  of  the  globe 
or  the  complete  history  of  the  race,  but  the 
record  of  redemption.  I  can  not  pause  here 
to  show  how  such  a  view  affects  in  many 
points  our  treatment  of  Scripture,  as,  e.  #., 
our  theory  of  inspiration.  Here  it  is  enough 
to  note  its  general  bearing  on  the  subject 
before  us.  We  give  its  true  sphere  to  the- 
ology. But  we  must  not  forget  that  it  is  in 
its  very  nature  a  changing  and  a  partial 
growth ;  not  changing,  indeed,  in  its  sub- 
stantial truth,  but  in  the  mode  in  which 
that  truth  has  been  presented  by  devout 
thinkers,  as  the  Church  has  passed  through 


256 


CHRISTIANITY  AND  ITS  ANTAGONISMS. 


its  great  orbit  of  knowledge,  and  surveyed 
one  after  another  the  phases  of  its  divine 
light.  The  Greek  mind  was  wholly  ab- 
scirWd  in  the  doctrine  of  the  Incarnation; 
the  Latin,  in  the  nature  of  man,  of  sin  and 
grace;  the  Protestant  has  unfolded  the 
meaning  of  a  spiritual  faith  in  our  Redeem- 
er. Athanasius,  August! u,  Anselm,  Calvin, 
Schleiermacher,  represent  this  varied  expres- 
sion. All  have  their  harmony,  as  they  are 
studied  in  their  relations  to  the  history  of 
doctrine;  yet  all  are  but  fallible  teachers 
of  a  system  never  complete  so  long  as  the 
devout  mind  of  man  shall  study  afresh  the 
mind  of  Christ.  But  Christianity  is  not  a 
gnosis;  not  a  theory,  but  a  living  Gospel. 
It  remains  the  same — yesterday,  to-day,  and 
forever.  Creeds  are  its  outer  walls,  but  not 
ifs  sanctuary.  Schools  of  theology  defend 
it  against  false  speculation,  but  they  neither 
give  nor  take  away  its  deepest  influence  over 
the  life  of  men.  We  prize  the  symbol  of 
Nice  as  one  of  the  truly  Catholic  landmarks 
of  the  historic  Church ;  and  we  claim  it  as 
the  wisdom  of  the  English  Communion  that 
it  has  placed  it  in  its  Liturgy  far  above  all 
special  articles  or  confessions ;  yet  we  must 
never  make  a  Nicene  Council  the  doctrinal 
basis  of  all  Christian  theology,  and  still  less 
rest  upon  it  the  central  truth  of  the  Incar- 
nation. That  truth  has  a  surer  evidence. 
It  speaks  to  the  thought,  the  affections  of 
all  in  the  immortal  page  of  the  New  Testa- 
ment, in  the  perfect  holiness  and  love  of  the 
Son  of  God. 

In.  such  an  understanding  of  the  charac- 
ter of  Christianity,  we  know  the  harmony 
of  faith  with  reason.  In  whatever  sphere 
Revelation  has  to  do  with  the  theoretical 
questions  of  our  knowledge — Biblical  sci- 
ence, theology,  history — reason  is  organ  and 
arbiter.  But  as  a  practical  truth  which 
touches  other  powers — conscience,  affection, 
will — it  has  another  and  inward  sphere. 
We  may  thus  briefly  consider  the  place  of 
the  reason.  It  must  be  plain  that,  in  so  far 
as  Revelation  contains  any  truth  that  asks 
mental  assent,  it  must  appeal  to  the  mental 
faculty.  None  denies  this,  unless  he  masks 
clear  sense  under  some  vague  sophism.  The 
only  question  is  not  as  to  the  use  of  reason, 
but  as  to  its  abuse.  What  are  its  capacities 
and  what  its  limits  ?  We  admit  with  read- 
iness that  it  is  a  finite  power,  aud  that,  as 
Butler  claimed  in  his  immortal  work,  there 
are  mysteries  as  well  in  nature  as  in  the 
realm  of  religious  truth,  in  the  vital  force 
lurking  in  the  blade  of  grass  as  in  the  prob- 
lem of  the  will  or  the  nature  of  the  Atone- 
ment. All  truth  has  its  penumbra ;  and  a 
divine  wisdom,  above  all,  must  have  its  in- 
finity of  shadow  with  the  light.  But  to  say 
that  there  are  truths  transcending  the  rea- 
son is  not  to  deny  its  use  in  any  sphere 
where  we  can  exercise  the  intellectual  pow- 
ers. There  la  not  one  mental  faculty  which 


we  call  reason,  and  another  which  we  call 
faith.  "Reason,"  in  the  clear  language  of 
Augustin,  "should  not  submit,  unless  it  de- 
cide for  itself  that  there  are  occasions  when 
it  ought  to  submit.  Its  very  submission  is 
then  reasonable."  Nothing  can  be  the  source 
of  worse  confusion  than  the  notion  of  our 
popular  theology  that  Revelation  is  the  gift 
of  certain  incomprehensible  doctrines  which 
are  to  be  believed  without  any  effort  at  un- 
derstanding. This  is  the  exact  opposite  of 
the  Scriptural  idea.  It  is  the  mystery,  hid- 
den from  the  ages,  and  now  opened  to  our 
knowledge,  of  which  the  apostle  speaks  so 
often ;  and  so  far  as  the  Gospel  is  a  revela- 
tion of  any  essential  truth,  there  is  in  it  "  no 
darkness  at  all."  Such  an  error  confounds 
its  simple  character  with  all  the  glosses  of 
a  speculative  theology,  the  perplexities  of 
human  theory,  the  purely  critical  questions 
of  science ;  aud  leads  at  last  to  that  skep- 
ticism which  sweeps  away  the  wheat  with 
the  chaff.  Let  us  not  mistake  this  point,  my 
friends.  In  the  beginning  of  the  last  cen- 
tury the  learned  Huet,  bishop  of  Avranches, 
wrote  his  "  Demonstratio  Evangelica"  to 
show  that  the  ancient  skeptics  were  the 
masters  of  philosophy,  because  they  proved 
that  we  knew  nothing.  We  have  had  too 
many  who  held  that  human  folly  was  a  Gos- 
pel demonstration.  Pardon  me  if  I  speak 
specially  here  of  a  book  which  has  been 
much  praised  in  our  own  day — I  mean  the 
"  Limits  of  Religious  Thought " — as  it  best 
illustrates  this  sad  fallacy.  It  was  re- 
served for  an  English  divine  to  set  up  the 
most  thorough  system  of  Pyrrhonism  as  a 
Christian  apologetic.  The  position  of  the 
writer  is  this :  that  we  can  have  nothing 
beyond  relative  knowledge,  and  therefore 
there  can  be  no  certitude  in  any  of  our  ideas, 
intellectual  or  moral.  It  follows  that  our 
ideas  of  God,  his  nature,  his  character,  are 
purely  subjective ;  aud  thus,  whatever  may 
be  the  representations  of  him  in  Revelation, 
they  can  not  be  within  the  sphere  of  real 
and  positive  truth.  We  have,  he  affirms,  a 
regulative  wisdom,  enough  for  our  practi- 
cal minds,  but  no  more.  It  was  the  hon- 
est aim  of  this  thinker  to  defend  the  Scrip- 
ture against  the  objections  so  often  urged 
by  the  unbeliever.  But  it  is  not  seen  by 
many  who  hailed  the  book  as  the  triumph 
of  Christian  thought,  that  the  weapon  which 
wonnds  the  Rationalist  kills  the  truth  of 
Revelation.  If  we  can  not  know  that  our 
intellectual  or  moral  conceptions  of  God  have 
a  real  basis,  then  every  revelation  of  him  in 
his  Word  may  bo  an  imagination.  I  can  not 
adore  him  as  a  Father  in  his  blessed  Son, 
for  the  paternal  relation  is  a  purely  human 
idea ;  I  can  not  know  that  the  love,  the  pity, 
the  holiness,  I  only  discern  by  my  moral  af- 
fection have  any  ground  in  his  own  nature. 
But  further  yet,  this  regulative  wisdom  is 
folly,  for  if  my  faith  have  no  assurance  in 


WASHBURN :  KEASON  AND  FAITH. 


reason,  then  to  follow  it  may  be  to  follow  a 
will-o'-the-wisp  along  the  marshes  of  human 
ignorance.  And  this  is  the  defense  of  faith ! 
I  hold  it  an  utter  surrender  to  unbelief.  It 
is  the  most  pregnant  of  facts  that  the  lead- 
er of  English  -positivism  has  cited  this  very 
reasoning  in  support  of  his  own  conclusion 
that  science  can  not  reach  or  admit  any 
idea  of  Cause,  or  Person,  or  God.  Hume  said, 
with  his  inimitable  sneer, "  Our  holy  relig- 
ion does  not  rest  on  reason,  but  on  faith." 
Our  modern  champion  gravely  repeats  it. 
And  is  this  a  sound  Christianity  ?  I  answer 
— not  in  the  name  of  reason,  but  of  the  very 
truth  of  God  and  Christ — No!  If  I  must 
keep  my  belief  by  such  skepticism,  it  is  lost 
forever. 

And  here  we  reach  the  right  view  of  faith. 
What  is  it  to  believe  ?  I  turn  to  the  New 
Testament,  and  learn  it  from  the  lips  of 
Christ.  It  is  a  personal  trust  in  him,  an  act 
of  the  mind,  heart,  and  will  together.  Such 
is  the  original  force  of  the  word  always  in 
the  gospels.  Faith  is  not  opposed  to  the 
intellect,  but  to  the  sight,  the  sensuous  ap- 
pearance. "  Blessed  are  ye  that  see  not,  yet 
believe."  And  so,  when  we  pass  to  St.  Paul, 
the  great  preacher  of  faith,  we  find  him  op- 
posing the  "philosophy  falsely  so  called," 
the  gnosis  of  Judaiziug  teachers,  but  he  ap- 
peals always  to  the  spiritual  mind,  the  faith 
rooted  in  love,  ending  not  in  dogma,  but  life. 
The  thought  of  personal  trust  in  Christ  is 
the  dominant  in  every  chord.  There  is  no 
such  idea  as  faith  in  a  proposition.  We 
learn  hence  its  Christian  meaning.  It  is  not 
to  accept  certain  opinions  about  Christ,  cer- 
tain systems  of  doctrine  touching  his  nature 
and  his  offices,  the  psychology  of  the  will, 
the  theory  of  redemption,  but  it  is  to  accept 
him.  It  is  to  come  to  the  New  Testament 
with  the  simple  consciousness  of  our  moral 
nature  that  we  are  children  of  God,  that  sin 
is  the  root  of  our  spiritual  disease,  and  holi- 
ness the  want  of  the  soul ;  to  find  in  him 
that  revealed  grace  of  our  Father  we  need, 
and  to  follow  him  in  the  renewed  and  holy 
life  which  is  life  eternal.  This  is  Christian- 
ity. It  is  its  beginning  and  its  end.  And 
if,  then,  you  have  accepted  this  definition, 
you  will  agree  with  my  whole  idea  of  the 
office  of  faith.  It  is  not  a  special  revela- 
tion or  illumination  of  the  mind.  It  is  not 
an  assent  to  certain  truths  which  contradict 
reason,  but  are  given  on  arbitrary  authority. 
There  can  bo  no  such  assent,  save  with  some 
intelligent  idea  of  what  it  assents  to.  A 
Christian  faith,  then,  I  affirm,  is  one  with 
reason,  but  a  reason  disciplined  by  and  act- 
ing with  other  faculties  and  within  another 
sphere  than  that  of  pure  speculative  thought. 
As  the  revelation  of  Christ  is  a  practical 
truth  for  the  life,  so  it  asks  the  exercise  of 
the  conscience,  of  the  affections,  and  the 
will.  We  may  construct  a  perfect  system  of 
theology.  But  to  know  Christ  and  his  Gos- 
17 


pel  is  a  deeper  process.  No  theory  of  de- 
pravity can  teach  me  the  meaning  of  sin,  un- 
less I  have  first  felt  its  reality  as  a  moral 
fact  in  myself.  No  theory  of  the  Atonement 
can  teach  the  dependence  of  my  soul  on  the 
Saviour,  until  I  have  felt  the  fitness  of  that 
divine  grace  to  my  personal  need.  It  is  in 
this  true  sense  we  use  that  phrase  of  the 
fathers,  "Fides  pr&cedit  intellectum" — Faith 
goes  before  understanding.  All  our  reason- 
ing must  rest  at  last  on  certain  first  truths, 
at  once  intellectual  and  moral,  call  them 
what  you  will,  innate  or  connate,  intuitions 
or  cognitions.  We  see  God  by  this  inner 
eye ;  we  know  him  not  as  an  inference  of 
our  logic,  but  as  the  necessary  conviction 
of  mind  and  heart.  And  thus  we  know  God 
in  Christ  by  this  moral  affection,  as  the 
perfect  holiness,  the  incarnate  grace,  and 
with  him  all  those  related  truths  which  are 
spiritually  discerned.  Such  a  knowledge  of 
faith  neither  contradicts  nor  excludes  nor 
makes  useless  the  exercise  of  the  highest 
mental  power.  The  believer  is  just  as  de- 
pendent as  other  men  on  the  process  and  re- 
sults of  Christian  learning,  when  he  will  pass 
outside  the  sphere  of  this  living,  practical 
truth  into  the  domain  of  theology  or  criti- 
cism. Yet  within  that  sphere  he  has  a  sat- 
isfying wisdom.  There  is  what  Pascal  has 
finely  called  an  "interior  reason"  in  this 
Christian  knowledge,  an  implicit,  harmoni- 
ous action  of  the  mental  and  moral  pow- 
ers together,  by  which  instead  of  a  cold  an- 
alysis the  mind  seizes  the  vital  truth  of  the 
Scriptures;  and  as  it  was  said  of  Newton 
that  he  could  by  intuition  reach  the  sum  of 
the  most  complex  reckoning,  yet  it  was  not 
intuition,  but  only  such  rapid  action  of  the 
mind  as  to  lose  sight  of  the  steps,  so  is  the 
synthetic  power  of  faith.  It  is  a  knowledge 
that  leads  him  always,  amidst  the  difficulties 
of  criticism,  to  rest  on  the  sure  foundation. 
It  is  a  knowledge  that  keeps  him  from  con- 
founding the  Gospel  with  the  theories  of 
men,  orthodox  or  heterodox.  And,  again, 
just  as  the  simplest  believer  receives  the 
truth  by  the  same  mental  faculty  as  the 
scholar,  though  in  a  plainer  way,  so  the 
scholar  must  gain  his  real  knowledge  by  the 
same  deep  method.  An  Augustin,  although 
he  may  range  over  all  systems  of  philosophic 
thought,  although  his  own  vast  genius  may 
have  mingled  much  of  the  ore  of  fancy  with 
the  gold  of  his  rich  theology,  comes  to  Christ, 
with  the  deep  self-knowledge  of  a  hungering 
and  thirsting  heart.  A  Luther  amidst  the 
husks  of  a  scholastic  divinity  turns  to  that 
"theologia  pectoris"  Avhich  he  has  learned 
upon  his  knees.  Thus  faith  and  reason  are 
one.  The  Mecanique  Celeste  is  a  grand  ra- 
tionale of  the  heavens ;  yet  to  the  child-like 
mind,  as  to  the  man  of  science,  the  stars  speak 
a  divine  law,  a  beauty  greater  than  the  book, 
and  more  reasonable  to  the  former  than  to 
a  Laplace,  who  found  that  "his  equation 


2C8 


CHRISTIANITY  AND  ITS  ANTAGONISMS. 


needed  no  unknown  quantity,  no  God."  Rea- 
son may  end  in  the  intellectual  conclusion ; 
faith  ends  in  Christ  and  holiness.  Reason 
alone  is  barren  opinion  ;  faith  is  reason  knit 
with  affection  and  conscience. 

And  thus  I  shall  pass  from  the  abstract 
vic\v  to  what  will  doubtless  have  a  more 
living  interest,  the  battle  of  our  time  be- 
tween belief  and  unbelief.  I  shall  strive  to 
show  the  grand  error  of  rationalism  and  the 
spirit  of  the  Christianity  which  must  meet  it. 

If,  my  friends,  wo  have  clearly  seen  the  dif- 
ference between  a  purely  speculative  knowl- 
edge and  that  spiritual  truth  which  a  Chris- 
tian faith  grasps,  it  is  in  the  divorce  of  the 
one  from  the  other  that  rationalism  consists. 
It  is  not  in  a  just  use  of  our  intellect  in  the- 
ology or  criticism,  nor  is  it  in  the  claim  that 
any  doctrines  of  the  Church  must  agree  with 
the  necessary  truths  of  the  reason  and  the 
conscience.  That  is  the  "reasonable  serv- 
ice "  which  the  Scripture  itself  enjoins.  But 
the  root  of  rationalism  lies  in  the  assumption 
that  there  is  already  all  necessary  truth  given 
us  in  our  own  consciousness,  and  therefore 
we  neither  want  nor  can  have  any  divine, 
special  revelation.  I  do  not  say  a  supernat- 
ural revelation ;  for  I  hold  that  all  Avithin 
the  realm  of  spiritual  life  is  above  nature, 
and  that  to  limit  the  supernatural  power  of 
God  to  the  age  of  miracle  is  a  vicious  error 
which  opens  the  way  to  a  gross  materialism. 
Rationalism,  in  a  word,  makes  the  central 
truths  of  Christianity — the  Incarnation,  the 
Atonement,  the  power  of  the  Holy  Spirit — 
unreasonable  mysteries.  We  see  the  steps 
of  this  growth  in  its  history.  The  rational- 
istic spirit  is  not  indeed  confined  to  one  time 
or  land.  It  is  often  the  ignorant  reproach 
against  Germany  that  its  parentage  is  there, 
but  if  it  have  produced  the  school  of  keenest 
unbelief,  it  is  because  it  is  the  home  of  the 
highest  philosophic  power,  the  noblest  learn- 
ing; and  if  it  have  a  Baur  and  a  Strauss, 
it  has  also  a  Neander,  a  Rothe,  a  Dorner,  a 
host  of  devout  scholars.  In  its  earlier  shape 
rationalism  was  chiefly  an  effort  to  explain 
away  the  miraculous  character  of  the  Scrip- 
ture. But  after  it  took  a  philosophic  basis  in 
the  Kantian  conception  of  "  religion  within 
the  bounds  of  pure  reason," it  developed  rap- 
idly with  the  changes  of  speculative  thought, 
until  the  work  of  Strauss  gave  it  its  most  sci- 
entific expression.  The  religion  of  Christ  was 
only  one  of  the  nature-religions  of  the  past. 
Its  divine  author  was  a  myth,  -wrought  out 
of  the  fancy  of  the  Jewish  believers.  Yet 
there  was  a  brilliant  charm  to  many  minds 
in  that  stately  fabric,  which  seemed  to  ideal- 
ize the  deepest  truths  of  Christianity  into 
an  absolute  religion,  while  it  dismissed  its 
legend.  But  Avhen  at  last  it  resulted  in 
making  God  only  self-consciousness,  and  im- 
mortality a  dream,  it  was  seen  that  a  ration- 
al philosophy  which  denied  revelation  must 
end  in  denying  even  the  spiritual  truths  it 


boasts.  The  gorgeous  cloud-laud  set  in  the 
darkness  of  atheism.  We  reach  hero  the 
position  of  our  latest  rationalism.  We  need 
only  turn  to  the  views  of  Strauss  in  his 
coarser,  later  work,  or  to  that  romance  which 
Renau  has  called  the  "Life  of  Jesus,"  to 
know  its  type.  It  has  become  a  destructive 
criticism.  It  rests  on  what  it  styles  the 
basis  of  positive  science.  There,  is  indeed, 
in  one  view  a  gain,  because  it  has  left  the 
ground  of  myth,  and  confessed  that  the  per- 
son and  life  of  Christ  are  facts  too  stubborn 
to  deny  some  historic  basis.  But  the  critic 
deals  with  these  facts  wholly  by  the  laws  of 
a  natural  science.  He  comes  beforehand  with 
the  assumption  that  there  is  nothing  but  a 
fanciful  legend  in  the  gospels ;  he  writes  the 
life  of  Christ  as  no  more  than  the  history  of 
an  Apollonius  of  Tyaua,  or  a  saint  like  those 
of  the  Roman  hagiology.  The  grander  fact 
of  such  a  being  as  he  stands  alone  in  history, 
the  miracle  above  all  else  of  his  wondrous 
influence  over  the  race,  the  ideal  yet  real 
perfection  of  wisdom  and  grace  that  shine 
forth  in  him,  the  moral  convictions  of  man- 
kind that  point  to  and  centre  in  such  a  Re- 
deemer, the  divinity  of  a  religion  that  has 
created  a  new  world  of  faith  and  thought 
and  life,  all  these  evidences,  as  rational  as 
they  are  sacred,  are  nothing.  Such  is  the 
shape  of  our  modern  unbelieving  wisdom. 
It  has  reduced  Christianity  to  that  which 
Baur  claims  as  the  solution  of  the  Resurrec- 
tion— a  faith,  a  church  built  on  the  delusion 
of  a  few  fishermen  of  Galilee.  And  even 
this  is  but  one  among  all  delusions.  There 
is  no  God  in  history.  There  is  no  personal 
future.  There  is  no  human  destiny  save 
this  eternal  change  of  races  and  opinions,  of 
religious  and  social  struggles,  which  came 
forth  from  the  unknown,  blind  force  of  na- 
ture and  return  to  their  nothingness.  We 
stand  aghast  at  the  open  denial  of  all  reali- 
ty beyond  gases  and  nervous  tissues.  Yet  I 
hold  we  are  more  indebted  than  we  think  to 
our  latest  form  of  unchristian  science,  for  it 
will  prove  that  a  sound  Christianity  alone 
can  save,  as  it  has  done  before,  not  merely 
revealed  truth,  but  the  first  principles  of  all 
spiritual  truth  whatever. 

And  thus  I  reach  the  last,  -weightiest  top- 
ic, the  way  in  which  we  must  defend  the  faith 
of  Christ  against  our  modern  rationalism.  I 
speak  it  with  an  earnest  conviction  that  the 
Christianity  we  need  is  that  which  shall  meet 
it  with  that  science  it  abuses,  and  show  to  a 
time  which  asks  a  clear,  positive  truth  that 
we  are  able  to  give  a  reason  for  our  faith. 
Pardon  me  if  I  utter  with  an  honest  plain- 
ness my  whole  mind  here.  I  should  do  in- 
justice to  the  truth  if  I  should  fear  to  ex- 
pose the  error  of  an  irrational  belief,  as  Avell 
as  of  unbelief.  Although  I  reverence  the 
heart  of  piety  even  in  superstition,  yet  it  is 
folly  to  forget  that  the  one  vice  creates  the 
other.  I  do  not  care  to  choose  between 


WASHBURN :  EEASON  AND  FAITH. 


259 


the  fever  or  the  chill  when  both  are  al- 
ternate phases  of  one  intermittent  disease 
There  are  those  to-day,  as  there  have  al- 
ways been,  who,  in  their  dread  of  rational- 
ism, are  ready  to  deny  all  jnst  principles  of 
criticism  in  regard  of  Scripture  or  of  theolo- 
gy. It  is  in  two  forms  that  the  tendency  is 
seen :  one  the  ecclesiastical,  in  the  Roman 
Church  and  the  self-styled  Auglo-Catholic 
school ;  the  other  the  theological,  which  is 
more  akin  to  the  Protestant  mind.  Yet  at 
bottom  it  is  the  same  mistaken  conception 
of  faith  which  leads  to  both.  It  is  the  charge 
always  repeated,  that  the  very  principle  of 
Protestantism,  the  right  of  free  inquiry,  must 
make  our  faith  a  thousand-ton gued  specu- 
lation; and  that  a  teaching  Church,  which 
through  its  authorized  ministers  interprets 
the  Word  of  God,  is  the  only  safeguard.  I 
will  not  confound  with  the  babble  of  de- 
claimers  who  tell  us  that  Protestantism  is 
a  failure,  or  with  our  new-made  army  of 
monks,  who  wrap  the  dead  Christ  in  the 
ritualistic  grave-clothes  of  the  middle  age, 
those  thoughtful  and  devout  men  who  have 
been  misled  into  this  notion  of  the  Church. 
I  will  only  answer  that  the  right  of  intelli- 
gent inquiry  does  not  contradict  just  author- 
ity, so  long  as  that  authority  means,  as  in 
all  science,  that  of  sound  learning.  But  it  is 
the  condition  of  intellectual  and  moral  life 
in  the  Church  that  its  teaching  shall  be  open 
to  criticism.  Let  the  Word  of  God  be  in  the 
hands  of  its  doctors  only,  whose  decisions  are 
above  question,  and  call  it  what  you  will,  the 
infallibility  of  a  Pontiff,  or  the  voice  of  the 
Church,  and  it  becomes  the  word  of  man. 
The  infallibility  of  Scripture  is  only  secure 
when  it  is  held  so  divine  that  it  can  conquer 
ciTor.  It  is  in  far  less  peril  from  varieties  of 
interpretation  than  from  an  infallible  church. 
We  do  not  want  a  faith  that  comes  from  the 
stifling  of  the  mind,  for  that  is  credulity ; 
but  the  faith  that  enters  with  the  light. 
And  if  I  have  so  met  the  ecclesiastical 
claim,  I  can  answer  as  truly  the  same  spirit 
when  it  comes  in  the  shape  of  a  dogmatism 
that  fears  the  advance  of  modern  critical 
thought.  Nothing  can  be  more  fatal  to  the 
cause  of  truth.  It  is  the  very  weapon  the 
rationalist  wants,  if  he  can  only  show  that 
his  criticism,  however  false,  is  met  by  a  mere 
appeal  to  the  accepted  tradition.  Nay,  I 
know  no  sadder  unbelief  in  the  divinity  of 
our  religion  than  is  given  by  those  who,  from 
dread  of  attack,  would  fain  clothe  the  truth 
of  God  in  the  Saul's  armor  of  their  unproved 
systems.  It  is  because  I  believe  it  of  God,  I 
can  trust  in  its  intrinsic  might ;  because  it 
is  not  a  deposit  of  dogmas,  but  one  living 
Catholic  faith  in  the  mind  and  heart  of  the 
Church ;  because  I  know  it  is  given  to  be 
studied  through  honest  effort  of  the  human 
intellect,  and  that  all  its  gains  have  been 
through  struggle,  I  can  know  it  will  con- 
quer the  wildest  errors  of  to-day  as  in  the  past. 


This,  then,  I  affirm  to  be  the  aim  of  a  true 
Christian  learning,  to  bring  out  those  central 
truths  of  revelation,  in  which  it  addresses 
the  whole  spiritual  nature  of  men,  and  has 
there  its  witness.  I  rejoice  in  it  as  the  no- 
blest proof  of  the  advance  of  our  theology, 
that  it  has  so  largely  entered  on  this  path 
of  Christian  evidence.  The  main  assault 
of  the  rationalist  is  against  the  miraculous 
side  of  revelation,  as  a  legend  which  science 
can  not  admit.  We  must  meet  him  with 
that  living  view  which  shall  show  the  Gos- 
pel of  the  Son  of  God  to  be  no  mere  out- 
ward history  of  the  past,  but  the  same  yes- 
terday, to-day,  and  forever,  because  it  rests 
on  the  living  Christ.  Although  I  have  all 
respect  for  the  Paleys,  and  the  Avhole  class 
of  apologists  of  a  former  day ;  although  I 
do  not  doubt  that  the  external  evidences, 
so-called,  have  their  worth  as  buttresses  of 
the  outer  wall,  yet  I  maintain  that,  for  sci- 
ence as  well  as  faith,  the  enduring  argument 
of  Christianity  must  be  in  the  inward  har- 
mony of  revelation  with  the  design  of  its- 
Master-builder.  The  person  and  life  of  Jesus 
Christ  is  the  one  miracle  which  rationalism 
can  not  explain  away.  It  still  compels  the 
unwilling  homage  of  the  Renaus,  as  it  did 
the  Rousseaus  of  a  former  da5".  If  we  stand 
on  that  central  truth,  we  have  a  miracle 
which  gives  a  reason  for  all  the  wonders 
which  attended  His  mission.  That  fact 
alone  explains  the  history  of  mankind,  as 
it  shows  in  all  natural  religions  the  yearn- 
ings of  the  human  conscience  after  a  Re- 
deemer, and  opens  yet  more  the  meaning  of 
a  Church,  a  Christian  civilization,  which  has 
grown  out  of  the  life  of  the  Sou  of  God. 
And  such  a  principle,  again,  will  guide  us 
amidst  the  questions  of  Biblical  interpreta- 
tion, because  it  will  teach  the  true  distinc- 
tion between  the  province  of  revealed  truth 
and  critical  science.  If  we  have  grasped 
the  one  spiritual  law  of  revelation,  we  shall 
be  in  no  danger  of  clinging  to  some  mechan- 
ical theory  of  Scripture  for  fear  of  losing 
its  substance.  The  Book  of  God  will  be  for 
us  no  record  of  astronomy  or  geology,  no 
chronicle  which  a  verbal  criticism  can  over- 
throw. It  will  be  the  history  of  a  divine 
redemption.  Wo  shall  read  in  the  record  of 
that  ancient  people  of  Israel,  its  law,  its 
prophecy,  as  a  ripe  English  scholar  now  Avith 
us  has  done,  a  preparation  for  Christ. 

And  last  of  all,  to  condense  in  a  few  words 
what  I  can  not  enlarge  on,  yet  can  not  leave, 
it  will  be  the  aim  of  a  Christian  learning  to 
bring  our  theology  to  the  test  of  that  Divine 
truth  which  is  above  and  beyond  all  theolo- 
gy. I  believe  it  is  the  grand  boon  to  be  gain- 
ed from  all  the  battles  which  have  been 
fought  for  our  confessions,  that  at  last  we 
shall  arrive  at  a  clearer  conviction  of  their 
essential  harmony.  In  such  a  view  I  cau 
not  look  on  the  past  of  Latin  or  Protestant 
doctrine  as  a  wrangle  of  needless  systems ; 


260 


CHRISTIANITY  AND  ITS  ANTAGONISMS. 


not  even  what  an  ingenious  thinker  styles 
it,  the  robust  play  of  Christian  iutellect ;  the 
throwing  to  and  fro  the  shuttlecock,  where 
all  the  good  lies  in  the  exercise.  No,  it  has 
been  the  earnest  struggle  of  all,  from  Augus- 
tine to  Calvin,  in  which  each  has  advanced 
some  lost  or  undeveloped  side  of  truth.  But 
we  are  to  learn  that  theology  and  life  must 
go  together.  It  was  after  the  first  forma- 
tive period  of  the  Church,  when  the  mass  of 
scholastic  tradition — the  gold,  silver,  hay, 
wood,  stubble — had  covered  the  foundation, 
when  the  metaphysics  of  the  doctors  became 
the  creed,  and  subtle  definitions  of  sin,  grace, 
and  sacrament  were  petrified  into  idolatry, 
that  there  came  a  divorce  between  the  head 
and  heart  of  Christendom.  The  Reforma- 
tion was  an  appeal  from  Aristotle  to  Christ. 
And  yet  we  have  too  often  seen  repeated  the 
same  history.  Whenever  faith  becomes  the 
acceptance  of  the  traditional  glosses  instead 
of  living  truth,  it  has  been  changed  to  an 
orthodoxy  without  its  moral  power.  Nor 
let  us  forget  that  there  is  a  most  essential 
kinship  between  such  dogmatism  and  ration- 
alism. Rationalism  builds  its  fabric  of  the- 
oretical notions,  dogmatism  does  the  same : 
rationalism  robs  Christianity  of  all  that  can 
touch  conscience  or  affection,  dogmatism 
does  the  same.  Let  us  learn  thoroughly  this 
law  of  theological  ethics.  When  Neander 
was  asked  whence  was  German  unbelief,  he 
answered,  the  dead  orthodoxy.  We  know 
it  not  only  in  the  Lutheran  Church,  but  in 
that  of  New  England.  If  ever  there  was  a 
chapter  in  doctrinal  history  to  be  deeply 
studied,  it  is  that  which  reaches  from  the 
day  of  Edwards  to  that  of  Channing.  As 
yet  it  has  only  been  superficially  written. 
American  Unitarianism  was  the  just  reac- 
tion against  a  scholastic  divinity,  keen,  sub- 
tle, rigid,  as  that  of  the  middle  age,  and, 
like  that,  creating  the  intellectual  move- 
ment that  opposed  it.  It  was  Avhen  the 
truth  of  the  Incarnation  had  been  made  a 
subtle  enigma  of  metaphysics  that  the  Uni- 


tarian rejected  it;  when  the  blessed  sacri- 
fice of  the  Cross  had  been  explained  into 
some  mercantile  bargain,  that  it  lost  its 
meaning ;  when  a  subtle  theory  of  the  will 
had  been  called  essential  doctrine,  that  the 
moral  feeling  revolted  against  it.  We  are 
to  ponder  this  fact  to-day,  as  it  is  brought 
home  to  us  by  the  peculiar  strifes  of  our  re- 
ligious thought.  It  is  not  a  theological  cul- 
ture we  are  to  renounce,  for  this  would  only 
end  in  a  creedless  indifference,  or  in  that 
vague  mysticism  which  emasculates  the 
mind.  But  our  hope  is  in  that  larger  cul- 
ture which  shows  us  the  harmony  of  all 
doctrine,  and  guards  us  from  mistaking  the 
empiric  school  of  one  age  for  an  unchan- 
ging, absolute  truth;  it  is  in  such  studies  as 
a  Dorner  has  given  in  his  "  Person  of  Christ," 
where  we  can  trace  the  central  fact  of  Chris- 
tianity through  its  manifold  expression. 
And,  more,  it  is  in  the  knowledge  that  all 
our  human  systems  are  but  a  dim  reflection 
of  that  "mind  of  Christ,"  of  Him  whose 
truth  is  not  a  philosophy,  but  the  life  of  men. 
This  is  our  power  against  modern  unbe- 
lief. This  is  the  Christianity  we  need  in  a 
time  when  the  hungering  thousands  are  ask- 
ing, amidst  the  questions  that  touch  the  be- 
ing of  any  revelation — nay,  the  being  of  God 
and  the  soul — for  a  Gospel  of  positive  and 
living  meaning.  And  I  thank  God  I  can 
hail  it  as  the  most  significant  feature  of  this 
great  council,  although  some  may  very  dim- 
ly see  the  result,  that  we  are  Hearing  the 
age  when  we  shall  reach  this  unity.  I 
thank  him  for  these  signs  of  the  time,  for 
every  gain  o'f  our  study  in  his  Word,  for  ev- 
ery light  a  Christian  science  has  cast  on  the 
record  of  religion,  yes,  and  even  for  the  tor- 
rent of  unchristian  intellect  which  has  left 
the  soil  more  fertile  for  the  harvests  of  a 
better  truth,  which  will  force  us  out  of  our 
little  shelters  of  Westminster  and  Augsburg, 
of  Anglican  and  Reformed,  to  meet  at  last 
in  the  city  of  God,  in  the  confession  of  the 
Christ  who  is  not  divided. 


CHRISTIANITY  AND  THE  GOSPEL. 


BY  FELIX  BOVET,  PH.D., 

Professor  of  Theology  in  the  College  at  Neuchatel,  Switzerland;  Author  of  "Voyage  eu  Terre  Sainte," 
"Histoire  du  Psautier  des  eglises  Ileformees,"  "Histoire  du  Comte  Zinzendorf,"  etc. 


THE  topic  of  the  day  is  Christianity  and 
its  Antagonisms;  and  you  have  just  been 
told  of  the  antagonism  between  faith  and 
reason.  My  friend  and  colleague,  Professor 
Godet,  who  was  expected  to  participate  in 
this  discussion,  but  who  unfortunately  has 
been  unable  to  be  present,  would  have  spo- 
ken to  you  of  Christianity  and.Numanity,  aim- 
ing to  show  that,  properly  viewed,  there  is 
no  antagonism  between  them,  but  that  Chris- 
tianity is  the  perfection  of  Humanity  redeem- 
ed from  sin  and  error. 

Having  been  invited,  on  brief  notice,  to 
take  his  place,  and  thus  having  had  but  a 
limited  time  for  the  preparation  of  what  I 
have  to  say,  I  must  beg  your  indulgence.  I 
propose  to  treat  of  the  precise  relation  be- 
tween Christianity  and  the  Gospel,  and  to 
show  that  between  these  two  words,  appar- 
ently synonymous,  there  is  in  reality  an  im- 
portant distinction ;  and  that  the  words  Chris- 
tianity and  Christian  are  insufficient,  and,  to 
a  certain  degree,  incorrect,  as  designating 
the  object  of  our  faith,  and  as  expressing 
what  we  are  and  what  we  should  be. 

This  may  appear  a  discussion  of  mere 
words,  but  different  words  express  a  differ- 
ence of  thoughts ;  and  moreover,  in  a  relig- 
ion founded  upon  the  written  Word  of  God, 
words  are  eminently  significant. 

And  first,  it  is  worthy  of  note  that  the 
word  Christian  is  not  of  Christian  origin. 
Those  called  Christians  were  originally  so 
designated  by  strangers,  who  gave  a  name 
to  something  they  did  not  and  could  not  un- 
derstand. The  Jews  called  the  disciples  of 
Jesus  Galileans  or  Nazarencs.  And  when,  for 
the  first  time,  a  church  was  founded  by  this 
new  sect  in  one  of  the  large  cities  of  the 
Gentiles,  the  Greeks  of  that  city  also  invent- 
ed a  name  to  designate  those  who  belonged 
to  it.  These  dwellers  in  Antioch  (like  the 
Athenians  subsequently,  Acts  xvii.)  saw  in 
the  Gospel  nothing  beyond  a  new  doctrine 
(KO.IVI)  didaxrj),  and  in  the  new  religionists 
only  a  philosophical  sect  similar  to  those 
which  for  six  hundred  years  previous  had 
constantly  sprung  up  in  the  fertile  soil  of 
Greece,  and  which  at  that  time  were  becom- 
ing more  and  more  numerous.  They  saw  that 
the  members  of  this  sect  followed  a  teacher 
called  Christ,  as  others  followed  Plato,  Py- 
thagoras, or  Epicurus,  and  hence,  quite  natu- 


rally, applied  the  terms  Christianity  and  Chris- 
tian, as  they  did  Pythagorean  and  Epicurean. 
As  to  the  disciples  themselves,  they  did  not 
at  once  take  the  name  of  Christians,  as  we 
see  that  it  is  found  twice  only  in  the  New 
Testament,  and  never  as  a  word  given  to 
themselves  by  the  members  of  the  Church. 
Once  it  is  uttered  by  Agrippa  when  he  says, 
"  Almost  thou  persuadest  me  to  be  a  Chris- 
tian" (Acts  xxvi.,  28);  and  again  it  occurs 
in  the  passage  in  which  Peter,  alluding  to 
the  insulting  use  that  the  heathen  made  of 
this  word,  says  to  his  brethren, "  If  ye  be  re- 
proached for  the  name  of  Christ,  happy  are 

ye Let  none  of  you  suffer  as  a  murderer, 

or  as  a  thief,  or  as  an  evil  doer,  or  as  a  busy- 
body in  other  men's  matters.  Yet  if  any 
man  suffer  as  a 'Christian,  let  him  not  be 
ashamed ;  but  let  him  glorify  God  for  this 
very  name"*  (1  Pet.  iv.,  14-16). 

The  recommendation  of  the  apostle  was 
regarded.  This  name  given  by  the  enemy 
became  a  source  of  glory  to  God ;  but  it  is 
the  more  noticeable  that,  during  the  whole 
of  the  first  century,  and  even  beyond  that 
period,  the  Church,  while  accepting  it,  did 
not  adopt  it ;  and  that  it  is  not  even  used 
in  those  books  of  the  New  Testament  which 
seem  to  have  been  last  written. 

It  could  be  said,  a  priori,  that  these  names, 
Christian  and  Christianity,  invented  by  hea- 
then, could  not  be  absolutely  correct,  aud 
would  throw  a  light  more  or  less  false  on 
what  they  meant  to  designate.  The  appel- 
lations might,  indeed,  have  been  worse  chos- 
en ;  because  these  words  contain  an  element 
of  truth,  and  an  essential  element,  since  they 
bind  the  Church  not  to  Barnabas  or  to  Paul, 
as  some  were  tempted  to  do  at  Antioch,  and 
as  some  also  .ire  tempted  to  do  in  our  day, 
but  to  Jesus  Christ,  its  true  founder,  or,  to 
say  better,  its  true  foundation.  However, 
they  were  not  without  inconvenience;  the 
name  Christians  seemed  to  designate,  first 
of  all,  like  the  name  Aristotelians  or  Epicu- 


*  'EV  TU>  ovonan  roiniu,  according  to  the  most  cor- 
rect text  as  found  in  the  most  ancient  manuscripts 
(Sinait.,  Alexandr.,  Vatican),  and  in  the  most  ancient 
translations  (Peschito.Vulgata,  in  isto  nomine).  'Ev  -rip 
Hfpet  roiirto  of  the  Textus  receptus  is  very  interesting, 
as  it  proves  that  at  the  time  of  the  introduction  of 
this  paraphrase  it  could  no  more  be  conceived  that  the 
name  of  xp«"-ia»<6t  had  been  primitively  an  insult. 


CHRISTIANITY  AND  ITS  ANTAGONISMS. 


reana,  the  men  who  embraced  a  certain  opin- 
iou,  or  even  a  certain  mode  of  living,  rather 
than  a  new  people,  a  race  engendered  of  God, 
a  royal  priesthood.  And  the  word  Christian- 
ity (Christianismus)  gave  much  less  the  idea 
of  a  gift  of  God  than  a  certain  collection  of 
themes  to  adopt  and  precepts  to  follow. 

These  names  were  not  without  influence 
upon  the  Church  when  at  a  later  period  it 
adopted  them.  The  people  of  priests  had 
a  tendency  to  become  a  people  of  theologi- 
ans, and  with  us  those  two  ideas  have  al- 
most melted  into  each  other.  The  name 
Christianity  indicating  a  group  of  doctrines, 
it  could  and  must  be  asked  of  how  many 
articles  of  faith  it  was  composed.  The 
Church  of  the  centuries  that  followed  count- 
ed eighteen  symbolic  articles ;  later,  the  Ro- 
inish  Church  counted  its  dogmas  by  hun- 
dreds (as  many  as  it  had  canons  of  coun- 
cils), and  considers  it  one  of  its  privileges, 
in  every  century,  to  draw  new  ones  out  of 
the  treasury  of  the  Holy  Scriptures  and  of 
tradition.  The  Reformation  stepped  back, 
but  did  not  change  its  course.  The  En- 
glish Church  has  only  thirty-nine  articles 
left.  We  ourselves,  in  our  Evangelical  Al- 
liance, have  begun  by  adopting  nine  arti- 
cles of  faith.  All  this  has  some  reason  to 
be,  I  admit,  but,  let  us  admit  it  also,  that  it 
does  not  satisfy  us  entirely,  because  we  feel 
that  these  articles  of  faith  are  not  the  true 
expression  of  our  faith  itself,  and  only  rep- 
resent, for  better  or  worse,  the  intellectual 
and  abstract  side  of  it. 

I  do  not  pretend  to  say,  you  understand, 
that  these  words  Christianity  and  Christian 
which  have  come  down  to  us  through  our 
fathers,  and  which  have  become  dear  to  us, 
must  be  abandoned.  They  belong  for  many 
centuries  to  the  language  of  the  Church,  and 
we  must  accept  that  language  as  it  is.  But 
have  you  never  noticed  that  the  comparison 
of  a  foreign  word  with  a  word  belonging  to 
our  mother  tongue  helps  us  sometimes  to 
complete,  to  rectify,  and  always  to  enrich 
the  idea  to  which  it  corresponds  ?  So  much 
the  more  will  this  be  apparent  in  the  subject 
that  we  study  at  this  time,  if,  forgetting  for 
a  moment  the  name  we  bear,  and  which  has 
been  given  to  us  by  strangers,  we  will  con- 
sider the  name  which  has  been  given  to  our 
religion  by  the  men  from  whom  we  have  it, 
and  the  name  they  took  for  themselves. 

I  have  said  religion,  but  this  word  also 
they  never  used.*  A  great  manifestation 
of  life  had  taken  place  (according  to  the  ex- 
pression of  John) ;  and  they  told  of  that 
which  they  had  seen  with  their  eyes,  which 
they  had  looked  upon,  and  their  hands  had 
handled  (1  John  i.,  1),  and  they  called  the 

•  The  Greek  SpnffKe.'a,  found  only  four  times  in  the 
New  Testament,  does  not  correspond  to  "  religion  " 
(as  it  is  translated  in  Jas.  i., 26, 2"),  but  to  "worship- 
ing" (as  it  is  rendered  in  Col.  ii.,  18): 


testimony  which  they  gave  of  it  the  good 
news,  the  Gospel.  It  is  not  they,  however, 
that  had  first  given  this  name ;  it  was  the 
name  given  by  the  angels  at  the  time  of  the 
birth  of  the  Saviour:  The  Gospel  of  great 
joy.*  This  is  an  angelic  and  heavenly  con- 
ception, and  verily  true !  This  is  a  name 
which  does  not  suggest  any  kind  of  system, 
or  theory,  or  dogmatism,  not  even  a  dogma- 
tism given  from  heaven,  but  that  calls  to 
mind  something  vastly  better  than  that — a 
gift  of  God,  the  good  news  of  God's  giving 
himself  to  the  world,  The  Gospel  of  great  joy  ! 

As  to  the  names  by  which  the  early  Chris- 
tians designated  themselves,  they  are  no  less 
characteristic.  Besides  the  honorary  titles 
that  the  apostles  gave  them  sometimes  in 
their  epistles,  and  which  called  to  their 
mind  their  hopes  and  their  privileges  ("roy- 
al priesthood,"  "purchased  people,"  "chil- 
dren of  God "),  we  find  in  the  New  Testa- 
ment three  names  which  were  used  con- 
stantly in  the  habitual  language  to  desig- 
nate those  who  had  believed.  These  names 
are  saints,  disciples,  and  ln-ethren. 

The  name  saint,  like  the  word  gospel,  re- 
minds, first  of  all,  of  the  gift  of  God ;  that  is 
to  say,  something  which  is  entirely  objective. 
Saint,  in  the  language  of  the  Bible,  means 
set  apart.\  Applied  to  God,  it  expresses  the 
transcendency  of  the  God  of  Israel,  and  his 
absolute  independence  of  the  universe,  which 
is  only  his  creation,  in  opposition  to  the  God 
of  the  Gentiles,  who  is  immanent  in  nature, 
and  is  not  distinguished  from  it.  Applied 
to  men,  it  expresses  that  they  have  been 
made  themselves  independent  of  nature, 
free  from  its  yoke,  to  which  the  mass  of  hu- 
manity is  subjected  (Deut.  iv.,  19),  and  that 
they  have  been  consecrated  to  God.  So  the 
saints,  or  the  saints  elect,  as  Paul  calls  them, 
are  not,  as  the  name  Christian  would  imply, 
a  people  who  have  adopted  a  doctrine,  and 
have  chosen  a  religion  in  preference  of  an- 
other. No!  They  are  men  that  God  has 
set  apart  for  himself.  A  man  can  make 
himself  Christian  as  he  makes  himself  He- 
gelian or  Cartesian,  Zwinglian  or  Lutheran, 
but  God  makes  the  saints.  The  men  who 
are  made  saints,  because  they  are  called  of 
God,  must  be  holy  in  their  life.  All  grace 
and  all  morality  are  contained  in  this  name. 
Pelagiauisni,  Moliuism,  Autiuominianism, 
and  many  other  aberrations  are  excluded 
by  this  single  word.  Sancti  estis,  sancti 
estote — "  Ye  are  saints,  be  ye  holy." 

But  the  New  Testament  does  not  desig- 


*  Eio^'j'eXifo/uai  iiftiv  xapiiv  n<-fa\riv. — I. like  ii.,  10. 

t  The  radix  ^*lp  was  erroneously  considered  by 
some  authors  as  analogous  to  X'UT,  "  to  germinate, 
to  grow  green,"  and  by  some  others  as  analogous  U» 
EJin,  "to  become  new,  fresh."  The  trne  analogou 
of  O'lp  is  Tip,  used  by  the  Talmudists  in  the  sense 
of  ccedo,  scindo,  113,  2^p,  "to  cut,  to  separate,  to 
put  aside." 


BOVET:   CHRISTIANITY  AND  THE  GOSPEL. 


iiatc  them  only  by  this  name  that  remem- 
bers especially  that  which  God.  is  for  them. 
No ;  the  uame  disciple,  so  often  used,  reminds 
of  what  they  are  themselves,  of  the  position 
they  have  accepted  before  the  Lord.  The 
name  disciple,  which  means  pupil  or  scholar, 
obviates  many  misunderstandings.  What 
constitutes  a  disciple  is  not  what  one  knows, 
not  what  he  has  already  learned,  but  what 
he  is  to  learn  still.  The  most  advanced  and 
the  least  advanced,  are  the  disciples,  one  like 
the  other,  provided  they  are  at  school.  One 
is  not  a  disciple  when  he  thinks  that  he  has 
nothing  to  learn,  or  when  he  imagines  that 
he  has  learned  all.  When  we  think  we  have 
inclosed  heaven  in  our  measure,  and  the  Gos- 
pel in  our  system,  we  can  consider  ourselves 
Christians,  but  not  disciples.  Alas !  we,  dis- 
ciples of  Jesus — like  sophomores,  who  some- 
times hesitate  to  treat  as  fellow-students 
the  freshmen — we  hesitate  to  consider  as  be- 
longing to  us,  or  more  strictly  as  belonging 
to  Christ,  the  men  (as  we  find  so  many  in  the 
Church  of  Rome  and  in  the  churches  of  the 
East)  who  only  begin  to  spell  the  name  of 
Jesus,  but  who,  without  knowing  yet  fully 
what  it  means,  stammer  it  already  with 
love,  and  men  (as  there  are  many  with  us) 
who  are  outside  of  our  denominations  and 
churches,  but  who  have  already  heard  in 
their  hearts  the  Master's  voice,  and  have 
listened  to  it  without  having  yet  learned  to 
call  him  by  name. 

Most  frequently  the  disciples  or  the  saints 
are  called  in  the  New  Testament  brethren. 
Of  these  three  names  the  latter  is  the  one 
which  is  used  moat  to  this  day,  but  its  mean- 
ing has  been  lost,  perhaps,  more  than  that 
of  any  other  appellation.  It  is  a  remark- 
able fact  that  during  several  centuries  the 
heathen,  blinded  by  their  prejudices  and 
hatred,  saw  in  the  disciples  of  Christ  only 
rebels  to  authority,  sometimes  atheists,  and 
even  disputed  the  purity  of  their  morals. 
Only  one  of  their  virtues,  brotherly  love, 
was  in  these  times  never  doubted.  It  shone 
like  the  sun  above  all  others,  and  constrain- 
ed from  their  persecutors  this  cry  of  aston- 
ishment, "  See  how  they  love  each  other !" 
The  Word  of  the  Lord  had  thus  its  literal 
fulfillment ;  it  was  in  that,  in  that  alone, 
that  all  knew  his  disciples  by  the  love 
which  they  had  one  for  the  other. 

In  our  day — and  it  is  sad  to  see  it — the 
phenomenon  is  reversed,  and  it  can  bo  said 
that  of  all  Christian  virtues  brotherly  love 
is  the  one  that,  at  first  sight,  attracts  the 
least  attention  from  the  world.  I  need  not 
go  far  to  seek  proofs,  and  a  single  one  will 
suffice.  If  I  open  one  of  our  Christian  pe- 
riodicals, I  see  (and  the  enemies  of  the  Gos- 
pel would  agree  to  it  themselves)  that  it  dis- 
tinguishes itself  from  other  papers  by  propri- 
ety and  honesty  scrupulously  observed,  by 
more  respect  for  authority  and  more  eleva- 
tion of  thought,  often  even — but  not  always 


— by  more  generous  feelings;  but,  alas!  (I 
speak  of  the  European  religious  papers)  I 
find  in  many  of  them  no  less  bitterness  in 
the  discussion,  no  less  of  rash  judgments 
and  evil  inferences,  no  less  haste  in  believ- 
ing evil  and  in  distrusting  the  good,  no 
more  charity  and  love  toward  one  and  the 
other  of  the  disciples  who  ought  to  be  as 
brethren. 

Protestants  and  Catholics,  High  and  Low 
Church,  Calviuists  and  Lutherans,  Free- 
Church  men  and  State-Church  men,  first 
appear  to  the  world  of  our  day  under  the 
form  of  actors  in  a  great  conflict  or  an  im- 
mense civil  war. 

What  I  am  sorry  to  sec — I  desire  that  my 
thought  be  understood — is  certainly  not  this 
infinite  diversity  of  expressions  of  Christian 
sentiment,  because  this  very  diversity  is  a 
richness.  On  the  contrary,  what  I  deplore 
is  the  kind  of  unity  which  some  try  to  es- 
tablish, a  factitious  and  violent  unity,  to  be 
forced  by  newspaper  anathemas  and  by  bulls 
in  pamphlet  form,  when  the  true  unity,  the 
sole  one  worthy  of  brethren,  has  been  given 
to  us  by  the  Lord :  "  By  this  shall  all  men 
know  that  ye  are  my  disciples,  if  ye  have 
love  one  to  another." 

But  is  it  here,  in  the  midst  of  this  frater- 
nity that  unites  us  from  all  the  parts  of  the 
world  in  one  place — is  it  here,  in  these  days 
of  the  feast  of  the  Evangelical  Alliance,  that 
we  must  mourn  over  this  lack  of  brother- 
hood? Oh  yes,  and  more  than  anywhere 
else,  because  if  the  Evangelical  Alliance  has 
done  many  things,  if  we  have  cause  to  re- 
joice in  God  for  its  existence,  its  very  ex- 
istence proves  better  than  any  other  thing 
how  far  behind  we  are  still  of  unity — in  the 
same  manner  as  that  beautiful  institution  of 
our  times,  the  International  Society  for  the 
Relief  of  the  Wounded,  proves  too  well  that 
the  "nations  are  yet  in  a  state  of  war.  The 
programme  of  the  Evangelical  Alliance,  its 
motto,  its  ideal,  is  in  this  word  expressing 
the  last  will  of  our  Saviour :  "  That  all  may 
be  one."  How  far  short  does  the  Evangel- 
ical Alliance  come  of  uniting  all,  and  how 
many  persist  in  remaining  ontside?  And 
how  much  the  word  itself  of  Evangelical 
Alliance  makes  us  painfully  measure  the  dis- 
tance between  it  and  unity! 

Must  not  one  of  onr  principal  duties  in 
these  solemn  meetings  be  to  humble  our- 
selves before  God  for  the  very  need  of  an 
Evangelical  Alliance? 

Must  wo  not,  in  asking  God  to  bless  onr 
work  and  our  efforts,  ask  him,  above  all,  to 
send  his  Holy  Spirit,  so  that  all  Christians 
may  be  transformed  into  saints,  disciples,  and 
brethren,  and  that  in  this  way  the  day  may 
be  hastened  when  the  word  alliance  will  not 
be  needed  and  no  mention  of  it  will  be  made, 
because  unity  will  be  written  in  the  hearts, 
and  that  unity  will  be  nothing  else  but 
LOVE  ! 


PHILOSOPHICAL   SECTION. 


RELIGIOUS  ASPECTS  OF  THE  DOCTRINE  OF  DEVEL- 
OPMENT. 


BY  THE  KEY.  JAMES  McCOSH,  D.D.,  LL.D.,  PRINCETON,  N.  J., 

President  of  the  College  of  New  Jersey. 


I  INVITE  you  into  a  temple  in  which  are 
symbols  and  inscriptions  fitted  to  instruct 
us  as  to  the  true  character  and  history  of 
our  world.  That  temple  is  not  made  by  hu- 
man hands,  but  by  him  who  created  the 
heavens  and  the  earth.  It  is  larger,  grand- 
er, and  yet  simpler  than  the  rock-cut  tem- 
ples of  India,  than  the  columnar  vistas  of, 
Egypt,  than  the  cathedrals  raised  by  the 
piety  of  the  Middle  Ages.  Some  of  the  great 
passes  in  the  Alps,  Andes,  and  Himalayas 
bear  some  likeness  to  it  in  length  and  height, 
but  they  are  bare  and  sterile,  -whereas  this 
is  covered  on  both  sides  with  figures  full  of 
meaning.  At  the  grand  entrance  are  two 
forms  which  arrest  the  attention.  The  one 
on  the  right  consists  of  two  tables  of  stone, 
representing  law — moral  and  natural.  The 
one  on  the  left  is  an  altar,  with  flowers  and 
fruit  on  it,  and  a  bleeding  lamb.  Here  the 
vista  bursts  on  our  view,  and  extends  on  till 
the  sides  are  lost  in  the  dim  distance ;  but 
at  the  farthest  end  is  an  object  which  no 
distance  can  lessen— the  Eock  of  Ages,  with 
a  throne  set  on  it  which  can  not  be  moved, 
and  the  Ancient  of  Days  seated  on  it,  and  in 
the  midst  "a  Lamb  as  it  had  been  slain;"  and 
midway  between  the  entrance  and  the  end  is 
a  cross  lifted  up  and  a  meek  sufferer  stretched 
upon  it,  but  with  a  halo  round  his  head,  and 
above  him,  spanning  the  arch,  a  rainbow 
formed  by  the  refraction  of  the  pure  white 
light  which  streams  from  him  who  dwelleth 
in  light  that  is  inaccessible  to  mortal  eyes  and 
full  of  glory.  On  each  side  of  this  extended 
gallery  are  symbolic  figures,  and  these  grow 
out  of  each  other,  and  carry  on  a  continued 
history  from  the  past  into  the  future  on- 
ward into  eternity.  The  great  limners  of 
the  world  are  busily  employed  in  drawing 
the  pictures  in  this  palace  of  the  great  King. 
I  am  to  engage  you  for  a  little  while  in  look- 
ing at  them  and  reading  the  inscriptions. 

I.  Those  on  the  Religious  Side. — They  have 
been  written  "  at  sundry  times  and  in  divers 
parts"  by  holy  men  as  they  were  moved  by 
the  Holy  Ghost.  The  first  inscription  that 


meets  our  eye  is  "In  the  beginning" 
— the  word  used  by  the  old  Greek  philoso- 
phers when  they  were  inquiring  after  the 
origin  and  principle  of  all  things.  How  far 
back  into  the  remote  this  carries  us  we  can 
not  tell,  but  then  "  God  created  the  heavens 
and  the  earth."  Then  we  see  a  brooding 
darkness,  but  it  is  a  cloud  of  seeds  from 
which  the  worlds  are  formed.  "The  earth 
was  without  form  and  void,"  but  the  wind  of 
the  Spirit  blows  upon  it,  and  a  voice  is  heard, 
"  Let  there  be  light,"  and  light  appears,  and 
henceforth  there  is  systematic  order:  there 
is  development  in  order  or  order  in  develop- 
ment, and  at  the  close  of  each  day  or  period 
God  declares  "  all  things  to  be  very  good." 
As  yet  there  is  no  sun  nor  moon ;  but  there  is 
rotating  evening  and  morning,  and  the  even- 
ing and  the  morning  constitute  the  first  day 
— we  know  not  of  what  length,  for  the  clock 
of  time  is  not  yet  set  up,  and  the  word  day 
often  means  epoch  in  Scripture.  In  the  sec- 
ond day  there  is  the  rising  of  the  aerial  and 
the.  sinking  of  the  fluid.  In  the  third  day 
the  sea  is  divided  from  the  land ;  on  the 
same  day  life  appears,  and  has  a  developing 
power  in  it, "  for  the  earth  brought  forth 
grass,  and  herb  yielding  seed  after  his  kind, 
whose  seed  is  in  itself  after  his  kind."  On 
the  fourth,  two  solid  lights  appear,  and  be- 
come the  rulers  and  dividers  of  time.  When 
the  fifth  day  rises  out  of  the  night,  we  see 
the  waters  bringing  forth  the  moving  creat- 
ures, and  we  have  fishes  and  fowls,  with 
moving  creatures  and  sea  monsters,  all  with 
a  power  of  evolution,  for  the  waters  bring 
forth  after  their  kind,  and  every  winged  fowl 
after  his  kind,  and  are  enjoined  to  multiply 
and  -fill  the  waters  in  the  sea  and  the  earth. 
A  sixth  day  dawns,  and  we  see  reptiles  and 
beasts,  all  after  their  kind ;  and  in  this  epoch 
appears  a  nobler  creature  made  after  the 
image  of  God,  and  with  the  command  to 
be  fruitful  and  multiply  and  replenish  the 
earth.  This  was  the  special  work  of  Elo- 
him,  the  one  God  with  a  plural  nature,  who, 
on  finishing  the  creation,  leaves  the  living 


McCOSH :  RELIGIOUS  ASPECTS  OF  THE  DOCTEIXE  OF  DEVELOPMENT.  265 


creatures  to  develop  by  the  powers  with 
which  he  has  endowed  them. 

Another  vision  joins  on,  and  we  have  not 
Elohim,  but  the  Lord  Jehovah,  the  lawgiver, 
the  covenant-maker ;  and  we  have  exhibited 
to  us  the  relation  in  which  man  stands  to 
him.  Man  is  represented  as  formed  out  of 
the  dust  of  the  ground,  but  "with  a  divine 
breath  breathed  into  him ;  he  is  put  under 
law,  with  a  promise  of  life  and  a  threatening 
of  death.  We  now  come  to  the  most  myste- 
rious of  all  the  records.  A  tempter,  indi- 
cating an  earlier  fall,  suddenly  intrudes,  and 
he  uses  the  beast  of  the  field  and  the  lower 
passions  as  his  instruments ;  and  henceforth 
man  exhibits  devilish  propensities  of  pride 
and  rebellion,  on  the  one  hand,  and  animal 
propensities  of  appetite  and  lust  on  the  oth- 
er ;  and  there  is  sin  propagating  itself,  act- 
ual sin  developing  from  original  sin  as  a 
seed,  and  man  driven  into  a  world  where  are 
thorns  and  thistles ;  and  the  multiplication 
of  the  race  is  with  sorrow,  and  man  has  to 
earn  his  bread  with  the  sweat  of  his  face, 
aud  his  body  has  to  return  to  the  dust  from 
which  it  was  taken. 

There  now  appears  a  figure  with  an  in- 
scription containing  the  whole  history  of 
mankind  in  epitome.  You  see  a  Being  pos- 
sessed evidently  of  superhuman  power,  but 
with  a  truly  human  nature,  having  his  heel 
bitten  by  a  serpent,  on  whoso  head  he  sets 
his  foot  and  crushes  it  forever.  The  attached 
Avriting  is, "  I  will  put  enmity  between  thee 
and  the  woman,  and  between  thy  seed  aud 
her  seed ;  it  shall  bruise  thy  head,  and  thou 
shalt  bruise  his  heel."  Henceforth  there  are 
two  seeds,  and  each  develops  after  its  kind, 
aud  they  contend  and  must  contend  till  the 
good  gains  the  victory.  A  seed — not  seeds, 
as  of  many,  but  seed,  as  of  one — is  developed 
from  the  woman,  but  by  a  heavenly  power, 
the  Holy  Ghost,  who  brought  form  out  of  the 
formless  at  creation ;  and  this  personage  is 
represented  as  suffering,  as  having  his  heel 
bruised,  and  in  his  suffering  destroying  the 
power  of  evil.  Henceforth  our  world  is  a 
scene  of  contest.  Man  is  warring  with  the 
unwilling  soil,  with  privation,  disappoint- 
ment, loss,  disease,  and  death ;  one  man  con- 
tending Avith  another  because  of  conflicting 
interests  and  passions ;  one  race  and  nation 
fighting  with  another ;  and  a  large  portion 
of  human  history  is  a  history  of  Avar.  To 
restrain  excessive  wickedness  the  earth  is 
visited  with  a  flood — as  geologists  tell  us  it 
had  often  been  before — but  animal  pairs  are 
preserved  to  continue  the  races,  and  the  rain- 
bow is  made  to  give  assurance  to  the  terri- 
fied fathers  that  waters  will  no  more  cover 
the  earth.  The  purpose  of  God  is  fulfilled 
in  the  scattering  of  men ;  but  the  people, 
whereA'er  they  go,  propagate  the  evil,  and 
change  the  incorruptible  God  into  an  image 
made  like  to  corruptible  man,  aud  "  to  birds, 
and  four-footed  beasts,  and  creeping  things." 


To  preserve  a  seed  who  may  know  the  truth, 
a  special  man  and  a  special  seed  is  set  apart. 
Out  of  this  seed  comes  the  father  both  of 
history  and  poetry,  who,  in  language  of  un- 
surpassed simplicity  and  grandeur,  has  de- 
scribed creation,  and  written  the  inflexible 
law  in  the  granite  of  Sinai,  and,  himself  a 
prophet,  spoken  of  a  greater  Prophet  to  come. 
Their  greatest  poet,  himself  a  great  warrior, 
portrays  the  contest  between  the  good  and 
the  evil  going  on  in  the  world  in  -warlike 
imagery ;  and,  feeling  that  he  himself  is  not 
the  man  to  build  the  spiritual  temple,  be- 
cause his  hands  haA'e  been  imbrued  in  blood, 
points  ever  to  a  King  who  "  in  his  majesty 
rides  prosperously  because  of  truth,  meek- 
ness, and  righteousness."  There  follows  a 
succession  of  prophets,  each  with  his  vision 
and  his  parable ;  and  the  grandest  of  them, 
whose  sentences  flow  like  a  river  descending 
from  the  heights  of  heaAren  to  Avater  the 
plains  of  earth,  speaks  of  him  as  wounded, 
bruised,  dying,  and  in  the  grave,  but  seeing 
the  fruit  of  the  travail  of  his  soul,  and  ex- 
tending-his  dominion  till  it  covers  the  whole 
earth  as  the  waters  do  the  channel  of  the 
sea.  Contemporaneous  with  these  we  have 
typical  personages  —  prophets,  priests,  and 
kings — with  their  faces  shining  with  light 
as  they  look  forward  to  One  suspended 
on  the  cross,  and  beyond  to  the  throne  of 
God.  In  the  middle  of  the  ages  that  great 
person  appears,  passing  through  suffering  to 
conquest,  fighting  with  sin  and  subduing  it, 
connecting  heaven  and  earth  as  by  a  ladder, 
and  as  a  rainbow  spanning  the  world. 

Beyond  the  central  figure  a  new  life  ap- 
pears. God  comes  forth  as  creator  the  first 
time  since  he  rested  after  creating  the  heaA-- 
ens  aud  the  earth.  Just  as  in  the  prehis- 
toric ages  there  had  appeared  a  plant  life, 
and  an  animal  life,  and  an  intellectual  life, 
aud  a  moral  life,  so  noAV  we  haA~e  a  spirit- 
ual life — it  is  the  dispensation  of  the  Spirit. 
Those  who  haAre  sat  for  ages  in  darkness  IIOAV 
see  a  great  light.  A  neAv  people  come  forth, 
not  dAvelling  in  a  separate  locality,  but  scat- 
tered among  all  people,  like  salt  to  preserve, 
like  seed  to  propagate  the  life  all  over  the 
world.  With  that  spiritual  life  come  oth- 
er forms  of  good,  such  as  art,  and  civiliza- 
tion, and  Avideniug  comforts,  and  the  cul- 
tivation of  the  intellect,  and  the  refining  of 
the  feelings.  But  the  soil  has  still  to  be 
plowed  and  harrowed  in  order  to  yield  seed 
and  fruit ;  the  spiritual  forces  haA'e  to  meet 
and  OA'ercome  obstacles ;  and  CArery  good 
cause  before  it  succeeds  has  to  produce  a 
martyr,  out  of  whose  ashes  a  UCAV  life  pro- 
ceeds. Not  only  so,  but  there  is  a  contest  in 
eA*cry  heart ;  "  the  flesh  lusteth  against  the 
spirit,  and  the  spirit  against  the  flesh,  and 
these  are  contrary  the  one  to  the  other." 
The  cause  moves  on,  as  the  light  comes  from 
the  sun  in  vibrations,  as  the  tides  come  up 
upon  the  land — advancing  and  receding ;  but 


266 


CHRISTIANITY  AND  ITS  ANTAGONISMS. 


on  the  whole  advancing.  In  the  last  sym- 
bolic book  we  hear  a  succession  of  trumpets 
sounding  to  call  men  to  the  battle,  and  see 
vials  poured  out  to  destroy  the  seeds  of  evil 
and  purify  the  atmosphere.  Many  pass  to 
and  fro,  and  knowledge  is  increased ;  agen- 
cies for  good  are  multiplied,  and  the  king- 
dom extends  till  it  spreads  over  the  whole 
earth,  which  has  rest  for  a  thousand  years — 
we  may  suppose  a  day  for  a  year.  Beyond 
this  the  vision  becomes  dim  from  the  dis- 
tance, but  we  see  the  old  adversary  loosed 
for  a  little  while,  and  the  earth  burned  with 
fire,  and  the  dazzling  bright  throne  of  judg- 
ment set  up,  and  the  God-man  upon  it,  and 
every  one  giving  an  account  of  the  deeds 
done  in  the  body,  whether  they  have  been 
good  or  whether  they  have  been  evil ;  and 
then  a  separation — these  descending  by  their 
own  weight  into  their  own  place  of  black- 
ness, and  those  carried  up  to  heaven  by  their 
attraction  to  God,  where  they  join  in  the 
song, "  Salvation  to  our  God  that  sitteth  on 
the  throne,  and  to  the  Lamb." 

II.  The  Scientific  Side.  —  Here,  as  on  the 
other  side,  we  have  a  body  of  men  busily 
employed  in  drawing  figures  and  carving 
inscriptions,  all  to  throw  light  on  the  past 
and  present  of  our  world.  They  are  left  to 
their  native  powers,  and  have  to  work  by 
observation ;  they  are  not  kept  from  error 
by  any  special  guidance,  and  much,  that  they 
write  is  laid  in  colors  which  fade,  or  in  false 
colors,  which  require  to  be  blotted  out  by 
those  who  come  after.  Still  much  remains, 
and  shall  remain  forever,  chiseled  in  the  rock 
and  never  to  be  effaced,  and  this  is  growing 
and  accumulating. 

We  have,  first, lawgivers,  who,  finding  that 
men  are  prone  to  evil,  have  proclaimed  laws 
more  or  less  perfect  to  secure  obedience. 
Then  there  are  moralists,  from  Socrates 
downward,  inscribing  on  that  wall  what 
they  have  found  written  on  their  hearts,  and 
which  they  regard,  if  only  they  read  it 
aright,  as  a  transcript  of  the  holy  nature  and 
the  supreme  will  of  God.  Alongside  of  them 
you  may  notice  the  broad-browed  philoso- 
phers, from  Plato  and  Aristotle  on  ward,  spec- 
ulating on  fate  and  chance,  and  the  relation 
of  the  universe  to  God,  and  demonstrating 
that  man's  soul  has  a  conscious  unity  and 
personality  of  which  it  can  never  be  de- 
prived. The  next  group  consists  of  histori- 
ans, who  have  given  us  lively  narratives 
of  the  great  deeds  of  our  world,  of  the  sacri- 
fices which  men  have  made  for  kindred  and 
for  country,  but  who  have  also  to  record 
enormous  crimes,  political  feuds,  and  wars 
which  have  deluged  the  earth  with  blood. 
Next  and  more  influential  are  those  who  ex- 
press popular  feeling,  and  have  told  what 
this  world  of  men  and  women  is,  and  have 
enshrined  their  thoughts  in  v«rse,  that  they 
may  be  caught  more  easily  and  remembered 
longer.  Let  us  notice  the  topics  of  which 


they  treat.  The  oldest  of  them,  never  sur- 
passed for  natural  strength,  has  sung  of  the 
wrath  of  Achilles,  and  the  evil  thus  wrought. 
Another,  full. of  grace,  has  sung  of  arms,  and 
of  a  hero  fleeing  from  a  burning  city,  and 
crossing  a  stormy  sea  to  found  an  empire. 
In  a  later  age  we  see  one,  who,  though 
blind,  has  seen  further  than  other  men,  and 
has  painted  demoniacal  pride,  Paradise  Lost 
and  Paradise  Hegained.  Another  hand  has 
taken  the  lyre,  and,  with  old  Horace  and 
modern  songsters  and  satirists,  has  delinea- 
ted the  loves  and  the  hatreds,  the  hopes  and 
disappointments,  the  joys  and  sorrows,  the 
aspirations  and  foibles,  which  agitate  men's 
bosoms.  A  third  class,  led  by  our  high- 
browed  dramatist,  have  exhibited  on  a  stage 
what  they  believe  to  be  the  swaying  motives 
of  rich  and  poor,  and  have  let  us  into  the  se- 
crets of  the  working  of  ambition,  passion, 
jealousy,  pride,  vanity,  envy,  revenge,  ca- 
price, fear,  despair.  The  poet  of  the  com- 
mon people,  in  describing  their  joys,  often 
sensual  and  mad,  comes  to  the  conclusion 
that  "  man  is  made  to  mourn."  Romancers 
in  these  late  years  are  taking  up  the  same 
work,  and  are  spinning  tales  which  exhibit 
the  strength  and  weakness  of  our  nature — 
yearning  affections,  blighted  hopes,  cruel  be- 
trayals— illustrated  by  seduction  and  mur- 
der. All  of  these  artists  describe  this  earth 
as  a  strangely  mixed  scene,  with  hills  and 
hollows,  with  lakes  sleeping  in  visible  re- 
pose or  rent  by  storms,  with  peaceful  valleys 
and  terrible  gullies,  with  streams  flowing 
gently  and  then  pouring  over  fearful  cata- 
racts, with  an  ocean  now  inviting  us  to  re- 
pose on  its  bosom,  and  anon  tossing  off  men 
and  vessels  like  seaweed. 

But  let  us  specially  look  at  the  grand 
truths  inscribed  by  the  expounders  of  sci- 
ence, as  you  see  them  there  with  their  in- 
struments for  weighing  and  measuring,  and 
their  laborious  calculations.  On  the  relig- 
ious side  every  thing  was  ascribed  to  God, 
proceeding  orderly :  "  Thou  hast  established 
the  earth  and  it  abideth.  They  continue 
this  day  according  to  thine  ordinances ;  for 
all  are  thy  servants."  A  somewhat  different 
but  not  inconsistent  view  is  given  of  the 
same  objects  on  the  scientific  side,  where 
every  thing  is  ascribed  to  what  is  called  Law, 
which,  however,  when  properly  understood, 
implies  a  lawgiver.  So  these  men,  conscious- 
ly or  unconsciously,  are  unfolding  to  our 
view  the  plan  of  the  great  Creator.  On  this 
side  of  the  hall  of  science  you  see  inscribed, 
first,  mathematical  figures,  such  as  squares, 
triangles,  circles,  spirals,  and  other  sections  of 
the  cone,  and  it  turns  out  that  these  regulate 
the  forms  and  movements  of  objects  in  the 
heavens  and  in  the  earth,  and  are  made  to  do 
so  by  a  God  who,  as  Plato  says,  geometrizes. 
Then  you  see  science  investigating  inani- 
mate nature,  and  showing  that  all  the  phys- 
ical forces  are  modifications  of  one  and  the 


McCOSH:  RELIGIOUS  ASPECTS  OF  THE  DOCTRINE  OF  DEVELOPMENT.  2G7 


same  force.  Now  it  is  seeking  to  discover 
the  order  and  progression  of  animated  be- 
ings, of  plants  and  animals.  It  has  shown 
that  there  are  geological  epochs :  first  an 
azoic  period;  then  plants,  marine  and  ter- 
restrial ;  then  the  lower  creatures  with  ani- 
mal life ;  then  fishes,  fowls,  reptiles,  quad- 
rupeds ;  and,  finally,  man. 

In  looking  at  these  phenomena,  men  dis- 
cover every  where  development  or  evolution. 
It  appears  in  inanimate  nature  —  in  suns, 
planets,  and  moons  being  evolved  out  of  an 
original  matter,  in  a  way  which  implies  that 
the  earth  is  older  than  the  sun,  and  must 
have  existed  for  ages,  and  had  light  shining 
upon  it  before  the  sun  took  his  solid  form. 
It  is  a  characteristic  of  organized  beings  to 
produce  others  after  their  kind.  Those  who 
view  development  in  the  proper  light  see  in 
it  only  a  form  or  manifestation  of  law.  Grav- 
itation is  a  law  of  contemporaneous  nature 
extending  over  all  bodies  simultaneously — 
over  sun,  moon,  and  stars  the  most  remote. 
Development  is  a  law  of  successive  nature, 
and  secures  a  connection  between  the  past 
and  the  present,  and  I  may  add  the  future, 
securing  a  unity,  and  it  may  be  a  progres- 
sion, from  age  to  age.  It  is  merely  an  ex- 
hibition of  order  running  through  successive 
ages,  as  the  other  is  of  order  running  through 
coexisting  objects. 

But  at  this  point  difficulties  and  disputes 
arise.  Is  development  so  restricted  that  the 
plant  and  animal  produces  an  offspring  only 
after  its  kind:  the  lichen  producing  only 
the  lichen,  and  the  lily  only  the  lily,  and  the 
oak  only  the  oak,  and  the  worm  only  the 
worm,  and  the  bee  only  the  bee,  and  the 
horse  only  the  horse.  Or  may  not  develop- 
ment be  so  extended  as  to  imply,  in  new  cir- 
cumstances and  under  new  conditions,  a 
modification  of  kinds,  that  is,  new  species, 
and  an  advance  from  age  to  age  from  lower 
to  higher  forms.  Some  maintain  that  there 
is  no  power  in  nature  to  change  species,  and 
that  when  a  new  species  appears  it  must  be 
by  an  immediate  fiat  of  God  acting  inde- 
pendently of  all  natural  agents.  Others  hold 
that  there  may  be  powers  in  nature — relig- 
ious men  say  conferred  by  God — which  grad- 
ually raise  species  into  higher  forms  by  ag- 
gregation and  selection.  I  am  not  sure  that 
religion  has  any  interest  in  holding  abso- 
lutely by  the  one  side  or  other  of  this  ques- 
tion, which  it  is  for  scientific  men  to  settle. 
I  am  not  sure  that  religion  is  entitled  to  in- 
sist that  every  species  of  insect  has  been 
created  by  a  special  fiat  of  God,  with  no  sec- 
ondary agent  employed. 

But  in  prosecuting  these  investigations 
science  comes  to  walls  of  adamant,  which 
will  not  fall  down  at  its  command,  and 
which,  if  it  tries  to  break  through,  will  only 
prostrate  it,  and  cause  it  to  exhibit  its  weak- 
ness before  the  world.  (1)  It  can  not  de- 
velop without  a  matter  to  develop  from,  and 


it  can  not  tell  where  this  original  matter 
came  from.  This  matter  must  have  proper- 
ties: what  are  these  properties?  and  whence? 
The  impression  left  by  the  statement  of 
some  is  that,  if  we  only  had  this  original 
matter,  every  thing  else  could  be  account- 
ed for  by  evolution.  But  (2)  we  can  not, 
apart  from  a  designing  mind,  account  for 
that  combination,  that  organization  of  agen- 
cies—  mechanical,  electrical,  chemical,  vi- 
tal —  which  produces  development.  (3)  It 
can  not  say  how  animal  sensation  or  feeling 
came  in.  (4)  It  can  not  tell  when  or  how 
instinct  came  in,  how  or  when  intelligence 
appeared,  and  affection  and  pity  and  love, 
and  the  discernment  of  good  and  evil.  (5) 
In  particular,  it  can  not  render  any  account 
of  the  production  of  man's  higher  endow- 
ments, his  powers  of  abstracting,  generaliz- 
ing, and  reasoning,  from  the  individual  ob- 
jects presented  to  him,  of  discovering  neces- 
sary truth,  and  the  obligation  of  virtue. 
Science  has  not  found  these  in  the  star-dust, 
nor  were  they  in  the  ascidian,  the  fish,  the 
monkey :  how,  then,  did  man  get  them,  or, 
rather,  whence  came  man  as  possessed  of 
them.  Science,  at  all  these  places,  comes  to 
chasms  which  it  can  not  fill  up.  It  has  no 
facts  whatever  to  support  its  theories,  and 
is  obliged  to  acknowledge  that  it  has  none; 
and  as  to  the  hypotheses  which  it  calls  in, 
they  do  not  even  seem  to  explain  the  essen- 
tial facts,  the  appearance  of  new  powers  or 
agencies  not  known  to  be  at  work  before. 

But  meanwhile,  and  as  it  is  poring  into 
these  things,  it  is  obliged  to  look  at  a  set  of 
phenomena  unknown  to  or  overlooked  by 
the  older  physicists  and  naturalists;  has, 
as  it  looks  to  animated  beings,  come  in  view 
of  a  conflict  of  which  it  can  give  no  account, 
and  of  a  manifest  evil.  It  speaks  of  worlds 
coming  out  of  star-dust,  of  worlds  shattered 
into  fragments,  and  their  materials  scattered 
into  space ;  and  in  regard  to  our  earth,  of 
upheavals,  of  sinkings  of  laud,  and  the  sub- 
mergence of  all  living  beings  on  it ;  of  floods, 
of  denudations,  of  volcanoes,  of  icebergs,  and 
long  periods  of  shivering  cold.  All  these 
might  not  be  evils,  but  then  it  speaks  of  what 
is  and  must  be  an  evil — of  the  existence  of 
pain.  When  living  beings  appear,  it  can  not 
tell  how,  it  is  obliged  to  speak  of  a  struggle 
for  existence,  the  stronger  devouring  the 
weaker,  and  innumerable  diseases  preying  on 
the  animal  frame,  of  individuals  dying,  and 
races  perishing  from  want  of  sustenance  or 
amid  overwhelming  convulsions.  When  man 
appears,  it  can  not  tell  how,  but  on  a  scene 
evidently  prepared  for  him,  ho  carries  the 
seeds  of  disease  in  his  very  person,  and  he 
has  to  suffer  pain  of  body  and  torture  of 
mind.  Around  him  are  storms  to  destroy 
and  disappointments  crossing  his  path,  and 
within  are  selfishness  and  craving  lusts  and 
repiniugs  and  passions,  which  war  against 
each  other,  and  war  against  the  soul. 


268 


CHRISTIANITY  AND  ITS  ANTAGONISMS. 


True,  there  arc  in  all  these  objects  law 
ami  order  and  beneficence, obvious  and  press- 
ing itself  on  the  notice.  Forces,  blind  in 
themselves,  are  made  by  their  combination 
to  produce  the  most  perfect  mathematical 
figures.  Beauty  appears  every  where — iu 
sky  and  earth,  in  planet  and  plant.  Every 
organ  of  the  animal  frame  is  good  in  itself, 
and  liable  to  accomplish  its  evident  pur- 
pose. There  is  order  in  star  and  sun  and 
earth,  but  order  coming  out  of  disorder.'  It 
is  beauty  iu  flower,  in  young  man  and  maid- 
en coming  out  of  dust  and  returning  to  dust; 
wo  see  it  in  that  foliage,  so  beautiful  even 
when  it  is  fading ;  does  not  the  father  feel 
it  when  he  commits  the  body  of  his  son  to 
the  grave,  "dust  to  dust,  ashes  to  ashes." 
Man  has  high  aspirations,  but  it  is  only  to 
feel  how  far  he  falls  beneath  them.  All  these 
are  facts  —  quite  as  much  so  as  the  move- 
ments of  the  planets  in  elliptic  orbits,  as 
the  laws  of  development  in  the  vegetable 
and  animal  kingdoms.  The  proudest  think- 
ers, as  they  are  brought  face  to  face  with 
these  facts,  are  obliged  to  acknowledge  that 
they  can  not  discover  a  final  cause  in  many 
of  the  most  common  agents  of  nature ;  as, 
for  instance,  in  the  derangement  to  which 
every  organ  of  the  frame  is  liable,  and  in  the 
parasites  which  dwell  iu  and  feed  on  the 
bodies  of  all  our  noblest  animals.  The  mi- 
croscope shows  us  how  exquisitely  they  are 
formed,  but  all  to  inflict  the  more  excrucia- 
ting pain.  We  may  apologize  for  some  of 
these  things,  but  we  can  not  explain  them — 
for  instance,  the  existence  of  incurable  sor- 
row and  madness.  Physiologists  know  that 
the  organs  of  the  body — the  eye,  the  stomach, 
the  liver,  the  brain — might  have  been  so  con- 
structed as  not  to  be  liable  to  disease  and 
pain,  to  which  they  are  exposed,  not  by  ac- 
cident, but  by  their  very  nature  and  struct- 
ure. Combined  science,  as  it  looks  into  the 
future,  is  obliged  to  tell  us  that  the  world 
and  all  that  is  therein  shall  first  have  its 
heat  exhausted,  and  then,  in  the  disintegra- 
tion, shall  be  burned  with  fire ;  and  what  the 
new  order  of  things  to  issue  out  of  this  ele- 
mental fire  it  can  not  tell. 

Now  this  is,  in  fact,  the  sum  of  what  sci- 
ence has  been  able  to  say  abont  our  world : 
Our  cosmos  rises  out  of  dust,  is  formed  into 
beautiful  shapes  by  warriug  powers,  be- 
comes order  and  progressive  order,  and  ends 
iu  dissolving  heat.  Our  earth  comes  out  of 
a  cloud  and  ends  in  a  conflagration.  The 
highest  being,  as  he  enters  it,  makes  known 
his  presence  by  a  cry,  and  ends  his  march 
through  it  in  the  grave.  Surely  iu  all  this, 
while  there  is  much  in  the  evident  order  and 
beneficence  to  elevate,  there  is  not  a  little 
to  awe  and  to  humble  us.  The  profoundest 
thinkers  feel  that  they  have  come  here  to 
an  -unknown  power  behind  and  beneath 
all,  and  are  impelled  under  a  choking  feel- 
ing to  cry  ont,  like  the  dying  Goethe,  for 


light,  and  for  windows  to  be  opened  to  let 
it  in. 

Meanwhile  that  other  and  higher  law,  the 
moral  law — the  law  written  on  the  heart — 
has  something  very  important  to  utter,  and  it 
pronounces  it  in  the  name  of  God,  the  law- 
giver. It  affirms  of  itself  that  it  is  unbend- 
ing as  stone,  and  yet  finds  that  man  has 
broken  it.  It  points  emphatically  to  a  judg- 
ment to  come  —  it  can  not  say  wrhere  or 
when,  but  certain  to  come  —  as  certain  as 
that  there  is  a  law,  an  eternal  law,  and  a 
God  to  guard  it.  The  scene  closes  with  each 
one  placed  before  that  bar  to  give  an  ac- 
count of  the  deeds  done  in  the  body,  whether 
they  have  been  good,  or  whether  they  have 
been  evil ;  and  there  it  leaves  him,  in  the 
midst  of  the  conflagration  of  worlds,  with 
undying  matter  taking  new  shapes,  and  a 
soul — certainly  as  undying  as  that  matter — 
ready  to  be  consigned  to  its  own  place  of 
light  or  of  darkness. 

III.  Having  taken  a  cursory  glance  at  each 
of  the  sides  of  this  rock-cut  gallery,  let  us 
now  look  back  upon  the  two.  We  see  in  a 
general  way  that  there  is  a  correspondence 
between  them.  In  both  wo  have  moral  law 
set  forth — in  the  one  by  the  conscience,  in 
the  other  by  the  commands  and  prohibitions 
in  Eden,  by  the  tables  of  stone  on  Mount 
Sinai,  and  by  the  Sermon  on  the  Mount  in 
the  New  Testament.  But  there  is  this  im- 
portant difference :  the  one  tells  us  that  the 
law  has  been  broken,  and  in  proof  points  to 
the  wickedness  in  the  world,  and  the  guilty 
remorse  which  agitates  men's  bosoms,  but 
reveals  no  way  by  which  the  sin  can  be  for- 
given ;  whereas  the  other,  while  it  declares 
that  sin  has  been  committed,  clearly  makes 
known  a  way  by  which  the  sinner  may  be 
reconciled  to  God.  Both  reveal  order  in  the 
world :  the  one  as  appointed  by  God ;  the  other 
as  discovered  by  man.  In  both  we  have  pro- 
gression in  the  divine  workmanship,  and  the 
order,  as  Dr.  Gnyot  has  shown,  is  very  much 
the  same.  The  Bible  says  that  after  man 
was  made  God  rested  from  creation,  and  Dr. 
Dana  assures  us  that  since  man  appeared  ge- 
ology does  not  disclose  a  single  new  species 
of  plant  or  animal.  It  is  surely  a  curious  cir- 
cumstance that  this  picture  of  the  formation 
of  our  earth  was  drawn  upward  of  three 
thousand  years  before  geology  started,  and 
has  continued  unchanged  amid  the  shiftings 
of  science.  The  inspired  record  tells  us,  what 
anthropology  confirms,  that  man  has  a  two- 
fold nature — a  body  formed  out  of  the  dust 
of  the  ground,  and  a  spirit  after  the  image 
of  God  breathed  into  him.  Nor  is  there  any 
contradiction  as  to  chronology.  For,  first, 
geology  has  no  clock  to  tell  us  the  time — 
what  it  reveals  is  not  absolute,  but  relative. 
It  tells  us  that  a  certain  epoch  must  have 
been  before  another  epoch ;  but  its  deduc- 
tions are  very  uncertain  as  to  how  far  back 
any  one  epoch — say  the  glacial  epoch — car- 


McCOSH:  RELIGIOUS  ASPECTS  OF  THE  DOCTRINE  OF  DEVELOPMENT.  269 


ties  us.  These  uncertainties  have  been  in- 
creased by  the  discoveries  lately  made  by 
Dr.  Wyville  Thomson  and  Dr.  Carpenter,  of 
creatures  now  living  in  the  deep  seas  which 
geologists,  if  they  had  found  them  as  fossils, 
would  at  once  have  ascribed  to  a  much  ear- 
lier epoch.  And  as  to  Scripture,  it  contains 
no  inspired  chronology  of  early '  history : 
what  passes  as  such  is  drawn  out  of  Bible 
genealogies  by  fallible  men,  and  drawn  out 
of  imperfect  data,  for  Jewish  scholars  tell 
us  that  these  genealogies  were  never  under- 
stood as  being  complete ;  and  the  genealo- 
gies, when  summed  up,  give  us  in  the  He- 
brew text,  1656  years  between  the  Creation 
and  the  Flood,  whereas  the  Septuagint  gives 
us  2262  years,  and  the  Samaritan  text  only 
1307  years. 

At  this  stage  the  Scriptural  record  opens 
a  new  and  strange  phenomenon  to  appear  in 
the  universe  of  God :  it  furnishes  a  glimpse 
of  an  early  rebellion ;  for  one  comes  on  the 
scene  to  tempt  the  first  human  pair.  At  the 
corresponding  period  science  gives  intima- 
tions of  a  struggle  in  which  we  see  warring 
elements,  and  a  gradual  evolution  of  planets 
and  satellites,  the  sun  consolidated  into  a 
centre,  and  capable  of  being  seen  from  the 
earth ;  and  when  living  beings  appear — sci- 
ence can  not  tell  how — we  fiud  animals  de- 
vouring one  another:  the  strong,  with  their 
terrible  fangs  and  jaws,  prevailing ;  the  weak 
disappearing  through,  disease  and  death,  ac- 
companied with  brute  passion  and  pain. 
History  and  biography  come  in  to  tell  us 
how  much  of  human  activity  has  been  spent 
in  feuds  among  individual  families  and  na- 
tions. Poetry  and,  at  a  later  date,  romance 
take  up  the  theme,  and  they  delineate  the 
hopes  and  fears  and  pas'sions  of  our  nature, 
and  our  bosoms  beat  responsive  to  their  de- 
scriptions. We  feel  that  the  Scriptures 
speak  profoundly  and  truly  when  they  say : 
"  For  the  earnest  expectation  of  the  creature 
(or  creation)  waiteth  for  the.  manifestation 
of  the  sons  of  God.  For  the  creature  was 
made  subject  to  vanity,  not  willingly,  but  by 
reason  of  him  who  hath  subjected  the  same 
in  hope.  Because  the  creature  itself  also 
shall  be  delivered  from  the  bondage  of  cor- 
ruption into  the  glorious  liberty  of  the  chil- 
dren of  God,  for  we  kuow  that  the  whole 
creation  (creature)  groaneth  in  pain  togeth- 
er until  now"  (Roin.viii.,  19-22).  The  same 
apostle  describes  the  internal  struggle  (Rom. 
vii.,  14-20) :  "  To  will  is  present  with  me ; 
but  how  to  perform  that  which  is  good  I 
find  not." 

Our  world  is  not  what  some  describe  it. 
It  is  not  what  the  rationalist  would  have  it 
— a  peaceful  landscape,  with  nothing  but  or- 
der and  beauty.  It  forces  upon  our  observa- 
tion scenes  which  the  expounders  of  natural 
theology  —  and  your  Unitarians,  who,  dis- 
carding inspiration,  would  fall  back  on  nat- 
ural religion — are  unwilling  to  look  at ;  and 


the  opponents  of  religion,  natural  and  re- 
vealed, are  right  when  they  say  that  it  is 
difficult  or  impossible  to  discover  final  cause 
in  every  thing  —  in  the  liability  of  every 
member  of  the  body  to  disease,  in  pain  often 
amounting  to  anguish,  in  sorrow  which  re- 
fuses to  be  comforted,  in  despair  issuing  in 
suicide.  The  last  of  the  great  series  of  Ger- 
man speculators,  which  began  with  Leibnitz 
and  was  continued  by  Kant  and  Hegel,  ter- 
minated with  Schopenhauer  and  Hartmann, 
who  have  dwelt  on  the  natural  evils  of  terri- 
ble power  and  prevalence  found  every  where 
in  the  world ;  and  the  speculative  philosophy 
which  began  with  optimism  has  ended  with 
pessimism,  audaciously  avowed  and  gaining 
not  a  few  followers.  The  great  living  spec- 
ulator of  England,  belonging  to  a  very  differ- 
ent school — to  that  of  observation — main- 
tains that  this  world  gives  evidence  of  noth- 
ing beyond  itself,  except  a  great  unknown 
out  of  which  all  things  have  come.  Nor 
is  our  world  what  the  sentimentalist  dreams 
of,  all  sunshine  and  hope — all  gratification, 
and  gayety.  We  live  in  a  world  where  "  day 
and  night  alternate ;"  where  the  evening 
and  the  morning  constitute  the  first  day,  and 
the  second  day,  and  so  on ;  where  every  man 
goes  accompanied  with  his  shadow,  which 
he  can  not  leave  behind  nor  overleap ;  and 
every  one,  sooner  or  later,  will  have  to  taste 
of  bereavements,  ingratitude,  ill  usage,  and 
carries  within  him  a  fire  of  fear,  lust,  and 
envy,  ready  to  burst  into  a  conflagration  and 
burn  up  the  soul,  as  fire  is  to  burn  up  our 
world.  Look  now  at  this  picture  and  now 
at  that,  and  say  whether  they  do  not  answer 
as  face  auswereth  to  face  in  a  glass,  differ- 
ing from  each  other  only  as  one  twin  broth- 
er differeth  from  another. 

All  that  science  has  demonstrated,  all  that 
theism  has  argued,  of  the  order,  of  the  final 
cause  and  benevolent  purpose  in  the  world 
is  true,  and  can  not  be  set  aside.  Every  nat- 
ural law — mechanical,  chemical,  and  vital — 
is  good.  Every  organ  of  the  body,  when  free 
from  disease,  is  good.  There  is  certainly  the 
most  exquisite  adaptation  in  the  eye,  how- 
ever we  may  account  for  its  formation,  and 
for  the  numerous  diseases  which  seize  upon 
it.  Agassiz  has  shown,  by  an  induction  of 
facts  reaching  over  the  whole  history  of  the 
animal  kingdom,  that  there  is  plan  in  the 
succession  of  organic  life.  "  It  has  the  cor- 
respondence of  connected  plan.  It  is  just 
that  kind  of  resemblance  in  the  parts — so 
much  and  no  more — as  always  characterizes 
intellectual  work  proceeding  from  the  same 
source.  It  has  that  freedom  of  manifesta- 
tion, that  independence,  which  characterizes 
the  work  of  mind,  as  compared  with  the 
work  of  law.  Sometimes  in  looking  at  the 
epos  of  organic  life  in  its  totality,  carried 
on  with  such  care  and  variety,  and  even 
playfulness  of  expression,  one  is  reminded  of 
the  great  conception  of  the  poet  or  musician, 


270 


CHRISTIANITY  AND  ITS  ANTAGONISMS. 


where  the  undertone  of  the  fundamental 
harmony  is  heard  beneath  all  the  diversity 
of  rhythm  or  song."  All  this  is  true,  but  all 
this  is  not  all  the  truth.  What  the  older 
scientific  men  did  not  see — what  Newton  did 
not  see,  as  ho  looked  to  the  perfect  order  of 
the  heavens — what  Cuvier  did  not  see,  when 
he  dwelt  so  fondly  on  the  teleology  seen  in 
every  part  of  the  animal  structure — what 
Paley  did  not  see,  when  he  pointed  out  the 
design  in  every  bone,  in  every  joint  and 
muscle — what  Chalmers  did  not  see,  when 
in  his  astronomical  discourses  he  sought  to 
reconcile  the  perfection  of  the  heavens  with 
the  need  of  God's  providing  a  Saviour  for 
men — has  been  forced  on  our  notice,  as  nat- 
uralists have  been  searching  into  animal  life, 
with  its  struggles  and  its  sufferings.  There 
is  order  in  our  world,  but  it  is  order  subor- 
dinating conflicting  powers.  There  is  good- 
ness— but  goodness  overcoming  evil.  There 
is  progression — but  progression  like  that  of 
the  ship  on  the  ocean,  amid  winds  and 
waves.  There  is  the  certainty  of  peace — 
but  after  a  battle  and  a  victory.  There 
may  be  seen  every  where  an  overruling  pow- 
er in  bringing  good  out  of  evil ;  so  that 
Schopenhauer,  in  noticing  the  evil,  has  no- 
ticed only  a  part,  and  this  only  a  subordi- 
nate part  of  the  whole — and  this  to  be  ulti- 
mately swallowed  up. 

While  they  have  seen  the  phenomenon, 
these  men  have  not  known  what  to  make  of 
it.  It  is  useless  to  tell  the  younger  natural- 
ists that  there  is  no  truth  iu  the  doctrine  of 
development,  for  they  know  that  there  is 
truth,  which  is  not  to  be  set  aside  by  denun- 
ciation. Religious  philosophers  might  be 
more  profitably  employed  in  showing  them 
the  religious  aspects  of  the  doctrine  of  de- 
velopment ;  and  some  would  be  grateful  to 
any  who  would  help  them  to  keep  their  old 
faith  in  God  and  the  Bible  with  their  new 
faith  in  science.  But  we  must  at  the  same 
time  point  out  the  necessary  limits  of  the 
doctrine,  and  rebuke  those  unwise  because 
conceited  men  who,  when  they  have  made 
a  few  observations  iu  one  department  of 
physical  nature,  being  commonly  profound- 
ly ignorant  of  every  other — particularly  of 
mental  and  moral  science  —  imagine  that 
they  can  explain  every  thing  by  the  one  law 
of  evolution.  Bnt  there  is  a  large  and  im- 
portant body  of  facts  which  these  hypoth- 
eses can  not  cover.  Development  implies 
an  original  matter  with  high  endowments. 
Whence  the  original  matter  ?  It  is  acknowl- 
edged, by  its  most  eminent  expounder,  that 
evolution  can  not  account  for  the  first  ap- 
pearance of  life.  Greatly  to  the  disappoint- 
ment of  some  of  his  followers,  Darwin  is 
obliged  to  postulate  three  or  four  germs  of 
life  created  by  God.  To  explain  the  contin- 
uance of  life,  he  is  obliged  to  call  in  a  pan- 
genesis,  or  universal  life,  which  is  just  a 
vague  phrase  for  that  inexplicable  thing 


life,  and  life  is  just  a  mode  of  God's  action. 
Plants,  the  first  life  that  appeared,  have  no 
sensation.  How  did  sensation  come  iu? 
Whence  animal  instinct  T  Whence  affection 
— the  affection  of  a  mother  for  her  offspring, 
of  a  patriot  for  his  country,  of  a  Christian 
for  his  Saviour  ?  Whence  intelligence  ? 
Whence  discernment  of  duty  as  imperative  ? 
It  is  felt  by  all  students  of  mental  science 
that  Darwin  is  weak  when  he  seeks  to  ac- 
count for  these  high  ideas  and  sentiments. 
Careful,  as  being  so  trained,  iu  noticing  the 
minutest  peculiarities  of  plants  and  animals, 
and  acquainted  as  he  has  made  himself  with 
the  appetites  and  habits  of  animals,  he  seems 
utterly  incapable  of  understanding  man's 
higher  capacities  and  noble  aspirations — of 
seeing  how  much  is  involved  in  conscious- 
ness, in  personal  identity,  in  necessary  truth, 
in  unbending  rectitude;  he  explains  them 
only  by  overlooking  their  essential  peculiar- 
ities. It  is  allowed  that  geology  does  not 
show  an  unbroken  descent  of  the  lower  ani- 
mals from  the  higher ;  on  the  contrary,  it  is 
ever  coming  to  breaks,  and,  in  the  case  of  a 
number  of  tribes  of  the  lower  animals,  the 
more  highly  organized  forms  appear  first, 
and  are  followed  by  a  degeneracy.  It  is  ac- 
knowledged that  in  the  historical  ages  we 
do  not  see  such  new  endowments  coming  iu 
by  natural  law — the  plant  becoming  animal, 
or  the  monkey  becoming  man.  That  matter 
should  of  itself  develop  into  thought  is  a 
position  which  neither  observation  nor  rea- 
son sanctions.  Science  gives  no  countenance 
to  it.  Common-sense  turns  away  from  it. 
Philosophy  declares  that  this  would  be  an 
effect  without  a  cause  adequate  to  produce  it. 
But  these  inquiries  have  brought  us  face 
to  face  with  a  remarkable  body  of  facts. 
The  known  effects  in  the  world — the  order, 
beauty,  and  beneficence — point  to  the  nature 
and  character  of  their  cause ;  and  this  not  an 
unknown  God,  as  Herbert  Spencer  maintains, 
but  a  known  God.  "  The  invisible  things  of 
God  from  the  creation  of  the  world  are  clearly 
seen,  being  understood  from  the  things  that 
are  made,  even  his  eternal  power  and  God- 
head." But  in  the  very  midst  of  the  good 
there  is  evil :  the  good  is  showru  iu  removing 
the  evil,  in  relieving  suffering,  in  solacing 
sorrow,  and  conquering  sin.  Evil,  properly 
speaking,  can  not  appear  till  there  are  ani- 
mated beings,  and  as  soon  as  sentient  life  ap- 
pears there  is  pain,  which  is  an  evil.  It  does 
look  as  if  in  the  midst  of  arrangements  con-' 
trived  with  infinite  skill  there  is  some  de- 
rangement. It  may  turn  out  that,  the  Bible 
doctrine,  so  much  ridiculed  in  the  present 
day,  of  there  being  a  Satan,  an  adversary,  op- 
posed to  God  and  good,  has  a  deep  foundation 
in  the  nature  of  things,  even  as  it  has  a  con- 
firmation in  our  experience  without  and 
within  us,  where  we  find  that  when  we  would 
do  good,  evil  is  present  with  us.  The  old 
Persians  had  a  glimpse  of  the  truth,  prob- 


McCOSH:  RELIGIOUS  ASPECTS  OF  THE  DOCTRINE  OF  DEVELOPMENT.  271 


ably  derived  from  a  perverted  tradition, 
aud  confirmed  by  felt  experience,  when  they 
placed  in  the  universe  a  power  opposed  to 
God;  but  they  misunderstood  the  truth  when 
they  made  that  power  coeval  and  coequal 
with  God ;  and  the  old  Book,  which  some  are 
regarding  as  antiquated,  may  be  telling  the 
exact  truth  when  it  tells  us  that  sin  is  a  re- 
bellion to  be  subdued,  aud  in  the  end  ever- 
lastingly cast  out.  How  curious,  should  it 
turn  out  that  these  scientific  inquirers,  so 
laboriously  digging  in  the  earth,  have,  all 
unknown  to  themselves,  come  upon  the  miss- 
ing link  which  is  partially  to  reconcile  nat- 
ural and  revealed  religion.  Our  English  Ti- 
tan is  right  when  he  says  that  at  the  basis 
of  all  phenomena  we  come  to  something  un- 
known aud  unknowable.  He  would  erect 
au  altar  to  the  uuknown  God,  and  Professor 
Huxley  would  have  the  worship  paid  there 
to  be  chiefly  of  the  silent  sort.  But  a  Jew, 
born  at  Tarsus,  no  mean  city  in  Greek  phi- 
losophy, and  brought  up  at  the  feet  of  Ga- 
maliel— but  subdued,  on  the  road  to  Damas- 
cus, by  a  greater  teacher  than  any  in  Greece 
or  Jewry — told  the  men  of  Atheus,  who  had 
erected  an  altar  to  the  unknown  God, "  Whom 
ye  iguorautly  worship,  him  I  declare  unto 
you."  It  does  look  as  if  later  science  had 
come  in  view  of  the  darkness  brooding  on 
the  face  of  the  deep  without  knowing  of  the 
wind  of  the  Spirit  which  is  to  dispel  it,  and 
divide  the  evil  from  the  good,  and  issue  in  a 
spiritual  creation,  of  which  the  first  or  nat- 
ural creation  was  but  a  type. 

We  do  not  as  yet  see  all  things  reconciled 
between  these  two  sides — the  side  of  Script- 
ure and  the  side  of  science.  But  we  see 
enough  to  satisfy  us  that  the  two  correspond. 
It  is  the  same  world,  seen  under  different  as- 
pects. Wo  see  in  both  the  most  skillful  ar- 
rangement ;  we  are  told  in  both  of  some  de- 
rangement. Both  reveal  a  known  God  ;  both 
bring  us  to  an  unknown  source  of  evil.  But 
with  the  sameness  there  is  a  difference.  The 


relation  is  .not  one  of  identity,  but  of  corre- 
spondence ;  like  that  of  the  earth  to  the  con- 
cave sky  by  which  it  is  canopied ;  like  that 
of  the  movement  of  the  dial  on  earth  to  that 
of  the  sun  in  heaven.  On  this  side  is  a  wail 
from  the  deepest  heart  of  the  sufferer ;  011 
that  side  there  is  consolation  from  the  deep- 
est heart  of  a  comforter.  On  the  one  side  is 
a  cry  like  that  of  the  young  bird  when  it 
feels  that  it  has  wandered  from  its  dam ;  on 
the  other,  a  call  like  that  of  the  mother  bird, 
as  you  may  hear  her  in  the  evening,  to  bring 
her  wandering  ones  under  her  wings.  You 
may  notice  on  that  side  a  bier,  with  a  corpse 
laid  out  upon  it  of  a  youth,  the  only  son  of 
his  mother,  and  she  a  widow ;  on  that  other 
side  the  same  picture,  but  with  one  touching 
the  bier,  and  the  dead  arises  and  is  in  the 
embraces  of  his  mother.  On  this  side  you 
see  a  sepulchre,  and  all  men  in  the  end  con- 
signed to  it,  and  none  coming  out  of  it ;  on 
the  other  side  you  see  the  great  stone  rolled 
away,  and  hear  a  voice,  "  He  is  not  here ;  he 
is  risen."  The  grand  reconciliation  is  effect- 
ed by  that  central  figure  standing  in  the  mid- 
dle of  the  ages,  by  him  who  has  "  made  peace 
through  the  blood  of  his  cross,  by  him  to 
reconcile  all  things  unto  himself,  by  him,  I 
say,  whether  they  be  thiugs  011  earth  or 
things  in  heaven." 

We  have  been  able  to  take  only  a  very 
cursory  glance  at  the  inscriptions  on  the 
wall  of  this  temple.  It.  is  the  aim  of  all 
learning,  sacred  aud  secular,  to  enable  us  to 
read  aud  comprehend  them.  The  superscrip- 
tion over  the  central  figure  was  in  letters 
of  Greek  and  Latin  and  Hebrew,  that  the 
people  of  all  countries  may  read  it,  and 
that  we  may  proclaim  it  in  every  language. 
In  the  great  contest  going  on  without  and 
within,  every  man  must  be  on  the  one  side 
or  the  other ;  let  us  see  that  we  be  on  the 
right  side.  It  is  the  aim  of  the  Evangelical 
Alliance  to  combine  the  powers  for  good, 
in  order  to  overthrow  the  powers  of  evil. 


PRIMITIVE  MAN  AND  REVELATION. 


BY  J.W.DAWSON,LL.D., 

Principal  of  McQill  College,  Montreal. 


THE  battle-ground  of  opposition  in  the 
name  of  science  and  philosophy  to  the  Holy 
Scriptures  is  ever  changing,  but  in  modern 
times  most  of  it,  in  so  far  as  science  is  con- 
cerned, has  centred  on  the  early  history  of 
the  earth  and  man  as  contained  in  Genesis. 
One  portion  of  this  controversy  may  be  held 
to  be  disposed  of.  The  geological  record  is 
so  manifestly  in  accordance  with  the  Mosaic 
history  of  creation,  that  to  all  those  (unfor- 
tunately as  yet  too  few)  who  have  an  ade- 
quate knowledge  of  both  stories,  the  antici- 
pation of  our  modern  knowledge  of  astron- 
omy, physics,  and  geology  in  the  early  chap- 
ters of  Genesis  is  so  marked  as  to  constitute 
a  positive  proof  of  inspiration.  Eecent  dis- 
coveries and  hypotheses  have  given  another 
turn  to  the  discussion,  and  have  directed  it 
to  questions  relating  to  primitive  man,  and 
the  connection  of  the  modern  period  with 
previous  geological  eras.  Man,  we  are  told, 
is  a  descendant  of  inferior  animals.  His 
primitive  condition  was  one  of  half-brutal 
barbarism.  His  rise  to  the  actual  position 
of  humanity  was  through  countless  ages  of 
progressive  development,  extending  over  pe- 
riods vastly  longer  than  those  of  sacred  his- 
tory. These  doctrines,  supported  by  much 
plausible  show  of  proof,  are  given  forth  by 
popular  writers  as  ascertained  results  of  sci- 
entific research,  and  we  are  asked  to  accept 
a  new  Genesis,  shorn  of  all  the  higher  spir- 
itual features  of  that  with  which  we  are  fa- 
miliar, holding  forth  110  idea  of  individual 
life  and  salvation,  but  only  a  dim  prospect  of 
some  elevation  of  the  race  as  the  result  of  an 
indefinite  struggle  for  existence  in  the  future. 

Many  good  men  are  naturally  anxious  as 
to  whereto  this  may  grow,  and  whether  we 
are  not  on  the  brink  of  a  decided  breach  be- 
tween the  Word  of  God  and  the  study  of  the 
earliest  human  remains.  My  own  belief  is 
that  the  doctrines  of  the  antiquity  and  de- 
scent of  man,  as  held  by  the  more  extreme 
evolutionists,  have  attained  to  their  maxi- 
mum degree  of  importance,  and  that  hence- 
forth the  more  advanced  speculators  must 
retrace  their  steps  toward  the  old  beliefs, 
leaving,  however,  some  most  valuable  facts 
in  explanation  of  the  early  history  of  man. 

The  subject  is  too  extensive  to  allow  of  a 
full  exposition  of  my  reasons  for  this  belief 
in  the  time  to  which  this  address  must  be 
limited,  but  I  may  refer  to  a  few  of  the  most 
recent  facts  in  proof  of  my  statement. 


The  physical  characters  of  the  known 
specimens  of  primitive  men  are  unfavorable 
to  the  doctrine  of  evolution.  Theories  of 
derivation  would  lead  us  to  regard  the  most 
degraded  races  of  men  as  those  nearest  akin 
to  the  primitive  stock ;  and  the  oldest  remains 
of  man  should  present  decided  approxima- 
tion to  his  simian  ancestors.  But  the  fact  is 
quite  otherwise.  With  the  exception  of  the 
celebrated  Neanderthal  skull,  which  stands 
alone,  and  is  of  altogether  unascertained 
date,  the  skulls  of  the  most  ancient  Euro- 
pean men  known  to  us  are  comparable  with 
those  of  existing  races ;  and,  further,  the 
great  stature  and  grand  development  of  the 
limbs  in  those  of  the  most  ancient  skeletons 
which  are  entire,  or  nearly  so,  testify  to  a 
race  of  men  more  finely  constituted  physic- 
ally than  the  majority  of  existing  Europeans. 
The  skull  found  by  Schmerliug  in  the  cave 
of  Eugis,  associated  with  the  bones  of  the 
mammoth  and  other  extinct  animals,  is  of 
good  form  and  large  capacity,  and  presents 
characters  which,  though  recalling  those  of 
some  European  races,  also  resemble  those  of 
the  native  races  of  America.  The  bones  de- 
scribed by  Christy  and  Lartet,  from  the  cave 
of  Cro-Magnon,  in  France,  represent  a  race 
of  great  stature,  strength,  and  agility,  and 
with  a  development  of  brain  above  the  Euro- 
pean average ;  but  the  lines  of  the  face  show 
a  tendency  to  the  Mongolian  and  American 
visage,  and  the  skeletons  present  peculiari- 
ties in  the  bones  of  the  limbs  found  also  in 
American  races,  and  indicating,  probably,  ad- 
diction to  hunting  and  a  migratory  and  act- 
ive life.  These  Cro-Magnon  people  lived  at 
an  epoch  when  France  was  overgrown  with 
dense  forests,  when  the  mammoth  probably 
lingered  in  its  higher  districts,  and  when  a 
large  part  of  the  food  of  its  people  was  fur- 
nished by  the  reindeer.  Still  more  remark- 
able, perhaps,  is  the  fossil  man — as  he  has 
been  called — of  Mentone,  recently  found  in 
a  cave  in  the  south  of  France,  buried  under 
cavern  accumulations  which  bespeak  a  great 
antiquity,  and  associated  with  bones  of  ex- 
tinct mammalia  and  with  rudely  fashioned 
implements  of  flint.  It  appears  from  the 
careful  descriptions  of  Dr.  Riviere  that  this 
man  must  have  been  six  feet  high,  and  of 
vast  muscular  power,  more  especially  in  his 
legs,  which  present  the  same  American  pe- 
culiarities already  referred  to  in  the  Cro- 
Magnon  skeletons.  The  skull  is  of  great  ca- 


DAWSON:  PRIMITIVE  MAN  AND  REVELATION. 


273 


pacity,  the  forehead  full,  and  the  face  — 
though  broad  and  Mongolian,  and  large- 
boned — is  not  prognathous,  and  has  a  high 
facial  angle.  The  perfect  condition  of  the 
teeth,  along  -with  their  being  worn  perfectly 
flat  on  the  crowns,  would  imply  a  healthy 
and  vigorous  constitution,  and  great  longev- 
ity, with  ample  supplies  of  food,  probably 
vegetable ;  while  the  fact  that  the  left  arm 
had  been  broken  and  the  bone  healed,  shows 
active  and  possibly  warlike  habits.  Such  a 
man,  if  he  were  to  rise  up  again  among  us, 
might  perhaps  be  a  savage,  but  a  noble  sav- 
age, with  all  our  capacity  for  culture,  and 
presenting  no  more  affinity  to  apes  than  we 
do. 

If  the  question  be  asked,  What  precise  re- 
lation do  these  primitive  European  men  bear 
to  any  thing  in  sacred  history  ?  we  can  only 
say  that  they  all  seem  to  indicate  one  race, 
and  this  allied  to  the  old  Turanian  stock  of 
Northern  Asi#,  which  has  its  outlying  branch- 
es to  this  day  both  in  America  and  Europe. 
If  they  are  antediluvians,  they  show  that 
the  old  Nephelim  and  Gibbovim  of  the  times 
before  the  flood  were  men  of  great  physical 
as  well  as  mental  power,  but  not  markedly 
distinct  from  modern  races  of  men.  If  they 
are  post-diluvians,  then  they  reveal  similar 
qualities  to  those  of  the  old  Rephaiin  and 
Anakim  of  Palestine,  who  not  improbably 
were  of  Turanian  stock.  In  any  case,  they 
may  well  have  points  of  historical  contact 
with  the  Bible,  if  we  were  better  informed 
as  to  their  date  and  distribution. 

I  have  referred  to  European  facts  only, 
but  it  is  remarkable  that  in  America  the  old- 
est race  known  to  us  is  that  of  the  ancient 
Alleghans  and  Toltecans  and  their  allies  ; 
and  that  these,  too,  were  men  of  large  stat- 
ure and  great  cranial  development,  and  were 
agricultural  and  semi-civilized,  their  actual 
position  being  not  dissimilar  from  that  attrib- 
uted to  the  earliest  cultivators  of  the  soil  in 
the  times  of  Adam  or  Noah. 

So  far  the  facts  bearing  on  the  physical 
and  mental  condition  of  primitive  man  are 
not  favorable  to  evolution,  and  are  more  in 
accordance  with  the  theory  of  divine  crea- 
tion, and  with  the  statements  of  the  sacred 
record. 

Recent  facts  with  reference  to  primitive 
man  show  that  his  religious  beliefs  were  sim- 
ilar to  those  referred  to  in  Scripture.  The 
whole  of  the  long  isolated  tribes  of  America 
held  to  a  primitive  monotheism,  or  belief  in 
a  Great  Spirit,  who  was  not  only  the  creator 
and  ruler  of  the  heaven  and  earth,  but  had 
the  control  of  countless  inferior  spirits  — 
Manitous,  or  ministering  angels.  They  also 
believed  in  an  immortality,  and  a  judgment 
of  all  men  beyond  the  grave.  Hence  arose 
in  various  forms  the  doctrine  of  guardian 
manitous,  represented  by  totems  or  teraphim, 
and  watching  over  individuals,  families,  and 
places.  Heuco  arose  also  the  practice  of 
18 


burying  with  the  dead  the  things  he  had 
valued  in  life,  as  likely,  in  the  vague  imag- 
inings of  the  untaught  mind,  to  be  useful  in 
the  other  world.  Their  traditions  also  em- 
braced, in  various  and  crude  forms,  the  idea 
of  a  mediator  or  intercessor  between  God 
and  man.  No  one  who  studies  these  beliefs 
of  the  American  tribes  can  fail  to  recognize 
in  them  the  remnants  of  the  same  primitive 
theology  which  we  have  in  the  patriarchal 
age  of  the  Bible,  and  more  or  less  in  the  re- 
ligions of  all  ancient  peoples  of  whom  we 
have  historical  record.  I  may  say  here  in 
passing  that  the  tenacity  with  which  the  red 
man  of  America  has  clung,  in  his  barbarism 
and  long  isolation,  to  remnants  of  primitive 
truth,  is  an  additional  reason  why  we  should 
strive  to  give  him  a  purer  gospel. 

With  reference  to  the  prehistoric  men, 
known  to  us  only  by  their  bones  and  imple- 
ments, it  may  not  be  possible  to  discover 
their  belief  as  to  the  unity  of  God ;  but  we 
have  distinct  evidence  on  the  other  points. 
On  the  oldest  bone,  implements — some  of 
them  made  of  the  ivory  of  the  now  extinct 
mammoth  —  we  find  engraved  the  totems 
or  manitou  marks  of  their  owners,  and  in 
some  cases  scratches  or  punctures  indicating 
the  offerings  made  or  successes  and  deliver- 
ances experienced  under  their  auspices.  With 
regard  to  the  belief  in  immortality,  perhaps 
also  in  a  resurrection,  the  Mentone  man — 
whose  burial  is  perhaps  the  oldest  known  to 
us — was  interred  with  his  fur  robes,  and  his 
hair  dressed  as  in  life,  with  his  ornaments 
of  shell,  wampum  on  his  head  and  limbs,  and 
with  a  little  deposit  of  oxide  of  iron,  where- 
with to  paint  and  decorate  himself  with  his 
appropriate  emblems.  Nor  is  he  alone  in 
this  matter.  Similar  provision  for  the  dead 
appears  at  Cro-Magnon  and  the  cave  of 
Bruniquel.  Thus  the  earliest  so-called  palaeo- 
lithic men  entertained  beliefs  in  God  and  in 
immortality — perhaps  the  dim  remains  of 
primitive  theism,  perhaps  the  result  of  their 
perception  of  the  invisible  things  of  God  in 
the  works  that  he  had  made. 

The  antiquity  of  man  as  revealed  by  his 
prehistoric  remains  has  probably  been  great- 
ly exaggerated.  A  careful  study  of  the  latest 
edition  of  "  The  Antiquity  of  Man,"  by  Sir 
C.  Lyell,  in  which  that  great  geologist  has 
summed  up  all  the  scattered  evidence  oti  this 
point,  must  leave  this  impression.  The  par- 
ticular facts  adduced  are  individually  doubt- 
ful, and  susceptible  of  different  interpreta- 
tions, though  collectively  they  present  an 
imposing  appearance ;  and  many  of  them 
have  been  weakened  by  recent  observations 
and  discoveries.  American  analogies  teach 
xis — as  I  propose  to  show  in  papers  soon  to 
be  published  —  that  undue  importance  has 
been  attached  to  the  distinctions  of  neolithic 
and  palaeolithic  ages.  The  physical  changes 
which  have  taken  place  since  the  advent  of 
man  have  been  measured  by  standards  inap- 


274 


CHRISTIANITY  AND  ITS  ANTAGONISMS. 


plicable  to  them,  and  the  extinct  quadru- 
peds of  the  later  post -pliocene  period  may 
have  lived  nearer  to  our  time  than  has  been 
supposed.  No  human  remains  have  been 
found  in  beds  older  than  the  close  of  the  so- 
called  glacial  period,  and  the  earlier  indica- 
tions succeeding  this  period  are  not  actual 
bones  of  men,  but  only  rude  implements, 
some  of  which  are  possibly  naturally  shaped 
stones,  and  others  have  had  their  antiquity 
exaggerated  by  misapprehension  as  to  the 
mode  of  their  occurrence. 

It  is,  however,  probable  that  the  investi- 
gations now  in  progress  will  establish  the 
fact  that  in  the  earlier  part  of  man's  resi- 
dence on  the  Old  Continent  ho  was  contem- 
porary with  many  great  quadrupeds  now  ex- 
tinct, and  that  some  of  them,  as  well  as  some 
races  of  men,  may  have  perished  in  a  great 
continental  subsidence  which  occurred  early 
in  the  modern  or  human  period.  Both  of 
these  conclusions  will,  I  think,  bring  them- 
selves finally  into  harmony  with  the  Biblical 
account  of  the  antediluvian  world,  notwith- 
standing the  strenuous  opposition  of  the 
large  party  opposed  to  any  correlation  of 
natural  and  spiritual  truth. 

Science  may  soon  enable  us  to  account  for 
the  divergence  of  mankind  into  permanent 
races  in  a  way  more  satisfactory  than  here- 
tofore. It  has  hitherto  been  a  stumbling- 
block  with  many  in  the  doctrine  of  the  unity 
of  man,  that  we  find  evidence  of  distinctness 
of  race  as  great  as  at  present  in  early  Egyp- 
tian monuments.  Modern  ideas  of  deriva- 
tion have  swept  away  this  objection,  but 
they  have  not  failed  to  demand  an  enormous 
lapse  of  time  for  the  early  development  of 
these  races.  A  new  law  is,  however,  coming 
into  view,  which  may  render  this  unneces- 
sary. It  is  that  species,  when  first  intro- 
duced, have  an  innate  power  of  expansion, 
which  enables  them  rapidly  to  extend  them- 
selves to  the  limits  of  their  geographical 
range,  and  also  to  reach  the  limits  of  their 
divergence  into  races.  These  limits  once 
reached,  the  races  run  on  in  parallel  lines  un- 
til they  one  by  one  run  out  and  disappear. 
According  to  this  law,  the  most  aberrant  races 
of  men  might  be  developed  in  a  few  cent- 
uries, after  which  divergence  would  cease, 
and  the  several  lines  of  variation  would  re- 
main permanent,  at  least  so  long  as  the  con- 
ditions under  which  they  originated  remain- 
ed. This  new  law,  which  was  hinted  at  long 
ago  by  Hall,  the  palaeontologist  of  New  York, 
I  have  myself  further  illustrated,  and  it 
will  probably  altogether  remove  one  of  the 
imagined  necessities  for  a  'great  antiquity 
of  man.  It  may  prove  also  to  be  applicable 
to  language  as  well  as  to  physical  charac- 
ters. 

I  have  given  above  only  a  few  examples 
out  of  many  which  may  be  adduced  that  the 
results  of  natural  science  as  applied  to  man, 
however  they  may  at  first  seem  to  conflict 


with  the  truth  of  God,  will  ultimately  come 
into  harmony  with  it. 

One  object  in  referring  to  these  subjects 
here  has  been  to  invite  the  attention  of  Chris- 
tians to  certain  errors  in  the  treatment  of 
such  subjects  which  I  observe  to  be  preva- 
lent, and  which  I  think  every  Christian  man 
of  science  must  sincerely  deprecate. 

The  first  is  the  hasty  reception  of  broad 
popular  statements  of  leading  scientists,  as 
if  they  were  received  and  proved  conclusions. 
Nearly  every  new  scientific  fact  and  princi- 
ple is  at  first  only  imperfectly  understood 
and  partially  misapplied ;  and  statements 
much  too  unguarded  are  often  made  by  en- 
thusiastic votaries  of  particular  specialties. 

The  second  is  the  resting  content  Avith  the 
shallow  assertion  that  the  Bible  need  not  be 
in  harmony  with  Nature.  The  Bible  is  not 
a  text-book  of  science,  nor  are  spiritual 
truths  always  directly  reconcilable  at  first 
with  natural  truths.  But  the»Bible,  as  a 
Book  of  God,  can  not  outrage  Nature,  and 
there  are  necessary  harmonies  between  the 
natural  and  the  spiritual.  Weak  admissions 
that  the  Bible  accommodates  itself  to  errors 
as  to  Nature  may  save  the  theologian  the 
trouble  of  inquiry,  and  may  be  welcomed  by 
men  of  science  as  setting  them  free  from 
dogmatic  trammels;  but  the  earnest  votary 
of  science  who  is  not  a  Christian  despises 
those  who  make  these  admissions,  and  re- 
gards their  doctrine  as  worthless. 

A  third  is  the  connection  of  ancient  super- 
stitions or  modern  ecclesiastical  expediencies 
with  God's  Word.  Science  is  in  its  nature 
hostile  to  superstition,  to  ritualism,  and  to 
hypocritical  expediency;  while  merely  ex- 
ternal and  sesthetical  modes  of  dealing  with 
mental  and  moral  interests  it  must  always 
reject  as  vulgar  folly.  It  is  a  fearful  crime 
against  the  souls  of  men  so  to  connect  such 
things  with  the  truth  of  God  that  men  of 
high  culture  are  repelled  from  what  might 
otherwise  awe  them  by  its  moral  elevation, 
or  attract  them  by  its  spiritual  beauty.  I 
believe  that  much  of  the  antagonism  of  men 
of  science  is  really  excited  by  accessories 
which  are  not  of  God,  but  the  growth  of  hu- 
man device  in  darker  ages  of  the  world.  I 
would  not  ask  the  Christian  to  accommodate 
his  creed  to  any  requirements  of  the  science 
or  literature  of  our  day.  That  would  be  an 
equally  fatal  error.  What  I  ask  is  that  the 
Scriptural  truth  may  be  presented  unmixed 
with  extraneous  matters,  which  are  not  of 
the  Bible  but  of  man. 

Lastly,  the  Christian  must  not  despise  as 
unworthy  of  attention  the  current  scientific 
doctrines  on  such  subjects.  If  the  missionary 
think  it  necessary  to  study  the  beliefs  of 
the  rudest  tribes  that  he  may  better  teach 
them  the  truth,  surely  we  must  not  ignore 
the  latest  results  of  the  intellectual  work  of 
the  most  cultivated  men,  which  in  any  case 
are  sure  to  influence  the  mind  of  the  time, 


DAWSON:  PRIMITIVE  MAN  AND  REVELATION. 


275 


and  which,  properly  treated,  must  yield  pos- 
itive results  for  the  cause  of  God. 

The  scientific  infidel  is  not  always  a  wrong- 
doer to  be  put  down.  He  is  often  a  very 
darkened  soul,  struggling  for  light,  and 
sometimes  driven  back  from  it  by  the  follies 
and  inconsistencies  of  Christians.  The  la- 


mentable and  growing  separation  between 
those  who  study  God's  works  and  those  who 
believe  in  his  Word  is  not  all  of  it  the  fault 
of  the  scientist.  The  theologian  will  be  held 
responsible  for  so  much  of  it  as  may  result 
from  his  adulterating  the  Water  of  Life  with 
unwholesome  earthly  elements. 


COSMOGONY  AND  THE  BIBLE; 

OR, 
THE  BIBLICAL  ACCOUNT  OF  CREATION  IN  THE  LIGHT  OF  MODERN  SCIENCE. 

BY  PROFESSOR  ARNOLD  HENRY  GUYOT,  LL.D.,  PRIXCETON,  N.  J. 


THE  sacred  volume  containing  the  reve- 
lations that  God,  in  bis  -wisdom,  chooses  to 
give  to  -man,  fitly  opens  with  a  short  ac- 
count of  the  creation  of  the  material  world, 
animated  nature,  and  of  man  himself.  On 
this  great  question  of  Creation,  which  im- 
plies the  relation  of  God  to  his  creatures,  of 
the  finite  to  the  infinite — a  question  insoluble 
for  human  philosophy — man  had  to  be  taught 
from  on  high.  By  its  simplicity,  its  chaste, 
positive,  historical  character,  the  Bible  nar- 
rative is  in  perfect  contrast  with  the  ftiuci- 
ful,  allegorical  cosmogonies  of  all  heathen  re- 
ligions, whether  born  in  the  highly  civilized 
communities  of  the  Orient,  Greece,  or  Rome, 
or  among  the  savage  tribes  which  still  oc- 
cupy a  large  portion  of  our  planet.  By  its 
sublime  grandeur,  by  its  symmetrical  plan, 
by  the  profoundly  philosophical  disposition 
of  its  parts,  and,  perhaps,  quite  as  much  by 
its  wonderful  caution  in  the  statement  of 
facts,  it  betrays  the  supreme  guidance  which 
led  the  pen  of  the  writer  and  kept  it  through- 
out within  the  limits  of  truth. 

Side  by  side  another  manifestation  of  the 
same  divine  mind,  the  book  of  Nature,  God's 
work  itself,  is  open  to  our  curious  gaze.  To 
man  alone,  among  all  created  beings,  has 
been  granted  the  privilege  of  reading  in  it, 
by  patient  and  intelligent  research,  the  in- 
numerable proofs  of  the  almighty  power  and 
infinite  wisdom  of  its  Author;  for  man's 
mind  alone  is  akin  to  the  mind  which  de- 
vised the  wonderful  plan  unfolded  in  that 
great  cosmos  which  we  call  Nature. 

Both  these  books,  the  Bible  and  Nature, 
are  legitimate  sources  of  knowledge ;  but  to 
read  them  aright  we  must  remember  the  ob- 
ject and  true  character  of  their  respective 
teachings,  which  are  by  no  means  the  same. 
The  sole  object  of  the  Bible,  throughout 
the  sacred  volume,  is  to  give  us  light  upon 
the  great  spiritual  truths  needed  for  our 
spiritual  life ;  all  the  rest  serves  only  as  a 
means  to  that  end,  and  is  merely  incidental. 
In  the  first  chapter  of  Genesis,  when  de- 
scribing in  simple  outlines  the  great  phases 
of  existence  through  which  the  universe  and 
the  earth  have  passed,  the  Bible  does  not  in- 
tend to  teach  us  the  processes  which  it  is 


the  province  of  astronomy  and  geology  to 
discover ;  but,  by  a  few  authoritative  state- 
ments, to  put  in  a  strong  light  the  relations 
of  this  finite,  visible  world  to  the  supernat- 
ural, invisible  world  above — to  God  himself. 
Its  teachings  are  essentially  of  a  spiritual,  re- 
ligious character.  Destined  for  men  of  all 
times  and  of  all  degrees  of  culture,  its  in- 
structions are  clothed  in  a  simple,  popular 
language,  which  renders  them  accessible  al  iko 
to  the  unlearned,  to  the  cultivated  man,  or  to 
the  devotee  of  science. 

Nature's  teachings  reach  us  only  by  our 
senses.  A  faithful  study  of  God's  visible 
works,  sound  deductions  from  the  facts  care- 
fully ascertained — these  are  the  foundations 
on  which  the  science  of  nature  rests.  But 
from  these  finite  premises  no  logical  process 
can  derive  the  great  truths  of  the  infinite, 
supernatural  world  which  are  given  in  the 
Biblical  narrative.  Nature's  teachings,  grand 
as  they  are,  belong  to  the  world  finite  ;  they 
are  of  material  and  intellectual  order,  and 
can  not  transcend  their  sphere. 

Let  us  not,  therefore,  hope,  much  less  ask 
from  science  the  knowledge  which  it  can  nev- 
er give,  nor  seek  from  the  Bible  the  science 
which  it  does  not  intend  to  teach.  Let  us  re- 
ceive from  the  Bible,  on  trust,  the  fundament- 
al truths  to  which  human  science  can  not  at- 
tain, and  let  the  results  of  scientific  inquiry 
be  as  a  running  commentary  to  help  us  right- 
ly to  understand  the  comprehensive  state- 
ments of  the  Biblical  account  which  refer  to 
God's  work  during  the  grand  week  of  crea- 
tion. Thus  we  shall  be  convinced,  if  I  do 
not  greatly  err,  that  the  two  books,  coming 
from  the  same  Author,  do  not  oppose,  but 
complete  one  another,  forming  together  the 
whole  revelation  of  God  to  man. 

To  cling  to  an  interpretation  disproved  by 
God's  works,  is  to  refuse  the  light  which  has 
been  placed  before  us  by  God  himself.  To 
refuse,  a  priori,  to  believe  in  the  possibility 
of  this  antique  document  agreeing  in  its 
teachings  with  modern  science,  because  its 
author  could  not  have  had,  it  is  supposed, 
such  knowledge,  instead  of  submitting  this 
question  to  an  impartial  examination,  as  a 
question  of  fact,  is  unscientific. 


GUYOT :  COSMOGONY  AND  THE  BIBLE. 


277 


If  we  do  neither,  we  may  hope  to  see  dis- 
pelled forever  the  clouds  which  have  ob- 
scured the  majestic  simplicity  of  that  noble 
record. 

Taking  this  view  of  the  Biblical  account 
of  creation,  and  of  the  method  of  its  inter- 
pretation, let  us  consider : 

1.  The  plan  of  the  narrative. 

2.  What  it  teaches. 

3.  What  help  modern  science,  by  its  best 
results,  can  give  us  in  understanding  aright 
the  statements  of  the  Bible  which  relate  to 
the  method  of  the  creation. 

This  last  investigation  will  tell  us  whether 
or  no,  or  in  what  measure,  the  two  records 
differ  or  agree. 

The  necessity  of  being  short  may  be  the 
excuse  of  the  writer  for  confining  himself  to 
a  simple  exposition  of  the  views  which  he 
has  expressed  on  this  subject  during  the 
last  twenty-five  years  or  more,  in  many 
courses  of  public  lectures,  already  partially 
published,  without  attempting  critical  refer- 


ences to  the  numerous  explanations  which 
have  been  offered  by  others. 

The  document  before  us  for  examination 
begins  with  the  first  chapter  of  Genesis  and 
ends  with  the  third  verse  of  the  second  chap- 
ter. It  is  complete  in  itself,  forming  an  or- 
ganic whole  which  unfolds  the  history  of  the 
creation  of  the  material  universe  and  of  liv- 
ing beings,  including  man  as  a  part  of  nat- 
ure. By  the  symmetrical  regularity  of  its 
arrangement,  by  the  tone  of  its  language, 
and  the  specific  use  of  certain  words,  it  is 
stamped  with  an  individuality  not  to  be 
mistaken.  In  this  the  name  of  God  is  Elohim, 
the  Triune  God  of  the  universe,  the  Father, 
the  Word,  and  the  Spirit,  who  all  appear  in 
the  work  of  creation.  In  the  second  narra- 
tive, beginning  with  the  fourth  verse  of  the 
second  chapter,  which  takes  up,  under  an- 
other aspect,  the  creation  of  man  as  the  head 
of  humanity,  God's  name  is  Jehovah. 

1.  The  plan  is  made  clear  by  the  following 
diagram : 


PLAN  OF  THE  BIBLICAL  ACCOUNT  OF  CREATION. 


ERA  OP 
MATTER. 

INTRODUCTION. 

Primordial  Creation.                         Primitive  State  of  Matter. 
In  the  beginning  God  created  the    And  the  Earth  was  without  form, 
Heaven  and  the  Earth  (ver.  1).           and  void  ;  and  darkness,  etc.  (ver.  2). 

ERA  OP 
LIFE. 

First  Work. 

First  Activity  of  Matter  —  Cosmic  Light. 
Let  there  be  light,  and  there  was  light.    And 
God  divided  the  light  from  the  darkness. 
And  God  saw  that  it  was  good. 
First  Day. 

Fourth  Work. 

Solar  Light. 
Let  there  be  lights  to  divide  the  day  from  the 
night,  and  let  them  be  for  seasons,  and  for 
days,  and  for  years. 
And  God  saw  that  it  was  good. 
Fourth  Day. 

Second  Work. 
Organization  of  the  Heavens. 
Let  there  be  an  expanse  in  the  midst  of  the 
waters,  and  let  it  divide  the  waters  from  the 
waters.    And  God  called  the  expanse  heaven. 
And  it  was  so. 
Second  Day. 

Fifth  Work. 

Creation  of  Lower  Animals,  in  Water  and  Air. 
Let  the  waters  bring  forth  the  moving  creature 
that  has  life,  and  fowl  that  may  fly  iu  the 
open  expanse  of  heaven. 
And  God  saw  that  it  was  good. 
Fifth  Day. 

Third  Work. 

o.  Formation  of  the  Earth. 
Let  the  waters  be  gathered  together,  and  let 
the  dry  land  appear. 
God  saw  that  it  was  good. 

b.  The  Plant. 
Let  the  Earth  bring  forth  grass  and  trees. 
And  God  saw  that  it  was  good. 
Third  Day. 

Sixth  Work. 

a.  Creation  of  Higher  Animals,  on  Land. 
Let  the  Earth  bring  forth  the  living  creature, 
cattle,  beast  of  the  earth,  after  his  kind. 
And  God  saw  that  it  was  good. 

&.  Creation  of  Man. 
Let  ns  make  man  iu  our  image.    And  God 
created  man. 
And  God  saw  every  thing  he  had  made,  and  it 
was  VEBY  GOOD. 
Sixth  Day. 

CONCLUSION. 
No  Work.                                                                              The  Sabbath. 

And  God  rested  on  the  seventh  day  (ch.  iL,  ver.  1-5). 
Seventh  Day.                                                                          No  Evening. 

These  are  the  Generations  of  the  Heavens  and  of  the  Earth  (ch.  ii.,  ver.  4). 

The  history  of  creation  is  given  here  in 
the  form  of  a  great  cosmogonic  week,  with 


six  working  days,  preceded  by  an  introduc- 
tion, and  closing  with  a  day  of  rest  —  the 


5J78 


CHRISTIANITY  AND  ITS  ANTAGONISMS. 


Sabbath  of  God  ns  Creator.  Each  day  is 
marked  by  a  special  work,  and  begins  with 
an  evening  followed  by  a  morning.  These 
six  days  are  subdivided  into  two  symmetri- 
cal scries  of  three  days  each.  Both  scries  be- 
gin with  Light — the  diffused  cosmic  light  in 
the  first,  the  concentrated  solar  light  in  the 
second.  In  both  series  the  third  day  has 
two -works,  while  the  others  contain  but  one. 
The  first  series  describes  the  arrangement 
of  the  material  world — it  is  the  era  of  mat- 
ter; the  second,  the  creation  of  organized  be- 
ings, animals  and  man — it  is  the  era  of  life: 
two  trilogies  in  this  great  drama  of  creation, 
corresponding  to  the  two  spheres  of  exist- 
ence, which  precede  the  historical  age  of 
man.  Such  symmetry  of  plan  can  not  bo  ac- 
cidental ;  it  reveals  a  deeply  philosophical 
idea,  which  it  is  for  us  to  attempt  to  de- 
velop. 

2.  What  does  this  record  teach  f  The  great 
spiritual  truths  emphatically  taught  by  the 
narrative  are  obvious  to  all.  A  personal 
God,  calling  into  existence  by  his  free,  al- 
mighty will,  manifested  by  his  word,  execu- 
ted by  his  spirit,  things  which  had  no  be- 
ing;  a  Creator  distinct  from  his  creation; 
a  universe,  not  eternal,  but  which  had  a  be- 
ginning in  time;  a  creation  successive — the 
six  days;  and  progressive — beginning  with 
the  lowest  element,  matter,  continuing  by 
the  plant  and  animal  life,  terminating  by 
man,  made  in  God's  image ;  thus  marking 
the  great  steps  through  which  God,  in  the 
course  of  ages,  has  gradually  realized  the 
vast  organic  plan  of  the  cosmos  we  now  be- 
hold in  its  completeness,  and  which  he  de- 
clared to  be  very  good :  these  are  the  funda- 
mental spiritual  truths  which  have  enlight- 
ened men  of  all  ages  on  the  true  relations  of 
God  to  his  creation  and  to  man.  To  under- 
stand them  fiilly,  to  be  comforted  by  them, 
requires  no  astronomy  nor  geology.  To  de- 
part from  them  is  to  relapse  into  the  cold, 
unintelligent  fatalism  of  the  old  pantheistic 
religions  and  modern  philosophies,  or  to  fall 
from  the  upper  regions  of  light  and  love  in- 
finite into  the  dark  abysses  of  an  unavoid- 
able skepticism. 

But  thinking  men,  as  well  as  men  of  sci- 
ence, crave  still  another  view  of  this  nar- 
rative :  an  intellectual  view,  we  may  call  it. 
They  wish  fully  to  understand  the  meaning 
of  the  text  when  it  describes  the  physical 
phenomena  of  creation.  Are  the  statements 
relating  to  them  a  sort  of  parable  to  convey 
the  spiritual  truths  just  mentioned,  or  are 
they  facts  which  correspond  to  the  results 
of  scientific  inquiry  f  The  answer  to  this 
question  brings  us  to  our  third  point. 

3.  What  help  can  modern  science  give  us  in 
understanding  aright  the  statements  of  the  Bible, 
and  hoiv  do  the  two  records  compare  t 

The  difficulties  at  first  sight  are  not  few : 
the  light  before  the  sun ;  days  with  an  even- 
ing and  morning  before  our  great  luminary 


could  give  a  measure  of  time  for  them ;  a 
firmament  which  divides  the  waters  from 
the  waters ;  the  earth,  with  its  continents 
and  seas,  preceding  the  sun  and  moon;  plants 
growing  without  the  sunlight  necessary  to 
their  existence — these  are  problems  which 
require  a  solution.  Many  have  given  up 
the  narrative  in  despair ;  some  have  disown- 
ed its  historical  character,  by  supposing  a 
gap  between  the  act  of  primordial  creation 
and  the  work  of  the  first  day — a  vast  gulf, 
into  which  they  sink  all  the  astronomy  and 
geology  of  the  past  ages,  thus  making  of  the 
account  a  sham  history.  We  have  no  right 
to  treat  such  a  document  lightly.  When  the 
holy  writer  declares  that, "  Thus  the  heavens 
and  the  earth  were  finished,  and  all  the  host 
of  them"  (Gen.  ii.,  1) ;  and  again, "  These  are 
the  generations  of  the  heavens  and  of  the 
earth"  (Gen.  ii.,  4),  we  must  accept  this  sol- 
emn declaration,  and  believe  that  ho  in- 
tends to  give  us  a  true  history. 

Guided  by  this  view,  we  shall  consider  the 
six  cosmogouic  days  as  the  organic  phases 
of  creation,  or  the  great  periods  of  its  his- 
tory, and  look  for  the  special  work  done  in 
each  in  the  order  indicated  by  Moses :  cre- 
ation of  matter  first,  organization  of  the 
heavens  next,  of  the  earth  and  organic  life 
last.  Thus  we  shall  avoid  many  a  mistake 
which  has  caused  a  sad  distortion  of  the 
narrative. 

The  introduction  to  the  work  of  the  six  days 
is  comprised  in  the  first  and  second  verses, 
in  which  we  have  the  primordial  creation 
of  the  matter  of  the  universe,  and  a  descrip- 
tion of  its  original  state.  In  the  first  verse 
we  are  taught  that  this  universe  had  a  be- 
ginning ;  that  it  was  created — that  is,  called 
into  existence — and  that  God  was  its  crea- 
tor. The  central  idea  is  creation.  The  He- 
brew word  is  bard,  translated  by  create.  It 
has  been  doubted  whether  the  word  meant 
a  creation,  in  the  sense  that  the  world  was 
not  derived  from  any  pre-existing  material, 
nor  from  the  substance  of  God  himself;  but 
the  manner  in  which  it  is  hero  used  dofis 
not  seem  to  justify  such  an  interpretation. 
For  whatever  be  the  use  of  the  word  bard 
in  other  parts  of  the  Bible,  it  is  employed  in 
this  chapter  in  a  discriminating  way,  Avhich 
is  very  remarkable.  It  occurs  only  on  three 
occasions,  the  first  creation  of  matter  in  the 
first  verse,  the  first  introduction  of  life  In 
the  fifth  day,  and  the  creation  of  man  in  the 
sixth  day.  Elsewhere,  when  only  transfor- 
mations are  meant,  as  in  the  second  and  fourth 
days,  or  a  continuation  of  the  same  kind  of 
creation,  as  in  the  land  animals  of  the  fifth 
day,  the  word  asdh  (make)  is  used.  Bard  is 
thus  reserved  for  marking  the  first  introduc- 
tion of  each  of  the  three  great  spheres  of  ex- 
istence— the  world  of  matter,  the  world  of 
life,  and  the  world  spiritual,  represented  by 
man  in  this  visible  economy — all  three  of 
which,  though  profoundly  distinct  in  essence, 


GUYOT:  COSMOGONY  AND  THE  BIBLE. 


279 


are  intimately  associated,  and  together  con- 
stitute all  the  universe  known  to  us. 

What  have  science  and  philosophy  to  say 
about  it  ?  Nothing.  Creation  is  a  fact  be- 
yond their  pale ;  it  is  the  miracle  of  mira- 
cles. Both  science  and  philosophy  must 
start  from  existing  premises,  and  nothing  is 
no  premise.  Their  universal,  logical  con- 
clusion, therefore,  ia  that  what  is  always 
teas,  in  some  form ;  and  what  is  called  here 
creation  is  but  transformation,  and,  if  so, 
that  the  universe  is  of  God's  substance. 

Whether  we  conceive,  with  the  Brahmin, 
that  the  material  universe  is  an  emanation 
from  the  Deity ;  or,  with  the  old  Egyptians, 
that  it  is  itself  a  developing  God ;  or,  with 
modern  materialism,  that  it  is  the  sole  exist- 
ing substance,  and  the  source  of  all  the  phe- 
nomena ever  observed  in  nature  and  in  man, 
pantheism  and  materialism  are  at  the  door, 
with  all  their  internal  impossibilities,  and 
with  all  the  contradictions  they  engender  in 
the  bosom  of  the  free,  moral,  spiritual  being, 
in  the  heart  of  humanity. 

We  have  therefore  to  accept  on  trust  the 
truth  of  creation,  as  an  ultimate  fact,  not  to 
bo  reached  by  any  reasoning  process,  but 
which,  being  accepted,  makes  clear  to  mind 
and  heart  the  relations  of  the  universe,  and 
of  man  to  God.  Thus  Paul's  declaration  re- 
mains forever  true :  "Through  faith  we  un- 
derstand that  the  worlds  were  framed  by 
the  word  of  God." 

The  primitive  state  of  matter  when  first  cre- 
ated is  described  in  the  second  verse :  "And 
the  earth  was  Without  form,  and  void;  and  dark- 
ness icas  upon  the  face  of  the  deep;  and  the 
Spirit  of  God  moved  upon  the  face  of  the  ivaters." 
Two  words  here — the  earth  and  the  waters — 
have  to  be  rightly  interpreted  before  we  can 
proceed  with  safety.  Does  the  earth  (aarets) 
mean  our  terrestrial  globe,  with  its  conti- 
nents and  seas,  the  organization  of  which  is 
the  special  work  of  the  third  day  ?  and  are 
the  waters  here  mentioned  the  seas  which  are 
especially  called  by  name  as  belonging  to 
the  work  of  that  day  ?  We  think  not ;  for 
the  invariable  rule  of  the  narrative  is  never 
again  to  introduce  a  work  already  mention- 
ed. Nor  is  this  the  order  of  creation  an- 
nounced by  Moses,  which  is  always  the  heav- 
ens first,  the  earth  after.  We  take,  there- 
fore, the  word  "  earth"  to  be  in  this  verse  an 
equivalent  to  matter  in  general.  The  use 
of  the  concrete  word  "earth,"  instead  of  the 
generic  or  abstract  word  "  matter,"  is  com- 
mon to  most  languages,  and  was  hero  a  ne- 
cessity, as  such  a  word  as  "  matter"  docs  not 
exist  in  the  Hebrew  language.  We  feel  then 
justified  in  understanding  aarets,  in  this  ear- 
ly stage  of  the  history  of  the  universe,  as 
meaning  the  primordial  cosmic  material  out 
of  which  God  was  going  to  organize  the 
heavens  and  the  earth. 

The  same  reasoning  applies  to  the  waters  of 
the  second  verse.  The  Hebrew  word  maim 


does  not  necessarily  mean  waters,  but  ap- 
!  plies  as  well  to  the  fluid  atmosphere;  it  is 
simply  descriptive  of  the  state  of  cosmic 
matter  comprised  in  the  word  earth.  These 
waters  are  the  subtle  fluid  which,  in  the 
cosmogony  of  the  ancient  Egyptians,  was 
supposed  to  extend  beyond  the  boundaries 
of  the  visible  universe,  whose  material  had 
been  drawn  from  that  vast  reservoir  of  all 
existence.  The  Bible  itself  gives  us,  in  the 
Book  of  Job,  in  the  Prophets,  and  in  the 
Psalms,  ample  proofs  of  the  familiarity  of 
their  authors  with  that  grand  conception 
which,  being  accepted  by  them,  teaches  us 
the  true  interpretation  of  the  Genesiac  ac- 
count. One  example  may  suffice : 

In  the  148th  Psalm  David  calls  upon  all 
creatures  to  praise  the  Lord,  naming  them  in 
the  order  of  their  rank.  "  Praise  ye  the  Lord 
from  the  heavens:  praise  ye  him,  sun  and 
moon  :  praise  ye  him,  all  ye  stars  of  light ;" 
and,  going  still  higher, "  praise  him,  ye  heav- 
ens of  heavens ;"  and,  last  and  highest,  "  ye 
waters  that  be  above  the  heavens."  These  ev- 
idently are  the  waters  of  Genesis  which  pre- 
cede the  light,  the  firmament  of  heaven,  and 
the  earth  and  the  seas.  Heading  a  few  lines 
further,  we  have  the  proof  that  the  Psalmist 
does  not  confound  these  waters  above  the 
heavens  with  the  terrestrial  waters,  for,  call- 
ing upon  the  things  of  earth  to  praise  the 
Lord,  he  names  the  dragons,  and  all  deeps — 
the  seas — fire,  hail,  vapors,  and  winds. 

The  sense  of  these  two  words  being  thus 
settled,  every  word  of  the  second  verse  be- 
comes clear  and  natural.  The  matter  just 
created  was  gaseous;  it  was  without  form, 
for  the  property  of  gas  is  to  expand  indefi- 
nitely. It  was  void,  because  homogeneous 
and  invisible.  It  Avas  dark,  because  as  yet 
inactive,  light  being  the  result  of  physical  or 
chemical  action.  It  was  a  deep,  for  its  ex- 
pansion in  space,  though  indefinite,  was  not 
infinite,  and  it  had  dimensions.  And  the 
Spirit  of  God  moved  upon  the  face  (outside, 
and  not  inside,  as  the  pantheist  would  have 
it)  of  that  A'ast  gaseous  mass,  ready  to  act 
upon  it,  and  to  direct  all  its  subsequent  ac- 
tivity, according  to  a  plan  revealed  by  the 
great  works  which  follow. 

The  central  idea  of  the  second  verse  is  the 
state  of  matter  when  created.  The  Spirit  of 
God,  moving  upon  it,  announces  and  prepares 
the  work  of  the  six  coming  days.  The  de- 
scription applies,  therefore,  to  the  matter  of 
the  universe  and  the  earth,  and  not  to  the 
earth  alone  as  a  globe  already  made,  which 
would  be  no  beginning.  The  distortions  and 
forced  interpretations  which  have  obscured 
the  Mosaic  account,  nearly  all  arise  from  the 
fundamental  error  which  is  here  corrected. 
There  is  no  gap  between  the  first  and  second 
verses,  no  more  than  in  any  other  part  of  the 
narrative.  The  Genesiac  account  is  through- 
out a  consistent  history  of  constant,  regular, 
and  uninterrupted  progress.  It  is  not  an 


CHRISTIANITY  AND  ITS  ANTAGONISMS. 


aimless  rehash  of  the  astronomical  anil  geo- 
logical phenomena  during  six  times  twenty- 
four  hours  before  the  creation  of  man,  which 
would  teach  us  nothing ;  which  is  disproved 
by  the  well-established  results  of  careful  sci- 
entific investigation,  and  still  more  by  the 
emphatic  declaration  of  Moses  himself  that 
"  these  are  the  generations  of  the  heavens 
and  of  the  earth." 

Such  are  the  statements  of  Moses.  And 
science  does  not  tell  another  story.  Miner- 
als, plants,  animals — all  bodies  of  nature — 
are  compound  results  of  processes  which 
speak  of  a  previous  condition.  By  decom- 
posing them,  and  undoing  what  has  been 
done  before,  we  finally  arrive  at  the  simple 
chemical  elements  which  are  the  common 
substratum  of  all  bodies.  The  same  again 
can  be  said  of  the  three  forms  of  niatter-'-sol- 
id,  liquid,  and  gaseous.  The  least  denned — 
the  one  in  which  the  atoms  are  the  most 
free — is  the  gas.  All  bodies  in  nature  can 
be  reduced  to  this,  the  simplest  of  all  forms 
of  matter.  Herschel,  Arago,  and  Alexan- 
der, therefore,  among  astronomers ;  Ampere, 
among  physicists ;  Becquerel  and  Th6uard, 
among  chemists ;  Cuvier  and  Humboldt, 
among  geologists,  all  have  arrived  at  the 
same  conclusion — that  this  iucomposed,  ho- 
mogeneous, gaseous  condition  of  matter  must 
have  been  the  beginning  of  the  universe. 

The  First  Day. — We  now  have  a  starting- 
point,  but  yet  no  activity,  no  progress.  All 
beginnings  are  in  darkness.  The  era  of  prog- 
ress opens  with  the  first  day's  work,  which 
was  the  production  of  light.  "  And  God  said, 
Let  there  be  light,  and  there  u-as  light."  At  God's 
command  movement  begins.  This  is  no  cre- 
ation, but  a  simple  manifestation  of  the  ac- 
tivity of  matter.  Are  matter  and  force  one 
and  the  same  I  or  is  matter  a  substratum  and 
an  instrument  for  force,  as  the  body  is  for  the 
mind  ?  This  vexed  metaphysical  question  is 
not  likely  ever  to  be  solved.  If  we  incline 
to  the  last  view,  we  may  conceive  that  God 
then  endowed  inert  matter  with  the  forces 
which  we  find  always  associated  with  it — 
gravity,  the  general  quantitative  force,  and 
the  specific,  qualitative,  chemical  forces,  and 
their  correlatives.  Under  the  action  of 
gravity  that  immeasurable  body  of  gaseous 
matter  contracts ;  atoms  conglomerate  into 
molecules ;  nearer  approach  begets  continual 
chemical  combinations  on  a  multitude  of 
points ;  in  the  more  concentrated  part  light 
and  heat  are  produced,  and  the  result  is  the 
appearance  in  the  dark  space  of  heaven  of  a 
large  luminous  mass,  the  primitive  grand 
nebula,  the  prototype  of  those  thousands  of 
luminous  cloud*  observed  by  the  astronomer 
floating  in  the  empty  wastes  beyond  our 
starry  heavens. 

Though  most  of  the  nebulae  viewed  through 
the  powerful  telescopes  of  this  scientific  age 
have  been  found  to  be  clusters  of  distant  or 
small  stars,  because  far  advanced  in  their 


development,  the  luminous  gas  forming  the 
transparent  body  of  many  comets — the  Zo- 
diacal light,  perhaps  —  and  other  gaseous 
heavenly  bodies,  may  serve  to  illustrate  tho 
condition  of  that  primitive  nebula. 

Thus  God  divided  the  light  from  the  darkness 
— that  is,  the  light  of  the  nebula  from  the 
dark  outside  matter,  as  yet  inactive,  and 
from  the  empty  space  around.  And  God 
called  the  light  day,  and  the  darkness  he  call- 
ed night — both  specific  names — without  ref- 
erence to  any  period  of  time.  And  the  even- 
ing (tho  dark  chaotic  time  preceding)  and 
tho  morning  (the  glorious  light  of  that  vast 
luminous  mass)  were  the  first  day — the  first 
great  period  of  development,  under  God's 
guidance,  of  that  world  of  matter  just  cre- 
ated ;  a  day  measured,  not  by  the  sun  which 
did  not  exist,  nor  by  any  definite  length  of 
time,  but  by  the  work  assigned  to  it. 

The  idea  that  these  six  days  can  possibly 
be  days  of  twenty -four  hours,  seems  only 
to  prove  the  force  of  first  impressions ;  for  its 
correctness  is  disproved  in  the  most  abso- 
lute manner  by  the  text  and  the  whole  ten- 
or of  the  Biblical  record,  as  well  as  by  the 
study  of  nature.  The  reference,  in  the  Dec- 
alogue, to  the  seventh  cosmogonic  day  as  a 
foundation  for  the  Sabbath  of  man,  which, 
at  first  sight,  seems  to  suggest  a  complete 
similarity  of  these  two  Sabbaths,  will  be  con- 
sidered hereafter. 

The  Hebrew  word  yom  (day)  is  used  in  this 
chapter  in  five  different  senses,  just  as  we 
use  the  word  day  in  common  language :  1. 
The  day,  meaning  light  as  above,  without 
reference  to  time  or  succession.  2.  The  cos- 
mogouic  day,  the  nature  of  which  is  to  be 
determined.  3.  The  day  of  twenty-four  hours 
in  the  fourth  cosmogonic  day,  where  it  is 
said  of  the  sun  and  moon,  "  Let  them  be  for 
days  and  for  seasons  and  for  years."  4.  The 
light  part  of  the  same  day  of  twenty-four 
hours,  as  opposed  to  the  night.  5.  In  Gene- 
sis ii.,  4,  in  the  day  that  the  Lord  God  made 
the  heavens  and  the  earth,  embracing  the 
week  of  creation,  or  an  indefinite  period  of 
time. 

The  days  of  twenty-four  and  twelve  hours, 
which  require  the  presence  of  the  sun,  are 
excluded  from  the  first  three  cosmogonic 
days,  since  the  sun  made  its  appearance  only 
on  the  fourth  day.  No  reason  is  apparent 
in  the  text  why  the  last  two  days  should  be 
of  a  different  nature  from  the  others,  while 
the  geological  history  of  the  creation  of  ani- 
mals and  man  demonstrates  that  they  are 
periods  of  indefinite  time.  The  word  day,  as 
light  opposed  to  darkness,  in  the  first  day, 
and  again  as  used  in  the  fifth  sense,  have 
no  application  here.  The  cosmogonic  day, 
therefore,  only  remains,  and  its  special  sense 
is  to  be  determined  by  its  nature. 

We  have  seen  already  that  each  of  these 
days  is  marked  by  a  work,  and  each  work  is 
one  of  the  great  steps  in  the  realization  of 


GlTfOT :  COSMOGONY  AND  THE  BIBLE. 


281 


God's  plan — one  of  the  great  changes  which 
constitute  the  organic  phases  of  that  histo- 
ry. Time  is  here  Avithout  importance.  It 
is  given,  long  or  short,  as  needed ;  and  God's 
works,  which  are  done  by  means  and  proc- 
esses which  we  can  study,  tell  us  that  for  ev- 
ery one  of  these  great  works  of  the  six 
days,  their  Author — before  whom  a  thousand 
years  are  as  one  day  —  han  chosen  to  em- 
ploy ages  to  bring  them  to  perfection. 

As  in  the  growth  of  the  plant  we  distin- 
guish the  germinating,  the  leafing,  the  flow- 
ering, and  the  seeding  processes,  as  so  many 
organic  phases,  which  might  be  called  the 
days  of  the  plant's  history,  without  reference 
to  the  length  of  time  allotted  to  each,  so  we 
have  here  the  day  of  the  cosriuc  light,  the 
day  of  the  heavens,  the  day  of  the  earth,  the 
day  of  solar  light,  the  day  of  th«>,  lower  ani- 
mals, and  the  day  of  the  mammal?  and  man ; 
which  are  really  the  great  phasira  of  God's 
creation. 

The  Second  Day. — The  work  of  tliis  day  is 
the  organization  of  the  heavens.  "And  God 
said,  Let  there  be  an  expanse  (firmament)  in 
the  midst  of  the  waters,  and  let  it  dividS  the  iva- 
ters  from  the  waters;  and  God  called  the 
expanse  heaven."  It  is  to  be  regretted  that 
the  English  version  has  translated  tie  He- 
brew word  rakiah  (expanse)  by  the  word 
firmament.  This  is  due  to  the  influence  of 
the  Latin  Vulgate,  which  has  firmamentum  as 
the  equivalent  of  the  inexact  ffrtpiufia  or  the 
Septuagint.  This  last  word  refers  to  the 
current  Egyptian  conception  of  a  solid  vault 
of  heaven  separating  the  lower  visible  world 
from  the  tipper  world  of  subtle,  invisible  mat- 
ter beyond.  This  view  was  held  by  the 
Greek  translators,  but  is  not  warranted  by 
the  Hebrew  text,  and  renders  it  unintelligi- 
ble. If  it  were  correct,  how  could  it  be  said 
that  God  called  that  solid  vault  "  heaven  ?" 
and  further,  verse  20,  that  God  created  the 
fowl  to  fly  in  the  open  "  firmament"  of  heav- 
en ?  In  both  cases  expanse  is  evidently  the 
fitting  word. 

The  central  idea  of  this  day's  work  is  di- 
vision or  separation.  The  vast  primitive 
nebula  of  the  first  day  breaks  up  into  a 
multitude  of  gaseous  masses,  and  these  are 
concentrated  into  stars.  Motion  is  every 
where.  Gravitation  and  the  chemical  forces 
tend  to  concentrate  matter  around  vari- 
ous centres,  and  thus  to  isolate  them  from 
each  other;  centrifugal  force  tends  to  dis- 
perse them.  Under  the  laws  of  the  forces 
of  matter  and  motion  —  established  by  God 
himself,  and  under  his  guidance — these  num- 
berless bodies,  of  all  forms  and  sizes,  which 
fill  the  space  and  adorn  our  heavens,  com- 
bine into  those  worlds  and  groups  of  worlds 
whose  wonderful  organization  it  is  the  prov- 
ince of  astronomy  to  discover.  It  is  prema- 
ture to  say  that  this  noble  science  has  as  yet 
furnished  us  a  satisfactory  history  of  the 
generations  of  the  starry  heavens,  and  of 


their  real  structure.  But  much  has  been 
done  toward  it.  In  the  genesis  of  our  solar 
system — as  explained  by  the  genius  of  La- 
place, and  submitted  by  Alexander  to  ex- 
haustive calculations,  the  result  of  which 
amounts  to  a  demonstration  of  its  truth — we 
see  one  of  the  processes  by  which  has  taken 
place  the  separation  of  individual  planets 
from  a  vast  central  body,  holding  them  in 
bondage,  in  their  orbits,  by  the  power  of  its 
mass.  In  the  twin  stars,  revolving  around 
a  common  centre  of  gravity,  we  perceive  the 
effect  produced  when  the  masses  are  more 
nearly  equal.  In  the  nebulous  stars  of  all 
grades  we  follow  the  gradual  concentration 
from  a  gaseous  state  to  a  compact  and  well- 
defined  body.  In  the  great  spiral  nebula? 
discovered  by  Lord  Rosse,  we  behold  the  act- 
ual breaking  up  of  a  world  of  stars  of  all 
sizes  and  brilliancy,  and  we  witness  the  very 
process  of  their  dispersion  through  space,  by 
centrifugal  force,  along  paths  that  they  will 
never  retrace. 

But  the  text  speaks  of  waters  above  the 
heavens,  and  of  waters  under  the  heavens.  The 
latter  are  determined  by  the  work  of  the 
third  day,  by  which  it  appears  that  they 
are  the  matter  out  of  which  our  globe  was 
made,  the  waters  above  being  the  matter 
which  formed  the  heavenly  bodies. 

We  may  ask  ourselves,  however,  whether  the 
matter  of  our  globe  is  the  whole,  or  only  a 
part,  of  the  waters  under  the  heavens.  If  we 
accept  the  grand  conception  of  the  structure 
of  the  heavens  proposed  by  Herschel,  all  our 
visible  heavens  are  but  an  immense  cluster 
of  self-luminous  stars,  of  which  our  sun,  with 
its  retinue  of  planets,  is  but  one,  situated  not 
far  from  its  centre.  The  form  of  this  vast 
cluster  is  that  of  a  disc,  whose  outer  bound- 
ary is  the  Milky  Way.  In  this  the  stars  seem 
ready  to  break  up,  and  assume  the  shape 
of  the  branches  of  a  spiral  nebula.  Beyond 
extends,  in  immeasurable  distance,  the  dark 
abyss  of  space.  In  this,  again,  are  thou- 
sands of  nebulous  masses,  each  of  which 
may  be  a  starry  heaven  like  ours.  Here, 
we  may  fancy,  we  recognize — in  the  clusters 
of  visible  stars,  to  which  our  sun,  moon,  and 
the  earth  itself  belong — the  waters  below 
the  heavens,  followed  by  the  vast  expanse 
beyond,  containing  the  world  of  the  nebula) 
—  the  heaven  of  heavens,  and  the  waters 
above  the  heavens,  of  which  the  Psalmist 
speaks.  But,  whether  we  receive  the  views 
of  Herschel,  of  Maedler,  or  of  Alexander  con- 
cerning the  structure  and  formation  of  the 
heavens,  one  fact  recognized  by  all  is  the 
work  of  separation,  of  iudividualization, 
w.'aich  must  have  preceded  the  present  com- 
bination of  the  heavenly  bodies,  and  is  indi- 
cated as  the  special  work  of  the  second  cos- 
mo.  ?onic  day. 

The  Third  Day. — This  day  has  two  works, 
whioh  must  be  considered  separately.  The 
first  is  the  formation  of  the  material  globe 


CHRISTIANITY  AND  ITS  ANTAGONISMS. 


of  the  earth.  "Let  the  waters  under  the 
heavens  be  gathered  together  unto  one  place, 
nnd  let  the  dry  land  appear.  And  God  called 
the  dry  land  earth ;  and  the  gathering  to- 
gether of  the  waters  called  he  seas."  The 
main  idea  is  condensation  of  matter  into  the 
solid  globe,  its  liquid  covering  and  gaseous 
envelope.  Here,  as  usual,  Moses  gives  us  the 
final  result  of  the  work,  and  not  the  process 
by  which  it  was  produced.  For  that  we 
must  ask  geology. 

The  structure  of  the  hard  mantle  of  rock 
which  covers  the  unknown  interior  of  the 
globe,  and  the  nature  of  its  strata,  togeth- 
er with  their  ever -increasing  temperature 
downward,  will  bear  witness  to  the  eventful 
history  of  the  past  ages  of  our  earth ;  as- 
tronomy and  chemistry  will  carry  us  still 
higher,  up  to  the  very  birth  of  our  planet. 

The  materials  of  that  part  of  the  earth  crust 
accessible  to  our  investigation — from  the  al- 
luvial surface  sands  and  pebbles,  through 
the  sandstones,  conglomerates,  slates,  and 
limestones,  down  to  the  crystalline  bottom 
rocks — show  themselves  to  be  the  debris  of 
pre-existing  rocks,  rearranged  at  the  bottom 
of  the  ocean  ;  or  due,  as  most  of  the  lime- 
stones, to  the  secreting  power  of  the  polyps, 
or  most  minute  animals  of  the  sea.  The  tem- 
perature of  the  waters  of  this  ocean  was  no 
higher  than  that  of  our  tropical  seas ;  for 
these  rocks  contain  innumerable  relics  of 
marine  animals  similar,  though  not  identical, 
to  those  of  the  present  day.  Lower  down, 
the  crystalline  rocks,  mostly  stratified — the 
so-called  metamorphic  rocks — still  bear  the 
mark  of  an  aqueous  origin,  but  also  indi- 
cate a  high  degree  of  temperature  in  the  wa- 
ters, which  explains  both  their  crystalline 
character  and  the  almost  entire  absence  of 
traces  of  life  in  these  early  seas.  Coming 
from  deeper  sources  still,  but  filling  perpen- 
dicular fissures  or  chimneys,  as  in  volcanoes, 
crystalline  masses  of  porphyry,  compact  trap, 
Basalt,  and  volcanic  substances  cross  the 
regular  strata  up  to  the  surface,  and  by  their 
igneous  nature  reveal  the  existence  of  an 
internal  temperature  sufficient  to  keep  rocku 
in  a  melted  condition. 

Guided  by  these  general  facts,  and  aided 
by  the  light  derived  from  chemistry,  physio, 
and  astronomy,  we  may  distinguish,  in  the 
gradual  formation  of  the  physical  globe,  b  j- 
fore  the  introduction  of  life,  four  periods  :  1. 
The  nebulous.  2.  The  mineral  incandescent. 
3.  The  period  of  the  hot  oceans.  4.  The  pe- 
riod of  the  cold  oceans. 

In  the  first  the  matter  of  the  earth  wa  j  a 
part  of  the  hot  atmosphere  of  the  sun.  'In 
the  slow  process  of  contraction,  consequent 
upon  its  cooling,  the  sun  left  it  behind  in  the 
form  of  a  gaseous  ring.  The  ring  breaks  in 
several  places,  and  is  rolled  up  into  a  globu- 
lar mass,  which,  according  to  the  laws  o  I  mo- 
tion, rotates  upon  itself,  and  revolves  around 
its  parent  body  nearly  in  the  plane  of  its 


eqtiator,  and  with  the  velocity  imparted  to 
it  by  the  eun  itself.  The  new  globe,  born 
from  the  old  matter  of  the  sun,  now  enters, 
as  a  gaseous  mas:!,  into  the  first  period  of  its 
separate  existence. 

Loss  of  heat  by  radiation  causes  further 
concentration.  The  molecules,  brought  near- 
er together  and  to  the  proper  temperature 
for  chemical  action,  now  combine.  A  vast, 
long-continued,  and  ever-renewed  conflagra- 
tion, with  an  enormous  development  of  heat, 
takes  place,  and  the  result  is  an  incandes- 
cent melted  nlineral  body,  surrounded  by  a 
vast  luminous  atmosphere.  The  earth  is  a 
sun.  This  is  the  second  period  of  its  history. 

The  cooling  continues :  a  hard  crust  is 
formed  on  the  surface  of  the  melted  body  of 
the  globe,  and,  when  the  temperature  be- 
comes low  enough  to  admit  of  the  formation 
of  water,  the  ocean — which  was  before  a  part 
of  the  atmosphere  in  the  shape  of  vapor — 
is  deposited  on  the  solid  surface  of  the  globe. 
The  temperature  of  this  first  ocean  must 
have  bein  very  high,  owing  to  the  immense 
weight  of  the  atmosphere  resting  upon  it. 
It  has  been  calculated  that  when  the  depo- 
sition "began,  the  temperature  of  the  first 
waters  could  not  have  been  less  than  600° 
Fahr;  This  geological  phase,  though  it  is 
one  through  which  a  cooling  globe  must  have 
necessarily  passed,  has  not,  thus  far,  received 
the  attention  it  deserves.  Let  us  try  to  see 
what  this  state  of  things  implies,  for  it  is 
important  for  the  explanation  of  the  fourth 
day.  The  oceans  were  not  only  very  warm, 
but  must  have  been  highly  acidulated;  for 
all  the  acids,  which  form  a  large  part  of  the 
thousands  upon  thousands  of  feet  of  rocks 
deposited  since,  must  have  been  then  in  the 
atmosphere.  These  hot  and  acid  waters,  rest- 
ing upon  the  old  mineral  crust,  must  have 
decomposed  it,  and  a  new  series  of  chemical 
combinations  have  been  formed,  to  which, 
perhaps,  we  may  refer  the  deposition  of  the 
lowermost  crystalline  rocks  which  are  at 
the  base  of  the  new  terrestrial  crust  —  the 
only  one  we  actually  know.  By  these  POAV- 
erful  chemical  actions  the  earth  was  trans- 
formed into  a  vast  galvanic  pile,  emitting 
constant  streams  of  electricity,  which,  reach- 
ing the  ethereal  space  at  the  boundary  of  the 
thick  atmosphere,  became  luminous.  Ac- 
cording to  Herschel,  the  photosphere  of  the 
sun  may  be  due  to  a  similar  cause,  and  if  we 
accept  the  most  plausible  explanation  of  the 
aurora  borealis,  it  is  but  the  last  vestige  of 
that  electrical  condition  of  our  globe.  Dur- 
ing this  third  period  the  earth  was  still  sur- 
rounded by  a  photosphere  of  subdued  brill- 
iancy: it  was  a  nebulous  star. 

The  process  goes  on ;  the  physical  and 
chemical  forces,  thus  far  so  active,  subside 
and  enter  into  a  state  of  quiescence ;  the  pho- 
tosphere disappears ;  the  globe  becomes  an 
extinct  body ;  the  ocean  cools  down  to  the 
nuld  temperature  of  our  tropical  seas,  and 


GUYOT :  COSMOGONY  AND  THE  BIBLE. 


283 


is  ready  for  the  introduction  of  living  beings. 
The  age  of  matter  is  over ;  the  age  of  life  is 
at  hand.  The  fourth  period  was  that  of  the 
dark  planet  and  the  cool  oceans. 

This  fourth  period,  and  perhaps  the  latter 
part  of  the  third,  are  represented  in  the  geo- 
logical strata  by  the  so-called  azoic  rocks, 
which  are  found  in  all  continents.  Here 
also  we  have  evidence  of  the  appearance  of 
the  first  land  above  the  waters  of  the  ocean. 
Considerable  surfaces  and  low  mountain 
chains,  both  in  the  Old  and  New  World,  be- 
long to  this  age.  Geology  explains  very  plau- 
sibly the  sinking  of  the  large  surfaces  — 
now  containing  the  oceans — and  the  rising 
between  them  of  the  continents  and  mount- 
ains, by  the  gradual  shrinkage  of  the  cool- 
ing interior,  forcing  the  hard  external  crust 
—  now  too  large  —  to  mould  itself  on  the 
smaller  sphere  by  folding  into  mighty  wrin- 
kles. This  process  could  not  be  better  de- 
scribed than  by  the  words  of  Moses :  "  Let 
the  watei-s  be  gathered  together  in  one  place, 
and  let  the  dry  land  appear"  —  implying 
that  the  land  was  formed  already  under  the 
surface  of  the  ocean,  and  was  subsequently 
raised  above  it. 

The  first  work  of  the  third  day  closes  the 
age  of  matter;  for,  if  science  is  right  in  its 
view  of  the  origin  of  our  solar  system,  the 
sun,  moon,  and  stars  of  the  fourth  day  were 
then  in  existence,  but  invisible  to  the  earth. 
The  three  great  steps  indicated  by  the  works 
of  the  first  three  days  are  the  same  that  we 
observe  in  the  beginning  and  growth  of  or- 
ganized beings.  All  originate  in  darkness, 
jn  a  homogeneous  fluid,  which  soon  forms 
into  an  egg ;  the  next  stage  is  a  differentia- 
tion, and  a  gradual  formation  of  individual 
organs ;  the  last  is  a  combining  together  of 
all  these  parts  into  an  organic  body,  exhibit- 
ing unity  in  variety.  This  is  the  universal 
law  of  development,  both  for  individuals  and 
collections  of  individuals. 

But  in  this  third  day  there  is  a  second 
work,  entirely  unlike  the  first,  belonging  to 
the  age  of  organic  life — the  creation  of  the 
plant — a  creation, indeed,  of  a  new  principle, 
though  it  is  not  designated  in  the  text  by 
bard,  because  it  is  but  the  peristyle  of  the 
temple  of  true  life,  the  condition  of  its  exist- 
ence. We  say  that  it  is  a  creation ;  for  in  it 
matter  is  controlled  by  an  immaterial  prin- 
ciple, directing  its  forces  so  as  to  make  it  as- 
sume new  forms  unknown  to  the  mineral. 
In  the  plant,  as  in  every  organized  being, 
there  is  an  inward  principle  of  individuality 
not  possessed  by  the  crystal ;  a  variety  of 
functions  and  organs  working  together  to- 
ward a  common  aim  for  the  benefit  of  the 
individual ;  an  inward  growth,  with  a  be- 
ginning and  a  definite  end,  and  a  reproduc- 
tion which  perpetuates  the  species — phenom- 
ena which  are  all  absolutely  foreign  to  in- 
organic matter.  These  characteristics  are 
admirably  summed  up  in  the  words,  "And 


God  said,  Let  the  earth  bring  forth  grass,  the 
herb  yielding  seed,  and  the  fruit-tree  yielding 
fruit  after  his  kind,  whose  seed  is  in  itself." 

The  words,  "Let  the  earth  bring  forth," 
may  seem  to  favor  the  idea  of  a  combination 
of  material  elements  without  the  introduc- 
tion of  a  new  principle.  But  the  same  phrase 
is  used  in  verse  20,  \vhen  a  true  creation 
(bard) — that  of  the  first  animals — was  meant 
and  took  place.  And  again,  in  Gen.  ii.,  4, 5, 
we  find  that  "  in  the  day  the  Lord  God  made 
every  plant  of  the  field  before  it  was  in  the 
earth,  and  every  herb  of  the  field  before  it 
grew."  This  declaration  distinguishes  the 
plant,  as  a  principle,  from  the  matter  which 
it  moulds  into  the  form  necessary  for  its 
functions. 

This  view  must  be  held  as  the  most  ra- 
tional ;  for  all  experiments — even  the  very 
latest  and  apparently  most  successful — made 
during  the  last  hundred  years  to  prove  the 
so-called  spontaneous  generation  of  organ- 
ized beings  from  dead  matter,  have  failed  to 
convince  the  majority  of  thinking  men  of 
its  reality.  Matter,  unaided,  can  never  rise 
above  its  own  level. 

The  most  important  function  of  the  plant 
in  the  economy  of  nature  is,  with  the  aid  of 
the  sun's  light,  to  turn  inorganic  into  organ- 
ic matter,  and  thus  prepare  food  for  the  ani- 
mal. Nothing  else  in  nature  does  this  im- 
portant work.  The  animal  can  not  do  it, 
and  starves  in  the  midst  of  an  abundance  of 
the  materials  needed  for  the  building  up  of 
its  body.  The  plant  stores  up  force  which 
it  is  not  called  upon  to  use ;  the  animal 
takes  it  ready  made  as  food,  and  expends  it 
in  activity.  The  plant,  therefore,  is  the  in- 
dispensable basis  of  all  animal  life ;  for, 
though  animals  partially  feed  upon  each  oth- 
er, ultimately  the  organic  matter  they  need 
must  come  from  the  plant. 

The  manner  in  which  Moses  introduces 
the  creation  of  the  plant,  as  a  work  distinct 
in  its  nature  from  the  first  work  of  the  third 
day,  and  the  position  he  assigns  to  it  at  the 
end  of  this  day,  and  before  the  creation  of 
living  beings,  are  highly  philosophical.  This 
order  is  required  by  the  law  of  progress, 
according  to  which  the  inferior  appears  be- 
fore the  superior,  because  the  first  is  the 
condition  of  the  phenomenal  existence  of  the 
latter. 

Does  geology  confirm  this  position  of  the 
plant  in  the  order  of  creation  ?  If  we  should 
understand  the  text  as  meaning  that  the 
whole  plant  kingdom,  from  the  lowest  infu- 
sorial form  to  the  highest  dicotyledon,  was 
created  at  this  early  day,  geology  would  as- 
suredly disprove  it.  But  the  author,  as  we 
have  remarked  .above,  mentions  every  order 
of  facts  but  once,  and  he  does  it  at  the  time 
of  its  first  introduction.  Here,  therefore,  the 
whole  system  of  plants  is  described  in  full 
outline,  as  it  has  been  developed,  from  the 
lowest  to  the  most  perfect,  in  the  succession 


964 


CHRISTIANITY  AND  ITS  ANTAGONISMS. 


of  ages ;  for  it  will  uover  again  bo  spoken  of 
in  the  remainder  of  the  narrative.  What 
plants  actually  existed  at  this  period  geolo- 
gy has  to  find  out.  The  possibility  of  infu- 
sorial plants  living  in  warm,  nay,  in  hot 
water,  is  proved  by  their  being  found  in  the 
geysers  of  Iceland,  and  in  hot,  acidulated 
springs.  The  latest  geological  investigations 
tell  us  that  abundant  traces  of  carbonaceous 
matter  and  old  silicious  deposits  among  the 
so-called  azoic  rocks  seem  to  indicate  the 
presence  of  a  large  number  of  infusorial  pro- 
tophytes  filling  those  early  seas.  Whether 
they  furnished  food  for  the  primitive  proto- 
zoans of  a  similar  grade  is  still  a  matter  of 
doubt ;  but  the  presence  of  limestone  strata 
in  the  azoic  age  seems  to  speak  in  the  affirm- 
ative. 

The  striking  fact  that  Moses,  though  fully 
recognizing  the  great  difference  between  the 
two  works  of  the  third  day,  and  the  impor- 
tance of  the  vegetable  kingdom,  did  not  as- 
sign to  it  a  special  day,  but  left  it  in  the  age 
of  matter,  is  not  less  full  of  meaning.  The 
plant  is  not  yet  life,  but  the  bridge  between 
matter  and  life — the  link  between  the  two 
ages.  Placed  within  the  material  age  of  cre- 
ation, it  is  the  harbinger  and  promise  of  a 
more  noble  and  better  time  to  come.  It  is 
the  root  of  the  living  tree  planted  in  the  in- 
organic globe,  and  destined  to  flourish  in  the 
age  of  life. 

The  fourth  day  opens  the  age  of  life,  with 
the  appearance  of  the  sun,  moon,  and  stars 
in  the  heavens  visible  from  the  earth  —  a 
work  which  apparently  still  belongs  to  the 
physical  order,  but  whose  object  is  to  bene- 
fit life.  "  Let  there  le  lights  in  the  firmament 
of  the  heaven,  to  give  light  upon  the  earth ;  and 
to  divide  the  day  from  the  night;  and  for  sea- 
sons, and  for  days,  and  for  years." 

The  sun  and  moon  are  not  created,  they 
existed  before,  but  now  enter  into  new  rela- 
tions with  the  earth.  During  the  age  of  mat- 
ter the  intensity  of  chemical  action  was  a 
source  of  permanent  light — the  earth  was  self- 
luminous — the  light  of  the  sun,  moon,  and 
stars  being  merged  in  the  stronger  light  of 
its  photosphere,  and  therefore  invisible  to  it. 
But  after  the  disappearance  of  its  luminous 
envelope,  our  glorious  heavens,  with  sun, 
moon,  and  stars,  become  visible,  and  the  earth 
depends  upon  this  outside  source  for  light 
and  heat.  Its  spherical  form  causes  the  un- 
equal distribution  of  both  which  establishes 
the  differences  of  climate  from  the  pole  to 
the  equator.  Its  rotation  gives,  for  the  first 
time,  a  succession  of  day  and  night,  which 
breaks  the  permanent  light  of  the  preceding 
age.  Its  revolution  round  the  sun  brings, 
in  their  turn,  the  seasons  and  the  years.  Thus 
are  prepared  the  physical  conditions  neces- 
sary to  the  existence  of  living  beings,  the 
periods  of  activity  and  rest,  of  summer  and 
winter,  and  that  variety  of  temperature  and 
moisture  which  fosters  the  almost  infinite 


richness  of  the  organic  forms  of  plants  and 
animals  displayed  in  our  world  of  life. 

In  the  third  day  the  earth  was  ready  for 
life ;  in  the  fourth  the  heavens  are  ready  to 
help  in  the  work.  The  fourth  day  is,  as  it 
were,  a  reminiscence  of  the  inorganic  pe- 
riod, and  forms  another  connection  between 
the  two  principal  stages  of  the  globe. 

The  fifth  and  sixth  days  oifer  no  diffi- 
culties, for  they  unfold  the  successive  cre- 
ation of  the  various  tribes  of  animals  which 
people  the  water,  the  air,  and  the  land,  in 
the  precise  order  indicated  by  geology. 

This  history  is  introduced  by  the  solemn 
word  bard,  which  occurs  here  for  the  second 
time,  and  gives  us  to  understand  that,  with 
the  creation  of  the  animal,  another  great  and 
entirely  new  order  of  existence  begins. 

Matter,  indeed,  is  in  it,  but  controlled  and 
shaped  into  new  forms,  foreign  to  its  own 
nature,  to  suit  the  wants  of  the  immaterial 
being  within.  Vegetative  life  is  in  it,  but 
subservient  to  higher  functions,  which  the 
plant  could  never  perform  by  itself.  A  con- 
scious perception  of  the  outer  world  by  sen- 
sation, however,  and  a  will  to  react  upon 
it,  are  powers  which  place  the  animal  on 
a  higher  platform,  and  make  it  a  being 
which,  by  its  nature  and  its  functions,  is  en- 
tirely distinct  from  the  lower  grades  of  exist- 
ence. 

Let  us  cast  a  glance  at  the  geological  his- 
tory of  the  life  system,  such  as  present  sci- 
ence enables  us  to  read  it,  and  the  admira- 
ble correctness  t>f  the  Mosaic  account  will 
be  evident. 

Geology  informs  us  that  the  terrestrial 
crust,  down  to  its  lowest  attainable  depths, 
is  composed  of  layers  placed  upon  each 
other,  different  in  mineralogical  character 
and  structure,  and  evidently  deposited  at 
the  bottom  of  the  ocean.  The  order  of  their 
superposition  furnishes  the  great  chrono- 
logical table  of  the  events  which  took  place 
during  their  formation ;  the  lowermost  stra- 
tum— the  first  deposited — being  the  oldest ; 
the  surface  layers — the  last  formed — being 
the  most  recent. 

These  strata  preserve  in  their  folds  the 
archives  of  the  creation  of  organized  beings, 
plants,  and  animals,  whose  remains  innumer- 
able fill  these  rocky  shelves,  and  reveal  to  the 
geologist  the  mysteries  of  the  by-gone  ages. 

Five  great  ages  of  life  may  be  distin- 
guished, each  of  them  characterized  by  the 
predominance  of  a  certain  class  of  animals, 
and  marking  the  great  steps  of  gradual  prog- 
ress in  the  vast  system  of  the  living  forms 
of  the  past : 

1.  The  age  of  invertebrated  animals,  con- 
tained in  the  Silurian  series  of  rocks. 

2.  The  age  of  fishes,  in  the  Devonian  series. 

3.  The  age  of  the  first  land  plants,  in  the 
Carboniferous  rocks. 

4.  The  age  of  the  reptiles,  in  the  Mesozoic 
rocks — triassic,  Jurassic,  and  cretaceous. 


GUYOT :  COSMOGONY  AND  THE  BIBLE. 


285 


5.  ThoAge  of  the  mammals,  in  the  Tertiary 
rocks. 

These  are  preceded,  as  a  preface,  by  au  age 
cf  protophytes  and  protozoans  in  the  so-called 
azoic  or  archaic  rocks,  and  closed  by  the  age 
of  man,  in  the  quaternary  and  present  age. 

In  the  first,  the  primordial  fauna  makes 
its  appearance  iu  the  lowermost  Silurian 
strata,  and  is  represented  by  marine  forms 
of  the  three  great  archetypes  of  iuverte- 
brated  animals — the  radiates,  mollusks,  and 
the  articulates.  They  appear  all  at  once  on 
the  same  level,  and  not  successively.  During 
untold  ages,  represented  by  successive  de- 
posits of  rocks  amounting  to  over  15,000 
feet  in  thickness,  corals  and  plant-like  radi- 
ates, mollusks  of  all  grades — some  of  gigantic 
size — numberless  crustaceans  of  embryonic 
form,  swarm  in  the  tepid  waters  of  the  ocean ; 
but  not  a  fish  is  found,  save  a  few  at  the 
very  end  of  this  long  period  of  existence,  as 
forerunners  heralding  the  coming  of  higher 
forms.  This  is  the  reign  of  the  lower  ani- 
mal life — the  involuntary  life — typified  by 
the  invertebrates. 

In  the  second  age,  the  Devonian  strata 
contain  iu  abundance  remains  of  the  fish 
tribe,  which  is  added  to  the  riches  of  the 
sea,  and  takes  the  lead  among  the  tenants  of 
the  ocean ;  for,  though  the  lowest  grade  in 
the  archetype  of  vertebrates,  it  belongs  to 
the  higher  level  of  animal  life,  in  which  sen- 
sation and  will  predominate.  The  strange 
forms  of  these  first  fishes — their  reptilian 
character,  their  powerful  organization  — 
make  them  the  scavengers  and  the  kings  of 
the  seas. 

This  is  the  reign  of  fishes. 

In  the  third — the  Carboniferous  age — the 
continents,  which  were  slowly  growing  under 
the  water,  reach  the  surface.  These  newly 
emerged,  still  swampy  lauds,  cover  them- 
selves with  a  mantle  of  verdure.  In  the  warm 
and  moist  atmosphere  of  this  day,  charged 
with  carbonic  acid  gas,  humble  cryptogams 
grow  to  stately  forest  trees,  and  a  luxuriant 
growth  of  ferns  and  allied  plants  furnish  the 
material  for  the  vast  beds  of  coal  so  precious 
to  civilized  man.  This  is  the  reign  of  the 
lower  laud  plants,  purifying  the  atmosphere 
of  its  noxious  gases,  and  preparing  it  for  air- 
breathing  animals. 

In  the  fourth  age,  monstrous  reptiles,  first 
amphibious,  together  with  tall  birds,  then 
huge  marine  saurians  and  gigantic  land  rep- 
tiles, fill  the  oceans  and  inland  seas,  which 
teem  with  an  extraordinary  abundance  of 
lower  marine  life.  The  reptiles  are  the  kings 
of  creation,  they  reign  supreme. 

The  fifth  age  was  heralded,  in  the  preced- 
ing age,  by  a  few  small,  mostly  marsupial 
mammals. 

But  now  the  Tertiary  opens  with  a  mag- 
nificent array  of  large  mammals,  which  peo- 
ple the  new-formed  continents  and  the  seas, 
from  the  huge  whale  to  the  portly  form  of 


the  elephant  and  the  powerful  organization 
of  the  lordly  lion,  the  king  of  the  brute  crea- 
tion. The  mammal — the  typical  vertebrate,ihe 
perfect  animal — now  reigns  iu  his  turn,  but 
will  soon  also  have  to  yield  its  sceptre  to 
man. 

The  facts  just  mentioned  speak  a  strong 
language.  They  tell  us  that  creation  is  a 
reality.  The  archetypes  of  the  Silurian  are 
not  derived  from  one  another,  for  they  ap- 
pear all  simultaneously.  Science  fails  to 
discover  traces  of  a  direct  descent  of  the 
vertebrate  from  the  invertebrate,  whose  plan 
of  structure  is  entirely  unlike ;  of  the  large 
fishes  of  the  Devonian  from  any  preceding 
animal  form ;  of  the  huge  reptiles  of  the  mid- 
dle ages  of  life  from  the  fishes  of  the  Devo- 
nian. The  gigantic  pachyderms,  which  ap- 
pear suddenly  at  the  tertiary  epoch,  are  not 
the  offspring  of  the  reptiles  of  the  age  pre- 
ceding. The  bond  which  unites  them  is  of 
an  immaterial  nature ;  the  marvelous  unity 
which  we  observe  is  in  the  plan  of  the  Cre- 
ator. We  should  then  acknowledge  a  plan 
admirable  in  conception,  admirable  in  exe- 
cution. There  is  a  wisdom  which  devises, 
a  free  ivill,  and  a  power,  which  executes  and 
creates  in  succession,  at  the  appointed  time, 
when  it  is  fitting,  and  not  a  single  great  un- 
conscious whole  which  is  developed  by  itself. 

In  the  order  of  time  there  is  progress.  The 
inferior  being  alwaj's  precedes  the  superior ; 
the  imperfect  the  perfect.  Inorganic  nature 
precedes  organization.  The  watery  element 
reigns  before  terrestrial ;  the  aquatic  and  in- 
ferior animals  before  the  terrestrial  and  su- 
perior. In  the  series  of  the  vertebrated  ani- 
mals, we  sec  fishes,  reptiles,  birds,  and  mam- 
mifers  appearing  in  the  ages  of  the  globe  in 
the  order  of  their  perfection. 

The  accordance  of  these  results  of  geology 
with  the  Mosaic  account  is  so  evident  that 
no  further  explanation  is  necessary. 

Fifth  Day. — The  work  of  this  day  is  the 
creation  of  the  lower  animals,  up  to  the 
birds.  "And  God  created  great  whales,  and  every 
creature  which  moveth,  which  the  waters  brought 
forth  abundantly,  and  every  winged  fowl."  The 
order  of  their  appearance  is  that  discovered 
by  geology:  the  water  animals  first,  togeth- 
er with  the  large  amphibious,  the  great 
whales  (marine  monsters),  and  other  rep- 
tiles, and  then  the  birds.  This  corresponds 
with  the  first  geological  ages,  the  paleozoic 
and  the  mesozoic,  up  to  the  tertiary  epoch. 

Sixth  Day. — The  sixth  day,  which  is  the 
third  of  the  era  of  life,  contains  two  works, 
as  did  the  third  day  of  the  era  of  matter : 
first,  the  creation  of  the  higher  animals  es- 
pecially living  on  the  dry  laud,  or  the  mam- 
malia— it  corresponds  with  the  tertiary  age  ; 
and,  second,  the  creation  of  man  in  the  quar- 
ternary  age. 

The  First  Work.— "And  God  made  the  beast 
of  the  earth  and  cattle,  after  their  kind,  and  every 
thing  that  creepeth  w/>ow  the  earth."  For  this 


CHRISTIANITY  AND  ITS  ANTAGONISMS. 


creation  the  word  made  is  used,  not  create, 
for  it  is  not  the  first  introduction,  but  the 
continuation  of  the  life  system.  The  creep- 
ing animals  of  the  sixth  day  are  not  rep- 
tiles, but,  according  to  Gesenius,  the  smaller 
mammalia  —  rats,  mice,  etc.  The  greatest 
changes  in  the  mineral  and  organic  creation, 
according  to  geology,  took  place  between  the 
cretaceous  and  tertiary  epochs.  And  there, 
also,  Moses  places  the  beginning  of  a  new 
day.  For  not  only  are  the  laud  animals  a 
new  set  of  beings,  they  are  also  the  highest, 
and  the  family  to  which  man  belongs  as  a 
member  of  the  life-system  of  nature. 

The  second  work  of  the  sixth  day  is  of 
a  vastly  different  nature.  The  creation  of 
man  is  a  fact  of  such  great  importance  that 
it  could  not  be  mentioned  otherwise  than  sep- 
arately. Here,  again,  and  for  the  third  time, 
the  word  bard  announces  not  a  simple  con- 
tinuation of  the  animal,  but  the  creation  of 
a  new  order  of  existence,  the  most  exalted 
of  all.  Three  times  the  sacramental  word  is 
repeated :  "  So  God  created  man  in  his  oivn 
image,  in  the  image  of  God  created  he  him; 
male  and  female  created  he  them."  That  be- 
ing, made  by  the  Creator  in  his  own  im- 
age, upon  the  creation  of  whom  Moses  put 
so  much  stress,  to  enforce,  as  it  were,  the 
idea  of  his  dignity,  could  not  be  confounded 
with  the  animals.  But  why  does  he  place 
this  creation,  not  in  a  separate  day,  but  with 
the  mammalia  in  the  sixth  day  ?  Man  is  the 
crowning  act  of  the  Creator.  He  is  the  sum- 
mary of  all  perfections  scattered  through  the 
animal  kingdom,  of  which  he  is  the  key- 
stone. He  is  the  end  and  aim  of  the  whole 
development  of  our  planet,  and  as  such 
belongs  to  this  physical  earth.  But  he  is 
also  a  being  of  a  new  and  superior  order,  and, 
therefore,  must  be  kept  distinct.  The  ap- 
pearance of  the  physical  man  is  the  prophecy 
and  the  promise  of  a  future  and  more  perfect 
age  of  development  which  begins  with  him — 
the  moral  age,  that  of  the  historical  world. 
This  second  work  of  the  sixth  day  is  thus 
the  link  between  the  age  of  the  physical 
creation  and  that  of  the  moral  development 
of  mankind,  as  the  plant  was  the  link  be- 
tween the  material  and  the  world  of  life.  It  is 
the  moral  world  planted  in  the  material 
world,  in  order  to  make  it  subservient  to  a 
higher  and  better  aim. 

Here  end  the  working  days  of  the  Creator. 
All  his  other  works  God  had  declared  to  be 
flood;  but  on  the  sixth  day  "God  saw  every 
thing  that  he  had  made,  and,  behold,  it  was  VERY 
GOOD."  The  work  of  the  whole  week  is  now 
finished,  and  perfect  as  God  will  have  it  for 
his  purpose — the  education  of  man. 

Now  begins  the  seventh  day,  the  day  of 
rest,  or  the  Sabbath  of  the  earth,  when  the 
globe  and  its  inhabitants  are  completed. 
Since  the  beginning  of  this  day  no  new 
creation  has  taken  place.  God  rests  as  the 
Creator  of  the  visible  universe.  The  forces 


of  nature  are  in  that  admirable  equilib- 
rium which  \ve  now  behold,  and  which  is 
necessary  to  our  existence.  No  more  mount- 
ains or  continents  are  formed,  no  new  spe- 
cies of  plants  or  animals  are  created.  Nat- 
ure goes  on  steadily  in  its  wonted  path.  All 
movement,  all  progress  has  passed  into  the 
realm  of  mankind,  which  is  now  accomplish- 
ing its  task.  The  seventh  day  is,  then,  the 
present  ago  of  our  globe;  the  age  in  which 
we  live,  and  which  was  prepared  for  the  de- 
velopment of  mankind.  The  narrative  of 
Moses .  seems  to  indicate  this  fact :  for  at 
the  end  of  each  of  the  six  working  days  of 
creation  we  find  an  evening.  But  the  morn- 
ing of  the  seventh  is  not  followed  by  any 
evening.  The  day  is  still  open.  When  the 
evening  shall  come  the  last  hour  of  human- 
ity will  strike. 

This  view  of  the  Sabbath  of  creation  has 
been  objected  to  on  account  of  the  form  of 
the  command  in  the  Decalogue  relating  to 
the  observance  of  the  Sabbath.  But  those 
who  object  confound  God's  Sabbath  with 
man's  Sabbath,  and  forget  the  word  of 
Christ  that  our  Sabbath  was  made  for  man, 
who  needs  it,  and  not  for  God.  God  rests  as 
a  Creator  of  the  material  world  only  to  be- 
come active,  nay,  Creator,  in  the  spiritual 
world.  His  Sabbath  work  is  one  of  love  to 
man — the  redemption ;  his  creation,  is  that 
of  the  new  man,  born  anew  of  the  Spirit,  in 
the  heart  of  the  natural  man.  So  man  is 
commanded  to  imitate  God  in  leaving  once 
in  seven  days  the  work  of  this  material 
world,  to  turn  all  his  attention  and  devote 
his  powers  to  the  things  of  heaven. 

There  are,  therefore,  three  Sabbaths:  first, 
God's  Sabbath  after  the  material  creation ; 
second,  the  Sabbath  of  humanity,  the  prom- 
ised millennium,  after  the  toil  and  struggle  of 
the  six  working  days  of  history ;  third,  the 
Sabbath  of  the  individual,  short-lived  man, 
the  day  of  rest  of  twenty-four  hours,  made 
for  him  according  to  his  measure.  The 
length  of  the  days  in  each  is  of  no  account. 
The  plan,  in  all,  is  the  same,  and  contains  the 
same  idea — six  days  of  work  and  struggle  in 
the  material  world,  followed  by  a  day  of 
peace,  of  rest  from  the  daily  toil,  and  of  ac- 
tivity in  the  higher  world  of  the  spirit.  For 
the  Sabbath  is  not  only  a  day  of  rest,  it  is 
the  day  of  the  Lord. 

Such  is  the  grand  cosmogonic  week  de- 
scribed by  Moses.  To  a  sincere  and  unprej- 
udiced mind  it  must  be  evident  that  these 
grand  outlines  are  the  same  as  those  which 
modern  science  enables  us  to  trace,  however 
imperfect  and  unsettled  the  details  furnished 
by  scientific  inquiries  may  appear  on  many 
points.  Whatever  modifications  in  our  pres- 
ent view  of  the  development  of  the  universe 
and  of  the  globe  may  bo  expected  from  new 
discoveries,  the  prominent  features  of  this 
vast  picture  will  remain.  And  these  only 
are  delineated  in  this  admirable  account  of 


GUYOT:  COSMOGONY  AND  THE  BIBLE. 


287 


Genesis.  These  outlines  were  sufficient  for 
the  moral  purposes  of  the  book ;  the  scien- 
tific details  are  for  us  patiently  to  investi- 
gate. They  were,  no  doubt,  unknown  to 
Moses ;  as  the  details  of  the  life  and  of  the 
work  of  the  Saviour  were  unknown  to  the 
great  prophets  who  announced  his  coming, 
and  traced  out  with  master-hand  his  charac- 
ter and  objects  centuries  before  his  appear- 


ance on  earth.  But  the  same  divine  hand 
which  lifted  up  before  the  eyes  of  Daniel 
and  of  Isaiah  the  veil  which  covered  the  ta- 
bleau of  the  time  to  come,  unveiled  before 
the  eyes  of  the  author  of  Genesis  the  earliest 
ages  of  the  creation  And  Moses  was  the 
prophet  of  the  past,  as  Daniel  and  Isaiah 


future. 


The  following  diagram,  which  s.ums  up  the  results  of  the  preceding  discussion,  may  be 
found  of  service  in  making  clear  the  correspondence  of  the  two  records : 


ERA   OF   MATTER. 


THE  BIBLE. 


In  the  beginning  God  created  the  Heavens  and 

the  Earth. 
And  the  Earth  was  without  form,  and  void ;  and 

darkness  was  upon  the  face  of  the  deep. 


SCIEKOE. 


Hatter  is  not  self -existent. 
Primitive  state  of  matter.    Gas  indefinitely  diffused. 


First  Day. 

And  God  said,  Let  there  be  light:  and  there 

was  light. 
And  God  divided  the  light  from  the  darkness. 


First  Activity  of  Matter. 

Gravity.  Chemical  action.  Concentration  of  dif- 
fused matter  into  one  or  more  nebulso,  appearing 
as  luminous  spots  in  the  dark  space  of  heaven. 


Second  Day. 

And  God  said,  Let  there  be  a  firmament  in  the 
midst  of  the  waters,  and  let  it  divide  the 
waters  from  the  waters. 


Division. 

The  primitive  nebula  is  divided  into  smaller  nebu- 
lous masses.  One  of  them  forms  the  solar  sys- 
tem, which  separates  into  sun  and  planets. 


Third  Day. 

a  And  God  said,  Let  the  waters  under  the  heav- 
ens be  gathered  together,  and  let  the  dry 
laud  appear. 

And  God  said,  Let  the  earth  bring  forth  grass. 


Concentration, 

The  nebulous  masses  concentrate  into  stars.  For- 
mation of  the  mineral  mass  of  the  earth  by  chem- 
ical combination  of  the  solid  crust,  the  ocean 
and  atmosphere.  The  earth  self-luminous. 

First  appearance  of  laud.    Azoic  rocks. 

First  infusorial  plants  and  protophytes. 


ERA  OF   LIFE. 


Fourth  Day. 

And  God  said,  Let  there  be  lights  in  the  firma- 
ment of  the  heavens,  and  let  them  be  for 
signs,  for  seasons,  for  days,  and  for  years. 


Chemical  actions  subside.  The  earth  loses  its  pho- 
tosphere; sun  and  moon  become  visible.  First 
succession  of  day  and  night,  of  seasons  and  years. 
Differences  of  climate  begin. 

Archaic  rocks.    Protozoans. 


Fifth  Day. 

And  God  created  great  whales,  and  every  liv- 
ing creature  which  moveth,  which  the  waters 
brought  forth  abundantly,  and  every  winged 
fowl. 


Plants  and  animals  appear  successively  in  the  order 
of  their  rank  —  marine  animals,  fishes,  reptiles, 
and  birds.  First  great  display  of  land  plants. 
Coal  beds. 

Paleozoic  and  mesozoic  ages. 


Sixth  Day. 

o  And  God  made  the  beasts  of  the  earth,  and 
cattle  after  their  kind. 

6  And  God  created  man  in  his  own  image. 


Predominance  of  mammals ;  the  highest  animals. 
Tertiary  age. 

Creation  of  man.    Quaternary  age. 


Seventh  Day. 

A,nd  God  saw  every  thing  that  he  had  made, 

and,  behold,  it  was  very  good. 
And  God  rested  on  the  seventh  day. 


No  material  creation.    Introduction  of  the  moral 
world.    Age  of  man. 


THE  GOSPEL  AND  PHILOSOPHY. 


BY  PROF.  ERNEST  NAVILLE,  OF  GENEVA,  SWITZERLAND, 

Corresponding  Member  of  the  Institute  of  France. 


WHAT  is  Philosophy  f  What  is  the  Gos- 
pel t  What  is  the  true  relation  between  the 
Gospel  and  Philosophy  ?  These  are  the  three 
questions  which  are  briefly  examined  in  this 
paper. 

I.  Philosophy. — Philosophy,  in  the  etymo- 
logical sense  of  the  word,  is  the  love  of  wis- 
dom. This  love  manifests  itself  in  the  in- 
vestigation of  a  good  rule  of  life,  and  in  the 
effort  of  the  will  to  form  the  life  in  accord- 
ance with  that  rule.  In  this  sense,  philoso- 
phy is  essentially  practical ;  its  object  is  to 
find  the  answer  to  this  question,  What  ought 
I  to  do! 

In  another  sense,  philosophy  is  the  most 
general,  the  most  abstract,  aud,  to  all  ap- 
pearance, the  least  practical  of  all  studies. 
It  aspires  to  explain  the  universe — that  is  to 
say,  to  give  a  reasonable  account  of  the  nat- 
ure, the  origin,  aud  the  destination  of  all 
things.  What  is  the  first  cause  of  the  uni- 
verse ?  What  is  the  destination  of  the  uni- 
verse ?  What  is  the  actual  condition  of  the 
universe,  in  its  relation  to  its  first  cause  and 
to  its  destination  ?  Such  are  the  questions 
to  which  philosophy  seeks  an  answer. 

Between  this  question,  What  ought  I  to 
do  ?  which  every  one  puts  to  himself  una- 
voidably, aud  this  other  question,  How  is  the 
universe  to  be  explained  ?  which  many  find 
an  idle  one,  because  they  consider  it  incapa- 
ble of  solution,  the  distance  appears  to  be 
great.  The  practical  aud  theoretical  senses 
of  the  Avord  philosophy  have,  however,  a 
close  connection.  Man  is  responsible  for  his 
conduct  because  he  possesses  an  element  of 
liberty,  and  because  this  liberty  is  found  in 
presence  of  an  obligation  revealed  by  the 
conscience,  and  which  constitutes  duty.  The 
determination  of  duty  is  the  answer  to  the 
question,  What  ought  I  to  do?  The  man 
who,  without  any  scientific  culture,  follows 
in  each  particular  case  the  dictates  of  his 
conscience,  and  honestly  accepts  all  the 
means  of  knowledge  which  are  offered  to 
him,  is  assuredly  in  the  right  way.  But  if 
life  develops  according  to  its  regular  laws, 
if  reason  does  its  work,  there  comes  a  time 
when  a  man  not  only  asks  himself,  What 
ought  I  to  do  under  such  and  such  circum- 
stances T  but,  What  ought  I  to  do  in  the  gen- 
eral T  What  direction  ought  I  to  give  to 
my  life  f  What  use  am  I  to  make  of  my 
will  T  This,  for  every  man  who  has  awaked 


to  serious  reflection,  is  the  question  of  ques- 
tions. The  use  which  each  one  is  to  make, 
of  his  activity  evidently  depends  upon  the 
general  object  toward  which  the  world  in 
the  midst  of  which  he  is  placed  is  tending. 
The  duty  Avhich  each  several  being  has  to 
accomplish  as  its  own  share  is  settled  by 
a  general  plan,  and  by  a  universal  order  of 
things.  The  personal  question,  What  ought 
I  to  do  ?  supposes,  therefore,  this  general 
question,  What  ought  to  be  done  f  or,  in 
other  words,  What  is  the  destination  of  the 
universe  ? — the  part,  at  least,  of  that  desti- 
nation which  is  to  be  accomplished  by  free 
agents. 

The  destination  of  creatures  is  the  object 
with  a  view  to  which  they  have  been  pro- 
duced. To  have  a  clear  understanding  of 
their  legitimate  end,  we  must  go  back  to 
their  principle.  The  question,  What  is  the 
destination  of  the  universe  ?  involves,  there- 
fore, this  further  question,  What  is  the  first 
cause  of  the  universe  ? 

The  conscience  does  not,  in  order  to  make 
its  voice  heard,  await  the  solution  of  these 
high  problems.  The  conscience  speaks,  in 
the  absence  of  all  doctrine ;  it  even  contin- 
ues to  speak,  in  a  certain  degree,  in  those 
who  profess  doctrines  which  deny  its  exist- 
ence. But,  as  reason  develops,  it  rises  to 
the  conception  of  a  general  duty,  and  conse- 
quently of  a  plan  which  each  free  being  is 
bound  to  realize  in  its  own  measure.  This 
plan  determines  the  destination  of  the  uni- 
verse, and  carries  the  mind  on  toward  the 
Author  of  the  universe,  who  has  settled  that 
destination.  To  know  what  I  am  to  do  in  a 
general  manner,  I  must  know  what  is  the 
plan  for  the  realization  of  which  I  have  to 
work.  And  so  are  united  the  practical  sense 
and  the  theoretical  sense  of  the  word  philos- 
ophy. 

Every  one  has,  more  or  less  distinctly,  the 
consciousness  of  these  truths.  The  question 
of  the  final  cause  of  the  universe,  or,  in  other 
words,  of  the  existence  of  God ;  the  question 
of  the  destination  of  rational  beings,  or,  in 
other  words,  of  an  immortal  future — these 
questions  lie  at  the  foundation  of  all  moral 
doctrine.  Has  man  neither  lawgiver  nor 
judge  superior  to  himself,  and  is  he  the  mas- 
ter of  his  own  life  and  actions  ?  or  has  he  to 
pursue  an  end  fixed  by  a  higher  will  ?  Does 
man  terminate  his  existence  at  death  ?  or  is 


NAVILLE :  THE  GOSPEL  AND  PHILOSOPHY. 


289 


death  only  the  passage  from  one  mode  of  life 
to  another  ?  According  to  the  answers  given 
to  these  questions,  the  answer  to  the  ques- 
tion, What  ought  I  to  do  ?  will  vary.  It  is 
in  vain  that  some  seek  to  deny  this.  The 
advocates  of  independent  morality  contest  the 
reality  of  the  link  which  connects  morals 
with  doctrine.  They  affirm  that  doctrines 
are  of  no  consequence,  and  that  theories  re- 
specting the  origin  and  destiny  of  rational 
beings  have  nothing  to  do  with  man's  con- 
duct. But  they  do  not  succeed  in  bringing 
their  own  feelings  into  agreement  with  their 
system.  The  greater  number  of  these  theo- 
rizers,  who  maintain  the  thesis  that  doc- 
trines are  matters  of  indifference,  are  de- 
cided and  often  passionate  adversaries  of 
Christian  doctrines.  If  doctrines  were  to 
them  really  indifferent,  whence  would  come 
this  passion  ?  The  theory  of  the  independ- 
ence of  morals  is  betrayed  by  its  own  follow- 
ers. It  will  not  succeed  in  changing  the  nat- 
ure of  things,  and  the  essential  conditions 
of  the  moral  life.  Thoughtful  persons,  for 
the  enlightening  of  their  consciences  and 
the  directing  of  their  conduct,  will  continue 
to  ask,  Whence  come  we  ?  Where  are  we  ? 
Whither  are  we  going  ? 

The  search  after  the  solution  of  these  prob- 
lems constitutes  philosophy,  in  the  high  and 
full  acceptation  of  the  term.  Philosophy 
takes  birth  spontaneously  from  the  time  that 
the  human  mind  has  acquired  a  certain  de- 
gree of  cultivation.  From  the  time  that  a 
man  is  thoughtful  enough  to  rise  above  gid- 
diness and  frivolity,  he  finds  himself  face  to 
face  with  the  eternal  mysteries  of  existence. 
Then  he  asks  what  is  the  final  cause  of  the 
universe,  what  is  its  destination,  what  is 
the  place  and  function  of  each  several  being 
in  the  universal  order  of  things  ?  He  asks 
this  that  he  may  understand  what  his  duty 
is,  and  what  hopes  he  may  entertain.  This 
inquiry,  made  by  the  reason,  must  be  con- 
ducted according  to  the  laws  of  science — that 
is  to  say,  a  doctrine  must  not  be  accepted 
further  than  it  explains  the  facts  of  expe- 
rience which  constitute  the  problem  to  be 
solved.  The  object  of  all  science  is  to  ex- 
plain the  facts ;  the  control  of  all  science  is 
found  in  the  facts,  the  explanation  of  which 
is  in  question. 

To  the  question, What  is  philosophy?  we 
answer :  Philosophy  is  the  research  of  the 
reason  after  an  explanation  of  the  universe. 
Let  us  observe  that  philosophy,  in  the  gen- 
eral meaning  of  the  term,  is  a  research  and 
not  a  doctrine.  Philosophy,  in  the  general, 
follows  out  the  solution  of  a  problem  ;  phi- 
losophies, in  particular,  are  the  several  solu- 
tions proposed. 

II.  The  Gospel. — The  word  "Gospel,"  like 
the  Greek  word  which  it  renders,  signifies 
good  news.  What  is  this  good  news  ?  It  is 
one,  and  threefold  in  its  unity.  The  princi- 
ple of  the  universe  is  goodness.  God  is  love : 
19 


such  is  the  good  news  in  its  unity.  Love 
divine  manifests  itself  in  the  creation  of  the 
world,  produced  by  the  power  of  the  Father, 
who  wills  the  happiness  of  his  children.  It 
manifests  itself  in  the  pardon  granted  to  the 
human  race,  fallen  by  sin  from  its  primitive 
condition.  It  manifests  itself  in  the  action 
of  divine  grace  sanctifying  pardoned  souls, 
and  preparing  them  for  life  eternal.  Cre- 
ating love,  redeeming  love,  sanctifying  love : 
such  is  the  threefold  manifestation  of  the 
one  and  eternal  love.  This  summing  up  of 
the  Gospel  is  not  an  arbitrary  conception — 
the  product  of  one  individual  mind :  it  is 
clearly  indicated  in  the  formula  of  baptism, 
and  is  become  the  basis  of  the  ecclesiastical 
doctrine  of  the  Trinity. 

We  have  here  an  answer  to  the  three  ques- 
tions of  philosophy.  What  is  the  final  cause 
of  the  universe  ?  An  eternal  Spirit,  the  Cre- 
ator of  all  that  exists.  What  is  the  destina- 
tion of  the  universe  ?  The  happiness  of 
creatures  called  into  being  by  goodness. 
What  is  the  actual  condition  of  the  universe  ? 
Humanity,  that  part  of  the  universe  which 
is  directly  known  to  us,  is  separated  from 
God  by  sin — the  work  of  created  liberty  gone 
astray,  but  which  liberty  eternal  Love  de- 
sires to  restore  from  its  wanderings.  Such 
is  the  doctrine  of  the  Gospel,  the  develop- 
ment of  that  fundamental  theory:  God  is 
love. 

The  morality  of  the  Gospel,  its  practical 
side,  is  summed  up  in  the  law  of  charity — 
that  is  to  say,  in  the  consecration  of  each  in- 
dividual will  to  the  general  happiness.  The 
link  which  unites  practice  to  theory  is  man- 
ifest. All  duty  is  gathered  up  into  obe- 
dience to  God,  who  is  the  supreme  source  of 
obligation.  To  obey  God  is  to  do  his  will. 
His  will  is  the  happiness  of  all  his  children. 
Charity,  the  research  and  the  practical  real- 
ization of  the  happiness  of  all,  is  therefore 
the  immediate  and  direct  application  of  tbe 
doctrine  of  the  love  of  God. 

And  how  has  the  good  news  been  commu- 
nicated to  the  world  ?  Not  as  the  result  of 
a  scientific  inquiry,  but  as  a  testimony  ren- 
dered by  Jesus  Christ,  who  affirmed  that  lie 
possessed  the  truth  by  virtue  of  his  intimate 
union  with  the  Father.  This  testimony  was 
proposed  to  faith.  And  what  is  faith  ?  In 
the  general  sense  of  the  word,  faith  is  a  fact 
of  every  day,  of  every  moment.  Faith  is 
trust ;  it  is  the  state  of  a  person  who  con- 
fides in  another  person  —  of  a  soul  which 
gives  itself  up  to  another  soul.  In  the  do- 
main of  the  understanding,  faith  shows  itself 
by  the  reception  of  other  people's  testimony. 
Now  faith,  so  understood,  is  met  with  at  the 
very  foundation  of  our  intellectual  life.  Sup- 
pose that  one  individual,  refusing  to  receive 
the  testimony  of  others,  will  admit  as  truth 
nothing  but  what  he  has  certified  by  his 
own  experience,  or  demonstrated  by  the  per- 
sonal exercise  of  his  reason,  in  what  situa- 


CHRISTIANITY  AND  ITS  ANTAGONISMS. 


tion  will  bo  fiml  himself?  Ho  will  only 
know,  in  geography,  tlio  places  which  he 
has  seen  with  his  own  eyes ;  in  history,  the 
events  of  which  he  has  been  himself  the  wit- 
ness ;  in  physics,  the  laws  which  ho  has  dis- 
covered and  proved.  .  .  .  The  intercourse 
between  different  understandings  will  be 
broken  off,  and  the  human  mind,  smitten 
with  barrenness  by  isolation,  will  stand  still 
in  motionless  ignorance.  Science,like  the  just 
man  of  the  Scripture,  lives  only  by  faith.  It 
is  only  faith  which  allows  one  individual  to 
pass  on  his  acquisitions  to  another,  and  one 
generation  to  leave  to  another  the  inherit- 
ance of  its  discoveries.  Some,  indeed,  think 
and  say  that  the  progress  of  the  human  mind 
consists  in  substituting  for  faith  the  purely 
personal  exercise  of  thought,  and  that  the 
common  proverb  of  Lafoutaine, "  Depend  on 
thyself  alone,"  is  the  watchword  of  true  sci- 
ence. It  is  a  gross  error.  The  development 
of  thought  ought  to  have  for  effect,  above 
all,  to  substitute  an  enlightened  confidence 
for  a  deceitful  credulity,  and  to  teach  men 
to  weigh  the  value  of  witnesses  and  of  testi- 
mony ;  but  the  life  of  the  understanding  is 
as  impossible  without  faith  as  the  life  of 
the  body  without  respiration.  The  solitude 
which  would  be  ttie  death  of  the  heart  would 
be  also  the  destruction  of  the  intelligence. 
We  all  live  mutually  by  the  experience,  the 
reflections,  the  discoveries,  the  ideas  of  oth- 
ers. Therefore  it  is  that  falsehood,  so  vile 
in  itself,  has  such  disastrous  consequences. 
Falsehood  loosens  the  grounds  of  faith,  and 
runs  the  risk  of  destroying  it ;  and,  by  the 
very  fact,  tends  to  uptear  the  main  root  of 
our  spiritual  existence.  The  instinct  of  dig- 
nity, which  repels  and  withers  it,  is  the  safe- 
guard of  intellectual  life  in  society. 

Let  us  observe,  in  passing, that  faith  is  the 
freest  act  which  can  be  conceived ;  for  if 
there  is  a  thing  in  the  world  which  can  not 
be  commanded,  it  is  confidence ;  and  that 
the  result  of  this  essentially  free  act  is  to 
constitute  for  us  the  authority  of  the  testi- 
mony of  others.  Here  ceases  the  antagonism 
so  noisily  proclaimed  between  liberty  and 
authority.  Faith  is  the  conciliation  of  these 
two  terms.  The  principal  use  of  liberty  is 
to  acknowledge  legitimate  authority  and  to 
submit  to  it.  This  is  true  in  the  domain  of 
the  intellect  as  in  that  of  morals. 

Faith,  then,  in  the  general  sense  of  the 
term,  is  confidence.  Christian  faith  has  an- 
other object  than  the  natural  faith  which 
we  accord  to  the  testimony  of  our  fellows ; 
but  it  is  not  of  another  nature.  Christian 
faith  is  confidence  in  Jesus  Christ.  A  man 
whose  competence  and  veracity  are  beyond 
doubt  reports  what  he  has  seen  in  a  foreign 
land :  we  receive  his  testimony.  Jesus  Christ 
announces  himself  as  the  witness  of  things 
divine.  He  knows  the  celestial  land ;  ho 
comes  from  it;  he  is  returning  to  it,  and  he 
knows  the  way.  Those  who  believe  in  him 


receive  his  testimony.  This  testimony  has 
a  special  character,  because  the  truth  an- 
nounced by  Jesus  Christ  is  inseparable  from 
his  work.  He  proclaims  the  supreme  love 
in  his  words ;  but  his  words  are  only  the  ex- 
pression of  his  actions.  He  not  only  says 
the  truth ;  he  does  it.  His  life,  his  death, 
his  resurrection,  are  the  manifestations  of 
that  love  which  he  declares  by  realizing  it. 
Confidence  in  his  testimony  therefore  is  in- 
separable from  confidence  in  his  wotk  and  in 
his  person,  since  his  testimony  bears  above 
all  upon  an  act  of  the  divine  mercy,  of  which 
he  is  himself  the  accomplishment. 

To  the  question, What  is  the  Gospel?  wo 
can  now  reply :  Tlie  Gospel  is  the  good  news  of 
the  lore  of  God  proposed  to  faith. 

III.  Eelation  between  the  Gospel  and  Philoso- 
phy.— What  is  the  true  relation  between  tho 
Gospel  and  philosophy?  A  widely  preva- 
lent opinion  takes  for  granted  that  this  re- 
lation is  an  opposition.  Is  it  really  so  ?  Let 
us  first  of  all  clear  our  road  of  a  prejudice. 
In  the  last  century,  some  men  who  had  done 
great  things,  but  who  had  all  the  violence 
and  all  the  narrowness  of  party  spirit,  at- 
tributed to  themselves  in  an  exclusive  man- 
ner the  name  of  philosophers .  Their  adver- 
saries have  often  been  so  wrong  as  to  con- 
cede to  them  the  monopoly  of-  this  noble  ti- 
tle. Philosophy  consisted  at  that  time  mere- 
ly in  breaking  with  religious  traditions.  Any 
effeminate  ignoramus  or  hare-brained  mar- 
quis was  proclaimed  a  philosopher,  provided 
he  declared  himself  an  enemy  of  the  Church 
and  of  the  Gospel.  This  point  of  view  is 
not  quite  abandoned.  Do  not  all  those  who 
break  with  Christianity  assume  nowadays 
the  title  of  free-thinkers  ?  And  how  many 
there  are  of  these  free-thinkers  to  whom 
nothing  is  more  foreign  than  true  liberty  of 
thought,  who  are  enfranchised  by  order,  and 
believe,  on  the  word  of  other  people,  that 
the  time  is  come  for  no  longer  believing  in 
any  thing!  In  the  sense  of  the  eighteenth 
century,  there  was  then  hostility  between 
philosophy  and  the  Gospel.  But  this  is  noth- 
ing but  the  alteration  of  the  true  sense  of 
the  words.  Philosophy  is  the  study  of  the 
universal  problem,  and  the  research  of  its 
solution.  Philosophy  in  general  could  not 
therefore  be  either  favorable  or  hostile  be- 
forehand to  any  doctrine.  The  inquiry  would 
not  be  free,  and  consequently  would  not  be 
serious,  if  it  were  assumed  before  examina- 
tion that  it  was  to  end  in  the  adoption  of 
the  Christian  system  of  doctrine.  Would  ifc 
be  free,  if  it  were  assumed,  before  examina- 
tion, that  its  result  was  to  be  the  negation 
of  the  Christian  system  ?  No  more  in  this 
case  than  in  the  other.  We  will  trouble  our- 
selves no  further,  therefore,  with  this  Jiotion 
of  the  eighteenth  century,  but  refer  it  to  the 
class  of  mere  prejudices. 

There  is  .1  conception  of  a  more  serious 
character,  which  sets  up  between  philosophy 


NAVILLE :  THE  GOSPEL  AND  PHILOSOPHY. 


291 


and  the  Christian  faith  a  wall  of  separation. 
This  is  the  idea  that  philosophy  must  only 
accept  theories  directly  produced  and  dem- 
onstrated by  the  individual  reason.  Those 
who  maintain  this  view  consider  that  the 
philosopher  must  shut  himself  up  in  the  sol- 
itude of  his  own  intelligence,  must  forget  all 
that  he  may  have  learned  from  tradition, 
and  only  take  account  of  the  doctrines  which 
have  issued,  or  which  might  have  issued, 
from  his  personal  reasonings,  as  Minerva 
came  forth  from  the  head  of  Jupiter.  He 
may  receive  the  facts  which  are  certified  by 
the  testimony  of  others  ;  but  as  to  the  solu- 
tions of  problems,  he  is  to  admit  only  those 
which  he  might  have  been  able  to  discover 
for  himself,  in  whatever  place  he  was  born, 
and  at  what  epoch  soever  he  had  lived.  If 
this  individualist  conception  of  science  is  ad- 
mitted, which  has  had  illustrious  supporters 
in  Des  Cartes  and  Jean  Jacques  Rousseau,  it 
is  clear  that  there  is  no  relation  whatever 
between  the  Gospel  and  philosophy,  since 
the  Gospel  belongs  to  that  domain  of  tradi- 
tion from  which  the  philosopher  is  debarred. 
But  the  pretension  of  those  minds  which 
think  to  create  personally  their  doctrines,  by 
keeping  quite  clear  of  tradition,  is  a  preten- 
sion which  can  not  be  justified.  Those  who 
put  it  forth  are  the  dupes  of  an  illusion. 
They  attribute  to  the  individual  exercise  of 
their  reason  ideas  which  have  entered  their 
minds  through  the  medium  of  speech.  Now 
speech  is  the  great  vehicle  of  the  tradition 
of  the  human  race.  To  shut  ourselves  up  in 
real  solitude  of  thought,  it  would  be  neces- 
sary to  isolate  onr  thought  from  speech, 
which  puts  us  into  incessant  communication 
with  the  thoughts  of  others.  This  no  one 
does,  and  no  one  will  ever  be  able  to  do. 
The  condition  of  progress  in  science  is  that 
wo  study  the  data  of  problems,  and  accept 
the  solutions  which  give  a  reasonable  ac- 
count of  the  facts.  Solutions  become  scien- 
tific by  being  demonstrated ;  but  their  ori- 
gin is  of  no  importance  whatever.  To  ex- 
clude from  scientific  investigation  the  solu- 
tions which  are  encountered  in  the  anterior 
current  of  thought  would  be  to  arrest  the 
march  of  science.  If  astronomers  were  un- 
willing to  admit  the  theories  which  tradi- 
tion brings  to  them,  where  would  be  the 
progress  of  astronomy?  The  individualist 
conception  of  philosophy  is  very  widely  ex- 
tended ;  it  contributes  in  a  great  degree  to 
the  discredit  into  which  the  science  of  sci- 
ences is  fallen  ;  and  in  a  great  degree  also  it 
contributes  to  estrange  men  of  high  intel- 
ligence from  the  serious  study  of  the  verities 
of  faith.  We  must  therefore  apply  to  this 
solution  the  advice  which  the  apostle  ad- 
dressed to  the  Colossians :  "  Beware  lest  any 
man  beguile  you  through  philosophy."  It 
is,  in  fact,  a  great  seduction  to  bo  led  to  re- 
ject the  truth.  Happily  this  notion,  which 
isolates  the  philosopher  from  tradition,  does 


not  bear  examination.  Let  us  put  it  aside, 
as  we  have  done  the  prejudice  of  4he  eight- 
eenth century,  and  let  us  see  what  may  be, 
for  an  unprejudiced  mind,  the  true  relation 
between  the  inquiry  after  the  final  cause  of 
the  universe  and  the  good  news  of  the  love 
of  God  proposed  to  faith. 

To  the  questions  put  by  philosophy,  What 
is  the  final  cause  of  the  universe?  what  is 
its  destination  ?  what  is  its  actual  condi- 
tion? the  Gospel,  as  we  have  seen,  affords 
clear  and  definite  replies.  The  principle  of 
the  universe  is  the  will  of  an  eternal  Mind. 
The  destination  of  the  universe  is  the  hap- 
piness of  creatures.  The  actual  state  of  the 
universe  is  an  order  of  things  disturbed  by 
sin.  Faith  does  not  meet  these  doctrines  as 
intellectual  affirmations  which  it  examines 
according  to  the  laws  of  science.  Faith, 
cleaving  to  Jesus  Christ,  receives  his  testi- 
mony because  it  receives  his  person  as  the 
manifestation  of  eternal  Love.  Faith  does 
not  result  from  the  isolated  action  of  the 
understanding,  but  from  the  encounter  of 
the  entire  spiritual  being — mind,  conscience, 
heart,  and  will  —  with  the  promises,  the 
hopes,  and  the  certainties  which  attach  them- 
selves to  Jesus  Christ.  Faith  receives  the 
truth,  and  its  proper  work  is  to  realize  that 
truth  in  the  life.  But  the  solutions  of  the 
universal  problem  included  in  the  faith  of 
Christians  may  be  separated  from  it.  Wo 
may  examine  and  discuss  them  according  to 
the  rules  of  science.  Do  they  render  ac- 
count of  the  facts  ?  do  they  explain  them  ? 
If  the  Christian  solutions  seem  incapable  of 
accounting  for  the  facts  under  inquiry,  the 
philosopher  passes  on,  and  proceeds  to  look 
for  another  theory  which  may  satisfy  him 
better.  This  is  what  those  thinkers  of  an- 
tiquity did  who  rejected  the  preaching  of 
the  apostles.  If  the  Christian  doctrines  seem 
to  account  for  the  facts  in  question  better 
than  any  other  doctrine,  the  philosopher 
ought  to  admit  them  as  tb*  most  rational 
solutions  of  the  problems  propounded  by  the 
human  mind.  This  is  what  the  philosophers 
of  antiquity  did,  as,  for  example,  Justin  Mar- 
tyr and  those  who  followed  him,  who,  hav- 
ing accepted  the  new  faith,  affirmed,  and 
sought  to  prove,  that  the  doctrines  involved 
in  their  faith  satisfied  the  understanding  bet-  ' 
ter  than  did  the  traditions  of  paganism  and 
the  reasonings  of  the  sages  of  Greece  and 
Home.  The  relation  of  the  Gospel  to  phi- 
losophy can  not  be  established  in  a  general 
and  abstract  manner.  The  philosophy  which 
judges  the  evangelical  solutions  to  be  false 
or  defective  remains  hostile  or  foreign  to 
the  Gospel.  The  philosophy  which,  after 
having  studied  the  consequences  of  these 
solutions,  and  compared  them  with  the 
facts,  judges  them  to  be  good,  becomes 
Christian. 

To  determine  the  relation  of  philosophy  to 
the  Gospel  is  therefore  to  ascertain  whether 


292 


CHRISTIANITY  AND  ITS  ANTAGONISMS. 


the  Christian  doctrines  relative  to  the  final 
cause  mill  t  In-  destination  of  created  bciugs 
explain  the  facts  better  than  the  other  doc- 
trines contained  in  the  annals  of  human 
thought.  The  question  can  not  be  settled 
at  the  commencement  of  the  inquiry,  but  at 
its  close :  it  supposes  the  whole  work  of  sci- 
ence accomplished. 

Here  I  can  not  but  declare  my  conviction, 
and  it  is  this :  If  the  elements  of  the  uni- 
versal problem  are  carefully  taken  account 
of,  if  their  respective  places  are  assigned  to 
sensible  phenomena — to  the  laws  of  thought, 
to  the  requirements  of  the  heart,  to  the  dic- 
tates of  the  conscience — and  if  it  is  resolved 
to  sacrifice  none  of  these  data,  then  I  think 
that  the  declarations  of  the  Gospel  render 
an  account  to  the  reason  better  than  do  any 
other  doctrines  whatsoever  of  the  origin  of 
the  universe,  of  its  destination,  and  of  its 
actual  condition.  I  think  that  the  existence 
of  a  spiritual  Creator  explains  nature,  such 
as  science  presents  it  to  our  knowledge.  I 
think  that  the  idea  of  divine  love  accounts 
for  the  constitution  of  the  human  heart,  and 
for  its  thirst  after  happiness.  I  think  that 
the  doctrine  of  the  fall  can  alone  explain  the 
actual  state  of  humanity,  and  the  strange 
contradictions  of  our  souls.  I  think,  in 
short,  that  the  doctrines  which  proclaim  the 
divorce  between  the  Christian  faith  and  sci- 
ence misconceive  of  the  facts  or  misconceive 
of  the  Gospel.  I  believe,  therefore,  that  the 
Christian  philosophy  is  the  best  of  philoso- 
phies. I  believe,  too,  that,  notwithstanding 
the  labor  of  ages,  this  philosophy  exists  as 
yet  only  in  the  state  of  rough  sketch — of 
commencement.  I  believe  that,  just  as  our 
civilization  is  infinitely  far  removed  from 
having  realized  the  spirit  of  the  Gospel,  in 
the  same  way  our  philosophy  is  infinitely 
far  distant  from  having  understood  in  all 
its  depths,  and  followed  out  in  all  its  conse- 
quences, the  truth  of  the  Gospel. 

People  often  «et  out  with  the  notion  that 
the  fathers  of  the  Church  and  the  schoolmen 
definitively  organized  Christian  science,  and 
that  to  proclaim  the  alliance  of  the  Gospel 
and  philosophy  is  to  wish  to  throw  back 
the  human  mind,  and  bring  it  again  into 
the  Middle  Ages.  Nothing,  in  my  opinion, 
is  further  from  the  truth.  Heaven  preserve 
me  from  disparaging  the  importance  and 
the  value  of  such  men  as  St.  Augustine,  St. 
Thomas,  and  others!  But  these  great  men 
are  far  from  having  exhausted  the  inex- 
haustible fountain  of  evangelical  instruc- 
tion. They  are  accused  of  having  been  too 
thoroughly  Christians  to  be  philosophers; 
it  would  be  more  according  to  truth  to  com- 
plain that  they  were  too  thoroughly  Greeks 
to  be  Christians.  In  the  formation  of  the 
science  of  the  Church,  there  were  introduced 
elements  of  ancient  thought  incompatible 

ith  the  straightforward  and  true  sense  of 
the  Gospel.  Dazzled  by  the  genius  of  Plato 


and  Aristotle,  the  fathers  and  the  school- 
men accepted  from  these  illustrious  Greeks, 
not  only  the  portion  of  their  works  which  is 
eternally  true,  but  also  certain  principles, 
the  consequences  of  which  contradict  the 
doctrine  of  the  living  and  true  God.  The 
philosophy  which  has  been  accepted  as  such 
by  Christians,  and  rendered  illustrious,  in 
modern  times,  by  the  labors  of  such  men  as 
Leibnitz,  Fe"uelon,  and  Malebranche,  con- 
tains within  it  foreign  currents,  which  pro- 
ceed from  Greece  and  from  India,  and  which 
tend  to  make  shipwreck  of  thought  upon 
the  desolate  shores  of  pantheism.  The  idea 
of  God,  the  almighty  Creator,  does  not  yet 
reign  completely  over  the  broken  remains 
of  the  metaphysical  idols  raised  by  the  er- 
rors of  the  sages.  A  noble  task  is  reserved 
for  OUT  epoch.  A  great  harvest  of  truth  is 
asking  for  laborers  to  gather  it :  but  in  col- 
lecting, with  pious  care,  all  which  the  intel- 
lectual heritage  of  by-gone  ages  contains  of 
true  and  pure,  we  must  break,  more  than 
has  been  done  hitherto,  with  the  false  or 
insufficient  doctrines  of  Greek  tradition ; 
and  must  succeed,  by  a  eerious  effort  of 
thought,  in  placing  the  understanding  itself, 
in  its  proper  and  primitive  nature,  in  pres- 
ence of  the  Gospel.  Then  will  it  be  seen 
and  acknowledged  (such  is  my  conviction) 
that  the  Gospel  is  the  true  principle  of 
science,  as  it  is  the  true  principle  of  civiliza- 
tion, and  that  Christian  philosophy  is  the 
meeting  of  the  reason  as  God  has  made  it 
with  the  truth  as  God  has  given  it. 

If  this  is  so,  philosophy  will  not  replace 
faith,  since  faith,  resulting  from  the  meeting 
of  the  whole  spiritual  being — heart,  con- 
science, will — with  Jesus  Christ,  has  other 
sources  than  the  understanding;  but  phi- 
losophy will  offer  a  considerable  argument 
in  favor  of  faith.  The  man  who  has  received 
from  Jesus  of  Nazareth  the  light  of  his  men- 
tal vision,  and  who  recognizes  in  his  sayings 
the  true  solution  of  the  great  problems  of 
the  human  mind — a  solution  hidden  from 
the  view  of  antiquity,  and  brought  to  light 
by  the  foolishness  of  preaching — that  man  will 
be  disposed  to  say  with  Nicodemns,  '•  Thou 
art  a  Teacher  come  from  God,"  and  to  learn 
from  that  divine  Teacher  the  conditions  of 
entrance  into  the  kingdom  of  heaven. 

If  the  Christian  solutions  are  ascertained 
to  be  the  best  solutions  of  the  universal 
problem,  by  the  free  and  unfettered  study  of 
a  science  seriously  pursued,  then  philosophy 
becomes  one  of  the  proofs  of  the  Gospel  for 
those  who  seek,  and  a  confirmation  of  the 
Gospel  for  those  who  believe.  To  the  ques- 
tion, What  is  the  relation  of  the  Gospel  to 
philosophy  ?  I  answer,  The  relation  of  the 
Gospel  to  philosophy  is  a  relation  of  har- 
mony. The  Gospel  offers  the  true  solution 
of  the  problems  propounded  to  the  reason  ; 
and  the  truth  of  those  solutions  becomes  a 
proof  of  the  Gospel. 


THE  STRENGTH  AND  WEAKNESS  OP  IDEALISM. 


BY  THE  REV.  CHARLES  P.  KRAUTH,  D.D.,  PHILADELPHIA, 

Vice-Provost  of  the  University  of  Pennsylvania. 


IT  is  impossible  to  understand  the  weak- 
ness of  a  system  without  understanding  its 
strength.  The  strength  and  weakness  of 
idealism  connect  themselves  with  the  same 
facts  and  principles,  so  that  they  can  readily 
be  grouped  in  pairs  and  reduced  to  paral- 
lels. 

1.  It  rests  on  generally  recognized  princi- 
ples in  regard  to  consciousness.  Its  definition 
of  consciousness  is  the  one  most  widely  re- 
ceived :  the  mind's  recognition  of  its  own 
conditions.  It  maintains  that  the  cognitions 
of  consciousness  are  absolute  and  infallible, 
and  that  nothing  but  these  is,  in  their  de- 
gree, knowledge.  In  all  these  postulates,  the 
great  mass  of  thinkers  agree  with  idealism. 

The  foundation  of  idealism  is  the  com- 
mon foundation  of  nearly  all  the  developed 
philosophical  thinking  of  all  schools.  Ideal- 
ism declares  that  while  consciousness  is  in- 
fallible, our  interpretations  of  it,  on  which  we 
base  inferences,  may  be  incorrect ;  and  nearly 
all  thinkers  of  all  schools  agree  with  ideal- 
ism here.  No  inference,  or  class  of  infer- 
ences, in  which  a  mistake  ever  occurs  is  a 
basis  of  positive  knowledge.  Hence,  says 
Idealism,  only  that  which  is  directly  in  con- 
sciousness is  positively  known,  and  nothing 
is  directly  in  consciousness  but  the  mind's 
own  states.  Therefore  we  know  nothing 
more.  So  completely  has  this  general  con- 
viction taken  possession  of  the  philosophical 
mind,  that  even  antagonists  of  idealism,  who 
would  cut  it  up  by  the  roots  if  they  could 
cut  this  up,  have,  not  pretended  that  it  could 
be  done.  Dependent  on  and  involved  in 
its  postulate  regarding  consciousness,  is  the 
idealistic  postulate,  "An  idea  can  be  like 
nothing  but  an  idea" — that  is,  the  mental 
image  can  not  be  like  some  supposed  material 
thing,  of  which  it  is  asserted  to  be  au  im- 
age. To  a  certain  point,  at  least,  nearly  all 
the  thinking  of  philosophers  is  consonant 
with  this  postulate.  The  subjective  can  not 
be  like  the  objective;  the  idea  of  a  house 
can  not  be  like  a  house.  The  proposition, 
taken  in  one  way,  is  a  truism.  The  idea  of 
a  house  can  not  be  like  a  house :  the  idea  is 
intellectual,  the  house  is  material ;  the  idea 
is  in  my  mind,  the  house  is  external  to  my 
mind ;  the  house  is  a  complex  of  modifica- 
tions of  materials ;  the  idea  is  a  modification 
of  the  immaterial ;  my  idea  in  no  respect  is 
a  cause  of  the  house ;  the  house  is  in  a  cer- 


tain respect  one  of  the  causes  of  my  idea ;  the 
idea  depends  on  acts  on  the  mind,  acts  in 
the  mind,  acts  of  the  mind ;  the  house  de- 
pends on  none  of  these.  Bricks  and  mortar 
are  not  like  mental  modes.  "  The  beings  of 
the  mind  are  not  of  clay." 

But  while  idealism  has  here  a  speculative 
strength,  which  it  is  not  wise  to  ignore,  it  is 
not  without  its  weakness,  even  at  this  very 
point,  for  its  history  shows  that  it  is  rarely 
willing  to  stand  unreservedly  by  the  results 
of  its  own  principles  as  regards  conscious- 
ness. If  it  accept  only  the  direct  and  infal- 
lible knowledge  supplied  in  consciousness, 
it  has  no  common  ground  left  but  this — that 
there  is  the  one  train  of  ideas  which  passes 
in  the  consciousness  of  a  particular  individ- 
ual. A  consistent  idealist  can  claim  to  know 
no  more  than  this — that  there  exist  ideas 
in  his  consciousness.  He  can  not  know  that 
he  has  a  substantial  personal  existence,  or 
that  there  is  any  other  being,  finite  or  infi- 
nite, beside  himself.  And  as  many  idealists 
are  not  satisfied  with  maintaining  that  we 
do  not  know  that  there  is  an  external  world, 
but  go  further,  and-  declare  that  we  know 
that  there  is  not  an  external  world,  they 
must  for  consistency's  sake  hold  that  an 
idealist  knows  that  there  is  nothing,  thing 
or  person,  besides  himself.  Solipsism,  or  ab- 
solute egoism,  with  the  exclusion  of  proper 
personality,  is  the  logic  of  idealism,  if  the 
inferential  be  excluded.  But  if  inference  in 
any  degree  whatever  be  allowed,  not  only 
would  the  natural  logic  and  natural  infer- 
ence of  most  men  sweep  away  idealism,  but 
its  own  principle  of  knowledge  is  subverted 
by  the  terms  of  the  supposition.  Idealism 
stands  or  falls  by  the  principle  that  no  infer- 
ence is  knowledge.  We  may  reach  inferences 
by  knowledge,  but  we  can  never  reach  knowl- 
edge by  inference. 

"An  idea  can  be  like  nothing  but  an 
idea."  We  have  said  that  in  one  sense  this 
is  a  truism.  There  is  another  sense  in  which 
it  is  a  sophism.  As  a  truism,  it  is  like  the 
proposition  that  the  most  perfect  portrait 
can  not  be  like  the  face — that  a  picture  can 
only  be  like  a  picture.  The  face  is  flesh  and 
blood,  the  picture  is  oil  and  color ;  the  face 
changes  its  hues  and  expression,  the  picture 
can  not  change ;  the  face  is  rounded  and  di- 
versified to  the  touch,  the  painting  is  on  one 
surface.  And  yet  the  portrait  is  like  the 


294 


CHRISTIANITY  AND  ITS  ANTAGONISMS. 


face,  aud  the  idea  is  like  the  object.  The 
portrait  is  like  the  face  in  this,  that,  through 
the  light  \vhich  it  modifies  as  its  medium,  it 
produces  certain  effects  ou  the  consciousness 
like  those  which  the  face  itself  produces 
through  the  same  medium.  Under  the  same 
laws,  the  idea  is  like  the  object,  in  that  it  is 
a  faithful  mental  picture,  drawn  under  di- 
vine laws,  by  the  touches  of  the  senses,  con- 
formably to  the  innate  conditions  of  the 
mind  itself.  It  is  the  picture  of  the  object, 
painted  by  the  object  itself,  through  its  me- 
dia, on  the  canvas,  which  is  conscious  of  the 
picture  it  bears ;  or,  rather,  it  is  a  photo- 
graph which  becomes  a  picture  by  the  mod- 
ification produced  through  the  media,  and 
by  the  internal  changes  of  the  sensitive  sub- 
stratum, which  coacts  responsively  to  the 
media.  The  object  is  as  it  seems  to  the  mind, 
and  the  idea  is  like  the  object,  so  far  that 
there  is  a  real  correspondence,  correlation, 
analogy,  conformity,  between  the  object  me- 
diating through  its  means  of  force  aud  the 
idea  co-mediated  by  these  means,  aud  by  the 
powers,  connate  or  educated,  of  the  mind  it- 
self. That  which  produces  the  phenomena 
is  in  the  real  accord  of  natural  cause  and  ef- 
fect with  the  phenomena.  Different  phe- 
nomena imply  different  objects,  or  different 
conditions  of  the  same  object.  In  idealism 
there  is  no  object  beyond  the  mind  and  cor- 
respondent with  the  phenomena,  but  the  phe- 
uomenou  itself  exhausts  the  whole  concep- 
tion of  object.  It  is  not  the  phenomenon  of 
an  object,  but  is  itself  object.  Hence  ideal- 
ism proper  holds  that  in  the  phenomena  we 
f »  no  sense  grasp  any  thing  beyond  it,  while 
idealistic  realism  holds  that  in  an  impor- 
tant sense,  though  mediately,  we  do  grasp 
the  thing  beyond — in  other  words,  that  the 
medium  establishes  a  real  relation  between  the 
object  itself  and  the  mind. 

2.  Idealism  seems  to  be  strong  iu  the  fact 
that  it  rests  upon  generally  accepted  princi- 
ples in  regard  to  the  personality  of  mau.  The 
common  view,  with  which  idealism  concurs, 
is  that  it  is  not  the  whole  man  which  is  the 
Ego,  but  that  only  man's  mind  is  the  Ego; 
that  man  is  not  a  person,  but  merely  has  a 
person — in  brief,  that  man  is  not  mau.  It 
assumes  the  simplicity  of  man  proper.  The 
Cartesian  construction  of  man  and  of  person 
is  the  received  one,  and  this  is  the  construc- 
tion on  which  idealism  builds.  When  we 
are  conscious  of  our  self,  we  are  not  conscious 
of  the  material  nature  associated  with  our- 
self.  The  assertion  of  idealism  which  strikes 
most  persons  as  the  extremest  of  its  absurd- 
ities, to  wit,  that  we  have  not  substantial 
bodies,  or  do  not  directly  know  we  have 
them,  is  a  mere  logical  necessity  from  the 
commonly  received  principle  — a  principle 
very  probably  held  by  the  very  people  who 
ignorantly  stand  aghast  at  its  inevitable  in- 
ference. The  dualistic  realists,  on  their  own 
principles,  no  more  know  that  they  have  bod- 


ies than  the  idealists  do;  and  hence  some 
of  the  strongest  dualistic  realists,  like  the 
Scotch  school  in  general,  lay  the  foundations 
of  an  extreme  idealism  iu  the  very  effort  to 
overthrow  the  older  and  weaker  one.  In 
denying  Berkeley  they  unconsciously  assert. 
Fichte.*  This  school  has  consequently  shown 
a  tendency,  in  some  of  its  latest  and  noblest 
representatives,  to  run  out  into  a  sad  inde- 
terminism,  or  to  go  over  to  the  idealism 
against  which  it  has  fought  for  a  century.t 

But  the  seeming  strength  of  idealism  hero 
is  really  a  weakness ;  for,  in  common  with 
the  received  dualism,  it  accepts  a  false  con- 
struction of  the  personality  of  man.  The  at- 
testation of  consciousness  is  as  real  to  th« 
substantial  existence  of  our  bodies  as  an  in- 
tegral part  of  our  person,  as  it  is  to  the  sub- 
stantial existence  of  our  minds.  There  is  no 
sort  of  proof  proper  that  man  is  spirit,  apart 
from  proof  that  he  also  is  body. 

3.  Closely  connected  with  the  false  dual- 
ism of  the  popular  system  in  regard  to  the 
person  of  man  is  its  construction  of  the  rela- 
tion of  matte)'  to  mind.  This  also  has  always 
been  a  tower  of  strength  to  idealism ;  and 
it  is  one  of  its  unquestionable  benefits  that 
it  has  shown  the  untenableuess  of  the  old 
position.  If  the  choice  must  lie  between  oc- 
casionalism, pre-established  harmony,  and 
materialistic  physical  influence,  on  the  one 
side,  or  idealism  on  the  other,  every  sound 
thinker  will  accept  idealism,  at  least  provi- 
sionally, as  not  so  great  an  evil  as  the  oth- 
ers. The  ignorant  physicist  sometimes  says, 
"  We  know  that  there  is  matter.  Why  need 
we  go  further  to  an  unknown  something 
called  mind  ?"  But  his  very  assertion  is 
self-destructive.  It  implies  the  priority  of 
the  something  knowing  to  the  something 
known.  He  has  not  been  able  to  assert  mat- 
ter without  postulating  mind.  You  not 
only  can  not  prove  matter,  you  can  not  de- 
fine it,  without  implying  the  existence  of 
mind.  In  its  assertion  that  mind  is  first, 
idealism  is  beyond  all  successful  assault. 

Berkeley  here  did  a  great  work  in  pulling 
down  the  false,  in  showing  the  defects  of 
the  existing  systems.  Des  Cartes  and  Male- 
branche  accepted  matter,  and  were  at  a  loss 
what  to  do  with  it.  It  was  simply  in  their 
way.  Locke's  was  the  magnificent  chaos  of 
all  systems.  It  only  needed  selection  to  de- 
termine whether  his  views  should  be  devel- 
oped into  skepticism,  materialism,  idealism, 
or  realism.  Were  Berkeley  but  a  blind  giant, 
it  was,  at  this  point  at  least,  not  in  the  tem- 
ple of  a  true  God  that  he  reached  forth  his 
hands  to  feel  the  pillars.  It  was  Philistia's 
temple  of  false  theories  that  fell.  If  Berke- 
ley was  not  a  Solomon,  he  was  at  least  a 
Samson.  His  argument  against  matter  is, 
as  directed  against  some  of  the  dominant 
theories  he  assailed,  simply  invincible.  If 


*  See  "  Prolegomena,"  v.,  10, 15, 20. 
t  Ibid.,  iv.,  6,"  13;  vL,  14. 


KRAUTH:  THE  STRENGTH  AND  WEAKNESS  OF  IDEALISM. 


295 


matter  were  no  more  than  what  they  as- 
sumed it  to  be,  could  do  no  more  than  they 
supposed  it  to  do,  it  was  a  mere  obstruction, 
which  it  was  a  relief  to  sweep  out  of  the 
way.  If  the  battle  was  not  won,  the  deck 
was  at  least  cleared  for  action. 

Yet  at  this  point  it  is  a  weakness  of  ideal- 
ism that,  in  regard  to  the  relation  of  mind 
and  matter,  it  attempts  to  set  aside  fa  Ise  the- 
ories by  repudiating  ivell-grounded  facts.  The 
evidence  that  facts  are  facts  is  not  weakened 
by  the  false  theories  that  are  broached  to 
account  for  them,  nor  by  our  inability  to  of- 
fer any  theory  which  explains  them.  Ideal- 
.ism  may  overthrow  occasionalism,  or  pre- 
existeut  harmony,  or  physical  influence,  or 
any  and  every  theory  as  to  the  mode  in  which 
the  non-Ego  operates  on  the  Ego ;  but  the 
fact  that  the  non-Ego  does  operate  on  the 
Ego  remains  untouched.  In  denying  the 
fact,  idealism  is  forced  out  of  itself  into 
skepticism,  its  own  theory  becomes  chaotic 
and  preposterous,  and  it  reacts  into  realism, 
or  even  materialism,  or  runs  out  into  nihil- 
ism. We  know  too  little  of  the  ultimate 
nature  and  relations  of  matter  and  mind  to 
venture  beyond  the  ground  of  facts  iu  re- 
gard to  them.  In  matter  are  hidden  divine 
forces;  it  too  is  worthy  of  God;  it  too  is  an 
out-thought  of  God ;  and  we  can  not  meas- 
ure it,  because  we  can  not  measure  him.  We 
can.  not  think  too  highly  of  spirit,  but  we 
can  think  too  little  of  matter.  Matter,  too, 
is  in  the  sphere  of  faith.  We  can  not  walk 
all  through  its  domains  by  sight  merely. 
There  are  three  spheres  of  wonder  in  thought. 
The  lowest  is  simple  matter,  with  its  myste- 
ries and  beauty  and  grandeur.  The  high- 
est is  pure  Spirit,  the  self-existent  cause  of 
the  universe,  and  his  angels.  Midway  be- 
tween is  the  being  in  whom  spirit  takes  to 
itself  matter,  not  that  they  may  mechanical- 
ly cohere  with  their  wonders  separated,  but 
that  a  new  world  of  wonder  may  arise — 
mysterious  forces,  and  forces  which  neither 
simple  matter  nor  pure  spirit  in  their  isola- 
tion possesses.  Matter  and  mind  conjoined 
do  not  merely  add  their  powers  each  to  each, 
but  evolve  new  powers,  incapable  of  exist- 
ence outside  of  their  union. 

4.  Idealism  in  its  best  forms  addresses  a 
powerful  appeal  to  confidence  in  making  so 
ranch  of  the  universe  as  a  thing  of  thought. 
Its  Platonic  harmony  with  the  idea  as  the 
primal  thing,  the  presupposed  model  of  the 
existent  in  nature,  is  part  of  its  strength. 
Agaiust  the  theories  of  blind  fate,  of  aimless 
chance,  of  evolution,  without  mind  to  guide 
it,  of  unconscious  nature  fretting  itself  into 
form  or  consciousness,  in  the  happy  accidents 
of  millions  of  ages  of  failure,  against  the 
theories  that  in  any  sense  make  mind  the 
product  or  function  of  matter,  or  put  it  after 
matter,  or  co-ordinate  it  with  matter— the 
best  idealism,  in  asserting  spirit  as  the  glo- 
rious original,  asserts  plan  as  before  all  evo- 


lution, asserts  that  the  entire  phenomenal, 
whether  physical  or  spiritual,  finds  its  last 
root  and  cause  in  personal  reason. 

But,  while  it  is  a  strength  of  idealism  that 
it  confesses  the  thought  in  the  universe,  it  is 
its  weakness  that  it  denies  the  word.  The 
word  is  the  tody  of  the  thought,  the  medium 
through  which  thought  awakens  thought, 
and  by  which  mind  is  operative  on  mind. 
After  all  its  efforts,  idealism  totally  fails  to 
give  an  intelligible  account  of  the  excitation 
of  thought.  Berkeley  is  totally  unsatisfac- 
tory in  the  explanation  of  the  importation  of 
the  divine  ideas  to  us,  and  simply  helpless 
when  he  confesses,  but  leaves  unexplained, 
the  fact  that  the  mind  of  one  man  commu- 
nicates excitation  to  the  mind  of  another, 
Fichte  confesses  that  the  positing  of  the 
non-Ego,  as  the  non-Ego  inevitably  appears 
in  every  man's  experience,  is  incapable  of 
explication  ("unbegreifliche"),  and  Schel- 
'ling,  in  his  Fichtian  period,  acknowledges 
that  while  the  limitation  of  the  Ego,  in  a 
general  way,  can  be  explained,  "  the  definite 
limitation  of  it  is  the  incomprehensible  and  in- 
explicable demand  iu  philosophy."* 

Berkeley  appeals  to  the  omnipotence  of 
God  as  capable  of  making  direct  impressions 
on  the  mind ;  but  the  first  sentence  of  the 
"Principles"  shows  that  God  is  not  the  ob- 
ject of  human  Jcnoicledge — we  have  no  more 
than  our  knowledge  of  our  idea  of  him.  We 
know  the  idea,  not  the  Being.  Berkeley  can 
find  no  solution  of  the  facts  he  admits,  ex- 
cept by  a  tacit  desertion  of  his  own  princi- 
ples of  knowledge.  Matter,  in  many  of  its 
aspects,  may  be  considered  as  the  medium 
of  thought,  the  interpreting  word  of  God's 
mind — the  necessary  condition  of  man's  con- 
scious relation  to  man ;  but  of  all  these,  in 
its  Gnostic  undervaluation  of  matter,  ideal- 
ism has  persistently  taken  no  notice. 

5.  Closely  allied  with  the  position  it  as- 
signs to  thought,  is  the  strength  which  ideal- 
ism derives  from  the  conception  of  the  phe- 
nomena of  the  universe,  as  language  in  which 
mind  speaks  to  mind,  or  speaks  to  itself. 
"Day  unto  day  uttereth  speech,  and  night 
unto  night  showeth  knowledge ;  there  is  no 
speech  nor  language  where  their  voice  is 
not  heard." 

Yet,  while  Idealism  speaks  much  of  lan- 
guage, it  is  a  language  without  words,  with- 
out lip,  and  without  ear.  It  has  no  words, 
for  words  are  not  ideas,  but  the  representa- 
tives of  ideas,  and  the  media  of  expressing 
them ;  and  idealism  has  no  medium  between 
minds — it  has  mind  speaking  without  words, 
articulating  without  organs,  and  heard  with- 
out an  ear.  Its  words  are  self-uttered,  that 
is,  unuttered — self-heard,  and  therefore  un- 
heard. 

But  while  objective  nature  is  like  lan- 
guage in  that  it  reveals  mind  to  mind,  it  is 
even  as  a  revealer  greatly  unlike  language 
*  "System  des  transcendental  Idealifmus,"  |>-  US. 


CHRISTIANITY  AND  ITS  ANTAGONISMS. 


in  many  respects.  Objective  nature  is  not 
only  a  means  to  an  intellectual  end,  but  is 
also  in  some  respects  an  end  to  itself.  And 
even  when  it  is  a  means,  it  is,  in  its  first  and 
most  direct  intent,  a  means  to  a  natural,  not 
to  an  intellectual  end.  The  bird  has  facul- 
ties for  itself  alone ;  and  those  which  it  has 
for  me  it  shares  with  me.  It  does  not  only 
sing  for  me,  it  sings  for  itself  also.  The 
flowers  that  blush  unseen  are  not  lost,  and 
the  sweetness  shed  on  the  desert  air  is  not 
wasted.  The  intermediate  purposes  of  nat- 
ure do  not  find  their  analogy  in  language, 
and  hence  the  conception  of  language  fails 
to  cover  the  whole  problem.  It  does  not 
answer  to  build  a  system  on  the  straining 
of  a  metaphor.  But  the  secret  force  of  the 
analogy,  even  as  far  as  we  grant  it,  is  not 
what  it  ought  to  be  for  the  ends  of  idealism. 
Objective  nature  has  not  the  arbitrary  char- 
acter of  language.  Talking  man  has  innu- 
merable languages — man  as  the  excitant  of' 
the  perceptions  of  his  fellow  has  but  one 
language,  and  to  percipient  man  Nature  ad- 
dresses but  one.  The  man  of  spoken  lan- 
guage is  "  homo"  and  "  anthropos" — and  the 
nation  of  "homo"  does  not  understand  "an- 
thropos ;"  but  Nature's  man  is  man  himself, 
asserting  himself  to  the  normal  perception 
of  the  whole  race  in  the  one  perception,  in 
its  kind  identical  and  unmistakable.  If  Nat- 
ure finds  in  language  some  of  her  parallels, 
she  finds  in  it,  in  other  respects,  her  contrasts. 
She  is  so  vast  and  so  manifold  that  she  soon 
exhausts  the  figure  and  leaves  it  behind  her. 
The  spoons  of  our  systems  never  throw  back 
the  tide-line  of  her  ocean. 

6.  Idealism  has  been  strengthened  by  the 
obscurity,  confusion,  and  vacillation  of  think- 
ers in  regard  to  the  notion  of  substance,  or  of 
the  «  thing  in  itself." 

Yet  idealism  itself  involves  all  the  most 
serious  demands  of  the  notion  of  substance, 
falls  into  its  greatest  difficulties,  and  com- 
plicates instead  of  relieving  them.  The  dif- 
ficulties touching  substance  are  in  the  sphere 
of  the  ideal.  But  although  it  raises  the  dif- 
ficulties, it  never  settles  them.  It  has  all 
the  empirical  difficulties  in  accounting  for 
what  seems,  and  then  the  complicating  dif- 
ficulty, which  haunts  it  all  through,  that 
this  only  seems.  It  is  encumbered  with  the 
perplexity  of  treating  physical  substance 
as  if  it  were  a  fact,  while  it  yet  conceives 
of  it  as  a  fiction.  In  a  word,  it  is  encumber- 
ed with  all  the  embarrassments  brought  in 
by  the  idea  of  physical  substance,  yet  can 
avail  itself  of  none  of  the  relief  the  idea 
brings. 

7.  Closely  allied  with  the  notion  of  sub- 
stance is  that  of  came  and  causality,  whose 
obscurities  have  given  a  place  of  shelter  to 
idealistic  speculation. 

But  idealism  is  no  less  weak  than  other 
systems  in  its  interpretation  of  causality. 
The  causal  relation  of  intellectual  forces  and 


effects,  of  mental  precedences  and  succes- 
sions, is  not  only  as  obscure  in  its  own  nat- 
ure as  is  physical  causation,  but  is,  in  fact, 
the  source  of  difficulty  as  regards  the  phys- 
ical. It  is  the  adjustment  in  the  mental 
construction  which  creates  the  perplexity. 
Here,  as  in  regard  to  substance,  idealism  is 
compelled  to  accept  experience  as  a  source 
of  difficulties,  yet  dare  not  use  it  as  a  means 
of  relief  from  them. 

8.  It  is  an,  element  of  strength  in  idealism, 
in  common  with  all  monistic  systems,  that 
it  appeals  to  the  love  of  unity  natural  to  the 
mind.  All  great  tendencies  in  human  nat- 
ure point  in  some  way  to  great  truths — to 
some  truth  possessed  or  some  truth  needed. 
When  they  swing  and  tremble,  it  is  still  un- 
der a  prevailing  drawing  toward  the  true ; 
and  when  they  at  last  lie  still  and  point 
steadily,  they  point  to  the  pole.  One  of  the 
most  marked  desires  of  human  thought  is 
toward  unity,  to  make  as  nearly  as  may  be 
the  One  the  All.  The  great  struggle  of 
thinking  has  been  toward  a  monistic  con- 
struction of  the  facts,  and  this  has  given  us 
pantheism,  materialism,  idealism,  and  the 
doctrine  of  identity. 

It  is  a  weakness  of  idealism,  in  common 
with  materialism  and  pantheism,  that  it 
finds  unity  not  in  the  harmony  of  the  things 
that  differ,  but  in  the  absorption  of  the  one 
into  the  other.  Two  sets  of  things  are  be- 
fore us  in  the  natural  construction  of  expe- 
rience, as  all  schools  alike  admit  —  things 
spiritual,  things  material.  Before  they  be- 
gin to  philosophize,  the  materialist  and  the 
idealist  wholly  agree  on  the  phenomenal 
facts.  There  seems  to  be  a  world  external  to 
me,  and  I  seem  to  be  conscious  that  there  is. 
But  when  they  begin  to  philosophize,  the 
materialist  insists  that  as  such  a  thing  as 
mind  is  supposed  to  be  can  neither  act  on 
matter  nor  be  acted  on  by  matter,  there  can 
be  no  mind.  The  idealist,  holding  to  the 
fuud.imental  mode  of  the  materialist  con- 
struction, simply  inverting  the  terms,  says : 
As  such  a  thing  as  matter  is  supposed  to  be 
can  neither  act  on  mind  nor  be  acted  on  by 
mind,  there  is  no  such  thing  as  matter.  Each 
is  a  dogmatist,  arbitrarily  assuming  the  ele- 
ment by  which  he  will  stand  as  separate 
from  the  other,  and  each,  by  the  thing  he  re- 
jects, making  void  the  thing  by  which  he 
holds.  For  there  is  no  genuine  proof  that 
there  is  matter  which  is  not  a  proof  that 
there  is  mind,  no  genuine  proof  that  there  is 
mind  which  is  not  a  proof  that  there  is  mat- 
ter. All  proof  of  the  existence  of  matter 
links  itself  with  the  consciousness  which  the 
mind  has  of  certain  facts  which  involve  the 
existence  of  matter ;  all  proofs  of  the  exist- 
ence of  mind  are  linked  with  the  evidences 
that  matter  operates  on  it  and  is  operated 
on^  by  it.  Matter  isolated  from  mind  is  un- 
known, and  mind  isolated  from  matter  is  un- 
knowing. tAs  subject  and  object  are  corre- 


KRAUTH :  THE  STRENGTH  AND  WEAKNESS  OF  IDEALISM. 


297 


late  terms,  and  the  real  existence  of  the 
thing  in  one  term  of  the  relation  implies  the 
real  existence  of  the  other,  so  mind  and  mat- 
ter are  not  opposites,  but  correlates.  As 
philosophy  algne  knows  them,  there  can  be  no 
mind  conceived  -without  matter,  no  matter 
conceived  without  mind.  Materialism  and 
idealism  are  alike  forms  of  direct  self-con- 
tradiction. 

9.  It  is  a  source  of  strength  to  idealism 
that,  \vith  its  principles,  various  speculative 
errors,  especially  materialism,  seem  to  be 
most  effectually  overthrown.  The  hope  of 
accomplishing  this  was  one  of  Berkeley's 
practical  incentives.  That  he  has  not  ac- 
complished this  in  the  manner  and  to  the 
degree  he  proposed  is  certain,  but  his  labors 
were  nevertheless  not  a  failure.  Berkeley 
has  helped  to  lay  an  immovable  foundation 
for  a  true  estimate  of  the  value  of  the  soul 
and  of  the  majesty  of  mind.  Quite  outside 
of  his  peculiar  speculation,  in  which  many 
may  decline  to  follow  him — and,  indeed,  the 
more  potently  if  we  drop  it — he  has  helped 
to  fix  forever,  to  thoughtful  men,  evidence 
of  the  personality,  the  independent  exist- 
ence, the  amazing  faculties  of  man's  spirit. 
If  he  has  not  demonstrated  that  there  is  no 
substantial  body,  he  has  demonstrated  that, 
whatever  body  may  be,  it  is  for  the  soul; 
that  matter  is  for  mind ;  that  the  psychical 
rules  the  physical ;  that  the  spirit  is  the  ed- 
ucator of  the  organs ;  that  the  universe  is 
expressed  thought  and  embodied  plan ;  it  is 
conceived  by  mind  for  mind,  is  the  language 
in  which  the  Infinite  Spirit  speaks  to  the 
created  spirits ;  that  law  is  but  the  revela- 
tion of  will,  nature  an  eternal  logic  and 
festhetic ;  that  man  is  an  indivisible  person, 
and  that  his  essential  personality  is  inherent 
in  his  soul;  that  soul  is  not  the  result  of 
organism,  but  that  organism  is  the  result  of 
soul ;  that  the  universe  we  know  can  not  ex- 
ist without  mind.  The  esse  of  the  knoicn  is 
percipi,  man  is  the  measure  of  his  own  uni- 
verse, and  there  is  no  man's  vniverse  outside 
of  man. 

On  the  other  hand,  idealism  promotes  ma- 
terialism by  reaction,  as  all  extremes,  in  the 
same  way,  produce  their  counterparts.  To 
make  a  real  thing  nothing,  is  the  best  prepa- 
ration for  making  it  every  thing.  The  soil 
of  the  most  matured  idealism  is,  equally 
with  that  of  a  one-sided  realism,  the  soil  of 
the  most  extravagant  materialism.  The  land 
of  Fichte,  Schelling,  and  Hegel  is  the  land 
of  Feuerbach,  Vogt,  and  Moleschott,  as  the 
land  of  Bacon,  Hobbes,  and  Locke  is  the 
laud  of  Darwin,  Huxley,  and  Spencer.  Many 
in  the  world  of  thinkers,  nearly  all  in  the 
every-day  world  of  what  is  called  "common- 
sense,"  if  fairly  pinned  down  to  the  choice 
between  "no  substantial  mind,"  "no  sub- 
stantial matter,"  would  say,  "  If  this  be  so, 
there  is  no  substantial  mind."  To  the  pop- 
ulace throughout,  and  to  nearly  all  the  cul- 


tivated, the  thing  seen,  felt,  heard,  tasted, 
is  the  substance ;  not  the  thing  which  sees, 
feels,  hears,  tastes.  That  is  to  most  men  the 
shadow.  If  you  can  make  them  doubt  of 
what  they  have  seen,  how  can  they  con- 
tinue to  believe  in  that  which  they  have  not 
seen? 

10.  Closely  associated  by  misconstruction 
and  one-sided  extravagance  with  material- 
ism is  the  doctrine  of  realism,  against  whose 
abuses  the  best  idealism  is  arrayed.     The 
common-sense  of  the  Occidental  races  is  pre- 
vailingly realistic,  but  realistic  beyond  all 
the  metes  and  bounds  which  any  system  of 
intelligent  thinking  can  endure.     All  phi- 
losophers are  agreed  that  in  a  certain  aspect 
the  popular  interpretation  of  consciousness 
is  demoustrably  false.     It  is  so  false  that 
half  an  hour's  talk  will  satisfy  any  man  of 
ordinary  intellect  that  he  has  misconstrued 
the  testimony  of  his  own  eyes,  ears,  and 
touch.     When  the  refined  sense  of  the  race 
becomes  realistic,  it  tends  to  materialism. 
Those  who  are  terrified  at  idealism  would 
do  well  to  contrast  its  workings  not  merely 
with  their  own  sober  realism,  but  with  the 
workings  of  materialism;  to  put  side  by  side 
materialistic  France  and  idealistic  Germany, 
or  in  Germany  to  contrast  even  the  extrava- 
gances of  idealism,  with  the  reactionary  ex- 
travagances .  of   materialism,   remembering 
that  the  abuse  of  realism  is  the  direct  strong- 
hold of  materialism. 

But  if  the  extravagances  and  mistakes  of 
realism  are  favorable  to  idealism,  there  is  a 
strength,  naturalness,  and  consistency  in  a 
sober  realism  which  makes  it  a  very  formid- 
able antagonist  in  the  sphere  of  speculation, 
and  an  invincible  one  to  the  practical  mind. 
Not  only  so — it  is  inATincible  to  the  idealistic 
mind  in  its  practical  moods.  Fichte  himself 
says,  "  Idealism  can  never  be  a  way  of  think- 
ing, but  is  speculation  only.  When  it  comes 
to  action,  realism  presses  upon  every  man, 
even  upon  the  most  decided  idealist.  Ideal- 
ism is  the  true  reverse  of  life."*  Fichte  else- 
where says,  "  If  I  do  not  acknowledge  prac- 
tically what  I  must  acknowledge  theoreti- 
cally, I  put  myself  in  an  attitude  of  clear 
self-contradiction."!  And  in  saying  this  he 
passes  judgment  on  his  own  system. 

11.  It  is  a  great  source  of  strength  to 
idealism  that,  appealing  to  the  reason  as  its 
ground,  those  who  are  its  antagonists  have  so 
often  failed  in  meeting  it  successfully — have 
so  often  insisted  that  the  whole  question  is 
to  be  carried  out  of  philosophy  and  put  to 
the  popular  vote — or,  accepting  the  chal- 
lenge to  meet  idealism  in  the  sphere  of  spec- 
ulation, have,  in  that  sphere,  failed  to  over- 
throw it. 

But  it  is  no  less  true  that  if  the  antago- 
nists of  idealism  have  strengthened  it  by 

•  Philosoph.  Journal,  v..  322,  323,  note, 
t  "Brief  an  Reinhold,"  p.  5.    See  Krng,  "Idealis- 
rnus." 


CHRISTIANITY  AND  ITS  ANTAGONISMS. 


their  differences,  the  friends  of  idealism  have 
weakened  it  by  their  vital  differences.  Its 
friends  have  failed  to  agree. 

12.  It  is  one  of  the  great  attractions  of 
idealism  to  thinkers  that  it  meets  the  prob- 
lems of  thought  in  a  philosophical  spirit.  If 
it  does  not  solve  them,  it  tries  to  solve  them. 
If  it  does  not  answer  the  question,  it  does 
not  give  it  up.  If  its  heroes  are  vanquished, 
they  fall  in  battle  with  their  harness  on. 

There  is  often  a  great  misconception  of 
the  whole  purpose  of  philosophical  effort.  It 
is  not  to  find  a  ground  of  practical  convic- 
tion sufficient  for  the  routine  of  every-day 
life.  That  ground  is  common  to  all  the  sys- 
tems. The  most  absolute  idealist  and  the 
most  positive  realist  are  uudistinguishable 
here.  The  whole  circle  of  the  phenomenal 
is  the  same  to  both.  It  is  not  the  on,  but  the 
cion  which  divides  them.  It  is,  indeed,  one 
of  the  marvels  of  the  case,  that  idealists 
have  so  often  been  distinguished  in  the 
largeness  and  pureness  of  their  practical 
thinking  and  of. their  active  lives.  One 
grand  object  of  philosophy  is  to  vindicate 
the  sensations  or  instincts  to  the  reason,  or 
to  correct  both  by  the  reason,  or  reason  by 
both,  or  to  show  that  they  lie  out  of  the 
range  of  reason,  and  must  be  accepted  with- 
out hope  of  harmonizing  them.  It  is  the 
object  of  philosophy  to  ascend  as  high  as  it 
is  given  to  man  to  ascend,  to  adjust  our  be- 
liefs and  our  cognitions,  and  to  escape  the 
error  of  simply  believing  what  we  ought  to 
know,  or  of  assuming  to  know  what  we  can 
only  believe.  When  divine  revelation  is  ac- 
cepted, we  must  believe  in  order  to  under- 
stand. Is  this  the  canon  of  philosophy  too  ? 
Under  which  flag — Credo  ut,  or  Intelligo  ut  ? 
A  great  school,  the  school  of  Belief,  replies, 
Credo  ut ;  another  school  would  totally  deny 
the  Credo  ut.  "However  harmless,"  says 
Kant,  "psychological  idealism  may  appear 
as  regards  the  essential  aims  of  metaphysics 
(though  in  fact  it  is  not  harmless),  yet  it 
would  remain  a  perpetual  scandal  to  phi- 
losophy and  the  common  reason  of  our  race, 
to  be  compelled  to  assume,  simply  on  belief, 
the  existence  of  things  external  to  us — the 
very  things  from  which  we  derive  the  entire 
materials  for  the  cognitions  of  our  internal 
sense — and  when  any  one  doubts  their  exist- 
ence to  be  at  a  loss  for  a  sufficient  proof  of 
it."*  Brave  words;  but  Kant  never  reached 
the  point  at  which  he  could  pretend  to  say, 
on  speculative  grounds,  Intelligo.  His  heart 
went  over  from  the  philosophers  to  the  vul- 
gar, and  tried  to  stanch  the  wounds  of  the 
"pure"  with  the  bandages  of  the  "practi- 
cal ;"  but  the  bandages  of  the  "  practical " 
could  only  be  found  in  the  repository  of  the 
"  pure,"  and  from  thence  Kant  had  removed 
them.  His  "reason  "affirmed  idealism.  His 
instinct  clung  to  realism.  Kant  perpetually 


1  "Krit,  d.  rein.  Vernunn,"  Vorrede.     Ed.  Kirch- 
mnnn.    Dritt.  Anfl.  (Berlin,  1372),  p.  41. 


unraveled  in  one  what  he  wove  in  the  other. 
The  shroud  of  Penelope  was  never  com- 
pleted. Fichte,  Schelling,  Hegel,  Schopen- 
hauer, and  hundreds  of  others,  have  worked 
upon  it,  but  it  is  unfinished.  Jf  the  work  is 
ever  stayed,  it  will  not  be  by  its  completion, 
but  by  the  coming  of  some  Ulysses  of  meta- 
physics who  shall  bring  it  to  an  end  by  re- 
moving its  motive.  Meanwhile  it  can  not  be 
denied  that  the  idealists  have  been  marked 
by  bold,  persistent  labor,  and  by  great  fidel- 
ity to  speculative  processes.  They  have  re- 
fused all  compromise  with  "common-sense," 
have  pushed  away  persistently  the  friendly 
but  coarse  hand  of  empiricism.  There  is  an 
air  of  the  heroic  characteristic  of  the  school, 
in  its  unceasing  warfare  with  all,  however 
strong  or  popular,  which  does  dishonor  to 
man  as  a  being  of  speculative  thought. 
They  cau  not  be  driven  or  bribed  into  com- 
promising the  dignity  of  science,  the  maj- 
esty of  mind. 

But  though.idcalism  has  nobly  represent- 
ed in  its  best  names  the  philosophical  spirit, 
it  has  by  no  means  a  monopoly  of  such  names 
or  of  this  spirit.  Other  systems  have  worthy 
names,  and  some  very  bright  ones  are  found 
arrayed  against  idealism.  Many  of  the 
most  illustrious  thinkers  of  England,  Scot- 
land, France,  and  Germany  have  resisted  its 
premises,  and  yet  more  frequently  its  infer- 
euces.  Some  of  its  masters  sit  uneasy  on 
their  thrones,  put  there  against  their  protest 
by  their  disciples.  All  recent  idealism  is 
the  exaggeration  or  isolation  of  principles  of 
Kant ;  but  if  idealism  is  Kantianism,  Kant 
did  not  understand  his  own  system.  If  his 
creed  was  idealistic,  his  faith  was  realistic. 
Recent  idealism  is  the  disavowed,  if  not  the 
illegitimate,  child  of  the  great  thinker  it 
claims  as  its  father. 

13.  Idealism  has  nurtured  many  of  the 
noblest  spirits  of  the  race,  and  claims  the 
power  of*begetting  exaltation  of  mind  and 
character.  Berkeley  is  a  sublime  embodi- 
ment of  the  true  philosophical  spirit ;  of  the 
loftiness  of  its  aims,  the  singleness  of  its  pur- 
pose, the  invincible  persistence  of  its  fideli- 
ty to  conviction.  Without  disloyalty  to  the 
practical  turn  of  the  English  mind,  he  has 
been  true  to  purely  intellectual  interests. 
He  at  least  has  not  degraded  philosophy  to 
the  kitchen.  His  intellectual  life  is  consist- 
ent with  his  own  utterances  :  "  The  first 
spark  of  philosophy  was  derived  from  heav- 
en. .  .  .  Theology  and  philosophy  gently  un- 
bind the  ligaments  that  chain  the  soul  down 
to  earth,  and  assist  her  flight  toward  the 
Sovereign  Good."*  Idealism  in  its  best  forms 
is  characteristically  the  system  of  noble,  in- 
tellectual, and  pure  men.  If  it  does  not  lift 
men  to  the  heaven  of  their  aspiration,  it  at 
least  keeps  them  out  of  the  slough  and  the 
mire. 

Yet  idealism  has  also  in  some  cases  nurt- 


•  "Siri?,"5301,302. 


KRAUTII :  THE  STRENGTH  AND  WEAKNESS  OF  IDEALISM. 


299 


ured,  even  in  its  greatest  representatives, 
an  overweening  Titanic  arrogance.  Not  even 
the  noble  nature  of  Fickte  could  hide  this 
tendency — or,  rather,  the  frankness  of  a  true 
manliness  brought  it  into  consistent  relief. 
It  stands  forth  like  a  spectral  giant  of  the 
Brocken  on  every  mountain  peak  of  his  spec- 
ulation. One  passage  will  be  sufficient  to 
illustrate  it:  "And  wow  with  this  view — 
that  there  is  no  objective  being  correspond- 
ent with  our  conceptions — be  free,  O  mor- 
tal !  —  be  redeemed  forever  from  the  fear 
which  has  been  thy  humiliation  and  tor- 
ment !  Thou  shalt  tremble  no  more  before  a 
necessity  which  exists  but  in  thy  thoughts. 
Thou  shalt  no  longer  fear  that  thou  shalt  be 
crushed  by  things  which  are  but  the  prod- 
ucts of  thine  own  mind.  Thou  shalt  no 
longer  class  thyself,  the  thinker,  with  the 
thoughts  which  go  forth  from  thee.  As  long 
as  thou  wert  able  to  believe  that  such  a  sys- 
tem of  things  as  thou  didst  describe  to  thy- 
self actually  existed,  external  to  thee,  in- 
dependent on  thee,  and  that  thou  mightest 
be  a  mere  link  in  the  chain  of  this  system, 
so  long  thy  fears  were  well  grounded.  Now 
thou  art  redeemed,  and  I  resign  thee  to  thy- 
self !"* 

14.  Idealism  has  been,  and  is,  in   some 
shape,  received  by  an  immense  portion  of  the 
race  —  predominantly  in  the  philosophical 
races  of  Asia,  and  to  no  little  extent  in  Eu- 
rope.  "  In  Asia,"  says  Schopenhauer,  "ideal- 
ism is — both  in  Brahmauisin  and  Buddhism 
— a  doctrine  of  the  religion  of  the  people 
even.     In  Hindostan,  in  the  doctrine  of  the 
Maja,  it  is  universal;  and  in  Thibet, the  main 
seat  of  the  Buddhist  Church,  it  is  taught  in 
the  most  popular  form."t 

It  is  equally  true  that  the  Western  mind 
is  not  inclined  to  accept  idealism.  The  Ori- 
ental mind  receives  it  through  the  channel 
of  pantheism.  To  that  mind  it  is  theology 
rather  than  philosophy.  "  Idealism  in  Eu- 
rope," says  Schopenhauer,  "  is  bare  paradox 
— it  is  known  as  a  paradox  scarcely  to  be  se- 
riously thought  of,  confined  to  certain  ab- 
normal philosophers." 

15.  Idealism  is  a  system  of  great  versatili- 
ty, and  has  the  power  of  associating  its  fun- 
damental position  with  structures   of  the 
most  diverse  kind. 

But  it  is  also  true  that  if  it  can  bo  built 
in  with  the  strong  and  noble,  it  can  also  bo 
built  in  with  the  weak  and  unworthy.  If  it 
has  won  to  itself  the  self-sacrificing  Chris- 
tian heart  of  Berkeley,  and  has  drawn  into 
it  his  profound  theistic  convictions,  it  has 
also  woven  in  with  itself  the  dreamy  pan- 
theism of  the  Orient,  and  the  more  vigorous 
pantheism  of  the  West..  It  has  adjusted  it- 
self to  Fichte's  moral  order  of  the  world  as 


"Bestimmung  des  Menschen,"  p.  159-162. 
t  "Ueber  . . .  Grnnde,"3d  Anfl.,  p.  32.    "  Parerga," 
2d  Anfl.,  ii.,  40.    "Willeu  in  der  Natur,"  3d  Aufl.,  p. 
18B.    Fnuienstr.dt,  S.-Lex. :  Art.  "  Idealismus." 


an  ideal  God ;  to  Schelling's  God  of  his  first 
era,  as  "  the  absolute  indiflerence  of  antithe- 
ses ;"  of  his  second  era,  as  the  God  "  who 
attains  to  perfected  being  by  theogonic  proc- 
ess ;"  and  of  his  third  era,  with  the  various 
modifications  of  his  mystic  theosophic  tend- 
ency. It  has  been  bound  up  with  Hegel's 
religion,  as  "man's  consciousness  of  God,  and 
of  God's  consciousness  of  himself  in  man ;" 
and  with  Schopenhauer's  unpaling  atheism, 
pessimism,  and  animalism.  Beginning  in  the 
spirit  with  Berkeley,  it  has  ended  in  the 
flesh  with  materialism,  and  has  taken  in  all 
between.  It  surely  has  established  no  claim 
to  be  a  religious  or  ethical  regulator.  In  its 
native  soil  it  is  the  philosophy  of  Brahman- 
ism  and  Buddhism,  which  are  systems  of 
atheism  and  pessimism. 

The  Maja,  which  is  the  popular  form  of 
the  idealism  of  the  Hindoos,  is  "  the  veil  of 
illusion  which  shrouds  the  eyes  of  mortals, 
and  causes  them  to  see  a  world  of  which  it 
can  not  be  said  that  it  is,  nor  even  that  it  is 
not ;  for  it  is  like  a  dream,  or  like  the  sun- 
light on  the  sands,  which  the  distant  traveler 
mistakes  for  water,  or  like  the  thong  which 
he  takes  for  a  serpent  in  his  way.  Suicide 
is  the  masterpiece  of  Maja."* 

16.  As  idealism  is  one  of  the  earliest,  so 
does  it  claim  to  be  the  latest,  and  therefore 
the  ripest,  result  of  speculative  thought. 

As  a  philosophical  system,  not  as  an  ad- 
junct to  a  pantheistic  theology  or  mythol- 
ogy, or  to  the  atheistic  systems  of  the  East, 
idealism  is  not  earliest  in  its  rise,  and  its 
ripeness  is  of  no  value  unless  the  fruit  be 
good.  But  idealism  is  not  the  last  result  of 
philosophical  ripening.  Already  the  marks 
of  transition  are  manifest.  The  philosophy 
of  the  future  is  one  which  will  be  neither  ab- 
solute idealism  nor  absolute  realism,  but  will 
accept  the  facts  of  both,  and  fuse  them  in  a 
system  which,  like  man  himself,  shall  blend 
the  two  realities  as  distinct  yet  inseparable 
— the  duality  of  natures  harmonized,  yet  not 
vanishing,  in  the  Monism  of  person.  Its  uni- 
verse shall  be  one  of  accordant,  not  of  dis- 
cordant matter  and  mind — a  universe  held  to- 
gether and  ever  developing  under  the  plan 
and  control  of  the  one  Supreme,  who  is  nei- 
ther absolutely  immanent  nor  absolutely  supra- 
mundane,  but  relatively  both  —  immanent  in 
the  sense  in  which  deism  denies  his  pres- 
ence, supramundane  in  the  sense  in  which 
pantheism  ignores  bis  relation.  Its  God  shall 
be  not  the  mere  Maker  of  the  universe,  as 
deism  asserts,  nor  its  matter,  as  pantheism 
represents  him,  but  its  Preserver,  Benefactor, 
Ruler,  and  Father,  who,  whether  in  matter 
or  mind,  reveals  the  perfect  reason,  the  per- 
fect love,  the  perfect  will,  the  consummate 
power,  in  absolute  and  eternal  personality. 

17.  The  facts  we  have  presented  upon 
the  one  side  justify  the  language  in  which 
a^distinguished  thinker  of  Germany  does 

*  Schopenhauer,  Frauenstiidt :  Art.  "Maja." 


CHRISTIANITY  AND  ITS  ANTAGONISMS. 


homage  to  the  strength  of  idealism  in  the 
very  preparation  to  expose  its  weakness :  * 

"Idealism  is  in  substance  and  tendency 
closely  allied  with  spiritualism ;  but  it  is 
profounder,  more  imposing,  more  towering. 
Among  all  philosophical  systems,  the  boldest 
and  loftiest  is  idealism  ;  the  idea  of  the  self- 
dependence  of  the  mind  is  in  it  carried  to 
its  supremest  height;  the  omnipotence  of 
the  Ego  is  its  fundamental  dogma ;  the  Ego — 
the  thinking  mind — is  the  centre  of  the  uni- 
verse, it  is  the  solitary  fixed  point  in  the  be- 
ing of  things,  the  primal  spring  of  all  exist- 
ence— the  Ego  is  God.  It  is  in  the  fullest 
and  highest  sense  of  the  word  the  system  of 
freedom  and  self-dependence.  Every  thing 
in  it  is  freedom,  free  activity,  the  spontane- 
ity of  the  Ego — knowing  no  limits  but  those 
of  its  own  imposition ;  for  outside  of  the  Ego 
is  nothing  which  can  set  bounds  to  it — the 
whole  external  world,  the  non-Ego,  is  but 
empty  seeming  or  product  of  the  self-active 
Ego  itself.  In  this  lies  the  gigantic  power 
with  which  idealism  so  often  lays  its  grasp 
on  the  mind  of  men  of  great  force  and  inde- 
pendence of  character.  This  explains  the 
enchantment  with  which  it  often  lures  espe- 
cially the  young  man,  who  feels  most  vivid- 
ly the  self-dependence  of  his  spirit.  Ideal- 
ism is  the  system  of  fiery,  active,  free  youth ; 
realism  the  system  of  sober,  cold,  calm  old 
age. 

"  Hence,  also,  it  is  that  the  moral  element 
in  man  finds  its  most  potent  stimulus  in 
idealism ;  for  idealism,  by  pre-eminence,  re- 
poses on  the  self-dependence  and  freedom  of 
the  mind. 

"  As  in  pantheism  it  is  the  religious  view 
of  the  world  which  predominates,  in  ideal- 
ism it  is  the  ethical  view.  A  potent,  exalt- 
ed, and  strict  style  of  moral  thinking  arises 
from  the  idealistic  principle.  This  princi- 
ple involves  egoism,  indeed,  but  it  is  an  ego- 
ism of  the  noblest,  purest  kind,  standing  in 
harmony  with  the  most  genuine  morality; 
for  it  throws  into  the  first  line,  not  the  em- 
pirical, sense-bound  Ego,  but  the  pure  ra- 
tional Ego.  Thus,  at  least,  it  appears  in  its 
highest  shape,  in  one  whose  strong,  lofty, 
masculine  soul  lived  wholly  in  idealism.  We 
mean  Fichte,  as  he  presents  it  in  its  rugged 
completeness  in  his '  Doctrine  of  Science.' " 

The  same  illustrious  writer,  whoso  elo- 
quent tribute  to  the  strength  of  idealism 
will  heighten  the  value  of  his  exposure  of 
its  weakness,  has  said  :t  "  Let  us  look  now  at 
the  shadow-side  of  idealism — for  in  truth  it 
lacks  not  in  very  dark  and  mournful  shad- 
ows. It  has  been  remarked,  in  speaking  of 
pantheism,  how  intolerable  to  the  common 
understanding  of  man  is  the  view  that  the 
world  of  the  senses  is  but  deception  and 


*  Helnrich,  Th.  Schmid  (1799-1836),  Professor  of  Phi- 
losophy in  Heidelberg:  " Vorlesungen  iiber  das  We- 
pen  der  Philosophic"  (Stuttg.  1830). 

t  Schmid, "  Vorlesnngen,"  p.  2C8. 


seeming.  This  contradiction  to  the  ordi- 
nary view  of  the  world  is  greatly  strength- 
ened in  idealism,  as  according  to  it  not  mere- 
ly the  finite  world  of  the  senses,  but  the  entire 
universe — Nature,  Man,  and  God — the  nat- 
ural and  the  supernatural,  the  corporeal  and 
the  spiritual — in  brief,  all  that  is  actual,  ex- 
ternal to  the  Ego — is  annihilated.  Nothing 
but  the  Ego  with  its  activity  has  true  sub- 
stantiality ;  the  entire  external  world  is  but 
show  and  illusion  ;  is  no  more  than  an  emp- 
ty, insubstantial  play  of  images  which  the 
Ego  calls  into  being  and  then  allows  to  van- 
ish ;  is  no  more,  as  Fichte  expresses  it,  than 
'  the  mirage  of  our  divine  Ego.'  Thus  the 
Ego  finds  itself  alone  in  the  boundless  waste 
of  emptiness  and  nothingness  which  circles 
it  all  round.  Can  any  man,  endowed  with 
emotion,  feel  satisfied  with  such  a  view  t 
Must  it  not  make  any  man  shiver,  vividly 
to  actualize  to  himself  the  desolate  loneli- 
ness involved  in  this  idealistic  view  of  the 
world  ?" 

18.  Jean  Paul  has  painted,  with  his  char- 
acteristic matchless  eccentricity  and  vigor, 
the  desolate  condition  to  which  an  actual- 
ized idealism  brings  the  mind :  "  The  worst 
of  all  is  the  pitched,  aimless,  perked-up,  in- 
sular life  that  a  god  must  live.  He  has  no 
society.  If  I  am  not  (as  the  idealistic  Ego) 
to  sit  still  all  the  time  and  to  all  eternity,  if 
I  am  to  let  myself  down  as  well  as  I  can, 
and  make  myself  finite,  just  to  have.sowie- 
tliing  about  me,  I  shall  be  like  the  poor  little 
princes — I  shall  have  nothing  about  me  but 
my  own  servile  creatures  to  echo  my  words. 
Any  being  whatever  —  the  Supreme  Being 
himself,  if  you  choose — wishes  something  to 
love,  something  to  honor.  But  Fichte's  doc- 
trine of  every  man  his  own  body -maker 
leaves  me  nothing  at  all,  not  even  the  beg- 
gar's dog  or  the  prisoner's  spider.  For,  grant- 
ed that  those  two  animals  existed,  the  dog, 
the  spider,  and  I  would  only  have  the  nine 
pictures  which  we  would  paint  of  ourselves 
and  of  each  other,  but  we  would  not  have 
each  other.  Something  better  than  myself — 
that  better  something  to  Avhich  the  flame  of 
love  leaps  up — is  not,  if  idealism  be  true,  to 
be  had.  The  mantle  of  love,  which  for  ages 
has  been  narrowed  to  the  canonical  four  fin- 
gers' breadth  of  the  bishop's  pallium,  now 
goes  up  in  a  blaze,  and  the  only  thing  a'mau 
has  left  to  love  is  his  own  love.  Veipily,  I 
wish  there  were  such  things  as  men,  and  I 
wish  I  were  one  of  them.  If  it  has  fallen  to 
my  lot,  unhappy  dog  that  I  am,  that  nobody 
really  exists  but  myself,  nobody  is  as  badly 
off  as  I  am.  No  sort  of  enthusiasm  is  left 
me  but  logical  enthusiasm.  All  my  meta- 
physics, chemistry,  technology,  nosology, 
botany,  entomology,  runs  down  into  the  old 
principle,  Know  thyself.  I  am  not  merely,  as 
Bellarmiu  says,  my  own  Saviour,  but  I  am 
also  my  own  devil,  my  own  messenger  of 
death,  and  master  of  the  knout  in  ordinary 


KKAUTH :  THE  STRENGTH  AND  WEAKNESS  OF  IDEALISM. 


301 


to  my  own  majesty.  Around  me  stretches 
humanity,  turned  to  stone.  In  the  dark, 
desolate  stillness  glows  no  love,  no  admira- 
tion, no  prayer,  no  hope,  no  aim.  I  am  so 
utterly  alone !  no  pulsation,  no  life,  any 
where.  Nothing  about  me,  and,  without 
me,  nothiug  but  nothing.  Thus  come  I  out 
of  eternity,  thus  go  I  into  eternity.  And 
who  hears  my  plaints  and  knows  me  now  ? 
Ego.  Who  shall  hear  me  and  Avho  shall 
know  me  to  all  eternity  ?  Ego." 

19.  The  picture  drawn  by  Jean  Paul  is 
gloomy  enough,  yet  it  has  a  solitary  point 
of  light  and  relief.  The  Ego  itself  is  left : 
one  only,  it  is  true,  but  each  man  will  con- 
sider that  his  own.  And  it  is  the  fact  that 
idealism  is  supposed  to  leave  this  great 
something  secure  that  has  given  it  a  fascina- 
tion to  men,  who  feared  that  other  systems 
would  leave  them  nothing,  not  even  them- 
selves. A  self-conscious,  a  possibly  immor- 
tal something — this,  at  least,  is  gain. 

When  every  thing  else  sinks  in  the  ocean 
of  idealistic  nothingness,  does  not  the  per- 
sonal Ego  stand  unshaken,  a  rock  towering 
in  solitary  grandeur  above  the  sweep  of  all 
the  billows  of  speculative  doubt  ?  On  that 
long  line  of  coast,  chafed  by  waves  which 
ever  pile  it  with  fresh  wrecks,  will  not  that 
rock  of  personal  consciousness  furnish  a  base 
for  one  light-house  of  the  mind  ?  Alas  !  no  ; 
for  the  logic  of  idealism  robs  us  of  conscious- 
ness of  self.  If,  as  Berkeley  and  all  idealists 
assert,  ideas  without  correlate  realities  are 
the  only  objects  of  knowledge,  the  personal 
mind  itself  is  either  mere  idea  or  it  is  un- 
knoicn. 


Idealism  can  only  affirm,  "Thei'e  is  con- 
sciousness," but  it  does  not  Jcnoiv  what  is  con- 
scious. If  the  Ego  be  assumed  to  be  the  ob- 
ject of 'knowledge,  it  is  in  that  very  fact 
transmuted  into  idea ;  it  is  the  mirage  of  a 
mirage.  Two  things  which  God  hath  joined 
together  can  not  be  put  asunder  without  loss 
to  both.  The  murder  of  matter  is  the  suicide 
of  mind. 

20.  Tested,  then,  by  its  own  logic,  where 
does  idealism  end  ?  We  shall  not  answer 
the  question  for  it,  but  accept  the  answer 
of  its  pure  and  great  representative,  Fichte. 
"There  is,"  says  he,*  "nothing  permanent, 
either  within  me  or  external  to  me.  All  is 
ceaseless  change.  I  know  of  no  being,  not 
even  of  my  own.  There  is  no  being.  I  know 
nothing  and  am  nothing.  There  are  images  : 
they  are  the  only  things  which  exist,  and 
they  know  of  themselves  after  the  manner 
of  images — images  which  hover  by,  without 
there  being  any  thing  which  they  hover  by—- 
which hang  together  by  images  of  images — 
images  which  have  nothing  to  image,  un- 
meaning and  aimless.  I  myself  am  one  of 
these  images.  Nay,  I  am  not  so  much  as 
that :  I  am  only  a  confused  image  of  images. 
All  reality  is  changed  to  a  marvelous  dream, 
without  a  life  which  is  dreamed  of;  without 
a  mind,  which  dreams ;  a  dream  which  hangs 
together  in  a,  dream  of  itself.  Intuition  is  the 
dream ;  thought — the  soiirce  of  all  the  being 
and  of  all  the  reality  which  I  frame  to  myself, 
source  of  my  being,  source  of  my  power,  source 
of  my  aims — is  the  dream  of  that  dream." 


*  "Bestimmnng  des  Meuschen,"  p.  142. 


CHRISTIANITY  AND  HUMANITY. 


BY  THE   REV.  JOHN   WILLIAMSON   NEVIN,  D.D.,  LL.D., 

President  of  Franklin  and  Marshall  College,  Lancaster,  Pennsylvania, 


As  the  subject  is  altogether  too  broad  for 
any  tiling  like  full  particular  discussion,  all 
that  I  can  aim  at  in  the  present  paper  must 
be  an  outline  simply  of  its  general  signifi- 
cance, in  the  form  of  a  series  of  brief  and 
comprehensive  topics  or  heads  of  thought, 
following  one  another  in  close  logical  order, 
and  yet  thrown  each  one  more  or  less  upon 
itself  for  its  own  separate  evidence  and  con- 
firmation. 

1.  The  world  of  nature,  made  up  as  it  is 
of  innumerable  parts,  is  nevertheless  one 
universal  whole,  bound  and  held  together 
through  all  its  parts. by  the  presence  of  a 
single  divine  idea,  which  reaches  its  end  in 
man.     Its  constitution,  in  this  view,  is  not 
mechanical,  but  organic — that  is,  it  is  not  a 
scheme  of  things  put  together  by  simply  ex- 
ternal juxtaposition,  but  a  system  of  things 
cohering  together  inwardly  through -the  pow- 
er of  a  common  life.    It  may  be  regarded  as 
a  pyramid,  rising  through  a  scale  of  degrees 
to  its  apex;  or  as  an  orb,  determined  from 
all  sides  to  its  centre.     In  either  case  the 
end  is  the  same.     Man  is  the  apex  and  cen- 
tre, and  for  this  reason  also  in  himself  sep- 
arately considered  an  epitome,  a  synopsis  or 
recapitulation,  we  may  say,  of  the  entire  nat- 
ural creation.     He  is  the  last  sense  of  it, 
and  the  only  true  key  to  its  meaning  in  all 
its  lower  forms  of  existence.     So  much  we 
are  plainly  taught  by  the  first  chapter  of  the 
Book  of  Genesis.      Our  own  consciousness 
confirms  the  lesson  ;  and  it  has  come  to  be 
so  irradiated  now  by  the  light  of  science, 
that  a  man  must  forfeit  all  claim  to  ration- 
ality to  make  it  a  matter  of  any  serious 
question  or  doubt. 

2.  It  is  no  less  plain,  however,  that  man 
is  the  consummation  of  nature  in  this  way, 
only  because  ho  is  in  himself  a  great  deal 
more  than  nature.     Nature  in  its  totality 
looks  beyond  itself — is  a  continual  nisus,  in- 
deed, in  its  own  constitution  toward  a  high- 
er order  of  existence,  without  which  it  has 
no  power  ever  to  become  complete ;  and  the 
very  fact  that  it  ends  in  man  implies  there- 
fore of  itself  that  he  is  for  it,  at  the  same 
time,  the  beginning  of  that  higher  existence, 
and  the  medium  accordingly  through  which 
room  is  made  for  the  work  of  creation  to 
run  its  course  in  new  and  far  more  glorious 
form.     Such  superiority  belongs  to  him,  as 
\ve  know,  in  virtue  of  what  he  is  as  mind 
or  spirit,  in  which  are  joined  together  as  one 
the  two  faculties  of  the  will  and  the  under- 


standing, making  him  to  bo  in  the  image 
and  likeness  of  God,  and  capable  thus  of  re- 
ceiving into  himself  the  light  of  God's  truth 
and  the  power  of  God's  love  as  the  perfec- 
tion of  his  own  life.  Man  in  this  way  ex- 
ists really  in  two  worlds.  In  his  physical 
organism  he  belongs  at  all  points  to  the 
world  of  nature,  the  system  of  things  seen 
and  temporal,  with  which  he  stands  in  con- 
tinual communication  through  his  bodily 
senses.  In  his  spiritual  organism  he  is  just 
as  intimately  comprehended  in  the  world  of 
spirit,  the  system  of  things  unseen  and  eter- 
nal, which  lies  wholly  beyond  the  range  of 
his  senses,  although  it  is  all  the  time  touch- 
ing him,  in  fact,  and  making  itself  felt  upon 
his  life  in  a  different  way.  The  difference 
between  these  two  orders  of  existence  with 
man,  however,  is  not  just  that  between  body 
and  spirit  generally  considered ;  for  the  dis- 
tinguishing life  of  man — that  by  which  he 
differs  from  the  mere  animal — is  primarily 
and  essentially  all  in  his  mind,  and  only  by 
derivation  from  thence  in  his  body.  But 
his  mind  itself  is  so  constituted  as  to  have 
in  it,  so  to  speak,  two  different  regions  — 
one  looking  directly  into  the  natural  world 
through  the  body,  and  the  other  opening 
principally  into  the  spiritual  world.  Hence, 
properly  speaking,  the  difference  between 
the  external  man  and  the  internal  man,  some 
sense  of  which  is  found  entering  into  the 
deeper  thought  of  the  world  through  all 
ages.  It  is  not  simply  with  the  regenerate 
and  righteous  that  such  dualism  has  place ; 
it  belongs  to  our  life  here  universally.*  Man 


*  "Das  Gesammtverhalten  wie  das  Gesamnitgefiibl 
des  Menscheu  beknndet  auf  uuwiderstehliche  Art,  dass 
er  als  'Fremdling'  sich  wisee  in  dieser  Siunenwelt 
nnd  dass  das  Hiuansstreben  iiber  dieselbe  der  eigent- 
liche  Siuu  alter  eigenthiimlich  menschlichen  Thii- 
tigkeit  sei.  Daher  die  rastlose  Unrnhe  nnd  der  tiefe 
Zwiespalt,  der  sein  gauzes  Wesen  durchzieht,  indem 
er  jedes  Erreichte  sofort  wicder  vor  sich  verneineu 
muss;  die  nngestillte  Sehnsucht  gerade  mitten  iin 
kriiftigsten  Lebensgefiihle,  die  jeder  hochsteu  Freude 
sogleich  sich  beimischende  eruste  Wehmntti,was  eben- 
so  die  Quelle  hochster  Erhebung  zn  Poesie  und  Reli- 
gion dein  Menscheu  wird,  als  umgekehrt  den  irdisch 
Gesinnten  in  die  Verodung  eines  leeren,  ewig  unbe- 
friedigteu  Strebeus  hiuauswirft :  alles  dies  is  nur  dass 
Zetfgniss  einer  nuabliissigeu  Verneinung  seiucs  gegen- 
wiirtigen  Znstandes ;  das  heisst  aber  zugleich :  seines 
substantiellen  Hinawuteins  iiber  denselben.  Es  ist 
zugleich  die  thatkriiftige  Wirkung  uud  nnwillkiihr- 
liche  Beglanbigang  seines  wahrhaftigen,  jenseitigen 
Wesens.  Indem  der  Mensch  alles  Zeitliche  zu  einem 
Ungeniigeudem  herabsetzt,  in  keinem  irdisch  erreich- 
tenZiele  sich  gefangen  giebt,  verrath  er  dadnrch,  eir.e 


NEVIN :  CHRISTIANITY  AND  HUMANITY. 


303 


is  by  bis  creation  at  once  both  spiritual  and 
natural — tbe  denizen  of  two  worlds.  That 
is  his  distinction  from  the  beast,  which  is 
natural  only  and  not  spiritual. 

3.  The  dualism  here  brought  into  view, 
it  is  hardly  necessary  to  say,  is  not  abstract 
— the  conjunction  of  these  two  modes  of  ex- 
istence in  any  simply  outward  relation.     It 
is  a  distinction  which  seeks  and  demands 
unity — the  organization  of  its  two  sides  into 
the  power  of  a  single  concrete  life.    Neither 
is  there  any  room  for  doubt  in  regard  to  the 
law  which  should  govern  the  coalescence  of 
the  two  orders  of  existence  into  one.     The 
natural,  all  know  at  once,  is  in  order  to  the 
spiritual.     Here  only  it  is  that  mind  comes 
to  its  native  home  and  true  destination  by 
entering  into  the  light  of  God.    The  two  or- 
ders of  life  are  thus  of  themselves  correlated 
as  outward  and  inward,  lower  and  higher ; 
and  this  implies,  of  course,  that  the  outward 
and  lower  should  be  ruled  in  full  by  the  in- 
ward and  higher.     That  is  the  true  idea  of 
human  culture.     That  is  the  only  intelligi- 
ble end  of  man's  redemption.     It  is  possible 
for  this  order  to  be  reversed.    Tbe  spiritual 
may  be  hopelessly  turned  away  from  the 
light  of  heaven,  and  merged  in  the  darkness 
of  mere  nature.     But  that  in  the  end  is  the 
damnation  of  hell. 

4.  It  is  not  then  by  any  violent  sunder- 
ing of  the  higher  life  in  man  from  the  lower 
that  he  is  redeemed  and  saved.    This  would 
be  a  sublimation  of  his  existence  that  must 
destroy  at  last  all  its  reality.     What  the 
case  calls  for  is  the  full  and  complete  reduc- 
tion of  his  lower  life  to  the  obedience  and 
service  of  the  higher,  the  raising  of  the  nat- 
ural through  the  spiritual  into  the  harmoni- 
ous union  of  the  whole  man  with  God.  Eoom 
is  made  for  this  in  the  twofold  constitution 
of  the  mind  itself,  by  which  it  is  possible  for 
it  to  flow  down,  as  it  were,  from  its  own  su- 
perior region  into  that  which  is  lower,  so  as 
to  join  them  together  as  with  the  intimacy 
of  soul  and  body  in  the  power  of  one  and 
the  same  truly  spiritual  life.     It  is  not  sim- 
ply from  itself,  however,  that  any  such  heav- 
enward determination  of  the  human  spirit 
can  come.    There  must  be  for  this  purpose  a 
flowing  into  it  of  spirit  and  life  from  a  yet 
higher  sphere.     Only  in  and  by  the  powers 
of  the  heavenly  world  itself — only  through 
real  conjunction  with  these  powers,  proceed- 
ing forth  as  they  do  from  the  Lord  of  life 
and  glory — is  it  possible  to  conceive  ration- 
ally of  the  glorification  of  the  natural  in 
man  by  means  of  his  spiritual  in  the  way 
here  spoken  of.     The  case  requires  and  in- 
volves thus  in  the  end  an  actual  coming  to- 
gether of  nature  and  the  supernatural,  the 
human  and  the  divine,  to  make  the  idea  of 
humanity  and  the  world  complete.     On  this 


fiberzeltliche  Macht  nnd  elne  iiberzeitliche  Bestim 
mung  in  sich  zn  trngen."— From  Ira.  H.  Fichte's  Psy- 
chologie. 


hinges,  in  truth,  the  whole  problem  of  man's 
salvation. 

5.  The  twofold  constitution  of  man,  as  we 
bave  now  had  it  under  consideration,  may 
be  taken  as  a  key  for  the  right  appreciation 
in  general  of  the  two  economies — the  two 
different  orders  of  existence  —  which  are 
joined  into  one  immediately  by  means  of  it 
in  his  person.  We  need  no  other  argument 
to  prove  that  the  two  economies  are  in  fact 
one  economy  in  a  deeper  and  broader  view, 
and  that  the  unity  of  creation,  regarded  as 
a  whole,  does  not  stop  by  any  means  with 
the  natural  world,  but  embraces  along  with 
this,  at  the  same  time,  the  entire  sense  and 
significance  also  of  the  spiritual  world.  How 
indeed  can  we  have  any  faith  in  creation  at 
all  as  the  work  of  Infinite  Intelligence  and 
Love  under  any  other  view  ?  The  two 
worlds — natural  and  spiritual — form  togeth- 
er one  universe ;  and  the  union  of  nature 
and  mind  in  man  serves  to  show,  with  a  sort 
of  palpable  demonstration,  how  they  stand 
related  each  to  the  other  in  this  cosmical 
whole.  Their  connection  is  not  one  of  space 
or  time.  It  transcends  altogether  these  lim- 
itations. The  spiritual  world  is  not  on  the 
outside  of  the  natural  locally,  nor  does  it 
come  after  this  temporally.  It  is  not  a  mere 
sublimation  or  etherealization  in  any  way 
of  the  natural.  The  relation  between  the 
two  orders  of  existence  is  of  one  sort  rather 
with  that  between  soul  and  body  in  man — 
two  modes  of  being,  which  are  totally  dis- 
tinct, while  yet  they  work  into  each  other 
every  where  as  coexistent  spheres  in  the  gen- 
eral identity  of  his  life.  It  is  the  relation 
of  interior  and  exterior,  higher  and  lower, 
prior  and  posterior,  cause  and  effect ;  and 
here,  as  in  the  case  of  soul  and  body,  it  is 
the  spiritual  world,  of  course,  which  goes  be- 
fore the  natural  in  this  order  of  precedence. 
Things  seen  and  temporal  stand  every  where 
thus  in  the  active  presence  and  power  of 
things  unseen  and  eternal.  The  spiritual 
world,  it  has  been  well  said,  works  from  with- 
in, and  actuates  all  and  each  of  the  things 
that  exist  and  are  formed  in  the  world  of 
nature,  as  the  human  mind  works  into  the 
senses  and  motions  of  the  body ;  so  that  all 
the  particular  things  of  nature  are,  as  it 
were,  sheaths  and  coverings,  which  encom- 
pass spiritual  things,  and  proximately  pro- 
duce effects  corresponding  to  the  end  of  God 
the  Creator. 

6.  The  spiritual  world  here  introduced  to 
our  view,  we  can  see  at  once,  is  heaven-wide 
apart  from  that  abstract  and  visionary  con- 
ception of  it,  by  which  it  is  too  commonly 
regarded  as  being  the  mere  negation  or  com- 
ing to  an  end  of  the  world  of  outward  sense 
and  matter.  We  do  not  characterize  it  prop- 
erly, when  we  speak  of  it  simply  as  immate- 
rial and  supersensible,  or  resolve  it  into  the 
notion  of  an  intellectual  and  ideal  system. 
Jt  is  beyond  tbe  reqch  indeed  of  our  present 


304 


CHRISTIANITY  AND  ITS  ANTAGONISMS. 


sense,  aud  for  this  reason  it  transcends  also 
the  range  of  all  our  natural  thinking.  But 
this  does  not  make  it  in  any  sense  shadowy 
or  unreal.  In  its  own  superior  order  of  exist- 
ence it  has  a  character  of  positive  reality 
aud  substance  which  goes  immeasurably  be- 
vond  the  visible  and  tangible  show  of  things 
in  the  world  of  nature.  The  spiritual  world 
is  not  the  pale  shadow  of  the  natural.  On 
the  contrary,  it  is  the  cause  of  the  natural — 
that  on  which  it  depends;  the  interior  soul 
of  the  natural — that  from  which  it  draws  its 
continual  life ;  the  universal  issue  and  end 
of  the  natural — that  in  which  only  all  its 
powers  and  possibilities  become  complete. 
It  is  a  world  or  universe,  full  of  concrete 
existence  and  sensible  experience;  full  of 
living  relations,  activities,  and  powers ;  full 
of  endlessly  diversified  phenomenal  scenery 
and  surroundings,  with  which,  for  grandeur, 
beauty,  and  glory,  the  universe  of  nature  can 
bear  no  comparison  whatever. 

7.  The  living  entities,  powers,  and  activ- 
ities of  the  spiritual  world,  thus  glorious- 
ly constituted,  refer  themselves  throughout 
to  God  as  their  origin  and  source,  and  in  do- 
ing so  form  necessarily  an  organized  system, 
endlessly  manifold  and  yet  uniyersally  one, 
flowing  forth  with  perpetual  derivation  every 
where  from  the  fullness  of  him  who  in  such 
way  filleth  all  in  all. 

8.  Collectively   considered,  this   outflow- 
ing of  the  divine  Life,  in  the  presence  and 
power  of  which  the  spiritual  world  is  thus 
created  and  upheld,  is  the  Word  of  God;  the 
self-utterance  of  the  Infinite  and  Eternal  Fa- 
ther, by  which  he  is  to  be  regarded  as  com- 
ing forth  from  the  otherwise  incomprehensi- 
ble depths  of  his  own  absolute  being,  and 
making  himself  known  in  the  universe  of 
his  works.     "  By  the  Word  of  the  Lord,"  we 
are  told,  "were  the  heavens  made,  and  all 
the  hosts   of  them  by   the  breath   of  his 
mouth."     So  again :  "  In  the  beginning  was 
the  Word,  and  the  Word  was  with  God,  and 
the  Word  was  God.     All  things  were  made 
by  him,  and  without  him  was  not  any  thing 
made  that  was  made."     What  can  be  more 
plain  or  full  than  this  ?    The  whole  creation 
has  its  principle  and  beginning  here,  start- 
ing  in  the  spiritual  world,  and  reaching 
down  through  that  to  the  natural  world, 
which,  as  we  have  seen,  is  dependent  on  the 
spiritual  throughout  as  a  lower  and  relative- 
ly more  outward  mode  of  existence.     The 
Word  of  God  is  the  alpha  and  omega  of  the 
universe,  embracing   angels  and  men.  the 
heavens  and  all  the  powers  therein,  together 
with  the  whole  boundless  compass  of  nat- 
ure ;  all  things  from  first  to  last,  from  in- 
most to  outmost,  come  together  in  this  com- 
mon ground,  and  have  in  them  no  real  cause 
or  power  of  existence  iu  any  other  view. 

9.  If  any  thing  wore  needed  more  than 
has  been  already  said  to  establish  the  idea 
of  an  organized  harmonious  unity,  reaching 


through  the  universal  creation  aud  binding 
all  its  parts  together  as  a  single  whole,  we 
have  it  -with  overwhelming  force  iu  the 
great  truth  here  brought  into  view.  The 
divine  Word  is  the  all  in  all  of  creation,  the 
one  principle  from  which  the  whole  of  it 
flows.  How  then  must  this  not  be,  through 
all  its  orders  of  existence,  through  all  its 
economies  and  constitutions,  whether  of  nat- 
ure or  of  grace,  one  always  and  every  where 
with  itself,  even  as  the  Word  is  One  ? 

10.  The  law  of  original  existence  for  the 
world  in  this  view,  is,  of  course,  no  less  neces- 
sarily the  law  also  of  its  continued  subsist- 
ence.    Heaven  and  earth  stand  perpetually 
in  the  presence  and  power  of  the  divine 
Word ;  and  this  not  in  the  character  of  an 
almighty  jiat  simply,  taking   effect  upon 
them  in  an  outwardly  mechanical  or  mag- 
ical manner,  but  in  the  way  of  life  flowing 
into  them  continually  through  the  Word 
from  God  himself;  in  whom,  as  we  know,  all 
angels  and  men,  as  well  as  all  living  creat- 
ures lower  than  man,  live,  move,  and  have 
their  being.    "Forever,  O  Lord,  thy  Word 
is  settled  in  heaven ;  thou  hast  established 
the  earth  and  it  abideth."    The  principle  of 
stability  iu  both  cases  is  that  from  which 
both  heaven  and  earth  took  their  origin  in 
the  beginning.    So  all  changes  also,  through 
what  are  called  the  laws  of  nature,  come  no 
otherwise  in  truth  than  by  the  operation  of 
this  divine  agency  flowing  down  into  the 
natural  world  through  the  spiritual.     Noth- 
ing less  than  this  is  involved  in  that  mag- 
nificent language  of  the  Psalmist :  "He  send- 
eth  forth  his  commandment  upon  earth ;  his 
word  runneth  very  swiftly.  He  giveth  snow 
like  wool;  he  scattereth  the  hoar-frost  like 
ashes.  He  casteth  forth  his  ice  like  morsels ; 
who  can  stand  before  his  cold  ?    He  sendeth 
out  his  word,  and  melteth  them ;  he  causcth 
his  wind  to  blow,  and  the  waters  flow." 

11.  The  divine  Word,  by  which  the  heav- 
ens and  the  earth  continually  exist  in  the 
way  now  shown,  is  the  same  that  constitutes 
the  living  soul  of  all  divine  revelation  from 
the  beginning;  making  the  Scriptures  of  the 
Old  and  New  Testaments,  in  which  this  rev- 
elation is  contained,  to  be  the  very  embodi- 
ment in  natural  form  of  a  supernatural  spirit- 
ual power  and  glory  surpassing  immeasura- 
bly the  reach  of  all  merely  natural  intelli- 
gence or  thought.    This  is  what  we  are  to 
understand  by  the  inspiration  of  the  Bible. 
It  is  the  Word  of  God,  in  its  ever-living  su- 
pernal majesty,  occupying  and  possessing 
the  sacred  text,  not  simply  as  the  cause  aud 
origin  of  it  at  the  first,  but  as  its  truly  in- 
forming and  actuating  spirit  through  all 
time.     Of  the  Bible  it  must  be  said  always 
in  this  view,  God  is  there.    It  is  the  very  she- 
kinah  of  his  presence,  as  represented  by  the 
ark  containing  the  two  tables  of  the  Law  in 
the  Jewish  sanctuary ;  the  testimony,  the  cov- 
enant, so  called,  in  and  by  which  God  came 


NEVIN:  CHRISTIANITY  AND  HUMANITY. 


305 


near  to  man  arid  drew  man  into  union  with 
himself.  Every  where  the  Bible  is  this  un- 
ion aud  meeting  together  of  the  invisible 
and  eternal,  the  "powers  of  the  world  to 
come,"  with  the  interior  deepest  needs  and 
aspirations  of  the  human  spirit  in  its  present 
bodily  state.  Hence  its  authority  for  all  or- 
ders and  degrees  of  intelligence,  from  lisp- 
ing infancy  on  to  old  age ;  an  authority  not 
dependent  at  all  on  criticism  or  hermeueu- 
tics,  but  powerful  enough,  if  need  be,  to  set 
this  at  defiance,  to  turn  it  into  derision,  as 
in  itself  a  higher  right,  holding  consciously 
— or  if  not' that,  then  nevertheless  sensibly — 
from  the  felt  power  of  the  Divine  itself,  hid- 
den in  the  outward  text,  and  yet  shining 
forth  from  it  so  as  to  give  understanding  to 
the  simple ;  even  as  one  may  take  in  the 
light  of  intelligence  from  the  eye  of  another, 
and  catch  the  inspiration  of  love  from  his 
beaming  face,  whose  presence  otherwise  may 
be  only  most  imperfectly  understood.  The 
full  sense  of  the  Holy  Scriptures  is  un- 
fathomable even  for  the  angels  themselves. 
How  much  less  may  it  be  sounded  by  the 
plummet  of  any  simply  human  science  ?  It 
is  a  voice  every  where  from  behind  the  veil 
of  sense  and  time,  having  in  it  eternal  mean- 
ing. What  Christ  says  of  his  own  speech  on 
one  occasion  is  true  of  sacred  Scripture  uni- 
versally; its  words  are  SPIRIT  and  LIFE. 
They  are  "  quick  and  powerful."  Gcd  is  in 
them  of  a  truth. 

12.  The  economy  of  revelation  ends  in 
what  St.  Paul  calls  the  "  mystery  of  godli- 
ness," by  which  God,  as  the  Word,  "for  us 
men  and  for  our  salvation  came  down  from 
heaven,  and  was  incarnate  by  the  Holy 
Ghost  of  the  Virgin  Mary,  and  was  made 
man."  We  can  not  go  too  far  in  owning  aud 
proclaiming  the  infinite  majesty  of  our  Lord 
Jesus  Christ,  as  being  in  this  way  the  actual 
manifestation  of  God  in  the  flesh.  The 
whole  truth  and  power  and  glory  of  the 
Gospel  are  comprehended  in  St.  Peter's  con- 
fession, Thou  art  the  Son  of  God.  On  this  rock 
only  Christianity  and  the  Church  stand  firm 
against  the  powers  of  hell.  The  Son  of  the 
living  God,  Christ  is  himself  the  living  God ; 
the  fullness  of  the  Godhead  bodily;  the 
brightness  of  the  Father's  glory,  and  the  ex- 
press image  of  his  person ;  the  Lord  of  heav- 
en aud  earth,  by  whom  all  things  were  cre- 
ated that  are  in  heaven  and  that  are  in  earth, 
visible  aud  invisible,  whether  they  be  thrones 
or  dominions  or  principalities  or  powers ; 
who  is  before  all  things,  and  by  whom  all 
things  consist.  He  is  the  image  of  the  oth- 
erwise invisible,  unknowable,  unapproacha- 
ble God,  whom  no  man  hath  seen  nor  can 
see.  The  Father  is  in  him,  as  he  also  is  in 
the  Father.  He  and  the  Father  are  one. 
He  is,  in  a  word,  the  Jehovah,  the  I  am,  of 
the  Old  Testament ;  the  Alpha  and  Omega, 
as  he  proclaimed  himself  in  the  vision  of 
Patmos,  the  beginning  and  the  ending,  the 
20 


first  and  the  last,  which  is,  and  which  was, 
and  which  is  to  come,  the  Almighty. 

13.  Christ,  the  Sou  of  God,  is  the  Sav- 
iour of  the  world,  through  the  divine  life 
which  is  in  him  as  God,  and  which  he  is  able 
to  communicate  derivatively  to  all  who  look 
to  him  aud  come  to  him  for  that  purpose. 
Whatever  other  things  enter  into  the  idea 
of  salvation,  they  are  to  be  regarded  as  con- 
ditional only,  and  incidental  to  this,  which 
is  most  plainly  set  forth  in  the  Gospel  as 
central  and  fundamental  for  all  else.     "In 
him  was  life,"  it  is  said,  "  aud  the  life  was 
the  light  of  men."     He  is  "the  way,  the 
truth,  the  life."     He  is  "the  resurrectiqn  and 
the  life."     To  follow  him,  is  to  "  have  the 
light  of  life."     He  "hath  life  in  himself," 
and  in  virtue  of  this  "quickeneth  Avhom  he 
will."     To  his  disciples  he  says,  "Because  I 
live,  ye  shall  live  also ;"  makiag  life  for  them 
to  be  the  efflux  of  his  own  life.     "  God  hath 
given  to  us  eternal  life"  —  so  the  divine 
record  itself  runs — :"and  this  life  is  in  his 
Son.     He  that  hath  the  Son,  hath  life ;  and 
he  that  hath  not  the  Sou  of  God;  hath  not 
life ;"  to  which   St.  John  adds  with  grand 
conclusion  :  "  We  know  that  the  Son  of  God 
is  come ;  aud  we  are  in  him  that  is  true,  even 
in  his  Son  Jesus  Christ.     This  is  the  true 

God  and  ETERNAL  LIFE." 

14.  The  life  which  is  thus  in  Christ  the 
principle  and  fountain  of  salvation  for  men, 
must  pass  over  to  them  in  a  living  way,  so 
as  to  become  in  them  also  a  true  rational  and 
spiritual  life  conjoining  them  with  the  life 
of  the  Lord;  and  the  organ  or  faculty  by 
which  this  is  found  to  be  possible  on  the  side 
of  man  is  faith;  which  is  an  activity  both 
of  the  understanding  and  the  will  in  their 
highest  form,  joining  them  together  as  one 
in  the  apprehension  of  the  divine  Truth  and 
the  divine  Good- — these  by  their  everlasting 
marriage  constituting  in  fact  the  inmost  es- 
sence and  substance  of  the  divine  Life.  Faith 
is  no  mechanical  or  magical  appointment  in 
this  view,  through  which  men  are  justified 
and  saved  in  an  outward  Avay  by  having  im- 
puted to  them  what  is  in  truth  no  part  of 
their  own  proper  personal  existence  or  expe- 
rience.   It  is  the  meeting  of  the  human  spirit 
inwardly  with  the  enlivening  rays  that  issue 
actually  from  the  Sun  of  Righteousness.     It 
is  the  turning  of  the  soul  within  itself  toward 
the  Lord,  and  the  opening  of  its  inmost  re- 
ceptivity to  the  life  that  is  forever  flowing 
from  his  presence. 

15.  There  is,  in  such  view,  only  one  true 
faith  for  man.     All  the  innumerable  realities 
of  the  spiritual  world  are  so  many  truths,  in- 
deed, which  make  room  for  its  exercise;  but 
this  universe  of  truths  is  at  the  same  time 
one  universal  complex,  in  which  all  refer 
themselves  with   inward   interdependence, 
correlation,  and  common  derivation  to  the 
same  general  origin  and  source ;  aud  so,  in 
full  conformity  with  this,  all  the  possible  ex- 


306 


CHRISTIANITY  AND  ITS  ANTAGONISMS. 


ercises  of  genuine  faith  refer  themselves  in 
like  manner  to  a  single  generality,  head 
themselves  together,  as  it  were,  explicitly  or 
implicitly,  in  one  ground  faith,  which  is  the 
root  and  principle  of  faith  in  all  other  forms. 
What  that  primordial  faith  is — the  faith  of 
all  faiths — is  determined  at  once  by  what  we 
are  hound  to  acknowledge  as  the  primordial 
truth — the  truth  of  all  truths — as  this  comes 
before  us  in  the  being  of  God,  made  known 
to  us  through  his  Word,  and  with  full  reve- 
lation at  last  only  in  and  by  his  Son  Jesus 
Christ.  The  true  Christian  faith  in  this  view 
is  not  made  up  certainly  of  a  system  of  sep- 
arate and  independent  doctrines  or  facts, 
loosely  thrown  together  each  on  its  own  sup- 
posed evidence  and  worth ;  neither  can  it  be 
made  to  start  from  any  such  particular  doc- 
trine or  fact  at  our  pleasure.  There  is  but 
one  order  here  that  is  practically  or  theolog- 
ically sound  and  right ;  and  that  is  the  order 
which  is  governed  by  the  objective  constitu- 
tion of  the  Gospel  itself,  the  order  which  be- 
gins with  the  Lord  God  our  Redeemer  and 
Saviour  Jesus  Christ,  and  which  sees  and 
owns  all  other  truth  only  as  flowing  from 
his  presence. 

16.  It  is  strange  indeed  that  any  one 
looking  earnestly  into  the  New  Testament 
should  ever  miss  seeing  that  the  faith  of  our 
Lord  Jesus  Christ,  in  the  view  now  stated, 
the  power  of  owning  him  to  be  the  Son  of 
God  (with  all  which  that  means) — not  notion- 
ally  and  from  the  memory  only,  but  from 
the  interior  depths  of  the  soul — is  in  very 
truth  the  beginning  of  all  faith,  and  that 
without  which  all  else  calling  itself  faith  is 
turned  into  a  pale  abstraction  resembling 
death  far  more  than  life.  Can  Peter's  con- 
fession, the  rock  on  which  the  Church  is 
built,  ever  cease  to  be  what  it  was  in  the  be- 
ginning? Is  it  less  true  now  than  it  was 
eighteen  centuries  ago  that  the  one  universal 
work  of  God,  the  fountain  of  all  other  obedi- 
ence and  righteousness,  is  to  believe  on  him 
whom  God  hath  sent  ?  How  often  are  we  not 
told  that  to  believe  in  Christ  as  the  Son  of  God 
is  of  itself  to  have  eternal  life,  and  that  the 
want  of  such  faith  in  him  is  itself  the  doom 
of  death,  because  it  is  a  rejection,  in  fact,  of 
the  life  that  dwells  in  his  person  and  is  to  be 
found  nowhere  else  ?  "  He  that  heareth  my 
word,"  he  says,  "  and  believeth  on  1dm  that  sent 
me"  (in  other  words,  seeth  the  Father  in  the 
Son),  "hath  everlasting  life,  and  shall  not 
come  into  condemnation  ;  but  is  passed  from 
death  unto  life."  But  why  go  on  here  with 
testimonies  ?  On  this  subject  they  are  alto- 
gether too  full  for  particular  quotation. 

17.  Life,  eternal  life,  thus  attributed  to 
laith,  is  not  to  be  viewed  as  a  reward  at- 
tached to  it  extrinsically  by  God,  but  is  the 
necessary  result  of  what  faith  is  in  its  own 
nature  and  office;  as  being  the  medium 
of  communication  on  the  part  of  man  with 
the  Lord  of  life  and  glory,  who  is  the  fount- 


ain of  all  spiritual  being,  from  which  de~ 
pends,  as  we  have  already  seen,  the  right 
order  and  perfection  also  of  all  natural  be- 
ing. Faith  saves  us  through  its  object, 
which  is  the  divine  truth,  being  in  reality  so 
related  to  this  that  neither  can  be  in  any 
man  without  the  other.  The  divine  truth 
(joined  always  with  the  divine  love)  is  made 
through  faith  to  be  actually  in  the  soul  as 
a  part  of  its  own  existence,  like  light  in  the 
eye.  "  In  thy  light,"  says  the  Psalmist,  "  we 
shall  see  light."  But  light  again  is  at  once 
but  another  term  for  life ;  and  in  the  spirit- 
ual world,  accordingly,  the  divine  truth  is 
synonymous  with  the  divine  life;  they  cau 
not  be  sundered  one  from  the  other.  In  the 
heavens,  truth  is  substantial  essence  just  as 
really  as  life  is,  both  flowing  together  from 
the  Lord.  "  I  am  the  Truth,"  he  eays ;  "  I  am 
the  Light  of  the  world ;"  "  I  am  the  Life ;"  all 
in  the  same  intensely  realistic  sense.  Faith, 
then,  as  the  receptacle  of  divine  truth,  the 
shining  of  divine  light  in  the  soul,  is  necessa- 
rily communication  at  the  same  time  with 
the  divine  life  proceeding  from  Christ.  Its 
power  to  save  is  just  this,  that  it  opens  the 
spirit  of  man,  made  in  the  image  of  God,  to- 
ward the  answerable  fullness  of  God  in  Christ, 
and  so  makes  room  for  a  veritable  conjunc- 
tion with  him,  in  the  sense  that  the  very  idea 
of  religion  has  been  felt  to  demand  through 
all  ages.  This,  indeed,  is  eternal  life. 

18.  Christianity,  having  for  its  origin  and 
ground   our  Lord  Jesus   Christ   seen  and 
owned  by  faith  to  be  the  Son  of  God,  in  the 
way  now  presented,  is  a  vast  and  mighty 
system,  as  already  intimated,  of  other  truths 
and  facts  innumerable  (taking  in  at  last,  in- 
deed, the  universal  sense  of  the  world),  in 
which,  however,  all  other  truths  are  true, 
and  capable  of  being  truly  believed,  only  in 
virtue  of  their  inward  coherence  with  what 
is  here  the  beginning  of  all  Christian  life  tind 
doctrine.     The  doctrine  of  the  Holy  Trinity, 
for  example,  is  for  our  faith  and  theology, 
only  after  Christ,  in  and  through  Christ,  and 
not  before  him ;  and  can  never  be  construed 
rightly,  except  as  controlled  by  the  radical 
confession  first  of  all:  Thou  art  the  Son  of 
God;  the  I  AM,  which  was,  is,  and  is  to  come; 
the  Almighty.     So  with  the  hypostatical  un- 
ion.    So  with  the  inspiration  of  the  Script- 
ures, the  atonement,  the  article  of  justifica- 
tion, the  Church,  the  resurrection  from  the 
dead.     They  are  all  true,  in  their  proper 
Christian  sense,  only  in  and  through  Christ. 
They  are  true  Christologically  only,  and  not 
in  any  other  sense. 

19.  But  while  the  ultimate  principle  of 
Christian  faith  is  in  this  way  no  other  than 
our  Lord  Jesus  Christ  himself,  the  rule  of 
faith,  the  medium  and  measure  of  its  proper 
exercise,  the  only  sure  directory  in  the  end 
for  Christian  life  and  doctrine,  is  the  divine 
revelation  contained  in  the  Holy  Scriptures. 
They  are  "the  law  and  the  testimony,"  by 


NEVIN :  CHRISTIANITY  AND  HUMANITY. 


307 


•which  all  truth  is  to  be  tried.  They  are  this, 
however,  only  through  their  interior  spirit- 
ual constitution — only  as  they  are,  in  the  way 
we  have  seen,  the  very  presence  and  power 
of  the  same  divine  Life  by  which  Christ  is  de- 
clared to  be  the  Light  of  the  world.  This  it 
is  that  constitutes  their  true  internal  sense, 
undiscernible  to  the  natural  mind,  and 
makes  them  to  be  in  truth  the  "Word  of 
God  which  liveth  and  abideth  forever." 
They  authenticate  and  illustrate  Christ,  only 
because  Christ  shines  in  them  every  where 
as  the  Truth  of  all  truth  to  which  they  owe 
their  origin.  The  "  spirit  of  prophecy,"  we 
are  told,  "is  the  testimony  of  Jesus;"  it 
flows  from  him,  and  looks  toward  him,  in 
every  part  of  the  Bible.  This  reciprocal  il- 
lumination and  witness  is  no  vicious  logical 
circle.  It  is  like  the  relation  between  speech 
and  thought,  or  between  body  and  soul,  in 
general ;  where  each  term  is  intelligible 
only  through  the  other.  The  mutual  illumi- 
nation in  the  case  before  us  holds  in  what  we 
have  just  seen  to  be  the  peculiar  nature  of 
faith.  This  is  the  inmost  and  highest  in  man 
brought  into  conjunction  with  the  inflowing 
life  of  the  Lord ;  a  state  thus  of  direct  illu- 
mination from  him  as  the  Sun  of  the  spiritual 
universe,  which  of  itself  serves  then  to  show 
the  Scriptures  in  corresponding  illumination 
also,  and  so  to  bring  into  view  their  true  in- 
ward power  and  glory,  whereby  "they  are 
able  to  make  men  wise  unto  salvation 
through  faith  which  is  in  Jesus  Christ." 
This  is  that  testimonium  spiritus  sancti  of  which 
so  much  account  was  made  in  the  age  of  the 
Reformation,  and  the  true  idea  of  which  has 
been  so  ranch  obscured  since.  Not  man's 
spirit  as  such  bearing  witness  to  God's  truth 
(a  purely  rationalistic  conception),  but  the 
Spirit  of  Christ  made  to  be  in  man  actually 
through  his  faith.  Here  lay  the  sin  and  con- 
demnation of  the  Pharisees.  They  made 
much  of  the  Scriptures,  thinking  to  have  in 
them  eternal  life ;  and  yet  they  had  no  pow- 
er to  see  how  the  Scriptures  testified  every 
where  to  the  presence  of  Christ.  Why  not  ? 
Because  they  lacked  the  illumination  that 
comes  from  inward  union  with  the  divine 
soul  of  the  Scriptures.  "  Ye  have  not  God's 
Avord  abiding  in  you,"  Christ  says  to  them ; 
"  for  whom  he  hath  sent,  him  ye  believe  not." 
The  entrance  of  God's  words  giveth  light, 
where  they  are  irradiated  with  this  faith; 
not  otherwise.  Entering  into  man  in  any 
other  way,  the  sense  of  the  Bible  is  adulter- 
ated and  profaned,  and  the  light  of  heaven 
is  turned  into  thick  darkness. 

20.  The  view  now  taken  of  the  relation 
between  faith  and  the  revelation  of  God  cen- 
tring in  Christ  carries  us  beyond  the  dilem- 
ma of  false  authority  and  false  freedom,  from 
the  horns  of  which  it  has  been  found  often  so 
difficult  to  escape  in  the  construction  of 
Christianity.  One  is  the  Roman  scheme, 
making  the  outward  Church  the  beginning 


and  ground  and  measure  of  all  actual  Chris- 
tian faith  and  life.  The  other  is  the  Ration- 
alistic scheme,  making  the  Bible  to  be  all 
this  in  the  like  outward  way,  as  a  text-book 
of  divine  instruction  on  the  plane  of  the  nat- 
ural understanding,  the  moral  and  religious 
sense  of  which  each  man  is  left  to  work  out 
as  he  best  can  in  the  exercise  of  his  own  free 
will  and  private  judgment.  The  two  schemes 
come  in  the  end  to  substantially  the  same  re- 
sult. They  cast  down  the  Word  from  its 
true  supernatural  throne.  They  rob  the  liv- 
ing Christ  of  his  indefeasible  majesty,  pow- 
er, and  glory.  They  tarn  the  communion 
of  the  spiritual  world  with  the  natural  into 
mechanism,  magical  hocus-pocus,  or  dim 
gnostic  imagination.  They  quench  the 
heaven-aspiring  light  of  faith,  and  will  not 
suffer  it  to  rise  into  the  direct  light  of  the 
Lord ;  making  reason  in  this  way  blind  also, 
and  turning  it  over  to  perpetual  melancholy 
bondage  in  the  prison-house  of  the  Philis- 
tines. 

21.  Christianity,  completing  as  it  does 
the  true  idea  of  humanity  by  bringing  it 
into  true  union  with  God,  is  the  completion 
necessarily  at  the  same  time  of  the  entire 
natural  creation  which  finds  in  man  its  high- 
est and  last  sense ;  in  which  view  then,  as 
the  end  of  all  things  going  before,  it  must 
be  regarded  as  dominating  and  determining, 
from  first  to  last,  the  order  both  of  actual 
existence  and  of  right  intellectual  concep- 
tion for  the  world  at  large.  It  is  not  the 
lower  any  where  in  the  scale  of  creation  that 
gives  origin  and  support  to  the  higher.  On 
the  contrary,  the  higher  as  principal  and 
chief  ultimates  itself  every  where  in  the  low- 
er. So  up  to  the  very  fountain  of  all  things 
in  Him  who  came  forth  from  the  Father  to 
be  in  this  way  the  beginning  of  the  works 
of  God.  With  this  must  correspond  then  any 
true  theory  or  science  of  the  world.  The 
boasted  modern  Weltanschauung,  which  builds 
its  scheme  of  the  universe  on  the  premises 
of  nature  (as  though  these  were  for  man  here 
ihftonly  data  to  start  with — the  only  elements 
to  work  with  on  to  the  end  in  trying  to  un- 
derstand the  problem  of  his  own  life),  is  just 
as  irrational  as  it  is  irreligious.  The  only 
true  Weltanschauung  is  that  of  the  Bible, 
which  derives  the  harmonious  whole  of  cre- 
ation, in  descending  order,  from  that  Uncre- 
ated Living  Wisdom  (the  source  of  all  other 
life  and  light),  which  "  the  Lord  possessed 
in  the  beginning  of  his  way,  before  his  works 
of  old ;  which  was  set  up  from  everlasting, 
from  the  beginning  or  ever  the  earth  was." 
The  power  of  seeing  and  owning  this  is  faith  ; 
and  just  for  this  reason  faith  in  Christ  is 
the  eye  of  intelligence  for  man,  and  the  light 
of  all  science  deserving  the  name.  "Through 
faith,"  says  St.  Paul, "  we  understand"  (intelli- 
gize  or  see  with  the  mind)  "that  the  worlds 
were  framed  by  the  word  of  God ;"  so  that 
the  visible  depends  every  where  in  truth  on 


308 


CHRISTIANITY  AND  ITS  ANTAGONISMS. 


tho  invisible,  nature  on  spirit,  and  not  the 
reverse.  Without  the  felt  practical  force  of 
this  insight  into  the  actual  constitution  of 
tho  world  (which  only  faith  can  give),  sci- 
ence is  blind  and  philosophy  insane. 

22.  Where  science  owns  no  allegiance 
to  faith  in  this  way,  it  is  Naturalism ;  and 
where  it  pretends  to  take  in  the  spiritual 
meaning  of  the  world  in  tho  way  of  religion, 
it  becomes  what  we  are  to  understand  prop- 
erly by  Humanitarianism,  the  great  heresy  of 
the  present  time.  This  is  the  idea  of  a  full 
completion  of  the  world,  morally  and  phys- 
ically, in  man  (who  is  in  fact  the  immediate 
completion  of  nature),  without  the  necessary 
complement  of  a  higher  spiritual  life  de- 
scending into  him  from  the  Lord.  The  the- 
ory may  set  itself,  as  infidelity,  in  open  op- 
position to  the  Gospel;  or  it  may  affect  to 
take  the  Gospel  to  its  bosom,  and  to  be  just 
th.it  form  of  Christianity  which  is  now  need- 
ed to  save  Christianity  itself  from  general 
wreck  amid  the  rising  billows  of  modern  un- 
belief. It  is  not  to  be  disguised  that  such 
humanitarian  Christianity  has  taken  posses- 
sion widely  of  the  religions  thinking  of  the 
world  at  this  time ;  and  that  the  evil  is  not 
confined  to  the  doctrinal  heterodoxies  that 
have  come  down  to  us  from  other  days,  but 
is  eating  as  a  cancer  also  far  and  wide  into 
what  still  claims  to  be  the  orthodoxy  and  the 
true  evangelical  life  of  the  Church.  Without 
going  into  details,  it  may  be  said  that  wher- 
ever the  central  mystery  of  Christ  is  either 
theoretically  or  practically  cast  down  from 
its  throne ;  where  he  is  not  seen  and  owned 
to  be  the  Son  of  tho  Living  God,  the  fount- 
ain of  all  life  and  light  for  men  in  the  most 
real  view ;  and  where  faith  is  not  made  to 
be  the  answer  of  the  soul,  first  of  all,  to  this 
primordial  truth  —  this  truth,  of  all  other 
truths,  serving  to  join  man  with  the  inflow- 
ing life  of  the  Lord,  and  becoming  thus  in 
man  himself  a  "  well  of  water  springing  up 
iiitoeverlastiuglife" — there,  we  must  believe, 
the  right  confession  of  the  Gospel  is  want- 
ing, and  the  fine  gold  of  the  Christian  sanc- 
tuary has  become  dim.  It  is  Humanitarian- 
ism  "  sitting  in  the  temple  of  God,  and  show- 
ing itself  to  be  God."  There  may  be  an 
outward  cleaving  still  in  the  case  to  old  doc- 
trines, regarded  as  technicals  of  the  faith 
once  delivered  to  the  saints;  but  the  doc- 
trines are  dead,  having  no  root  in  the  Living 
Christ  (mere  tuSwXa,  simulacra,  pallid  corpse- 
like  abstractions  [1  John  v.,  21J),  and  so  are 
ready  always  to  go  np  like  the  crackling  of 
thorns  before  the  fire  of  skeptical  criticism. 
Or  it  may  be  the  whole  idea  of  doctrine  and 
mystery  has  been  given  up,  under  the  plau- 
sible notion  that  all  true  religion  has  to  do 
at  last  only  with  a  good  life,  and  what  we 
may  call  the  spiritual  culture  of  man  from 
the  plane  of  his  simply  human  life  as  such. 
Under  either  view— that  of  dead  doctrine 
3r  that  of  no  doctrine  —  the  mystery  of 


error  here  described  comes  to  tho  same 
thing.  Antichrist  it  is  in  both  forms,  work- 
ing and  warring  against  the  only  true  idea 
of  Christ. 

23.  That  this  true  idea  of  Christ  is  in- 
deed the  question  of  all  questions  for  tho 
age,  and  the  question  toward  the  right  solu- 
tion of  which  all  the  inmost  powers  and 
deepest  needs  of  the  age  are,  with  growing 
urgency,  now  pressing  from  all  sides,  is  com- 
ing to  be  more  and  more  plain  to  the  obser- 
vation of  the  thoughtful  every  day.   Science, 
politics,  and  morals,  believingly  or  unbeliev- 
ingly, are  forced  to  do  homage  to  it.     No 
theology  has  living  interest,  no  confession- 
alism  is  more  than  a  grinning  skeleton  of 
dry  bones,  apart  from  it.    All  the  issues  of 
faith  and  infidelity,  spiritual  life  and  spirit- 
ual death,  are  heading  themselves  together 
here,  in  the  grand  heaven-and-earth  moving 
interrogation  of  our  Lord  himself:  "What 
think  ye   of  Christ  ?     Whose  Son  is  he  ?" 
Who  is  ho  as  related  to  God  ?     Who  is  he, 
and  what  is  he,  as  related  to  humanity  and 
the  world  ? 

24.  The  right  knowledge  and  acknowledg- 
ment of  our  Lord  Jesus  Christ,  in  the  view 
we  have  now  taken  of  what  he  is  as  the  full 
and  only  visible  manifestation  of  the  other- 
wise invisible  God,  the  fullness  of  the  God- 
head bodily,  and  that  which  necessarily  goes 
along  with  this,  the  right  idea,  namely,  of 
what  true  saving  faith  is  on  the  side  of  man, 
as  first  of  all  a  direct  looking  to  and  com- 
ing to  the  Lord  beheld  in  such  divine  majes- 
ty, whereby  room  is  offered  for  the  inflow- 
ing of  truth,  righteousness,  and  life  in  tho 
most  real  way  from  his  presence — these  two 
in  union,  are  they  not,  beyond  all  else,  what 
the  critical  questionings  and  confusions  of 
this  last  time  of  the  Church  are  plainly  forc- 
ing into  view  more  and  more  from  all  sides, 
as  the  only  true  answer  to  the  great  world- 
problem  with  which  they  are  concerned? 
Here,  and  here  only  it  would  seem,  have  we 
any  solid  ground  on  which  to  stand  in  the 
conflict  between  faith  and  science,  revela- 
tion and  reason — the  real  existence  of  a  per- 
sonal God,  on  the  one  hand,  and  Naturalism, 
or  Nature  made  to  stand  for  God,  on  the  oth- 
er hand.     Here,  and  here  only,  is  the  way 
opened  for  a  real  coming  together  of  Chris- 
tianity and  humanity,  religion  and  morality, 
in  the  historical  life  of  the  world.    Here,  in 
its  only  true  beginning,  must  theology  find 
also  its  true  end.     Here  only,  if  ever,  can 
the  war  of  sects  and  confessions  so  much  as 
begin  even  to  look  toward  the   unity  and 
catholicity  of  a  genuine  Church  life.    One 
Lord  Jesus  Christ,  the  Son  of  the  Living  God, 
to  begin  with ;  and  so  one  faith,  one  worship, 
one  life.    To  talk  of  negotiating  or  bringing 
to  pass  Christian  orthodoxy  or  catholicity 
in  any  other  way  than  this  is  but  hypocrisy 
and  sham.    As  he  is  onr  Life,  so  he  alone  is 
our  Light  also  and  our  Peace. 


COMPAEATIVE  STUDY  OF  RELIGIONS,  IN  ITS  BEAR 
ING  UPON  CHRISTIAN  APOLOGETICS. 

BY  EDMUND  SPIESS,  PH.D., 

Privatdocent  of  Theology  in  the  University  of  Jena,  Germany. 


CHRISTIANITY,  from  its  incipiency,  has  nec- 
essarily been  subject  to  assault  and  persecu- 
tion, and  been  compelled,  in  the  "  combat  for 
existence,"  to  defend  its  very  life.  On  the 
right  hand  and  on  the  left  enemies  have 
arisen  against  its  truths  and  its  adherents, 
whom  it  could  meet  with  no  other  weapons 
but  faith  and  patience  and  a  willingness  to 
suffer  for  the  Saviour's  sake. 

The  era  of  bloody  persecutions  passed 
away,  and  although  the  life  and  property  of 
Christians  were  no  longer  jeopardized,  yet 
it  became  apparent  to  them  that  it  was 
their  sacred  duty  to  defend  their  "  most  holy 
faith"  (Jnde  20)  and  Christian  life.  The 
primitive  form  of  apologetics  (dn-oXoylo/iai, 
to  acquit,  to  justify)  was,  to  a  certain  de- 
gree, of  a  forensic  character,  consisting  in 
the  refutation  of  unjust  accusations  before 
the  tribunals  of  heathen  magistrates;  its  ob- 
ject being  essentially  self-defense.  Who 
has  not  heard  of  the  calumnies  and  insinua- 
tions against  Christians  and  their  doctrines 
and  practices  —  characterized  alike  by  ig- 
norance and  malice — that  were  brought  for- 
ward by  Lucian  of  Samosata,  Porphyrius, 
Celsus,  Hierocles,  and  Julian  the  Apostate  ? 
The  refutation  of  these  malicious  calumnies 
and  aspersions  was  followed  by  apologetic 
writings,  properly  so  called,  which  set  forth 
the  evidence  of  the  divinity  and  majesty  of 
the  Gospel,  and  proved  it  to  be  the  "  fulfill- 
ment," once  for  all.  From  this  it  naturally 
followed  that  the  glory  and  all-sufficiency 
of  Christianity  was  illustrated  by  the  polemic 
demonstration  of  the  futility  of  heathen- 
ism and  the  insufficiency  of  Judaism,  which 
furnished  the  dark  background  to  the  lucid 
picture  of  the  kingdom  founded  by  the  Sav- 
iour from  sin  and  death. 

While  the  Christians  were  yet  an  op- 
pressed minority,  they  were  compelled  to  bo 
cautious  in  their  polemics  and  reserved  in 
their  apologetics;  but  when  Julian  the  Apos- 
tate, perceiving  the  historic  anomaly  of  hea- 
thenism, and  being  convinced  of  the  impos- 
sibility of  its  restoration,  was  forced  to  ex- 
claim toward  the  end  of  his  life,  "  Tandem 
vicisti  Galilaee,"  the  parts  were  changed,  and 
the  oppressed  frequently  became  the  oppress- 
ors. Nevertheless,  after  Christianity  had 
become,  to  its  own  injury,  the  favored  State 


religion,  it  could  not  but  notice  that  the 
Gospel  must  always  remain  "  a  sign  which 
shall  be  spoken  against"  (Luke  ii.,  34),  and 
that  the  preaching  of  the  cross  is  "  unto  the 
Jews  a  stumbling-block,  and  unto  the  Greeks 
foolishness"  (1  Cor.  i.,  23);  that  there  al- 
ways will  be  those  that  turn  aAvay  from 
Christ,  declaring,  "This  is  a  hard  saying; 
who  can  hear  it?"  (John  vi.,  60) ;  that  "mauy 
are  called,  but  few  are  chosen"  (Matt,  xxii., 
14) ;  that  only  few  find  the  narrow  way  that 
leadeth  unto  life,  while  the  majority  walk 
in  the  broad  way  that  leadeth  to  destruc- 
tion (Matt,  vii.,  13, 14).  The  enmity  of  the 
natural  man  and  his  hatred  of  the  truth, 
united  to  the  pride  of  a  wisdom  arrogantly 
trusting  in  itself,  not  only  always  resist  Chris- 
tianity, but  also  secretly  and  openly  assail 
it  with  acrimony  and  pertinacity. 

But  the  mode  of  attack,  as  well  as  the  im- 
plements of  war,  are  changed  with  time  and 
circumstances.  Tactics  and  strategetics  con- 
tinually vary,  and  experience  teaches  that 
every  warlike  operation  reveals  the  imper- 
fection of  weapons  formerly  deemed  suffi- 
cient, and  prompts  to  the  invention  of  new 
and  more  perfect  ones.  Thus  also  the  truth 
of  Christianity  and  the  validity  of  the  Gos- 
pel for  all  men  and  all  ages  are  continual- 
ly threatened  and  assailed  by  ever-varying 
means.  Entirely  new  doubts  and  objections 
spring  up  beside  the  old  ones,  which,  An- 
tasus-like,  appear  to  gain  new  vigor  by  their 
contact  with  the  earthy  elements  of  human- 
ity. Assaults  are  made  from  new  positions, 
and  with  missiles  of  a  wider  range  and  more 
destructive  power.  Levers  are  applied  to 
all  possible  points  in  the  attempt  to  lift  the 
whole  fabric  of  Christian  thinking  and  be- 
lieving, with  all  its  premises  and  conclusions, 
from  its  very  foundation,  and  thus  to  secure 
its  downfall.  I  only  need  refer  to  Darwin- 
ism, which  has  been  demonstrated  and  made 
plausible  with  so  much  acumen  and  force  of 
conviction  by  my  colleague,  Haeckel,  in  Jena, 
whose  numerous  disciples  learn  and  practice 
jurare  in  rerba  magistri,  and  are  under  the 
influence  of  the  well-known  law  laid  down 
by  Cicero,  Obest  plcmmqne  ns  qni  discere  ro- 
lunt  auctoritas  coram,  qui  docent.  Also  David 
Friedrich  Strauss,  in  his  book,  "Alter  nnd 
ueuer  Glaube"  (3d  ed.  Leipzig,  1872),  has 


310 


CHRISTIANITY  AND  ITS  ANTAGONISMS. 


declared,  with  praiseworthy  frankness  and 
consistency,  that  a  reconciliation  between 
modern  civilization  and  Christianity  can  no 
longer  be  thought  of,  and  that  all  attempts 
to  harmonize  reason  and  revelation,  worldly 
culture  and  Christian  piety,  must  necessarily 
be  ineffectual. 

Formerly,  at  least  the  elements  of  relig- 
ious truth  were  considered  safe  and  invio- 
lable ;  for  even  Rationalism,  while  it  surren- 
dered, as  untenable  outposts,  the  divinity  of 
Christ,  his  vicarious  atonement,  his  resur- 
rection and  ascension,  the  Holy  Ghost,  and 
the  Trinity,  nevertheless  considered  fully 
secured  and  unassailable  the  belief  in  the  ex- 
istence of  God,  in  liberty  and  immortality, 
in  the  moral  government  of  the  universe, 
and  in  the  responsibility  of  man,  created  in 
the  image  of  God.  But  to-day  no  point  is 
safe  any  longer  before  the  arguments  and 
weapons  of  a  science  which  challenges  not 
only  Christianity,  but  all  religions,  as  far  as 
they  presume  to  be  any  thing  else  but  phys- 
iological problems ;  which  asserts  that  they 
are  all  mere  phenomena  and  functions  of  the 
animal  organism,  and,  as  such,  must  dissolve 
themselves  inta  the  nothingness  of  errors 
and  superstitions.  This  science  declares  that 
religion  is  either  fear  or  attachment,  which 
may  be  sufficiently  explained  by  instinct  or 
habit.  Christianity,  above  all  religions,  can 
not  shrink  from  the  duty  of  justifying  its 
claims  in  the  face  of  every  opponent,  and  of 
defending  itself  not  only  against  ancient 
doubt,  but  also  against  these  modern  objec- 
tions. 

The  truth  that  there  is  no  salvation  ex- 
cept in  Christ,  and  that  "  the  gates  of  hell 
shall  not  prevail  against  his  Church"  (Matt, 
xvi.,  18),  must  not  only  be  professed  and  be- 
lieved, but  also  proved  and  confirmed.  This 
is  the  object  of  Christian  apologetics ;  it  is 
the  scientific  vindication  of  the  absolute  and 
divine  authority  of  Christianity,  as  it  was 
maintained  and  taught  by  Christ  and  his 
apostles,  and  as  it  was  accepted  and  became 
effective  in  the  establishment  and  propaga- 
tion of  the  Church. 

In  defining  the  limits  of  this  science  and 
its  purpose,  we  must  show,  in  the  first  place, 
what  Christianity  has  in  common  with  all 
other  religions ;  and,  in  the  second  place,  by 
what  peculiar  (distinctly  Christian)  concep- 
tions, doctrines,  and  institutions  it  has  out- 
stripped them  all.  There  exists,  indeed,  a 
consensus  between  Christianity  and  other  re- 
ligious communities  of  every  grade  and  kind, 
and  also  a  dissensus,  that  constitutes,  as  it 
were,  the  personal  property  of  our  belief. 
Now  it  must  be  shown  that  the  consensus 
comprises  all  the  essential  elements  of  relig- 
ion, and  then  the  positive,  the  peculiar,  the 
characteristic  properties  which  make  up  the 
dissensus  must  be  maintained  against  its  ad- 
versaries ;  or,  in  other  words,  the  evidence 
must  be  procured  to  establish  the  fact  that 


in  Christianity  there  are  combined  in  one 
the  universal  and  natural,  and  the  special 
and  supernatural  revelations.  We  herewith 
avow,  openly  and  explicitly,  a  dualism  of  a 
universal  and  a  special  revelation,  which,  of 
course,  is  energetically  denied  by  monists 
of  every  shade,  as  is  also  the  dualism  of  God 
and  the  world,  body  and  spirit,  time  and 
eternity. 

Now  it  is  apparent  that  neither  the  con- 
sensus of  Christianity  with  other  religions, 
nor  its  dissensus  from  them,  nor  the  absolute 
and  relative  superiority  which  we  claim  for 
it,  can  be  made  evident  without  a  thorough 
and  methodical  comparison  of  all  religions. 
A  science  that  makes  such  a  comparison  its 
object  is  an  indispensable  means  in  the  serv- 
ice of  Christian  apologetics.  We  are  not 
compelled,  like  the  defenders  of  Christianity 
in  the  first  centuries,  to  clear  ourselves  from 
unjust  accusations  before  a  legal  tribunal ; 
or,  like  the  early  fathers  and  the  schoolmen, 
to  combat  the  adversary  by  dialectics,  and 
to  adduce  speculative  arguments  for  substan- 
tiating the  doctrines  of  the  Church.  Since 
Christianity  is  attacked  in  its  character  and 
history  by  means  of  critical  and  historical 
objections,  it  has  to  submit  to  a  correspond- 
ing treatment,  and  defend  and  vindicate  it- 
self by  adequate  weapons.  The  religious  es- 
sence of  Christianity  can,  of  course,  only  be 
comprehended  in  the  empirico-psychological 
manner  of  introspection,  but  its  incompara- 
ble superiority  above  all  other  religions,  its 
all-sufficiency,  must  be  proved  and  made  ev- 
ident in  the  way  of  critico-historical  exam- 
ination. Even  those  that  are  without — the 
skeptics  and  the  aggressors — have  a  right 
to  demand  this ;  and  we  can  not  be  justi- 
fied in  asking  for  Christianity  an  exemp- 
tion by  privilege,  or  in  forbidding  the  appli- 
cation of  the  same  mode  of  proceeding  in  its 
examination  to  which  all  other  religions,  with 
all  that  belongs  to  them,  have  to  submit. 

But  this  critico-historical  proceeding  must 
necessarily  be  carried  on  in  connection  with 
the  comparison  of  Christianity  with  other 
religions,  some  of  which,  as  is  well  known, 
claim  for  themselves  the  superiority  of  n 
greater  rationality  and  perfection — a  mode 
of  treatment,  however,  which  has  either  been 
entirely  neglected  or  only  incidentally  em- 
ployed. Such  a  comparison  can  be  abused,  and 
thus  a  most  effective  weapon  maybe  turned 
against  us  for  our  defeat.  It  has,  in  fact,  al- 
ready been  employed  in  the  effort  to  bring 
down  Christianity  to  the  level  of  a  transient 
stage  of  knowledge,  to  a  mere  phase  in  the  re- 
ligious development  of  mankind.  In  view  of 
such  dangerous,  if  not  culpable  attempts,  it 
becomes  the  duty  of  Christian  apologetics 
to  take  from  the  arsenal  of  this  scientific 
comparison  new  instruments  of  defense  for 
the  protection  of  Gospel  truth,  to  point  out 
the  insufficiency  and  degeneracy,  or  the  mere- 
ly preparatory  significance,  of  other  relig- 


SPIESS :  COMPARATIVE  STUDY  OF  RELIGIONS. 


311 


ions,  arid  to  furnish  -the  evidence  of  the  ful- 
fillment which  has  had  its  advent  in  Chris- 
tianity. 

The  comparison,  the  search  for  regularly 
recurring  phenomena,  and  their  common  and 
essential  attributes  and  incidents,  has  long 
since  been  methodically  and  comprehensive- 
ly undertaken  in  other  departments  of  sci- 
ence; and  in  the  hands  of  chosen  investiga- 
tors it  has  proved  a  key  to  disclose  and  make 
known  astounding  analogies,  uuthought  of 
affinities,  and  occult  laws.  We  must  not  un- 
derrate, while  we  do  not  overrate,  the  results 
which  have  been  brought  to  light  by  "  com- 
parative anatomy,  comparative  phil.logy, 
comparative  statistics,  comparative  ethnog- 
raphy, and  ethnic  psychology."  A  new  spirit 
of  inquiry  has  entered  into  an  entire  series 
of  scientific  departments  by  the  application 
of  the  comparative  process ;  and  as  science 
lias  caused  the  resurrection  of  creations  that 
lay  buried  in  the  primitive  world  of  geology 
to  build  its  daring  conclusions  upon  (I  only 
need  refer  to  the  researches  and  combina- 
tions of  Alexander  von  Humboldt,  who  was 
as  well  versed  and  is  as  celebrated  in  this 
part  of  the  world  as  in  old  Europe),  so  also 
does  comparative  investigation  bring  life  and 
action  into  the  fossils  of  historic  science,  and 
into  the  tertiary  strata  of  the  ancient  depos- 
its of  language  and  thought.  It  should, 
therefore,  be  systematically  employed  in  the 
examination  of  religious,  and  for  the  estab- 
lishment of  the  absolute  superiority  of  Chris- 
tianity. The  advantage  of  such  a  juxtapo- 
sition for  comparative  purposes  has  already 
been  indicated  by  Basil  the  Great,  when  he 
says,  in  reference  to  Christianity  and  hea- 
thenism :  "  If  the  two  opinions  have  any 
relationship  to  each  other,  then  the  knowl- 
edge of  it  must  be  useful  to  us ;  but  if  this 
is  not  the  case,  then  the  perception  of  the 
difference,  which  has  resulted  from  the  com- 
parison, is  of  no  small  value  for  the  mainte- 
nance of  that  which  is  superior"  (De  Legend. 
Graec.  libris,  cap.  5).  The  essential  meaning 
of  the  words  of  the  apostles,  wavra  <Jo*ci/ia£ers, 
is  "  to  prove  by  comparison"  (1  Thess.  v.,  21 ; 
also  Rom.  ii.,  18;  1  John  iv.,  1;  1  Cor.  iii., 
13).  He  who  knows  only  one  language, 
knows  none.  "With  every  language  that 
thou  learnest,  thou  liberatest  thy  spirit  that 
was  bound  in  thee,"  says  the  poet  Riickert. 
The  same  is  true  of  religion.  The  knowl- 
edge of  religions  is  necessary  to  the  under- 
standing of  religion.  In  order  to  be  able  to 
appreciate  the  accomplished  fulfillment,  it  is 
necessary  to  be  acquainted  with  its  prophecy 
and  preparation.  Every  additional  religion, 
the  character  of  which  we  have  understood, 
the  analogy  of  which  with  all  moral  and  spir- 
itual life  has  been  perceived  by  us,  enlarges 
our  horizon,  quickens  our  observation,  and 
cleanses  our  judgment  from  prejudices.  Thus 
the  barriers  of  nationality,  denomination, 
age,  and  race  are  removed,  and  the  way  is 


opened  for  the  cosmopolitan  idea  of  the  equal- 
ity and  souship  of  all  before  God,  of  which 
Socrates  and  Epictetus  already  had  a  pre- 
sentiment (e.  g.,  Diss.  I.,  9,  6,  Atari  /»}  diry  nc 
UVTOV  Koafiiov  Start  fiff  vibv  GeoC). 

But  has  nothing  as  yet  been  done  to  inves- 
tigate the  non  -  Christian  religions  ?  Cer- 
tainly their  character  and  history  have  al- 
ready frequently  been  made  the  study  of  as- 
siduous inquirers.  Schelliug  has  written  his 
"Philosophy  of  Mythology"  and  "Philoso- 
phy of  Revelation ;"  Hegel  has  published 
his  "  Lectures  on  the  Philosophy  of  Relig- 
ion;" and  Ferdinand  Chr.  von  Bauer  his 
"  Mythology  and  Symbolism  of  the  Natural 
Religious  of  Antiquity"  (Stuttgart,  1824); 
and,  several  decades  previous  to  that,  David 
Hume  composed,  in  the  skeptical  spirit  of 
his  century,  his  "Natural  History  of  Relig- 
ion" (London,  1755).  Unforgotten  and  highly 
appreciated  are  also  the  meritorious  labors 
of  Christoph  Meiners,  Georg  Friedrich  Creu- 
zer,  Carl  Friedrich  and  Johannes  Carl  Ti- 
motheus  Schlegel,  Ludwig  Preller,  Friedrich 
Nork,  Eckermanu,  Petrus  Feddersen  Stuhr, 
Adolph  Wuttke,  Christian  Gottl.  Kaiser, 
Phil.  Christian  Reinhard,  Theodor  Waitz 
(whose  "Anthropologie  derNaturvolker"was 
finished  by  Gerland),  Johannes  Scherr,  Johan  - 
nes  Matter,  Benjamin  Heinrich  Constant,  Jo- 
hannes Heinrich  Scholten,  and  others. 

Of  still  greater  importance  and  extent  arc 
the  monographs  on  separate  religions,  their 
historic  development,  their  doctrines,  and 
their  modes  of  worship.  Without  mention- 
ing the  religions  of  classic  antiquity,  the 
investigation  and  description  of  which  phi- 
lology has  made  its  special  object,  there  are 
also  other  religions  that  have  more  or  less 
been  made  the  subject  of  research  and  study. 
It  is  truly  astonishing  how  Occidental  sa- 
vans  have  succeeded  in  probing  and  uncov- 
ering, as  it  were,  the  very  entrails  of  the 
most  ancient  and  remote  forms  of  religions. 
The  life  of  Mohammed  and  Islam  ism  have 
been  treated  in  an  exhaustive  manner  by  the 
Catholics  —  J.  von  Dollinger  and  his  com- 
peer Adam  Mohler ;  by  the  Jews,  G.  Weil 
and  Abraham  Geiger;  by  the  Protestants, 
Noldeke,  Sprenger,  Muir,  Fleischer,  and 
Krehl.  The  cuneiform  inscriptions  on  the 
monuments  of  Babylon  and  Nineveh  have 
revealed  the  thoughts  of  the  ancient  Medes 
and  Assyrians.  Men  like  Paul  Emil  Botta, 
Julius  Oppert,  and  Eberhard  Schrader,  have 
furnished  the  key ;  Silvestre  de  Sacy,  the  cel- 
ebrated connoisseur  of  the  Orient,  to  whom 
young  and  old  flocked  alike  in  order  to  profit 
by  his  magnificent  scholarship,  has  described 
the  history  and  religion  of  the  Samaritans 
and  Druses. 

The  ancient  home  of  civilization  in  Africa, 
which  forms  the  transition  between  Asiatic 
and  European  ideas  and  development,  has 
called  into  existence  an  independent  depart- 
ment of  archaeology — the  so-called  ..Egypt- 


CHRISTIANITY  AND  ITS  ANTAGONISMS. 


312 

ology — which  has  been  cultivated  by  many 
learned  men  of  great  importance.  The  names 
of  J.  Franz  Champollio,  Carl  Brugsch,  Carl 
Richard  Lcpsius,  C.  J.  von  Bunsen,  Schwenck, 
Kremer,  Roctli,  Ebers,  Jablouski,  Wilkinson, 
Prichard,  Mariette,  and  Rosellini,  show  that 
many  different  nations  have  furnished  la- 
borers to  make  known  the  linguistic,  relig- 
ious, political,  and  artistic  antiquities  of 
Egypt.  The  northern  mythology  of  the  an- 
cient Teutons,  Danes,  and  Scandinavians  has 
lieen  treated  of  by  C.  Simrock,  Manuhardt, 
Wilhelm  Mttller,  Victor  Miillenhoff,  Mone, 
Finn  Maguussen,  Munch,  Keyser,  N.  M.  Pe- 
tersen,  Koppen,  Adalb.  Kuhu,  the  brothers 
Grimm,  and  others.  As  early  as  1723,  the 
religion,  or,  more  correctly,  the  religions  of 
the  Chinese,  were  discussed  by  the  famous 
philosopher  Christian  Wolf,  in  his  essay  "De 
Philosophia  Sinensium  Morali,"  on  account 
of  which  he  had  to  fly  from  Halle  for  fear  of 
the  gallows,  remaining  away  until  recalled 
by  Frederick  the  Great.  But  from  the  time 
of  the  Jesuit  missionaries,  Matthaeus  Ricci 
and  Adam  Schall,  to  our  own  Carl  Gutzlaff 
(t!854),  a  large  number  of  philologists,  trav- 
elers, and  missionaries  have  been  industri- 
ously employed  in  investigating  and  making 
known  the  civilization  of  the  remarkable 
' '  Middle  Ki  n  gdom ."  The  Fren  ch  men ,  Henri 
Prepare  (t!734),  Claude  Visdelou  (U737), 
Antoine  Gaubil  (t!759) ;  the  Englishmen, 
Robert  Morrison  (H854),  John  Raffles,  Cal- 
lery,  Yvan,  Brine,  Marshman ;  the  Russian, 
Wassiljew ;  the  Germans,  Carl  Friedrich  Neu- 
mann, Plath,  Kauffer,  and  others,  compete 
with  each  other  in  this  field  of  scientific  la- 
bor. 

Colebrooke,  Wilson,  Moore,  Coleman,  Muir, 
Cunningham,  Benfey,  Lassen,  Roth,  Weber, 
Spiegel,  Bopp,  Wilhelm  von  Htimboldt,  Goer- 
res,  Schleicher,  and  others  too  numerous  to 
mention,  have  assiduously  and  meritoriously 
labored  in  the  investigation  of  the  languages 
of  India  and  its  sacred  archives ;  as  also  in 
the  construction  of  the  pedigree  of  the  Indo- 
Germauic  races,  in  the  relative  affinity  of 
their  culture,  aud  in  the  observation  of  the 
religious  life  of  the  Hindoos,  as  it  has  passed 
through  successive  stages  of  conceptions  and 
evolutions,  from  the  religion  of  the  Vedas, 
through  Brahmanism  aud  Buddhism,  to  the 
Dschainas  and  Sikhs. 

The  Zend-Avesta,  the  dualistic  doctrine  of 
Zoroaster,  which  has  exercised  a  far-reach- 
ing influence  upon  the  sphere  of  the  religious 
conceptions  of  the  Jews,  aud  -with  which 
even  the  Greeks  became  acquainted  through 
the  Persian  wars  (Herodotus;,  has  been  in- 
terpreted and  made  accessible  by  scholars  of 
primary  and  secondary  rank,  like  Anquetil- 
Duperron,  Burnouf,  Kleuker,  Spiegel,  Hang, 
Justi ;  Wiudischmaun,  Brockhaus,  Gladisch, 
aud  Tiele.  It  is  instructive  and  remarkable 
to  notice  how  the  latter  has  succeeded  in  in- 
tensifying and  refining  the  Naturalism  and 


Zaba'ism  of  the  ancient  Iranians  aud  Per- 
sians. Japan,  that  highly  interesting  insular 
empire,  inhabited  by  a  people  of  Mongolian 
descent  and  agglutinating  language,  that  ap- 
pears to  be  destined  to  revive  aud  reform  the 
effete  and  stagnant  Asiatic  by  the  modern 
Europeo-Americau  civilization,  has  been  ait 
object  of  active  curiosity  since  the  days  of 
Marco  Polo  (t!323,  at  Venice),  and  has  beeu 
investigated  aud  described  by  many  explor- 
ers, as  far  as  the  laws  of  the  laud  gave  ac- 
cess to  foreigners.  In  this  connection  Phi- 
lipp  Franz  von  Siebold  (t!866,  at  Munich), 
to  whom  a  monument  is  about  to  be  erected, 
deserves  special  mention.  Likewise  Carl 
Friedrich  Neumann  (11870),  who,  from  his, 
multiform  aud  comprehensive  erudition,  has 
also  Avritteu  a  history  of  the  United  States 
(three  volumes,  Berlin,  1863-66).  Schiefner, 
Helms,  Rein,  aud  especially  Matthias  Cas- 
tre"n  (t!852),  have  occupied  themselves  with 
the  language  and  customs  of  the  Tartars, 
Mongols,  and  Finns,  in  their  widely  differ- 
ing clans  (Samojedes,  Tuuguses,  Tscherre- 
inisses,  Syrjaenes,  etc.) ;  with  the  Tibetans, 
Isaac  Jacob  Schmidt,  D'Ohsson,  Abel  Remu- 
sat,  and  others ;  with  the  Kirgises  and  Estho- 
uiaus,  Wilhelm  Schott;  with  An  am  and  si  am. 
De  Guigues,  Gregorjew,  Hardy,  Fausboll ; 
and  many  others,  each  of  whom  has  culti- 
vated one  or  more  special  departments. 

In  order  not  to  v»Teary  you  too  much,  I  will 
only  mention  in  addition  the  names  of  those 
who  have  not  considered  it  too  mean  to  ex- 
amine and  describe  the  Jowest  grade  and 
the  most  degenerate  form  of  a  cultus — Fe- 
tichism  aud  Shamanism — in  which  the  limit- 
ation and  dismemberment  of  the  Divine  has 
progressed  downward  to  the  extreme.  Afri- 
ca, with  the  children  of  Harn,  the  tribes  of 
Oceauica  that  have  become  degraded  to  can- 
nibalism, and,  in  part,  the  inhabitants  of 
Northern  Asia,  as  also  those  of  the  most 
northern  and  southern  parts  of  America, 
have  practiced  this  sad  form  of  creature 
worship  (Rom.  i.,  23-25).  De  Brosses,  Roeth, 
Meiuers,  Waitz,  and  Wuttke  have  made  this 
phase  in  the  development  of  religious  con- 
sciousness, which  moves  entirely  in  the.  lim- 
its of  empirico-seusual  perception,  their  spe- 
cial study,  from  whose  researches  Fritz 
Schultz  (private  lecturer  in  Jena)  has  made 
a  compilation  with  frequent  verbal  extracts. 
On  the  primitive  religions  of  America,  we 
have  a  treatise  by  J.  G.  Miiller,  professor  in 
Basle,  published  in  1854,  and  a  year  ago,  by 
the  same  author,  a  book  on  the  Shemites  in 
their  relation  to  the  Hamites  and  Japhet- 
ites.  But  ethnographical  researches,  which 
arc  carried  on  with  great  zeal  by  single  in- 
dividuals as  well  as  societies  (e.  g.,  espe- 
cially here  in  New  York),  have  yet  to 
shed  light  upon  the  history  and  culture  of 
the  religious  which  had  their  centre  and  or- 
igin on  the  plateaus  of  Peru,  Ciuidinamarca, 
and  Mexico ;  as  well  aa  on  the  primeval  his- 


SPIESS :  COMPARATIVE  STUDY  OF  RELIGIONS. 


313 


tory  of  the  American  aborigines — the  Peru- 
vians, \vith  the  mild  religion  of  Mankoka- 
pak ;  of  the  Toltecs  and  Aztecs,  in  the  high- 
lands of  Auahuac;  of  theMuyskas,  iu  Cundi- 
namarca ;  of  the  Araucauiaus,  in  the  Alpine 
valleys  of  Chili;  and  of  the  Indians — the 
wild  Redskins  —  who,  in  the  imagination 
of  Europeans,  are  surrounded  by  a  peculiar 
halo,  and  whose  extermination,  or,  more  cor- 
rectly, dyiug  away  before  the  progressive 
march  of  civilization,  has  often  been  lament- 
ed by  us  in  false  sentimentality.  Instance, 
"  The  Last  of  the  Mohicans." 

To-day  we  no  longer  believe  in  the  harm- 
less, innocent  children  of  nature,  as  they 
have  been  described  in  the  travels  of  Cook 
and  Chamisso ;  and  we  know  (without  refer- 
ence to  the  Modocs)  that  uudepraved,  pure 
humanity  only  exists  in  the  brains  of  novel- 
ists and  poets,  and  that  in  reality  experience 
often  proves  in  a  painful  manner  the  truth 
of  the  Scriptural  declaration,  "That  which  is 
born  of  the  flesh,  is  flesh"  (John  iii.,  6),  and, 
"  In  our  flesh  there  dwelleth  no  good  thing" 
(Rom.vii.,  18).  In  passing,  we  may  at  least 
mention  in  this  connection  the  singular  hy- 
pothesis, according  to  which  the  Indians  of 
America  are  the  descendants  of  the  Ten 
Tribes  of  Israel,  whom  Shalmaneser  led  into 
the  Assyrian  captivity  (2  Kings  xvii.,  6 ;  1 
Chron.  v.,  26;  4  Esdras  xiii.,  40),  and  who  are 
said  to  have  been  dispersed  in  the  far  East.  A 
similarity  between  Mauitou,  the  Great  Spirit, 
and  Jehovah  (Jahveh),  as  also  between  the 
ceremonial  laws  and  usages  of  the  Jews  and 
Indians,  can  not  be  disputed.  Captain  Mar- 
ryat,  in  his  "  Diary  in  America,  with  Re- 
marks on  its  Institutions"  (London,  1839, 
tome  vi.,  p.  139  and  seq.) ;  Edward  Williams, 
"History  of  American  Indians"  (1775);  James 
Adair,  Augustus  Beltrami,  Alonzo  Erecella, 
"  Historia  Chileua .;"  Rabbi  Manasseh  Ben-Is- 
rael, "  La  Esperauza  de  Israel"  (Amsterdam, 
1650) ;  Charles  Noah, "  Beweis  dass  die  Amer- 
icanischen  Indiauer  die  Abkommliuge  der 
zehn  verloreueu  Stamme  Israel  siud"(Altona, 
1838);  William  Penn,De  Guigues, Chapman, 
Alexander  Mackenzie,  and  a  whole  series  of 
other  savants,  have  at  least  offered  so  many 
reasons  for  the  possibility  and  probability  of 
this  conjecture  that,  though  it  appears  in- 
credible at  first  sight,  it  can  not  be  simply 
ignored,  especially  in  this  country. 

But  this  only  by  the  way. 

In  short,  the  religious  of  ancient  and  mod- 
ern times,  of  the  Old  as  Avell  as  the  New 
World,  have  been  frequently  studied.  Much 
interest  atnd  much  labor  has  already  been 
devoted  to  the  research  and  delineation  of 
the  character  and  history  of  the  religious 
development  of  mankind,  and  the  result  has 
been  rich  and  valuable.  But  this  separate 
treatment  is  no  scientific  comparison  of  re- 
ligious, as  we  recommend  it.  The  most  de- 
tailed and  accurate  investigation  of  langua- 
ges, if  it  is  undertaken  jn  parallel,  discon- 


nected treatises,  is  no  comparison  of  langua- 
ges. Zootomy,  if  proceeding  only  analyt- 
cally  and  descriptively,  although  taking  up 
seriatim  all  possible  genera  and  species,  is  far 
from  being  comparative  anatomy.  The  ar- 
ray of  whole  regiments  of  figures,  the  reg- 
ularly recurring  single  phenomenon,  the  inci- 
dents, the  ebb  and  flow  of  life,  were  given 
decades  ago,  but  in  independent  groups, 
without  any  mutual  relation ;  but  this  was 
only  the  raw  material,  which  at  a  later  time 
has  been  elaborated  by  scientific  compara- 
tive statistics,  and  been  made  serviceable  in 
the  discovery  and  establishment  of  the  laws 
revealed  by  these  figures. 

It  is  not  enough  that  now  and  then  we 
stumble  upon  a  surprising  similarity  or  anal- 
ogy, that  we  carry  on  a  single  study  in  an 
amateur  fashion  as  far  as  we  please  and  then 
drop  it,  when  and  wherever  we  like ;  not 
enough  to  find  an  agreement  in  externals  or 
a  consonance  in  words  and  sentences,  though 
they  belong  to  entirely  different  spheres  of 
conception — no;  a  comparison  of  religious 
must  be  made  in  a  conscious  and  methodical 
manner,  to  set  forth  the  relation  of  Chris- 
tianity to  the  religions  of  all  ages  and  zones, 
to  seek  out  the  laws  which  have  operated  iu 
the  generation  of  the  forms  of  belief  and 
worship  of  dogmas  and  morals,  to  compre- 
hend the  various  configurations  of  religious 
life  in  their  historic  development,  and  the 
changes  dependent  upon  local  and  temporary 
influences,  and  in  this  way  to  demonstrate 
the  necessity  and  the  right  of  existence  of 
religion  iu  general  and  of  Christianity  iu 
particular.  Out  of  the  different  religious 
thus  compared  we  shall  be  able,  by  synthe- 
sis of  their  moments  every  where  recurring 
and  nowhere  wanting,  to  extract  the  essence 
of  all  religion,  and  to  evolve  the  pith  and 
marrow  of  all  religious  formations.  The  co?i- 
sensus  religionum  vel  gentium,  gained  by  com- 
parison, represents  the  abstract  in  religion, 
and  becomes  in  itself  an  apology  against  all 
who  declare  religions  in  general  to  be  an  un- 
necessary, transient,  perchance  even  an  ob- 
noxious invention  of  men. 

The  import  of  natural  religion  is  thus  firm- 
ly established ;  and  it  is  also  clearly  indi- 
cated how  far  natural  revelation  (lumen  na- 
turce)  reaches,  and  where  it  begins  to  be  in- 
sufficient, so  as  to  require  for  a  supplement 
special  revelation  and  mediation.  To  no 
man  has  the  Lord  left  himself  without  wit- 
ness. As  the  sun  illumines  the  whole  uni- 
verse, so  the  light  of  God's  revelation  still 
pierces  through  and  lights  up  the  thickest 
darkness  of  heathenism.  In  the  realm  of 
material  being  there  reigns  a  Panspeiinia;  in 
the  realm  of  spirits  the  Xoyoe  <nrtpfiariK6s  is 
spread  abroad  every  where,  and  the  airipfnara, 
the  germs,  the  sparks,  the  generative  light 
and  life-creating  atoms  of  diviue  revelation, 
are  found  in  all  religions.  There  is,  of  course, 
a  great  inequality  in  the  measure  of  this 


314 


CHRISTIANITY  AND  ITS  ANTAGONISMS. 


knowledge  as  regards  nations  nnd  periods. 
It  is  true,  we  cull  them  all  heatheu  ;  yet 
what  a  difference  between  the  Papua,  who 
squats  iu  stupid  devotion  before  his  fetich, 
and  the  Parsee,  whose  voluminous  sacred 
writings,  by  their  religions  conceptions  and 
moral  principles,  must  strike  even  the  Chris- 
tian with  reverence  —  between  the  poor 
Yocauhas  of  Terra  del  Fuego  and  the  Hin- 
doos, with  their  rich  Sanskrit  literature — be- 
tween the  Esquimaux  and  the  Chinese,  the 
disciples  of  Confucius.  What  multifarious 
formations,  what  many-colored  shadings  of 
heathenism  in  the  Dajacks,  Tamils,  Hotten- 
tots, Sioux,  Tcherkessiaus,  Kauaks,  Austra- 
lian negroes,  Pawnees,  Patagouians,  Lap- 
landers, Chippewas,  Maudingoes,  Ashantees, 
Japanese,  and  Maoris.  It  is  au  error,  which 
our  missionaries  often  commit  to  the  detri- 
ment of  their  work,  to  treat  all  heathens 
alike,  to  exhibit  the  religion  of  the  Gospel 
as  specifically  different,  and  to  leave  unno- 
ticed and  unused  the  various  points  of  con- 
tact. If  we  start  with  the  claim  of  an  en- 
tirely isolated  and  exempt  position  for  Chris- 
tianity, if  we  assert  that  its  divine  origin 
need  not  be  proved,  and  that  every  one  must, 
without  further  ceremony,  acknowledge  the 
religion  of  the  Europeans  as  the  highest  and 
the  best,  then  the  cunning  Brahmin,  the  zeal- 
ous Mussulman,  the  cautious  Hindoo,  and 
the  narrow-minded  Zulu,  will  turn  away,  as 
well  as  the  modern  infidel,  who  is  either 
filled  with  admiration  of  the  glory  of  classic 
antiquity,  or  is  given  to  a  materialistic  creat- 
ure-worship. They  will  be  alike  inaccessible 
to  conviction  or  conversion.  We  must  first 
descend  to  the  common  basis  (<n>yicara/3a(ne), 
must  carefully  trace  the  vestiges  of  divine 
revelation,  must  acknowledge  the  "divine 
image "  in  "  the  least  of  the  brethren,"  be- 
fore we  can  introduce  the  preaching  of  the 
cross,  and  intrinsically  Christian  truth.  And 
how  much  of  this  points  to  a  solidarity  and 
original  union  of  all  natural  revelation ! 

The  eminent  Nagelsbach,  in  his  post-Hom- 
eric theology,  states  that  there  are  three 
questions  which  man  puts  to  every  religion, 
viz :  "  Is  there  a  God,  and  what  is  he  ?  How 
does  man  get  rid  of  his  sin  ?  What  will  be- 
come of  him  after  death  ?"  In  regard  to 
the  first  and  last  questions,  heathenism  has 
received  copious  airkpfiara  \6yov  (seeds  of  the 
word),  and  it  is  indeed  a  pleasure  and  a 
profit  to  notice  the  rays  ot  light  that  have 
pierced  the  heathen  world,  where  we  find 
anticipations  and  intuitions  that  lead  nearly 
to  the  gate  of  truth.  Christ  brought  certain- 
ty, and  raised  human  perception  to  the  high- 
est grade  by  revealing  God  as  eternal  and 
all-comprehensive  love,  and  by  placing  the 
centre  of  human  destiny  in  the  future  iu  a 
more  perfect  phase  of  personal  existence. 
There  is  also  a  consensus  gentium,  a  divine 
revelation  communicated  to  all  mankind  in 
regard  to  the  moral  law  (the  vopoi  aypa^ot), 


which  is  "written  iu  our  hearts"  (Rom.  ii., 
15).  For  this  reason  the  law  which  tho 
Lord  and  his  disciples  proclaimed  was  not 
essentially  new,  but  only  more  complete, 
more  free,  and  more  spiritual  (1  John  ii.,  7). 
Also,  the  requirements  of  self-denial,  of  love 
to  the  neighbor — yea,  even  to  the  enemy, 
of  regeneration,  and  similar  commandments, 
often  claimed  for  Christianity  exclusively, 
were  by  no  means  previously  unknown  or 
unheard  of.  Many  loci  communes  may  be  ad- 
duced from  heathen  writings  to  prove  this 
assertion,  as  I  have  done  iu  my  book,  "Logos 
Spermaticos"  (Leipzig,  1871).  Christ  brought 
the  fulfillment  of  the  law  (7r\r;pw//a,  Rom. 
xiii.,  10;  Gal.  v.,  14;  Col.  i.,  19;  ii.,  9;  Eph. 
i.,  23 ;  iii.,  19 ;  John  i.,  16),  gave  us  the  tnic 
motives  and  our  ideal  aim.  Other  moral 
principles  than  the  original,  divine,  and  there- 
fore ever  valid  human  ones,  he  could  not 
and  would  not  propound.  He  only  aimed  to 
renew  men  in  the  image  of  God,  to  bring 
them  into  conformity  to  his  will,  and  to  re- 
store them  to  the  divine  sonship.  It  is  in 
this  sense  that  he  spoke  of  a  new  obedience 
and  of  new  commands. 

But  further  than  that  the  consensus  does 
not  go.  The  solution  of  the  second  vital 
question — "  How  can  I  get  rid  of  my  sins  ?" 
— heathenism  never  found  in  any  form.  For 
this  one,  this  distinctively  Christian  one — 
i.  e.,  the  glad  tidings  of  the  redemption  of 
sinful  humanity — there  is  no  parallel  in  hea- 
thenism. No  natural  light  is  sufficient  to 
fathom  this  mystery,  this  special  dispensa- 
tion of  God.  "He,  who  is  made  unto  us 
wisdom  and  righteousness  and  sanctifica- 
tion  and  redemption"  (1  Cor.  i.,  30),  he,  the 
only  begotten  of  the  Father,  has  given  him- 
self for  our  sins ;  "  the  chastisement  of  our 
peace  -was  upon  him ;  and  with  his  stripes 
are  we  healed."  For  him  the  nations  wait- 
ed till  the  "  fullness  of  time  "  was  come.  He 
was  the  consolation  of  the  Jews,  who  had 
been  trained  for  him ;  and  the  unknown  help- 
er, for  whom  the  heathen  ardently  hoped. 
But  how  the  miracle  should  be  accomplished 
was  a  hidden  counsel.  This  is  the  eternal 
dissensus  of  Christianity,  as  high  as  heaven, 
by  which  it  is  distinguished  from  all  other 
religions,  by  which  it  has  become  the  abso- 
lute religion.  Because  no  other  religion  gives 
au  answer  to  the  above  question,  nor  is  ablo 
to  satisfy  this  want,  therefore  Christianity 
is  the  religion,  singular  in  its  kind,  and  reach- 
ing beyond  all  others.  The  anxious  sigh, 
"  Oh !  wretched  man  that  I  am,  who  shall 
deliver  me  ?"  is  responded  to  by  the  comfort- 
ing and  joyful  exclamation,  "  I  thank  God 
through  Jesus  Christ  our  Lord"  (Rom.  vii., 
25).  The  divine  dignity  and  perpetual  value 
of  Christianity,  as  also  its  quality  as  "a  sign 
which  shall  be  spoken  against"  (Luke  ii., 
34),  lie  in  the  fact  that  it  offers  reconcilia- 
tion by  the  death  of  the  Son  of  God,  and  that 
the  Lord  is  pre-eminently  the  physician  for 


SPIESS :  COMPARATIVE  STUDY  OF  RELIGIONS. 


315 


the  sick,  and  the  Saviour  of  sinners.  For 
this  reason  the  whole,  who  imagine  that  they 
need  no  physician  (Luke  v.,  31),  the  self- 
righteons,  the  wise  men  after  the  flesh,  the 
mighty  and  the  noble  (1  Cor.  i.,  26),  turn 
away  from  it,  and  only  few  seek  the  narrow 
way  that  leadeth  to  life.  For  this  reason, 
also,  many  that  were  bidden  despise  the  feast 
prepared  (Luke  xiv.,  21-24).  It  can  not  be 
otherwise,  since  it  has  pleased  God  to  save, 
by  the  foolishness  of  preaching,  those  that 
believe. 

It  is  true  this  dissensus  —  this  peculiarly 
Christian  element — invites  every  where  and 
at  all  times  contradiction,  and  provokes  the 
world  to  fight  against  it ;  but  at  the  same 
time  it  also  finds  its  verification  in  the  con- 
sciousness of  sin,  and  the  longing  for  salva- 
tion of  the  whole  world,  even  of  all  who 
are  born  of  woman.  Inquire  of  all  nations, 
knock  at  the  door  of  all  religions,  every 
where  you  will  find  the  consciousness  of 
guilt  and  the  painful  sense  of  impotence ; 
every  where  yon  will  discover  sin  as  a  "  thorn 
in  the  flesh"  (2  Cor.  xii.,  7),  and  as  "the 
sting  of  death"  (1  Cor.  xv.,  56).  Compare 
them  all,  without  exception — from  the  ex- 
tolled and  happy  Greeks  down  to  the  beast- 
like  idolaters,  from  the  most  ancient  nations, 
that  worshiped  and  sacrificed  on  the  high 
places,  to  the  modern  atheists  —  and  ascer- 
tain whether  the  same  disease  is  not  felt  ev- 
ery where ;  and  inquire  whether  any  one 
knows  of  the  remedy  ?  Christianity  has  not 
brought  this  disease  into  the  world — sin,  and 
the  sense  thereof,  and  the  fear  of  death — as 
it  has  been  charged;  but  it  has  given  the 
correct  diagnosis,  and  made  the  cure  possi- 
ble. Thus  the  impotency  of  all  natural  re- 
ligions, when  brought  in  contact  with  the 
general  depravity,  becomes  evident  by  a  com- 
parison with  Christianity,  and  acts  as  a  de- 
fender of  the  Gospel,  which  is  willing  that 
all  men  should  be  saved,  and  reveals  at  the 
same  time  how  this  salvation  has  been  pro- 
cured for  all. 

I  have  only  attempted,  by  general  out- 
lines, to  set  forth  the  comparative  examina- 
tion of  religions,  as  the  right  and  duty  of 
Christian  science,  the  manner  in  which  ex- 
amination should  proceed,  and  the  advan- 
tages it  offers  for  the  defense  of  Christianity, 
especially  against  the  "  educated  of  its  de- 
spisers."  In  this  sense,  and  for  the  purpose 
of  finding  new  weapons  for  the  protection 
of  evangelical  truth,  the  comparison  of  re- 
ligions has  not  yet  been  carried  on.  Even 
the  celebrated  Max  Miiller,  although  he  has 
furnished  in  his  "Essays"  very  estimable 
contributions  to  a  scientific  comparison  of 
religions  (vol.  ii.,  "  Comparative  Mythology 
and  Ethnology"),  did  not  intend  such  com- 
parison to  be  a  theological,  but  a  historico- 
philosophical  branch  of  science,  in  the  sense 
of  Lessing's  comparison  of  the  rings,  which 
ultimately  aims  at  the  abolition  of  Chris- 


tianity, and  not  at  its  victory  over  other  im- 
perfect religions.  Previous  to  the  delivery 
of  his  brilliant  address  at  the  Philological 
Congress  at  Kiel  (1869),  on  the  reception  of 
the  scientific  comparison  of  religious  into 
the  catalogue  of  academical  lectures,  I  had 
endeavored  to  demonstrate  the  possibility 
and  necessity  for  Christian  theology  to  oc- 
cupy this  field,  and  cultivate  it  for  its  own 
use  and  profit.  The  same  had  been  done  by 
Maurice,  in  "Lectures  on  the  Religions  of  the 
World  ;"  by  Hard  wick,  in  "Christ  and  other 
Masters ;"  and  by  Werner,  in  "  The  Relig- 
ions and  Cults  of  Ante-Christian  Nations," 
without,  however,  attempting  comparison  or 
synthesis,  or  without  having  an  apologetic 
intent.  The  later  writers  on  apologetics, 
from  Tschirner  to  Baumstark,  as  well  as 
those  who,  like  Kieulen,  Lechler,  and  Hirzel, 
have  treated  of  the  object,  method,  and  po- 
sition of  this  science  in  connection  with  the- 
ology, do  not,  of  course,  pass  by  other  relig- 
ions, nor  can  they  ignore  them,  but  they  do 
not  yet  make  this  systematic  comparison  of 
religions  an  independent  and  important  part 
of  apologetics.  The  encyclopedists,  whose 
business  it  is  to  point  out  the  limits  of  a 
science,  and  to  divide  it  in  its  several  depart- 
ments, have  not  as  yet  assigned  a  place  to 
the  comparison  of  religions,  nor  defined  its 
object.  Danz,  Pelt,  Staudenmeier,  and  Ha- 
genbach  know  it,  at  best,  as  an  auxiliary  sci- 
ence, which  now  and  then  may  furnish  some 
subsidies.  Tradesmen-like,  old-school  the- 
ologians turn  up  their  noses,  and  look  witli 
an  air  of  superiority  upon  the  intruder,  just 
as  pedantic  philologists  look  down  in  pity 
upon  Germauistic  and  comparative  philolo- 
gy. More  considerate  scholars  confine  them- 
selves to  pointing  out  the  impracticability, 
the  insurmountable  difficulty  of  considering 
other  religions  in  a  scientific  manner.  But, 
for  the  future,  it  will  be  entirely  impossible 
to  take  position  on  the  "  insulator,"  and  to 
remain  confined  to  the  criticism,  exegesis, 
and  application  of  the  Bible.  The  world  has 
become  wider;  it  is  now  recognized  that 
there  are  dwellers  beyond  the  mountains 
and  over  the  seas ;  and,  by  the  aid  of  a  more 
extended  philology,  new  means  and  ways 
are  opened  to  become  acquainted  with  the 
sphere  of  conceptions  and  ideas  of  other  eras 
and  nations ;  therefore  we  must  enlarge  our 
view,  extend  our  researches,  and  place  our 
aims  higher.  It  is  true  that  the  science  of 
comparative  theology  lies  still  in  the  cradle. 
Its  field  looks  now  like  the  territorial  squares 
on  the  old  maps  of  America,  but,  like  these, 
it  will  bo  rapidly  occupied.  Shall  we  wait, 
then,  till  philosophers,  philologists,  and  ar- 
chaeologists have  taken  possession  of  it  in  or- 
der to  make  it  serviceable  against  Chris- 
tianity ? 

Voltaire  truly  says:  "Every  new  truth 
fares  like  the  embassadors  of  civilized  states 
among  barbarians;  only  after  repeated  in- 


316 


CHRISTIANITY  AND  ITS  ANTAGONISMS. 


suite  and  vexations  they  obtain  recognition 
awl  influence."  The  comparative  study  of 
religious  may  for  a  while  lie  denied  its  claim 
as  a  science ;  theological  faculties  may  as  yet 
not  he  willing  to  take  up  this  new  branch 
of  learning;  but  it  will  not  be  long  before 
this  question  will  be  made  the  order  of  the 
day,  and  we  can  not  aflbrd  to  look  quietly 
on,  while  others  make  use  of  this  subject  for 
their  own  ends,  without  our  advice  and  co- 
operation. In  comparison  with  the  great- 
ness and  importance  of  this  undertaking, 
many  of  the  favorite  labors  of  modern  the- 
ologians, in  raking  out  of  the  dust  all  man- 
lier of  apocryphical  and  pseudepigraphical 
writings,  and  sheddiug  their  light  upon 
them,  appear  positively  ridiculous,  puny, 
and  iusiguificaut,  no  matter  how  much  eru- 
dition and  study  has  been  thrown  away 
upon  them,  and  to  what  degree  the  value  of 
such  historico-critical  scholasticism  may  be 
exaggerated.  It  will  be  reserved  to  coming 
centuries  to  gather  the  fruits  of  the  compar- 
ative investigation  of  religions;  but  shall 
we  not  plant  trees,  because  our  descendants 
only  can  reap  from  them  ?  That  would  be 
equally  egotistic  and  faint-hearted. 

In  former  times  numerous  endowments 
were  made  and  societies  established,  of  either 
a  scientific  or  popular  character,  for  the 
maintenance  of  the  divine  authority  of  the 
sacred  Scriptures  or  the  defense  of  disputed 
Christian  truth.  Such  was  the  endowment 
of  Lord  Boyle  (H691);  the  Legatum  Stolpia- 
num  at  the  University  of  Leyden ;  the  So- 
ciety of  the  Hague  for  the  Defense  of  the 
Christian  Religion,  called  into  existence  A.D. 


1785,  to  paralyze  the  influence  of  Priestley's 
"History  of  the  Corruptions  of  Christian- 
ity ;"  the  Societas  Sueciana  pro  fide  et  Chris- 
tianismo,  in  Stockholm  (since  1771) ;  the  Ger- 
man Society  for  the  Promotion  of  Pure  Doc- 
trine and  True  Piety,  founded  by  John  Au- 
gust Urlsperger  ( A.D.  1775),  in  Augsburg,  and 
afterward  removed  to  Basle;  the  Teyler  Leg- 
acy, in  Harlem  (A.D.  1786),  and  others.  It 
would  be  very  timely  to  make  new  efforts 
and  sacrifices  for  the  defense  and  protection 
of  assailed  Christian  doctrine.  And  in  this 
contest  it  is  eminently  advisable  that,  by  the 
comparative  study  of  religions,  proofs  and 
weapons  be  secured  for  the  defense  of  Gos- 
pel truth,  lest  they  be  employed  in  combat 
against  it.  It  would  also  be  in  the  spirit  of 
this  Conference,  which  is  united  by  the  con- 
sensus of  faith,  and  at  the  same  time  respects 
the  disscnsus,  acting  according  to  the  two 
mottoes — Suum  cwque,aud.  Firibusunitis — if  it 
would  declare  its  sympathy  with  the  aim, 
and  its  appreciation  of  the  importance  of  the 
comparative  study  of  religious,  in  its  bear- 
ing upon  Christian  apologetics,  and  if,  by  its 
testimony  and  influence,  it  would  give  en- 
couragement to  such  scientific  labors  in  the 
service  of  Christianity. 

"  And  other  sheep  I  have,  which  are  not  of 
this  fold ;  them  also  must  I  bring,  and  they 
shall  hear  my  voice,  and  there  shall  be  one 
fold  and  one  shepherd."  With  this  expres- 
sion of  true  toleration  and  high  hope  from 
the  lips  of  our  Saviour,  I  conclude,  desiring 
to  share  with  you  the  conviction  that  the 
comparison  of  religions  can  and  must  lead 
to  a  union  in  religion.  So  help  us  God! 


APPENDIX  TO  DIVISION  III. 


DISCUSSION  ON  DARWINISM  AND  THE  DOCTRINE 
OF  DEVELOPMENT. 

[Daring  the  holding  of  the  Philosophical  Section  in  St  Paul's  M.  E.  Church,  on  Monday,  October  6th,  an 
extempore  debate  occurred,  principally  bearing  upon  the  Development  theory,  as  enunciated  by  Darwin  and 
others.  After  the  first  Paper  of  the  day  had  been  read  by  Dr.  McCosh  [see  p.  264],  the  discussion  was  opened 
by  three  speakers— M.  Weldon,  Dr.  Brown,  nnd  Dr.  Hodge— and  was  continued  at  intervals  during  both  the 
morning  and  afternoon  sessions,  as  other  Papers  on  kindred  topics  were  presented,  President  Anderson,  of 
Rochester  University,  being  the  last  speaker.  On  the  conclusion  of  his  address,  a  resolution  was  offered  by 
a  member  of  the  Conference,  and  unanimously  adopted,  that  Dr.  Anderson  be  requested  to  write  out  his 
remarks,  and  that  they  be  printed  with  the  official  documents  of  the  Conference.  In  complying  with  this 
resolution,  it  has  seemed  advisable,  on  the  part  of  the  editor,  to  insert  also  a  brief  abstract  of  the  whole  de- 
bate.—Ed.] 


REMARKS  OF  THE  REV.  GEORGE  W.  WEL- 
DON,  OF  LONDON. — Mr.  Chairman :  The  ques- 
tion which  is  before  us  thismoruingistbedoc- 
trine  of  development  in  its  religious  aspect, 
or,  as  our  programme  has  it,  "The  Religious 
Aspects  of  the  Doctrine  of  Development." 
Now,  I  think  all  of  us  who  have  heard  the 
able  and  eloquent  paper  of  Dr.  McCosh  must 
come  to  this  conclusion :  that  unsolved  prob- 
lems of  creation  ought  to  make  men  modest; 
for,  as  Bishop  Butler  says,  we  do  not  know 
the  whole  of  the  case,  and  any  man  who  de- 
sires to  exercise  common-sense  must  acknowl- 
edge that  we  are  ignorant  of  many  of  these 
points.  We  have  to  decide  in  the  present 
day  whether  we  are  to  accept  the  theory  of 
the  amiable,  but  I  think  mistaken,  Professor 
Darwin,  of  Englaud.  In  other  words,  whether 
we  ought  to  believe  that  man,  as  he  is,  came 
from  clots  of  animated  jelly,  or  whether  he 
is  the  work  of  the  Almighty  Being,  who  said, 
when  he  brought  him  forth,  that  he  was  very 
good.  If  man  is  sprung  from  primeval  mat- 
ter, he  can  not  be  the  man  spoken  of  in  Gen- 
esis. But,  sir,  it  is  sometimes  thought  that 
the  Bible  is  responsible  for  every  doctrine 
of  modem  science.  I  beg  permission  to  take 
exception  to  any  such  idea.  The  Bible  was 
not  intended  to  instruct  us  in  science  or  the 
details  of  history.  The  Bible  was  made  to 
teach  us  the  one  thing  needful.  The  mighty 
monarchs  and  important  empires  that  have 
come  in  contact  with  the  history  of  man's 
creation  have,  of  course,  been  spoken  of  in 
the  Bible,  but  then,  as  soon  as  their  special 
relation  to  the  creation  had  been  treated  of, 
they  were  allowed  to  sink  into  the  back- 
ground. The  Bible  was  written  to  teach 
man  the  way  of  access  to  God  through  Jesus 
Christ,  wholly  ignoring  any  thing  regarding 


the  technicalities  of  scientific  discoveries. 
Onr  modern  infidel  tells  us  that  in  the  Bible 
we  have  here  only  the  production  of  one 
man,  like  many  of  our  modern  books,  con- 
taining poetry,  prose,  and  history ;  and  am 
I,  he  asks,  to  suppose  that  this  is  the  produc- 
tion of  a  mighty  man  ?  Sir,  I  can  show  the 
infidel  that  that  patchwork  is  the  very  proof 
of  its  production  by  a  divine  mind.  I  see 
by  those  plans  before  me  [pointing  to  maps 
suspended  on  the  wall]  that  the  earth  is 
made  up  of  numerous  strata,  all  differing  in 
substance,  but  their  products  and  magnifi- 
cent service  over  the  globe  is  the  source 
from  which  man  and  beast  derive  sustenance 
and  strength.  My  attention  is  riveted  upon 
the  same  commanding  and  ennobling  object, 
the  one  foundation  of  our  peace  and  hope,  the 
almighty  and  adorable  Saviour,  the  strength 
and  righteousness  of  the  people  of  God  in 
every  form  and  in  every  age.  Whatever 
book  I  open  I  find  Jesus  Christ  the  same — 
he  the  first,  the  last,  the  midst,  and  without 
end.  I  say  that  the  Christian  development 
of  the  Gospel  of  Jesus  is  the  whole  aim  of 
the  Word  of  God;  and  I  will  say  to  you,  in 
conclusion,  that  the  difference  between  the 
religious  views  of  an  ancient  patriarch  and 
one  of  ourselves  is  only  a  difference  of  de- 
gree, not  of  kind.  I  was  struck,  yesterday, 
by  something  I  noticed  in  your  city.  While 
I  was  crossing  Fulton  Ferry  I  saw  the  mag- 
nificently strong  buttresses  of  some  beauti- 
ful bridge  that  is  to  span  your  grand  river. 
We  see  the  buttresses  rising,  and  from  them 
we  can  imagine  something  of  what  the  bridge 
will  bo  when  it  is  completed.  When  at  length 
it  is  finished,  you  will  get  it  in  all  its  com- 
pleteness and  symmetry;  but  it  is  only  the 
bridge  which  you  saw  some  time  before  in 


318 


CHRISTIANITY  AND  ITS  ANTAGONISMS. 


embryo — the  buttresses  slowly  rising  from  a 
network  of  scaffolding.  So  it  is  iu  the  re- 
ligion of  oldeu  times  and  of  to-day:  it  is  a 
difference,  not  of  kind,  but  of  degree. 

REMARKS  OF  THE  REV.  J.  C.  BROWN, 
LL.D.,  OF  BERWICK-ON-TWEED,  ENGLAND. — 
I  admit  the  propriety  of  the  remarks  being 
impromptu.  At  the  same  time,  desiring  to 
be  explicit  in  the  statement,  I  retired  to  jot 
down  in  pencil  the  few  remarks  I  have  to 
make.  Though  we  are  not  met  for  contro- 
versy, we  are  met  for  conference,  and  I  desire, 
as  a  botanist  of  twenty  years'  standing,  to 
submit  the  following  testimony  as  a  contri- 
bution toward  the  expression  of  views  iu 
regard  to  the  aspects  of  the  doctrine  of  de- 
velopment : 

First.  All  that  I  know  in  regard  to  the  veg- 
etable kingdom  is  iu  accordance  with  the 
hypothesis  of  development,  as  that  term  is 
generally  understood.  I  know  of  nothing  in- 
compatible with  that  hypothesis,  and  I  know 
of  much  which  seems  to  support  it. 

Second.  I  find  that  hypothesis,  as  a  work- 
ing hypothesis,  much  more  useful  in  the 
prosecution  of  research,  and  in  the  exposi- 
tion of  results  obtained  by  research,  than  the 
hypothesis  of  a  separate  and  independent 
creation  of  the  several  recognized  species  of 
vegetable  production. 

Third.  Facts  which  I  have  learned  in  re- 
gard to  the  animal  kingdom  are  in  accord- 
ance with  the  supposition  that  the  work  of 
creation  in  this  kingdom  has  been,  analogous 
to  what  it  has  been  in  the  other. 

Fourth.  The  circumstance  of  all  that  I  know 
on  these  subjects  being  in  accordance  with 
the  hypothesis  of  development  has  in  no  way 
affected  my  views  on  any  one  of  the  follow- 
ing points  of  dogmatic  theology,  which  are 
intimately  connected  with  religious  life,  on 
which  points  I  hold  the  views  advanced  in 
the  Shorter  Catechism  issued  by  the  West- 
minster Assembly  of  Divines : 
I.  Man's  chief  end. 

II.  The  only  rule  which  God  has  given 
to  direct  us  how  we  may  glorify 
and  enjoy  him. 

III.  The  attributes  of  God  and  the  mode 

of  divine  existence. 

IV.  Sin. 

V.  Effectual  calling. 
VI.  Repentance  unto  life. 
VII.  Justification. 
VIII.  Adoption. 
•  IX.  Sanctification. 

X.  The  blessings  which  in  this  life  ac- 
company or  flow  from  these. 
XI.  The  blessings  to  which  believers  are 
admitted  at  death  and  at  the  res- 
urrection. 
XII.  Providence. 
XIII.  Prayer. 

Fifth.  I  don't  believe,  with  those  divines 
of  Westminster,  that  God  created  all  things 


out  of  nothing  iu  the  space  of  six  days ;  but 
it  was  not  the  doctrine  of  development  which 
led  me  to  abandon  that  dogma,  and  there- 
fore it  is  not  responsible  for  my  abandon- 
ment of  that  view  of  creation. 

Sixth.  The  hypothesis  relates  solely  to  the 
mode  of  creation,  not  the  fact,  and  from  the 
effect  of  it  on  nay  own  mind,  I  anticipate  that 
the  confirmation  or  the  general  adoption  of 
the  hypothesis  of  development  will  ulti- 
mately exercise  a  beneficial  influence  on  re- 
ligion.   

REV.  DR.  HODGE,  OF  PRINCETON. — I  don't 
stand  here  to  make  any  speech  at  all.  I  rise 
simply  to  ask  Dr.  Brown  one  question.  I 
want  him  to  tell  us  what  development  is. 
That  has  not  been  done.  The  great  ques- 
tion which  divides  theists  from  atheists — 
Christians  from  unbelievers — is  this  :  Is  de- 
velopment an  intellectual  process  guided  by 
God,  or  is  it  a  blind  process  of  unintelligi- 
ble, unconscious  force,  which  knows  no  end 
and  adopts  no  means  ?  In  other  words,  is 
God  the  author  of  all  we  see,  the  creator  of 
all  the  beauty  and  grandeur  of  this  world,  or 
is  unintelligible  force,  gravity,  electricity, 
and  such  like  ?  This  is  a  vital  question,  sir. 
We  can  not  stand  here  and  hear  men  talk 
about  development,  without  telling  us  what 
development  is. 

DR.  BROWN. — My  reply  shall  be  simply  in 
answer  to  the  question,  not  an  argument  or 
discussion.  What  I  understand  by  the  de- 
velopment hypothesis — many  call  it  a  the- 
ory ;  I  call  it,  and  maintain  that  it  is  as  yet 
generally,  and  certainly  with  me,  a  hypoth- 
esis— is,  confining  myself  to  the  vegetable 
kingdom,  that  the  whole  of  the  species  of 
roses  with  which  we  are  acquainted  are  not 
so  many  separate,  special  creations,  but  are 
all  modified  developments  of  one  kind  of 
rose ;  and  all  the  information  I  possess  in  re- 
gard to  the  vegetable  kingdom  indicates  that 
not  only  what  we  call  species,  but  what 
many  call  genera  and  orders — calling  them 
genera  and  orders  in  our  ignorance — are  also 
modified  developments  of  the  same  forma- 
tion. With  regard  to  who  is  the  author  of 
creation,  have  I  not  answered  it  ?  I  refer  to 
the  doctrine  in  the  Shorter  Catechism.  Is  a 
minister  and  a  missionary  of  forty  years' 
standing  to  be  required  to  tell  whether  he 
believes  that  this  world  is  made  by  God  ? 

But  the  question  has  been  put,  and  it  de- 
serves an  answer.  My  belief  is  that  every 
thing  in  heaven  and  earth  tiud  hell  was  cre- 
ated by  the  Lord  and  Father  of  our  Saviour 
Jesus  Christ.  We  are  taught  in  that  Cate- 
chism to  which  I  referred  to  make  a  holy, 
reverent  use  of  all  God's  attributes,  ordi- 
nances, words,  and  works,  and  all  whereby- 
soever  he  makes  himself  known.  I  hold  that 
as  an  expositor  of  God's  work,  I  am  as  truly 
a  prophet  of  the  Lord  as  I  am  when  I  stand 
in  the  pulpit  as  an  expositor  of  God's  Word. 


DARWINISM  AND  THE  DEVELOPMENT  THEORY. 


319 


The  inquiry  is  not  as  to  the  fact,  but  as  to 
the  how  ?  How  has  God  produced  this  won- 
drous world — a  world  full  of  beauty  ?  Nev- 
er, through  endless  ages  of  existence,  shall  I 
cease  to  thiuk  with  gratitude  of  this,  that 
the  infancy  of  my  being  was  spent  in  this 
glorious  world,  and  as  God  gives  me  oppor- 
tunities I  shall  continue  to  study  the  won- 
drous works  of  his  hand. 

My  graudsire  was  a  man  not  unknown  in 
Scotland  and  America  —  John  Brown,  of 
Haddingtou.  One  of  his  dying  sayings  was 
this :  "  I  have  hunted  after  all  the  lawful 
knowledge  of  the  sous  of  men,  but  all  would 
I  give  to  know  more  of  the  love  of  God  which 
is  in  Christ  Jesus."  These  sentiments  have 
been  my  sentiments,  according  to  my  weak- 
er powers,  throughout  a  ministry  of  forty 
years,  and  I  hope  to  prosecute  to  the  end  of 
my  life  the  researches  for  which  an  opportu- 
nity is  afforded  us  below,  and  hope  in  the 
better  world  to  join  those  who  proclaim  "  the 
whole  earth  is  full  of  Thy  glory." 


After  the  reading  of  Professor  Guyot's  pa- 
per [given  ou  p.  276], 

REV.  ALEXANDER  BURNETT,  of  Aberdeen, 
Scotland,  remarked  that  he  did  not  under- 
stand whether  the  reader  of  the  paper  held 
the  view  that  the  days  of  creation  were  pe- 
riods of  time  or  regular  days.  He  had  al- 
ways stumbled  over  the  passage  that  "the 
evening  and  the  morning  were  the  first  day," 
and  also  the  words  of  the  verse,  "  For  in  six 
days  the  Lord  made  heaven  and  earth,  and 
rested  the  seventh  day."  He  could  not  un- 
derstand from  the  Professor's  paper  whether 
he  meant  that  these  were  actual  days.  In 
reply, 

PROFESSOR  GUYOT  restated  his  views  on 
that  point.  He  said  the  days  of  creation 
are  marked  by  works,  and  not  by  any  definite 
time.  In  the  true  history  of  any  thing  from 
the  great  beginning,  there  are  epochs  of  de- 
velopment ;  in  the  plant  it  is  the  root,  stem, 
leaf,  flower,  seed — these  are  the  days  of  the 
plant — time  is  given  according  to  the  need. 
Such  are  the  days  of  creation,  which  were 
simply  indicated  by  the  successive  steps  of 
its  organization.  In  order  to  retain  the  idea 
of  days  of  twenty-four  hours,  we  must  leave 
Moses,  and  be  very  unjust  to  him;  for  he 
tells  us  that  the  day  of  twenty-four  hours  be- 
gan at  the  fourth  day  of  creation  and  not  at 
the  first,  when  the  day  and  night  are  simply 
synonyms  of  light  and  darkness,  without  suc- 
cession. As  to  the  Sabbath  day  of  the  Crea- 
tor, without  an  evening,  it  can  not  be  of  an- 
other kind  from  the  cosmogonic  days ;  but 
man's  week  of  toil  and  man's  Sabbath  day 
are  measured  according  to  the  shortness  of 
his  earthly  existence. 


PRINCIPALDAWSON,D.D.,  of  Montreal,  Can- 
ada, expressed  his  belief  in  the  theories  his 
friend,  Professor  Guyot,  had  put  forth,  and 


argued  that  the  seventh  day  spoken  of  in  the 
second  chapter  of  Genesis  could  not  be  lim- 
ited to  twenty-four  hours,  since  it  was  not 
said  to  have  had  an  evening  or  morning,  and 
since  the  work  of  creation  was  not  resumed. 
According  to  Moses,  we  now  live  in  the  sev- 
enth day ;  but,  according  to  the  author  of 
the  Epistle  to  the  Hebrews  (chap,  iv.),  the 
fall  prevented  us  from  entering  into  this  rest 
of  God,  and  the  weekly  Sabbath  is  a  memo- 
rial of  this  loss,  as  well  as  of  God's  rest. 
Further,  according  to  the  same  writer,  Christ 
has  entered  into  his  Sabbatism,  and  our 
Lord's  day  is  a  short  reminder  of  a  like  per- 
petual Sabbatism  which  remains  to  us.  We 
can  not,  therefore,  properly  explain  or  de- 
feud  the  Sabbath  or  the  Lord's  day  unless 
we  hold  with  Moses  that  the  seventh  day  is 
an  indefinite  period.  This  being  so,  there  is 
surely  no  ground  to  object  to  any  length  of 
the  other  days  that  geology  may  require. 


After  the  reading  of  Professor  Spiess's  pa- 
per [which  see,  on  p.  309],  the  Chairman  an- 
nounced that  a  limited  time  would  be  allow- 
ed for  a  general  discussion  of  the  subjects 
that  had  been  considered  in  the  papers  read 
during  the  day.  Calls  for  Dr.  Dawson  to 
take  the  platform  were  heard  from  different 
parts  of  the  audience.  Dr.  Dawson  said  that 
if  there  were  questions  any  one  would  like 
to  ask  him,  he  would  be  glad  to  answer  them 
to  the  best  of  his  ability.  A  clergyman  in 
the  centre  of  the  church  at  once  arose,  and 
asked  whether  there  is  any  necessary  antag- 
onism between  the  Darwinian  system  and 
the  Christian  religion  ?  In  response, 

DR.  DAWSON  said  : — The  question  asked 
me  is  whether  there  is  any  necessary  antag- 
onism between  the  Darwinian  system  and 
the  Christian  religion  ?  That  is  a  question 
that  would  require  a  treatise  to  answer,  and 
I  scarcely  know  where  to  begin  in  attempt- 
ing a  reply.  Darwinism  is  not  the  whole  of 
what  is  understood  by  the  doctrine  of  evolu- 
tion. The  doctrine  of  evolution  holds  ap- 
parently that  all  things  have  evolved  them- 
selves— produced  themselves,  so  to  speak. 
In  holding  such  a  doctrine,  Mr.  Herbert 
Spencer  assumes  matter  and  force.  That  is, 
he  assumes  almost  a  practical  omnipotence — 
matter,  with  all  the  properties  known  to  the 
chemist,  and  all  the  forces  known  to  the 
physicist,  being  taken  for  granted.  Then, 
having  matter  and  force,  our  Spencerian 
philosophers  maintain  that  from  them  they 
can  produce  life,  although  no  one  has  yet 
proved  that  the  humblest  organisms  can 
originate  spontaneously  without  previous 
life.  They  further  assume  the  possibility  of 
the  conversion  of  the  plant  into  the  animal, 
though  this  also  is  unproved.  Thus,  when 
you  speak  of  Darwinism,  you  presuppose 
theories  that  make  vaster  demands  on  our 
faith  than  on  our  science.  Darwin  takes  up 
only  one  branch  of  these  speculations,  that 


320 


CHRISTIANITY  AND  ITS  ANTAGONISMS. 


relating  to  the  transmutation  of  species,  and 
says  if  you  will  give  me  two  or  three  species 
of  plants  or  animals,  I  will  show  you  how  all 
species  of  plants  or  animals  are  evolved  out 
of  them.  He  does  this  by  reasoning  as  to 
possibilities,  not  by  facts.  In  the  details  of 
Darwinian  reasoning  wo  are  constantly  met 
with  difficulty  as  to  the  true  nature  and  lim- 
itation of  species  as  we  have  them,  and  in 
this  naturalists  are  not  agreed,  so  that  much 
has  to  be  done  before  we  can  state  the  real 
bearing  of  these  hypotheses  on  the  doctrine 
that  animals  and  plants  were  created  "after 
their  kinds."  On  the  other  hand,  we  find  in 
the  first  chapter  of  Genesis  the  word  ''cre- 
ate" used  for  the  introduction  of  the  first 
animals  and  of  man,  and  the  formulae  "  let 
us  make,"  let  the  "  earth  bring  forth,"  etc., 
in  other  cases.  Can  AVO  explain  this  differ- 
ence ?  If  I  say  that  Moses  maintains  that 
the  kinds  of  plants  and  animals  were  cre- 
ated separately,  I  might  say  more  than  he 
authorizes  me  to  say.  Science,  on  its  part, 
does  not  at  present  tell  us  how  the  species 
came  into  existence.  We  only  know  that 
they  came  into  being  at  different  periods  of 
geological  time.  Science  is  based  on  facts, 
but  we  have  not  the  facts  on  this  point.  Do 
not  be  afraid,  however,  to  discuss  these  sub- 
jects. Study  them.  Enter  fully  into  them. 
After  you  have  studied  them  a  lifetime,  you 
will  still  find  as  much  more  to  learn. 

DR.  HODGE  : — My  idea  of  Darwinism  is 
that  it  teaches  that  all  the  forms  of  vegeta- 
ble and  animal  life,  including  man  and  all 
the  organs  of  the  human  body,  are  the  result 
of  unintelligent,  undesignatiug  forces ;  and 
that  the  human  eye  was  formed  by  mere  un- 
conscious action.  Now,  according  to  my 
idea,  that  is  a  denial  of  what  the  Bible 
teaches,  of  what  reason  teaches,  and  of  what 
the  conscience  of  any  human  being  teaches ; 
for  it  is  impossible  for  any  such  organ  as  the 
eye  to  be  formed  by  blind  forces.  It  ex- 
cludes God ;  it  excludes  intelligence  from  ev- 
ery thing.  Am  I  right  ? 

DR.  DAWSOX  : — I  think  Darwin  would  not 
admit  so  much  as  has  been  said,  and  yet  I 
believe  his  doctrine  logically  leads  to  that 
conclusion.  The  Darwinian  theory  takes 
hold  of  the  production  of  varieties,  and  it  is 
true  that  these  varieties  are  produced  by  the 
action  of  external  nature  upon  the  species. 
I  know  that  many  persons  are  confused  by 
the  distinction  between  varieties  and  spe- 
cies. As  regards  the  varieties,  Darwin  is 
well  enough,  but  as  regards  the  species  his 
theory  has  not  been  proved,  and  it  certainly 
does,  more  especially  with  respect  to  man, 
come  into  conflict  with  the  Bible.  The  Dar- 
winian theory,  I  believe,  is  this:  That  spe- 
cies have  come  into  existence  by  what  he 
calls  natural  selection,  which  natural  selec- 
tion arises  in  the  struggle  of  species  for  ex- 
istence in  the  world,  and  the  survival  of  the 
fittest  in  that  struggle.  So  stated,  the  doc- 


trine is  not  a  result  of  scientific  induction,  bnt 
a  mere  hypothesis,  to  account  for  facts  not 
otherwise  explicable  except  by  the  doctrine 
of  creation. 

REV.  JOSEPH  EDKiN8,of  Pekin,  China, then 
spoke  as  follows:  —  Dear  Brethren  of  the 
Alliance :  When  Professor  Spiess  referred  to 
the  subject  of  comparative  philology  and 
the  comparison  of  religions,  I  felt  desirous  to 
say  a  word  in  regard  to  these  matters,  be- 
lieving in  their  high  importance  in  modern 
Christian  apologetics.  During  a  missionary 
life  of  twenty-five  years  in  China,  I  chose 
these  two  fields  of  research,  and  made  in 
them  such  investigations  as  I  could.  The 
history  of  language  and  that  of  religion  are, 
I  believe,  very  closely  connected.  In  many 
cases  they  grow  up  together  previous  to  the 
formation  of  national  literatures.  The  study 
of  religions  may  be  carried  on  in  China  with 
great  advantage.  Yet  little  has  been  done 
toward  the  elucidation  of  the  religions  of 
Eastern  Asia,  just  as  it  is  also  true  that  the 
eye  of  philological  inquiry  has  scarcely  yet 
been  at  all  steadily  directed  to  the  languages 
spoken  in  that  part  of  the  world.  Much  may 
be  hoped  for  from  the  examination  of  the 
ancient  Chinese  religion,  embracing  as  it 
did  primeval  monotheism  and  the  practice 
of  burnt  sacrifices,  reminding  us  so  strongly 
of  the  early  religion  of  the  Scriptures.  The 
ancient  religion  of  the  Mongols  has  also  to 
be  examined,  as  it  was  before  their  conver- 
sion to  Buddhism.  The  religions  customs 
and  beliefs  of  the  Siberian  tribes  and  the 
Shamanism  of  the  Manchus  should  be  in- 
quired into,  and  the  results  of  these  research- 
es compared  with  the  religious  usages  and 
traditions  of  the  North  American  tribes.  The 
old  traditions  of  the  Babylonians  are  now, 
by  the  decipherment  of  cuneiform  inscrip- 
tions, rapidly  coming  to  light.  They  form  a 
link  in  the  chain  which  connects  the  re- 
ligion of  the  sous  of  Shem  and  of  the  proph- 
ets— such  as  Enoch  and  Noah  of  the  primi- 
tive revelation — with  its  remarkable  east- 
ern developments.  The  Karen  traditions,  to 
which,  by  the  great  success  of  the  Baptist 
missions,  public  attention  has  been  specially 
called,  are  another  link.  The  remarkable 
religious  usages  of  the  Fijians,  and  especial- 
ly of  the  Island  of  Tonga,  are  so  strongly 
marked  with  the  impress  of  the  old  religion 
of  Western  Asia,  that  every  one  who  has 
read  of  them  has  wished  to  find  by  what 
clew  the  connection  between  the  Polynesi- 
ans and  the  Semites  could  be  discovered. 
The  Polynesians,  scattered  over  a  thousand 
isolated  points  in  the  South  Seas,  have  plain- 
ly sunk  from  a  state  much  more  civilized 
than  that  in  which  they  now  are.  To  trace 
the  chain  of  religious  resemblances  still  fur- 
ther eastward,  who  that  has  read  in  Hard- 
wick's  interesting  work — "Christ  and  other 
Masters" — the  account  there  given  of  the 
old  Mexican  religion,  has  not  longed  to  know 


DARWINISM  AND  THE  DEVELOPMENT  THEORY. 


321 


why  there  exists  so  striking  a  likeness  in 
several  points  between  that  religion  and  the 
usages  and  beliefs  of  the  Southern  Asiatic 
races  ?  I  believe,  for  my  own  part,  that  a  dis- 
tinct Semitic  influence  in  religion  and  lan- 
guage may  be  traced  through  the  countries 
of  Southern  Asia  into  the  Polynesian  Seas, 
and  from  thence  to  the  western  shore  of 
America.  As  Turanian  principles  of  lan- 
guage and  religious  belief  entered  America 
by  Behring's  Straits,  so  Semitic  impressions 
nud  traditions  reached  the  same  continent 
by  a  route  across  the  ocean. 

By  inquiries  such  as  these,  carried  on  in 
the  region  of  religion  and  language,  much 
may  be  done  to  strengthen  the  scientific 
proof  of  the  Scripture  doctrine  of  the  com- 
mon origin  of  mankind.  They  may  be  very 
properly  pressed  on  the  attention  of  those 
American  scholars  who  are  interested  in 
philology  and  archaeology,  not  only  as  il- 
lustrating the  ancient  history  of  this  con- 
tinent, but  as  presenting  the  materials 
for  a  new  and  valuable  chapter  to  be  add- 
ed to  the  apology  for  our  religion  against 
the  assaults  of  the  scientific  infidelity  of  the 
day. 

I  will  add  only  one  word.  Remember  the 
advice  of  our  German  brother  to  study  com- 
parative philology,  and  to  carry  out  the  prin- 
ciples of  comparative  research  into  the  hea- 
then religious  of  the  world. 


The  debate  was  concluded  by 

PRESIDENT  AXDERSON,  of  Rochester  Uni- 
versity, who  spoke  as  follows : — In  reference 
to  the  subject  under  discussion,  I  beg  leave 
to  suggest  the  propriety  of  being  careful  in 
regard  to  the  use  of  ambiguous  terms.  For 
illustration  :  The  word  evolution  is  suscepti- 
ble of  two  meanings,  one  of  which  is  a  name 
for  the  process  of  the  Almighty  in  develop- 
ing the  plan  of  creation — it  being  used  sim- 
ply as  a  name  for  the  process  of  the  creative 
energy  under  the  control  of  Infinite  Intelli- 
gence. In  this  sense  the  word  evolution  is 
used  iu  entire  harmony  with  belief  in  a  con- 
scious, personal  God.  .  It  is  the  evolution  of 
a  plan  previously  involved  in  the  divine  in- 
telligence and  will;  the  outgoing  process  of 
creative  power,  the  mode  and  end  of  whose 
activity  were  foreseen  and  foreordained.  A 
second  use  of  the  word  evolution  is  to  name 
the  process  of  growth  in  the  universe,  dis- 
counting from  the  word  all  reference  to  voli- 
tion, or  pre-existing,  consciously  formed  plan 
or  idea.  Used  in  this  sense,  the  word  is  sim- 
ply and  solely  the  name  for  a  process,  leav- 
ing out  all  reference  to  the  will  and  thought 
which  determined  and  controlled  it.  Using 
the  word  in  this  sense,  when  we  say  that 
the  universe  is  due  to  evolution,  it  is  equiva- 
lent to  saying  that  the  fact  and  order  of  the 
universe  are  due  to  an  abstract  term,  which 
simply  names  the  process.  Thus  evolution, 
in  itself  a  mere  verbal  concept,  is  made  to 
21 


take  the  place  of  volition  and  intelligence. 
There  are  plan  and  order,  which  are  due,  not 
to  a  planning  or  ordering  force  or  mind, 
but  to  a  force  without  a  will,  whose  exist- 
ence is  postulated,  and  whose  activity  is  mod- 
ified by  no  intelligence  or  benevolent  pur- 
pose. Using  the  word  in  this  sense,  it  is 
made  to  do  the  work  of  a  concrete  force, 
guided  by  mind.  To  adopt  such  an  explana- 
tion of  the  order  of  the  universe  is  as  irra- 
tional as  to  account  for  it  by  the  eternal 
ideas  of  Plato  or  the  realists  of  the  Middle 
Ages.  This  use  of  abstract  terms,  as  if  they 
named  concrete  realities,  is  the  special  vice 
of  metaphysics  and  metaphysical  methods, 
and  has  no  place  in  a  system  which  purports 
to  rest  on  positive  facts  and  verified  laws. 
In  all  our  discussions  of  a  question  of  this 
sort,  we  should  be  very  careful  of  deceiving 
ourselves  by  the  use  of  abstract  terms  when 
the  conditions  of  the  problem  absolutely  re- 
quire the  presence  of  personality,  will,  and 
intelligence.  If  evolution  is  understood  to 
mean  the  process  of  creation,  whether  longer 
or  shorter,  through  one  set  of  proximate  an- 
tecedents and  consequences  or  another,  all 
due  to  a  continuous  activity  of  a  creator, 
the  word  represents  an  intelligible  idea  pos- 
sible to  thought.  But  when  evolution  is  set 
forth  as  determining  in  itself  its  own  proc- 
esses, and  itself  working  out  the  order,  beau- 
ty, and  adaptation  of  the  entire  cosmos,  and 
is  proposed  as  a  theory  to  account  for  the 
universe  and  its  manifold  and  wonderfully 
complicated  plan,  the  language  becomes  sim- 
ply unintelligible.  Let  the  word  "evolu- 
tion" be  replaced  by  tbft  word  "growth," 
and  we  find  ourselves  accounting  for  the  uni- 
verse and  its  manifold  forms  by  the  child- 
ish mode  of  saying  that  they  exist  because 
"they  grew."  A  similar  ambiguity  affects 
the  word  "development,"  and  the  phrases 
"  natural  selection"  and  "  survival  of  the  fit- 
test." Selection,  however  orderly  or  natural 
it  may  be,  involves  intelligence  somewhere. 
In  the  degree  that  it  is  natural,  and  accord- 
ing with  a  uniformly  recurrent  law,  or  plan, 
or  system,  the  more  distinctly  is  intelligence 
shown.  Development,  or  unrolling,  is  un- 
intelligible without  the  implied  conception 
of  something  of  a  plan  or  thought  previous- 
ly enveloped  in  the  orderly  acting  force 
which  produces  the  result.  The  "  survival 
of  the  fittest "  involves  the  fact  that  there 
are  present  in  the  universe  types  and  forms 
of  life  able  to  survive  in  the  "struggle  for 
existence,"  because  of  the  perfection  of  their 
form,  and  the  delicacy  and  completeness  of 
their  adjustment  to  the  external  conditions 
in  which  they  are  placed.  The  very  pres- 
ence of  these  conditions  of  life  and  the  ad- 
justment between  them  and  the  types  of  or- 
ganized life  involve  foresight,  choice,  plan, 
intelligence. 

If  we  deny  that  this  wonderful  adjust 
ment  of  means  to  ends,  of  Ccipacities  to  the 


CHRISTIANITY  AND  ITS  ANTAGONISMS. 


conditions  of  their  exercise,  is  an  indication 
of  the  presence  of  mind,  we  are  bound  by 
parity  of  reasoning  to  deny  that  orderly  ac- 
tion, systematically  directed  to  intelligent 
aims,  or  the  intelligent  processes  of  thought 
and  language,  are  any  indication  of  inind  in 
man.  Man  is  the  microcosm,  or  little  world, 
and  as  such  is  an  incarnate  intelligence  and 
•will.  The  great  world — the  universe — man- 
ifests and  impersonates  an  intelligence  as 
clearly  and  as  really  as  does  man.  As  mem- 
bers of  the  human  race,  we  are  conscious  of 
the  working  of  this  intelligence  in  ourselves ; 
and  while  wo  can  not  enter  into  the  con- 
sciousness of  another  man,  we  know  that  he 
is  intelligent  and  conscious  from  his  lan- 
guage and  actions.  We  can  not  identify 
ourselves  with  the  divine  consciousness,  any 
more  than  we  can  with  that  of  our  fellow- 
men  ;  but  we  are  bound,  by  the  same  reason- 
ing, to  recognize  a  divine  consciousness  and 
mind  in  the  cosmos,  as  really  as  we  are  bound 
to  recognize  intelligence  as  controlling  the 
expectations  and  actions  of  our  fellow-men. 
It  is 'somewhat  singular  to  find  the  cham- 
pions of  positive  science,  in  their  attempts 
to  account  for  the  process  of  creation,  tak- 
ing refuge  in  abstract  terms,  and  in  their 
discussions  continually  confounding  them 
with  concrete  forces  of  intelligence  and  will. 
Positive  science  claims  to  be  conversant  only 
with  ascertained  facts  and  verified  laws. 
Few  books  on  metaphysics  or  theology  make 
freer  use  of  these  objectified  concepts  than 
do  those  of  Herbert  Spencer.  This  class  of 
philosophers  postulate  the  existence  of  mat- 
ter and  force — of  matter  without  an  origin, 
and  force  without  a  will.  It  seems  to  me 
impossible  for  the  human  mind  to  conceive 
of  either  as  originating  without  a  cause ;  and 
especially  is  this  true  of  our  notion  of  force. 
Sir  John  Herschel,  in  his  remarkable  tract 
on  the  Origin  of  Force,  first  published  in  the 
"Fortnightly  Keview,"  speaking  as  a  physi- 
cist and  a  mathematician,  emphatically  states 
his  conviction  that  force  is  an  unmeaning 
term,  and  unintelligible  conception,  apart 
from  the  idea  of  will  somewhere,  either  hu- 
man or  divine.  In  all  discussions  of  this  sort, 
we  should  be  careful  to  hold  the  apostles  of 
positive  science  in  strict  allegiance  to  their 
own  declared  methods  of  thought.  They  may 
not  make  use  of  hypothesis,  except  as  a  scaf- 
folding wherewith  to  erect  a  solid  structure 
of  truth.  Hypotheses,  or  guesses,  are  all  but 
indispensable  for  the  direction  of  research 
in  scientific  inquiry;  but  such  hypotheses  are 
not  science.  Now  what  is  popularly  called 
Darwinism  may  be  a  useful  working  hypoth- 
esis for  the  scientific  inquirer,  but  it  has  no 
claim  to  take  rank  among  verified  laws,  or 
place  in  any  body  of  statements  claiming  to 
be  positive  science.  There  are  now,  and 
have  been  in  the  past,  two  classes  of  natu- 
ralists, one  of  which  assumes  the  doctrine  of 
the  fixity  of  type  and  species  among  vege- 


table and  animal  forms.  This  class  of  natu- 
ral ists  turn  their  attention  to  those  points 
which  distinguish  classes,  genera,  and  spe- 
cies from  each  other.  They  seek  for  distin- 
guishing marks  through  which  they  can  re- 
duce the  manifold  forms  of  nature  into  or- 
der and  system ;  giving  them  common  names, 
to  the  end  that  they  may  be  brought  within 
the  grasp  of  a  finite  memory.  Working  in 
this  direction  —  seeking  evidence  of  fixed- 
ness in  form — they  may  have  undervalued 
the  wonderful  flexibility  and  plastic  capac- 
ity which  many  species  possess  of  adjusting 
themselves  to  new  and  varying  conditions 
of  life.  Employed  in  the  great  work  of  class- 
ification—  their  attention  fixed  upon  the 
common  points  of  species — they  may  have, 
and  probably  did,  neglect  too  much  the  study 
of  the  tendencies  in  species  to  assume  varia- 
tions of  form — especially  under  the  superin- 
tending agency  of  man.  Impressed  with  this 
thought,  other  naturalists  assume  the  exist- 
ence of  unlimited  plasticity  and  capacity  for 
variation  as  a  working  hypothesis,  by  which 
they  shall  direct  their  inquiries  and  help  to 
classify  their  resiilts.  Here  we  have  two 
schools  of  naturalists.  Cuvier  may  repre- 
sent one.  Geoffrey  St.  Hilaire  and  Darwin, 
by  way  of  eminence,  may  represent  the  oth- 
er. "  Species  are  fixed  and  invariable,"  says 
Cuvier.  "  There  is  but  one  animal,"  says  St. 
Hilaire.  Now  we  may  not  accept  either  of 
these  hypotheses  as  absolute  scientific  truth. 
Both  are  respectable  in  the  history  of  scien- 
tific inquiry.  In  the  hands  of  able  men,  they 
have  led  to  impressive  and  important  re- 
sults. That  grand  system  of  classification 
which  makes  the  acquisition  of  natural  his- 
tory possible  to  a  memory  of  ordinary 
strength,  which  has  brought  out  the  sys- 
tem of  typical  forms  and  special  adjustments 
in  creation,  has  been  the  outgrowth  of  the 
doctrine  of  fixedness  in  animal  and  vege- 
table forms.  The  curious  and  interesting 
inquiries  and  experiments  regarding  the  ca- 
pacity of  animal  and  vegetable  forms  to  take 
on  variation  have  powerfully  impressed  the 
younger  scientific  men  and  the  reading  pub- 
lic at  large.  This  is  the  working  hypothe- 
sis just  now  fashionable  among  investiga- 
tors in  natural  history.  Used  as  a  working 
hypothesis,  provisionally  held,  it  is  unobjec- 
tionable ;  but  it  has  not  yet  approached  the 
dignity  of  a  verified  law.  We  respectfully 
ask  that,  in  default  of  verification,  it  may 
not  be  imposed  upon  us  as  a  part  of  our  sci- 
entific creed,  on  pain  of  being  excommuni- 
cated as  heretics  from  the  universal  scientif- 
ic church.  The  distinction  between  verified 
laws  and  certified  facts,  on  the  one  hand, 
and  working  hypotheses  on  the  other,  should 
always  bo  kept  in  mind  in  discussions  of 
this  sort.  It  is  the  failure  to  make  this  dis- 
tinction that  we  complain  of  among  the 
young  and  the  imaginative  followers  of  Dar- 
win, who  are  imperfectly  trained  in  the  rig- 


DARWINISM  AND  THE  DEVELOPMENT  THEORY. 


323 


id  canons  of  scientific  method.  We  object 
to  receiving  hypotheses  as  science,  because 
of  the  strictness  of  our  allegiance  to  the 
methods  of  positive  science,  of  which  they 
claim  to  be  the  special  patrons.  Every  sci- 
entific treatise  contains  in  it,  of  necessity,  a 
large  number  of  these  unverified  hypotheses. 
They  have  all  degrees  of  probability,  from  a 
near  approach  to  verification,  to  those  which 
are  founded  on  remote  and  unessential  anal- 
ogies. No  better  service  could  be  rendered 
to  the  public  than  for  experts  in  special  de- 
partments of  science  to  discriminate  care- 
fully what,  in  their  special  fields  of  inquiry, 
are  universally  considered  as  certified  fact 
and  verified  law,  from  that  which  is  hypo- 
thetical merely.  The  defenders  of  our  faith 
have  often  erred  in  too  hastily  conceding 
that  some  favorite  and  fashionable  hypothe- 
sis has  been  already  clothed  with  the  dig- 
nity and  authority  of  science.  We  should 
bear  in  mind,  too,  that  there  are  many  of 
these  hypotheses  which,  from  their  very  nat- 
ure and  the  limitations  of  the  human  mind, 
are  not  likely  ever  to  be  verified ;  which 
stand  outside  of  the  possibilities  of  verifica- 
tion. Such  a  one  is  the  question  of  the  uni- 
ty or  non-unity  of  man.  As  a  matter  of  pure 
science,  apart  from  revelation,  it  may  not 
be  possible  for  us  ever  to  settle  beyond  ques- 
tion whether  man  is  one  or  manifold  in  ori- 
gin. I  believe  that  the  hypothesis  of  the 
unity  of  man  combines  more  facts  in  its  fa- 
vor, and  excludes  more  difficulties,  than  the 
hypothesis  of  the  non-unity  of  man ;  but  as 
no  man  can,  for  the  purposes  of  evidence,  be 
supposed  to  be  present  at  his  own  birth,  no 
more  can  he  be  supposed  to  be  able  to  tes- 
tify, as  a  matter  of  fact,  to  the  circumstances 
of  his  own  creation.  Sciences  the  most  ad- 
vanced abound  with  discussions  of  these 
working  hypotheses,  which  have  more  or  less 
of  evidence  in  their  favor.  Darwinism  is 


one  of  these.  The  doctrine  of  evolution,  in 
the  Speucerian  sense,  is  another.  By  Spen- 
cer, matter  and  force  are  assumed  either  self- 
existent,  or  created  and  set  in  motion  by 
God.  Out  of  these,  plants  and  animals  grow. 
Wo  say  to  him,  if  you  ask  us  to  accept  this 
doctrine,  you  must  prove  it.  Even  under 
the  agency  of  man,  there  has  been  no  soli- 
tary instance  given  of  the  conversion  of  in- 
organic matter  into  an  animal.  We  ask  for 
a  crucial  test.  Till  this  is  supplied  we  wait 
and  question.  Even  if  these  hypotheses 
should  be  verified  as  matters  of  science,  which 
seems  to  me  very  unlikely,  the  doctrine  of  a 
personal  God  would  be  just  as  necessary  to 
explain  the  origin  of  the  universe  and  the 
process  of  its  development  as  it  is  now. 
There  is  an  unworthy  timidity  among  many 
Christian  men  at  the  apparition  of  these  hy- 
potheses, with  which  the  scientific  imagina- 
tion is  constantly  teeming. 

I  have  said  thus  much  by  way  of  caution 
in  the  use  of  terms,  and  concerning  the  im- 
portance, in  all  controversy  which  arises 
out  of  the  relations  of  revealed  truth  to  the 
advancing  sciences,  of  marking  carefully  and 
sharply  the  distinction  between  positive  sci- 
ence, made  up  of  ascertained  facts  and  veri- 
fied laws,  and  those  unverified  hypotheses 
which  abound  in  proportion  to  the  activity 
of  scientific  inquiry  and  the  freedom  of  dis- 
cussion. The  evidence  for  the  existence  of 
a  personal  Creator  can  not  be  affected  by  any 
considerations  drawn  from  the  mode,  relative 
rapidity,  or  the  nature  of  the  proximate  an- 
tecedents and  consequences  in  the  creative 
process.  The  sooner  this  is  understood  and 
recognized,  the  sooner  will  quiet  be  given  to 
the  niiud  of  the  plain  Christian  man,  and  the 
more  readily  shall  we  avoid  false  issues  and 
nugatory  discussions  in  our  defenses  of  the 
doctrine  of  God  against  the  shifting  phases 
of  aggressive  naturalism. 


IV. 

C  H  1U  S  T  I  A  Is1     I  IV  E . 

Tuesday,  October  7th,  1873. 


DIVISION  IV-CONTENTS, 


FIRST  SECTION— PERSONAL  AND  FAMILY  RELIGION. 

PACE 

1.  ARNOT  :    The  Relation  between  Doctrine  and  Life 327 

2.  FULLER:   Personal  Religion;  its  Aids  and  Hinderances 333 

3.  NAST  :  "  "  "       "        "  "  338 

4.  HARBISON  :   Family  Religion 341 

5.  PLUMER:  "  "        348 

6.  PATTON  :   Revivals  of  Religion 351 

7.  ANDERSON :    The  Right   Use  of  Wealth 357 

SECOND  SECTION— EDUCATION  AND  LITERATURE. 

1.  SIMPSON  :   Modem  Literature  and  Christianity 363 

•2.  PORTER  :          "  "  "  "  369 

:?.  RIGG:    Secular  and  Religious  Education  in  England. 377 

THIRD  SECTION— THE  PULPIT  OF  THE  AGE.  • 

1.  PARKER  :   Modern  Preaching  and  its  Requirements 383 

2.  KIDDER  :    The  Best  Methods  of  Preaching 387 

3.  BEECIIER  :   Mission  of  the  Pulpit 392 

4.  HALL  :   What  to  Preach 397 

FOURTH  SECTION— SUNDAY-SCHOOLS. 

1.  REED  :    The  Sunday-school  Work 399 

2.  NEWTON  :  Importance  of  the  Sunday-school  Agency 405 

3.  WEISS  :    Sunday-schools  in  France 410 

4.  VINCENT  :    Sunday -schools — The  Bible  Service 415 

FIFTH  SECTION— CHRISTIAN  ASSOCIATIONS, 
l.  BRAINERD  :    Young  Men's  Christian  Associations 419 


FIRST  SECTION -PERSONAL  AND  FAMILY  RELIGION. 


THE  KELATION  BETWEEN  DOCTRINE  AND  LIFE. 

BY  THE  REV.  WILLIAM  ARNOT,  EDINBURGH. 


THE  theme  of  conference  yesterday  was 
Christian  doctrine,  and  the  theme  to-day  is 
the  Christian  life.  It  may  not  be  amiss,  at 
the  commencement  of  this  day's  proceed- 
ings, to  feel  for  the  link  that  unites  these 
two.  If  I  can  not  make  a  contribution 
cither  to  the  apologetics  of  yesterday  or  the 
energetics  of  to-day,  I  may,  at  least,  be- 
come the  pivot  on  which  the  conference 
shall  swing  round  from  the  one  sphere  to 
the  other.  The  link  which  unites  doctrine 
and  duty  in  the  Christian  system  is  neither 
an  imaginary  line  nor  an  iron  rod;  it  is 
like  the  Word  of  God,  "  both  quick  (liv- 
ing) and  powerful."  It  is  like  the  great  ar- 
tery that  joins  the  heart  to  the  members  in 
a  living  body — both  the  channel  of  life  and 
the  bond  of  union.  If  that  link  is  severed 
in  the  animal,  the  life  departs ;  there  remains 
neither  heart  nor  members.  So  in  the  Chris- 
tian system,  if  doctrine  and  duty  are  not 
united,  both  are  dead:  there  remains  nei- 
ther the  sound  creed  nor  the  holy  life. 

Here,  then,  we  shall  find  a  logical  argument 
and  a  practical  lesson.  Inquirers  should  know 
the  truth  on  this  point,  and  believers  should 
practice  it. 

A  common  street  cry  of  the  day  is,  Give  us 
plenty  of  charity,  but  none  of  your  dogmas  ; 
in  other  words,  Give  us  plenty  of  sweet  fruit, 
but  don't  bother  us  with  your  hidden  mys- 
teries about  roots  and  ingrafting.  For  our 
part,  we  join  heartily  in  the  cry  for  more 
fruit ;  but  we  are  not  content  to  tie  oranges 
with  tape  on  dead  branches  lighted  with 
small  tapers,  and  dance  round  them  on  a 
winter  evening.  This  may  serve  to  amuse 
children ;  but  we  are  grown  men,  and  life 
is  earnest.  We,  too,  desire  plenty  of  good 
fruit,  and  therefore  we  busy  ourselves  in 
making  the  tree  good,  and  then  cherish  its 
roots  with  all  our  means  and  all  our  might. 

In  the  transition  from  the  eleventh  to  the 
twelfth  chapter  of  the  Epistle  to  the  Romans, 
the  knot  is  tied  that  binds  together  doctrine 
and  duty  in  a  human  life.  Speaking  gener- 
ally, with  the  eleventh  chapter  the  apostle 
concludes  his  exposition  of  doctrines :  and 
with  the  twelfth  he  begins  his  inculcation 
of  duties.  At  the  beginning  of  his  great 
treatise  he  plunged  into  the  deep  things  of 


God,  and  at  xi.,  33,  he  emerges  from  his  explo- 
ration with  a  passionate  cry  of  adoring  won- 
der at  what  he  has  seen  and  heard — "  Oh  the 
depth  of  the  riches  both  of  the  wisdom  and 
knowledge  of  God !"  After  relieving  his  over- 
charged spirit  with  that  grand  anthem  which 
constitutes  the  close  of  the  doctrinal  section, 
he  addresses  himself  (xii.,  1)  to  the  business 
of  directing  and  stimulating  an  obedient  and 
holy  life  in  believers,  and  this  theme  he  prose- 
cutes to  the  close.  At  the  point  of  contact 
between  the  doctrinal  and  practical  divisions 
of  his  treatise  he  defines  and  exhibits  the  re- 
lations established  in  the  laws  of  the  Eter- 
nal between  the  gifts  which  flow  from  God 
to  men,  and  the  service  rendered  by  men  to 
God.  Hitherto  he  has  been  opening  the 
treasures  of  the  kingdom,  and  permitting  the 
divine  goodness  to  flow  freely  into  the  lap 
of  the  needy ;  but  here  is  the  turning  point : 
henceforth  he  will  urge  that  tribute  should 
stream  upward,  like  a  column  of  incense,  from 
man  to  God. 

Who  hath  first  given  to  God,  and  it  shall 
be  given  to  him  again?  None.  No  man 
first  gives  to  God,  and  then  gets  back  equiv- 
alent. But  though  no  man  gives  first  to 
God,  all  renewed  men  give  to  him  second — 
that  is,  the  disciples  of  Christ,  having  gotten 
all  from  God  first  and  free,  then  and  there- 
by are  constrained  to  render  back  to  him 
themselves  and  all  that  they  possess.  This 
apostle  knows  human  nature  too  well  to  ex- 
pect that  men  will  render  fit  service  to  God 
first  and  spontaneously.  Ho  puts  the  mat- 
ter on  another  footing.  He  expects  that  the 
mercy  of  God,  first  freely  poured  out,  will 
press  until  it  press  out,  and  press  up,  what- 
ever the  little  vessel  of  a  redeemed  man 
contains,  in  thank  -offerings  to  the  giving 
God. 

Here  is  a  leaden  pipe  concealed  under  the 
plaster  stretching  perpendicularly  from  the 
bottom  to  the  top  of  the  house.  What  is  the 
use  of  it  ?  It  is  placed  there  as  a  channel 
through  which  water  for  the  supply  of  the 
family  may  flow  up  to  a  cistern  on  the  roof. 
"Water  flow  up? — Don't  mock  us.  That 
would  bo  contrary  to  its  nature.  Water 
flows  down,  not  up.  How  should  it  change 
its  nature  when  it  gets  into  your  pipe?" 


CHRISTIAN  LIFE. 


Place  your  ear  near  the  wall,  and  listen; 
what  do  you  hear  ?  "  I  hear  water  rushing." 
Iu  what  direction T  "Upward."  Precisely; 
water  left  to  itself  outside  of  the  pipe  flows 
down ;  hut  water  left  to  itself  iuside  flows 
up.  "Why?"  Because  there  it  is  pressed 
by  the  water  that  flows  from  the  fountain  on 
the  mountain's  side.  It  is  the  weight  of  wa- 
ter flowing  down  that  forces  this  water  to 
flow  up. 

It  is  thus  that  living  sacrifices,  holy  and 
acceptable,  ascend  from  a  human  life  to  God, 
when  that  life  is  in  Christ.  When  a  human 
soul  is  within  the  well-ordered  covenant,  it 
is  constrained,  by  the  pressure  of  divine 
mercy  flowing  through  Christ,  to  rise  in  re- 
sponsive love. 

"  I  beseech  you  therefore,  brethren,  by  the 
mercies  of  God,  that  ye  yield  yourselves,"  etc. 
The  word  "  therefore"  is  the  link  of  connec- 
tion between  doctrine  and  life.  Here  it 
unites  the  product  to  the  power.  The  whole 
epistle  consists  6f  two  parts,  united  together 
by  this  word.  The  first  portion  is  occupied 
with  truth  revealed,  and  the  second  with 
obedience  rendered ;  and  the  truth  is  in  point 
of  fact  the  force  wThich  generates  the  obedi- 
ence. 

Much  mischief  is  done  in  the  world  by  a 
wanton  or  ignorant  divorce  of  this  divinely 
united  pair.  There  are  two  errors,  equal  and 
opposite.  Those  who  teach  high  doctrine,  and 
wink  at  slippery  practice  in  themselves  and 
others,  fall  into  a  pit  on  the  right  hand ;  those 
who  preach  up  all  the  charities,  and  ignore 
or  denounce  the  truth  and  the  faith  that 
grasps  it,  fall  into  a  pit  on  the  left.  Let 
not  one  man  say,  I  have  roots,  and  another, 
I  have  fruits.  If  you  have  roots,  let  us  see 
what  fruit  they  bear;  if  you  would  have 
fruits,  cherish  the  roots  whereon  they  grow. 

Beginning  his  course  of  practical  lessons 
with  the  twelfth  chapter,  this  rigidly  logical 
author  binds  the  motive  firmly  to  the  act, 
and  the  act  to  the  motive.  He  tells  us  what 
we  ought  to  do,  and  what  will  induce  us  to 
do  it.  For  power  to  propel  his  heavy  train, 
he  depends  on  "  the  mercies  of  God,"  as  these 
have  been  set  forth  in  the  preceding  portion 
of  the  treatise ;  and  the  train  which  by  this 
power  he  expects  to  propel  is,  "  Present  your 
bodies  a  living  sacrifice,"  etc. 

The  mercies  of  God  constitute  the  motive 
force. 

A  consecrated  life  is  the  expected  result. 

Consider  carefully  now  the  power  em- 
ployed in  constant  view  of  the  effect  which 
it  is  expected  to  produce:  "I  beseech  you, 
brethren,  by  the  mercies  of  God."  Up  to  this 
point  the  epistle  is  occupied  with  the  enun- 
ciation, elucidation,  and  defense  of  doctrine. 
The  writer  started  with  the  set  purpose  of 
directing  and  stimulating  human  life  in  the 
way  of  holiness  and  love ;  yet  he  expends 
the  greater  part  of  his  time  and  strength  in 


the  exposition  of  abstract  dogma.  Paul  has 
made  no  mistake  here.  Although  his  aim 
was  to  get  human  hearts  and  lives  filled  with 
love  to  God  and  man,  ho  devotes  his  atten- 
tion first  to  truth  revealed. 

This  is  a  scientific  operator;  he  knows 
what  he  is  about.  He  is  especially  skillful 
in  adapting  means  to  ends.  To  provide  the 
water-power  may  be  a  much  more  length- 
ened and  laborious  process  than  to  set  the 
mill  agoing;  but  without  the  reservoir  and 
its  impounded  supply  the  mill  would  never 
go  round  at  all.  Paul  goes  forward  with  a 
firm  step  and  a  straight  course  toward  his 
aim  iu  a  sanctified  and  useful  human  life ;  but 
he  takes  every  step  on  the  assumption  that 
a  devoted  and  charitable  life  cau  not  be  ob- 
tained unless  the  person  and  work  of  Christ 
be  made  clear  to  the  understanding  and  ac- 
cepted "with  the  heart.  Hence  the  time  ho 
has  occupied  and  the  pains  he  has  bestowed 
in  exhibiting  and  commending  at  the  out- 
set— a  complete  theology. 

A  class  of  men  is  springing  and  pressing 
to  the  front  iu  our  day  who  laud  charity  at 
the  expense  of  truth.  The  truth,  exterior  to 
the  human  mind,  which  God  has  presented 
in  his  Word,  they  ignore  as  unnecessary  rath- 
er than  denounce  as  false.  Doctrine,  as  truth 
fixed  and  independent,  they  seem  to  think  a 
hinderance  rather  than  a  help  toward  their 
expected  millennium  of  charity.  In  their 
view,  a  man  may  indeed  become  a  model  of 
goodness  although  he  believe  sincerely  all 
the  doctrines  of  the  Gospel ;  but  he  may  reach 
that  blessed  state  as  quickly  and  as  well  al- 
though he  believe  none  of  them.  Their  creed 
is  that  a  man  may  attain  the  one  grand  ob- 
ject of  life  —  practical  goodness — equally 
well  with  or  without  belief  iu  the  Christian 
system.  That  there  may  be  no  mistake  in 
the  transmission  of  their  opinion,  they  take 
care  to  illustrate  it  by  notable  examples. 
John  Buuyan,  who  received  all  the  doctrines 
of  the  Gospel,  and  Spiuoza,  who  rejected 
them  all,  attain  equally  to  the  odor  of  sanc- 
tity in  this  modern  church  of  charity.  This 
representation  is  publicly  made  by  men  who 
profess  the  faith,  and  hold  the  preferments, 
and  draw  the  emoluments  of  the  Established 
Church  in  England. 

In  order  to  elevate  love,  they  depress  faith. 
For  our  convenience,  they  have  compressed 
the  essence  of  their  system  into  a  phrase 
that  is  compact  and  portable :  "  A  grain  of 
charity  is  worth  a  ton  of  dogma."  The  max- 
im is  well  constructed,  and  its  meaning  is 
by  no  means  obscure.  If  it  "were  true,  I 
should  have  no  fault  to  find  with  it.  But, 
as  I  have  seen  a  mechanic,  after  the  rule  ap- 
plied to  his  work  gave  unequivocal  decision 
in  its  favor,  turning  the  rule  round,  and  try- 
ing it  the  other  way,  lest  some  mistake 
should  occur;  so  in  the  important  matter 
before  us,  it  may  be  of  use  to  express  the 
same  maxim  in  another  form,  lest  any  fal- 


ARNOT :  THE  RELATION  BETWEEN  DOCTRINE  AND  LIFE. 


lacy  should  be  left  lurking  unobserved  iu  its 
folds  ;  thus :  "A  small  stream  flowing  ou  the 
ground  is  worth  acres  of  clouds  careering  in 
the  sky."  In  this  form  the  maxim  is  arrant 
nonsense  ;  but  the  two  forms  express  an  iden- 
tical meaning,  like  the  opposite  terms  of  an 
algebraic  equation.  Wanting  clouds  above 
us,  there  could  be  110  streams,  great  or  small, 
flowing  at  our  feet ;  so,  wanting  dogma,  that 
is,  doctrine  revealed  by  God  and  received  by 
man,  there  could  be  no  charity.  They  scorn 
dogma,  and  laud  charity  ;  that  is,  they  vili- 
fy the  clouds,  and  sing  paeans  to  running 
streams. 

There  is  an  aspect  of  childishness  iu  the 
methods  at  present  in  fashion  for  undermin- 
ing evangelical  faith.  When  I  was  a  little 
child,  I  thought  the  clouds  were  accumula- 
tions of  smoke  from  the  chimneys.  I  also 
thought  that,  while  the  barren  atmosphere 
above  our  heads  was  filled  Avith  stacks  of  dry 
thick  smoke,  the  earth  beneath  our  feet  was 
rich  and  beneficent,  seeing  that  from  its  bow- 
els spring  lip  all  the  waters  that  feed  the 
rivers  and  fill  the  sea.  Foolish  child !  The 
clouds  are  the  store-houses  iu  which  the  wa- 
ter is  laid  up,  ready  to  be  poured  on  the 
earth.  From  these  treasures  the  wells  ob- 
tain, all  their  supply.  We  have  streams  on 
the  ground,  because  we  have  clouds  iu  the 
sky.  As  the  clouds  create  the  rivers,  the 
love  of  Christ  exhibited  in  the  Gospel  causes 
streams  of  charity  to  circulate  in  human 
life.  The  Bible  teaches  this,  and  history 
proves  it.  "  God  so  loved  the  world,  that  he 
gave  his  only-begotten  Son,  that  whosoever 
believeth  in  him  should  not  perish,  but  have 
everlasting  life."  This  is  a  dogma ;  and  be- 
fore that  dogma  came,  how  much  charity  was 
in  the  -world  f 

Our  latest  reformers,  I  suppose,  come  eas- 
ily by  their  discoveries.  I  am  not  aware  that 
they  have  passed  through  any  preparatory 
agonies,  like  those  which  Luther  endured 
at  Erfurth.  Your  philosophic  regenerator 
of  the  world  dispenses  Avith  a  long  search 
and  a  hard  battle.  When  he  brings  for- 
ward for  my  acceptance  his  savory  dish, 
like  poor  old  blind  Isaac,  when  his  slippery 
sou  presented  the  forged  venison,  I  am  dis- 
posed to  ask,  "  How  hast  thou  found  it  so 
quickly,  my  son  ?"  Ah,  it  is  easy  for  those 
who  have  never  been  deeply  exercised  about 
sin  to  denounce  dogma  and  cry  up  charity  in 
its  stead ;  but  whence  shall  I  obtain  charity 
if  I  abjure  truth  ?  "  Beloved,  if  God  so  loved 
us,  we  ought  also  to  love  one  another."  The 
apostle  John  got  his  charity  from  the  bosom 
of  the  Master  whereon  he  lay.  Where  do 
the  modern  apostles  obtain  theirs  ?  How  can 
you  move  the  world  if  you  have  nothing  but 
the  world  to  lean  your  lever  on  ? 

The  Scriptures  present  the  case  of  a  man 
who  was  as  free  of  dogma  as  the  most  ad- 
vanced Secularist  could  desire,  and  who  was, 
notwithstanding,  woefully  lacking  in  chan- 


ty. "What  is  truth?"  said  Pilate;  and  he 
did  not  wait  for  an  answer,  for  he  had  made 
up  his  mind  that  no  answer  could  be  given. 
Pilate  was  not  burdened  with  a  ton,  with 
even  an  ounce,  of  dogma,  yet  he  crucified 
Christ — crucified  Christ,  believing  and  con- 
fessing him  innocent — that  he  might  save 
his  own  skin,  endangered  by  the  accusa- 
tions of  the  Jewish  priests  at  the  court  of 
Rome. 

'  Those  who,  in  this  age,  lead  the  crusade 
against  dogma  are  forward  to  profess  ut- 
most reverence  for  the  life  and  teaching  of 
Jesus  Christ.  But  he  did  not  despise  dog- 
ma. "  Thou  art  the  Christ,  the  Sou  of  the 
living  God."  Nothing  more  completely  and 
abstractly  dogmatical  can  be  found  in  all 
the  creeds  of  the  Church  than  that  short 
and  fervid  exclamation  of  Peter  in  answer 
to  the  Master's  articulate  demand  for  a  con- 
fession of  his  faith  upon  the  point.  And 
how  did  the  Master  receive  it?  He  not 
only  acquiesced  iu  the  doctrine  and  the  ex- 
pression of  it  by  his  servant,  but,  depart- 
ing in  some  measure  from  his  usual  habit 
of  calm,  uuimpassioned  speech,  he  broke  into 
an  elevated  and  exultant  commendation : 
"  Blessed  art  thou,  Simon  Bar-jona,  for  flesh 
and  blood  hath  not  revealed  it  unto  thee, 
but  my  Father  which  is  iu  heaven."  Let 
men  keep  congenial  company,  and  let  things 
be  called  by  their  right  names.  Either  doc- 
trine— truth  revealed  by  God  and  accepted 
by  man — either  doctrine  is  decisive  and  fun- 
damental for  the  salvation  of  sinners  and 
the  regeneration  of  the  world,  or  Jesus  Christ 
was  a  weakling.  You  must  make  your  choice. 
The  divinity  of  Christ,  as  confessed  by  Peter, 
is  a  dogma  ;  for  that  dogma  Jesus  witnessed  ; 
for  that  dogma  Jesus  died.  For  it  was  be- 
cause he  made  himself  the  Son  of  God  that 
the  Jewish  priesthood  hunted  him  down. 
Did  he  give  his  life  for  a  dogma  that  is  di- 
vine and  necessary  to  the  salvation  of  sin- 
ners, or  did  lie  fling  his  life  away  by  a  mis- 
take? Men  must  make  their  choice.  Those 
who  are  not  for  Christ  are  against  him. 

If  you  do  not  receive  Jesus  Christ  as  God 
your  Redeemer,  you  can  not  have  him  as  the 
beautiful  example  of  a  perfect  humanity. 
He  claimed  to  be  divine,  and  died  in  support 
of  the  claim.  Therefore,  if  he  be  not  the 
true  God,  he  must  be  a  false  man.  Thus  the 
Holy  Spirit  in  the  Scripture  has  presciently 
rendered  it  impossible  for  modern  Secular- 
ists to  reject  the  great  dogma  of  the  Gospel, 
and  yet  retain  the  life  of  Jesus  as  the  high- 
est pattern  of  human  character.  Both  or 
none :  Christ  can  not  be  so  divided. 

The  word  "therefore,"  destitute  of  any 
moral  character  in  itself,  and  deriving  all  its 
importance  from  the  things  which  it  unites, 
is  like  the  steel  point  set  on  a  strong  founda- 
tion, which  constitutes  the  fulcrum  of  the 
balance.  To  one  extremity  of  the  beam  is 
fixed,  by  a  long  plummet-line,  a  consecrated 


330 


CHRISTIAN  LIFE. 


benevolent  human  life ;  but  that  life  itself 
lies  unseen  in  the  dark  at  the  bottom  of  a 
deep  well,  a  possibility  only  as  yet,  ami  not 
nu  actual  entity.  No  human  arm  has  power 
to  bring  it  up  and  set  it  in  motion — pow- 
er to  bring  it  into  being.  Here  is  a  skill- 
ful engineer,  who  has  undertaken  the  task. 
What  is  he  doing?  We  expected  that  he 
would  stand  at  the  -well's  mouth,  and  draw 
with  all  his  might  by  the  depending  line,  in 
the  hope  of  drawing  up  that  precious  Chari- 
ty from  the  deep.  But  no ;  he  ia  busy  at  the 
opposite  extremity  of  the  beam.  He  is  mak- 
ing fast  to  it  some  immense  weight.  Who 
is  he,  and  what  is  the  burden  that  he  is  zeal- 
ously tying  to  the  beam;  and  what  does  he 
expect  to  get  by  his  pains  1  The  operator, 
diminutive  in  bodily  presence  but  mighty 
in  spirit,  is  the  apostle  of  the  Gentiles  ;  the 
weight  that  he  is  making  fast  to  the  beam 
is  nothing  less  than  the  mercies  of  God  as  they 
are  exhibited  in  Christ — all  the  love  of  God ; 
nay,  God  himself,  who  is  love.  He  has  fas- 
tened it  now,  and  he  stands  back — does  not 
put  a  hand  to  the  work  in  its  second  stage. 
What  follows  ?  They  come !  they  come !  the 
deeds  of  Charity — they  ascend  like  clouds 
to  the  sky,  at  once  an  incense  rising  up  to 
heaven,  and  a  mighty  stream  of  beneficence 
rolling  along  its  channel  on  the  surface  of 
the  earth,  and  converting  the  desert  into  a 
garden. 

Ask  those  great  lovers  who  have  done  and 
suffered  most  for  men — who  have  taken  up 
their  abode  in  dungeons  in  order  to  soothe 
the  spirits  and  relieve  the  wants  of  the 
wretched  inmates — who  have  braved  pesti- 
lential climates  to  christianize  and  civilize 
the  long-degraded  negro ;  ask  the  whole  band 
of  flesh-aud-blood  angels  who,  by  sacrificing 
themselves,  have  sought  to  heal  the  sores  of 
humanity,  what  motive  urged  them  on  and 
held  them  up,  they  will  answer  with  a  voice 
like  the  sound  of  many  waters,  The  love  of 
Christ  constraincth  us.  Those  who  have  done 
most  of  the  charity  that  has  told  on  the  ills 
of  life  do  not  think,  and  do  not  say,  that  this 
fruit  grows  as  well  on  all  doctrines,  or  no  doc- 
trines, as  on  the  truth  of  the  Gospel.  They 
tell  us  that  the  force  which  sent  them  into 
the  field  and  kept  them  there  was  the  mer- 
cy of  God  in  Christ,  pardoning  their  sin,  and 
sealing  them  as  children.  They  are  bought 
with  a  price,  and  therefore  they  glorify  God 
in  their  lives. 

In  the  scheme  of  doctrine  set  forth  in  the 
first  half  of  the  epistle,  we  behold  the  reser- 
voir where  the  power  is  stored ;  and  in  the 
opening  verses  of  the  second  section  the  en- 
gineer opens  the  sluice,  so  that  the  whole 
force  of  the  treasured  waters  may  flow  out 
on  human  life,  and  impel  it  onward  in  active 
benevolence.  Let  the  memory  of  God's  good- 
ness, in  the  unspeakable  gift,  bear  down  upon 
our  hearts,  as  the  volume  of  a  river  bears 
down  upon  a  mill-wheel,  until  its  accumu- 


lating weight  overcome  the  inertia  of  an 
earthly  mind,  and  the  interlacing  entangle- 
ments of  a  pleasure-seeking  society,  so  send- 
ing the  life  spinning  round  in  an  endless  cir- 
cle of  work  to  abate  the  sins  and  sorrows  of 
the  world. 

The  mercies  of  God  being  the  power  that 
sends  out  the  product,  the  product  so  sent 
consists  of  two  distinct  yet  vitally  connected 
parts,  as  soul  and  body  iu  the  natural  life. 
These  are:  Devotion  in  Spirit  to  God  our 
Saviour,  and  substantial  Kindness  to  Man 
our  brother. 

The  constituents  of  a  true  devotion  are  a 
"living  sacrifice"  and  "a  reasonable  serv- 
ice." Whatever  is  rendered  in  sacrifice  to 
God  is  rendered  whole.  The  phraseology  is 
in  a  high  degree  typical,  but  by  reference  to 
the  Old  Testament  institutions  it  is  easily 
understood.  The  distinguishing  features  of 
the  New  Testament  sacrifice  are,  that  it  is 
the  offerer's  own  body,  not  the  body  of  a 
substitute ;  and  that  it  is  presented  not  dead, 
but  living.  It  is  not  a  carcass  laid  on  the 
altar  to  be  burned;  it  is  a  life  devoted  to 
God.  Love  is  the  fire  tha.t  consumes  the 
sacrifice,  and  in  this  case,  too,  the  fire  came 
down  from  heaven.  The  body  is  specially 
demanded  as  an  offering;  the  body  is  for 
the  Lord.  It  bears  the  mark  of  his  hand. 
We  are  fearfully  and  wonderfully  made. 

Stand  iu  awe  and  sin  not :  give  not  that 
which  is  holy  unto  the  dogs.  Your  body  is 
another  Bible :  read  it  with  reverence.  Its 
precepts,  like  those  of  the  Decalogue,  are 
written  by  the  finger  of  God.  Show  me, 
not  a  penny,  but  a  man — for  this  is  the  only 
coin  which  the  great  King  will  accept  as 
tribute:  whose  image  and  superscription 
hath  he?  God's.  Render  therefore  unto 
God  the  thing  that  is  God's. 

As  the  sacrifice  is  living  the  service  is  rea- 
sonable— rational.  It  is  not  the  arbitrary 
though  loving  command  addressed  by  a  fa- 
ther to  his  infant  son — burn  the  fat  upon  the 
altar — that  he  may  be  trained  to  habits  of  un- 
questioning obedience ;  it  is  rather  the  work 
prescribed  by  the  father  to  an  adult  son — a 
work  which  the  son  understands,  and  a  pur- 
pose in  which  he  intelligently  acquiesces. 
The  burning  of  incense,  practiced  in  the  Ro- 
mish community  for  ages,  and  now  resumed 
by  those  who  should  have  known  better,  is 
not  a  reasonable  service.  It  is  a  going  back 
from  the  attainments  of  the  Gospel  to  the 
beggarly  elements  of  a  past  dispensation. 

The  second  constituent  of  Christian  duty 
is  reciprocal  justice  and  kindness  between 
man  and  man,  like  the  harmony  and  helpful- 
ness which  the  Creator  has  established  be- 
tween the  several  members  of  a  living  body. 
Mark  how  the  hand  comes  to  the  defense  of 
the  eye  in  its  weakness ;  and  how  the  eye 
with  its  sight,  and  from  its  elevated  posi- 
tion, keeps  watch  for  the  welfare  of  the  low- 
ly, blind,  but  laborious  and  useful  foot.  The 


AENOT :  THE  RELATION  BETWEEN  DOCTRINE  AND  LIFE. 


331 


mutual  helpfulness  of  these  members  is  ab- 
solutely perfect.  Such  should  be  the  chari- 
ty between  brother  and  brother  of  God's 
family  on  earth;  such  it  shall  be  when  all 
the  sous  and  daughters  are  assembled  in  the 
many  mansions  of  the  heavenly  home.  In 
the  remaining  portion  of  the  epistle,  Paul 
labors  with  all  his  might  to  stimulate  prac- 
tical charity,  in  one  place  reducing  the  whole 
law  to  one  precept,  to  one  word — Love.  Af- 
ter devoting  so  much  attention  to  the  roots, 
he  will  not  neglect  to  gather  the  fruit.  Af- 
ter so  much  care  in  obtaining  the  power,  he 
looks  sharply  to  the  product,  lest  it  should 
turn  out  that  he  had  labored  in  vain. 

We  must  look  well  to  our  helm  as  we  trav- 
erse this  ocean  of  life,  where  we  can  feel  no 
bottom  and  see  no  shore — we  must  handle 
well  our  helm,  lest  we  miss  our  harbor-home. 
Such  seems  to  be  the  counsel  given  for  the 
guidance  of  life  to  those  who  count  that  all 
religion  and  all  duty  lie  in  subjective  care 
and  diligence,  while  they  ignore,  as  unat- 
tainable or  useless,  all  objective  revealed 
truth.  But  careful  management  of  the 
helm,  though  necessary,  is  not  enough  on 
our  voyage.  By  it  alone  we  can  not  bring 
our  ship  safe  to  land.  We  must  look  to  the 
lights  in  heaven.  The  seaman  does  not  look 
to  the  stars  instead  of  handling  his  helm. 
This  would  be  as  great  folly  as  to  handle 
his  helm  vigorously  and  never  look  to  the 
stars.  Not  this  one  or  that  one,  to  the  neg- 
lect of  the  other.  Both  ;  and  each  in  its  own 
place :  the  stars,  to  show  ns  the  path  in  which 
we  ought  to  go ;  and  the  helm,  to  keep  us 
in  the  path  which  the  stars  have  shown  to 
be  right.  Not  turn  to  the  contemplation  of 
dogma,  instead  of  laboring  in  the  works  of 
charity ;  but  looking  to  the  truth  as  the 
light  which  shows  ns  the  way  of  life,  and 
walking  in  that  way  with  all  diligence. 

It  is  interesting  to  notice  how  the  spiritual 
instincts  of  the  Lord's  immediate  followers 
led  them  in  the  right  way,  at  a  time  when 
their  intellectual  comprehension  of  the  Gos- 
pel was  very  defective.  On  one  occasion  the 
Master  taught  the  twelve  a  lesson  on  this 
subject — charity — which  seemed  to  them 
very  hard.  The  point  in  hand  was  the  for- 
giving of  injuries,  and  how  far  it  could  or 
should  be  carried.  "  Master,"  they  inquired, 
how  often  shall  a  man  sin  against  me  and  I 
forgive  him?  Seven  times?"  That,  they 
thought,  was  as  great  a  stretch  of  loving 
forbearance  with  a  neighbor  as  could  rea- 
sonably be  required  of  any  man.  But  what 
is  the  word  of  the  Lord  in  this  case ?  "I 
say  not  unto  thce  till  seven  times,  but  nntil 
seventy  times  seven."  That  is,  he  refused 
to  set  any  limit  to  the  charity  of  his  disci- 
ples. Charity  in  his  Church  must  be  like 
the  atmosphere  wrapped  round  the  world — 
no  mountain  top  can  pierce  through  it  to 
touch  another  element  beyond.  Charity 
shall  surround  life  so  high  and  so  deep  that 


all  life  shall  float  in  it  always,  as  the  globe 
of  earth  in  the  circumfluent  air.  The  poor 
men  were  taken  aback  by  this  great  demand. 
It  cut  their  breath.  They  had  been  educated 
in  a  narrow  school,  and  could  not  at  first 
take  in  the  conception  of  a  love  that  should 
know  no  other  limit  than  the  life  and  capaci- 
ty of  the  lover.  But  on  recoveiing  from 
their  first  surprise,  and  becoming  aware  of 
their  own  shortcoming,  a  true  instinct  di- 
rected them  to  the  source  of  supply.  Then 
the  disciples  said  unto  the  Lord,  "  Increase 
our  faith"  Faith!  Oh,  ye  simple  Galileans, 
it  is  not  in  faith  that  ye  come  short ;  it  is  in 
charity !  How  foolish,  at  such  a  moment, 
to  give  chase  to  the  ignis-fatuus  of  dogma, 
when  it  is  life  that  you  need — more  of  love 
in  your  life!  If  our  secular  philosophers 
had  been  there,  such  would  have  been  their 
patronizing  reproof  of  those  simple,  unlet- 
tered fishermen.  But  the  fishermen,  taught 
of  the  Spirit,  possessed  a  sounder  philosophy 
as  well  as  a  truer  religion  than  their  modern 
reprovers.  I  could  imagine  that  Peter,  in 
such  circumstances,  would  have  stood  up  as 
spokesman  for  the  whole  college,  and  made 
short  work  with  the  logic  of  the  Secularists. 
Although  blind,  like  old  Jacob,  to  objects 
outside,  like  him,  Peter  was  endowed  with 
an  inner  light.  When  Joseph  brought  his 
two  sous  to  the  patriarch  for  his  blessing,  he 
led  them  forward  so  that  the  elder  should 
stand  opposite  the  right  hand  of  his  grand- 
father, and  the  younger  opposite  the  left. 
But  Jacob  crossed  his  hands  in  bestowing 
the  blessing,  so  as  to  lay  the  right  hand  on 
the  head  of  the  younger  child.  When  Jo- 
seph interfered  to  correct  what  h6  supposed 
to  be  a  mistake,  his  father  persisted  in  his 
own  plan,  saying,  "  I  know  it,  my  son ;  I 
know  it."  He  guided  his  hands  wittingly. 
So  would  the  simple  but  courageous  fisher- 
man answer  the  philosophic  Joseph  of  our 
day — "  I  know  it,  my  sou  ;  I  know  it."  He 
guided  his  lips  wittingly  when,  in  lack  of 
charity,  he  prayed  for  faith ;  for  faith  is  the 
only  efficient  of  charity.  He  would  fain 
yield  himself  a  living  sacrifice  for  behoof  of 
his  fellows ;  but  if  he  is  ever  impelled  for- 
ward in  this  arduous  course,  he  will  be  im- 
pelled, as  Paul  teaches,  by  the  mercies  of 
God.  The  instincts  of  the  new  creature  in 
Peter  taught  him  that,  if  he  should  ever  do 
more  in  forgiving  love  for  his  neighbors,  he 
must  get  more  through  faith  from  his  Lord. 
A  miller,  while  he  watches  the  operations 
of  his  mill,  observes  that  the  machinery  is 
moving  slower  and  slower,  and  that  at  last 
it  stands  altogether  still.  On  searching  for 
the  cause,  he  discovers  that  some  small  hard 
pebbles  have  insinuated  themselves  between 
the  millstones,  first  impeding  the  celerity  of 
their  motion,  and  then  stopping  it  altogeth- 
er. What  will  the  miller  do  ?  Put  in  his 
hand,  and  try  to  remove  the  obstruction? 
No;  he  is  not  such  a  fool.  He  goes  quietly 


332 


CHRISTIAN  LIFE. 


to  a  corner  of  the  mill,  and  touches  a  sim- 
ple wooden  lever  that  protrudes  at  that  spot 
through  the  wall.  Whut  is  the  miller  doing 
there?  He  is  letting  on  more  water:  im- 
pelled by  more  weight  of  water,  the  mill- 
stones easily  overcome  the  obstacle,  and  go 
forward  on  their  course.  The  demand  of 
unlimited  forgiving  was  the  obstacle  that 
stuck  on  the  heart  of  those  poor  Galileans, 
and  brought  its  beating  to  a  stand ;  and  they 
wisely  applied  for  a  greater  gnsh  of  the  im- 
pelling power — more  faith.  When  the  cir- 
culation of  the  spiritual  life  was  impeded  by 
that  hard  ingredient,  they  gasped  for  a  wid- 
ening of  the  channel  through  which  the  mer- 
cies of  God  flow  from  the  covenant  to  the 
needy.  More  faith  meant  getting  more  of 
forgiving  grace  from  God  to  their  own  souls ; 
and  they  knew  that,  when  the  vessel  was 
full,  it  would  flow  over.  The  best  of  the 
argument,  as  well  as  of  the  sentiment,  re- 
mains with  the  fishermen. 

It  is  now  time,  however,  that  we  shonld 
turn  to  the  other  side,  and  gather  there  a 
very  needful  lesson  for  Christians  ere  we 
close.  We  have  been  showing  that  it  is 
faith  accepting  the  mercies  of  God  that 
produces  a  devout  and  charitable  life ;  but 
what  shall  we  say  of  those  Avho  have  faith, 
or  seem  to  have  it,  and  yet  lack  charity  ? 

Here  a  very  interesting  question  springs. 
Want  of  faith,  it  is  granted  among  evangel- 
ical Christians,  is  followed  by  want  of  good- 
ness ;  as  a  blighting  of  the  root  destroys  the 
stem  and  branches  of  the  tree.  But  does 
the  converse  also  hold  good?  WTill  a  lan- 
guid life  weaken  faith,  and  an  entire  cessa- 
tion of  Christian  activity  make  shipwreck 
of  the  faith?  As  a  metaphysical  specula- 
tion, we  do  not  touch  this  question;  but  on 
its  practical  side  a  useful  warning  may  be 
given.  Of  all  trees  it  may  be  said,  destroy 
the  root,  and  the  stem  will  wither;  but  you 
can  not  predicate  of  all  trees  that  the  de- 
struction of  the  stem  in  turn  destroys  the 
root.  Many  trees,  when  cut  down  to  the 
ground,  retain  life  and  grow  great  again. 
But  some  species — pines,  for  example — die 
outright  Avhen  the, main  stem  is  severed. 
Here  lies  a  sharp  reproof  for  all  who  bear 
Christ's  name.  True  it  is  that  your  faith 
in  Christ  is  the  root  which  sustains  the  tree  • 
of  your  active  life,  and  insures  its  fruitful-  , 
ness ;  but  true  it  is,  also,  that,  like  the  pines,  | 
if  from  any  cause  the  life  cease  to  act,  the 
faith,  or  what  seemed  faith,  will  rot  away 
under  ground.  It  was  in  this  manner  that 
Hymenanis  and  Alexander  fell  away.  They 
first  lost  the  good  conscience;  then  and 
therefore  they  made  shipwreck  of  the  faith. 
They  gave  way  in  the  sphere  of  duty,  and 
then  dogma  melted  away  from  their  hearts 
( 1  Tim.  i.,  19).  The  stem  of  the  tree  was  cut 
off  or  withered,  and  the  root  rotted  in  the 
ground. 


Thus,  as  the  roots  nourish  the  tree,  and 
the  growth  of  the  tree  in  turn  keeps  the 
roots  living,  so  is  it  with  the  trees  of  right- 
eousness, the  planting  of  the  Lord  that  he 
may  be  glorified !  While  faith,  by  draw- 
ing from  the  fullness  of  Christ,  makes  a 
fruitful  life ;  reciprocally,  the  exercise  of 
all  the  charities  mightily  increases  even  the 
faith  from  which  they  sprang. 

While,  on  one  side,  the  necessity  of  the 
day  is  to  maintain  the  faith  as  the  fountain 
and  root  of  practical  goodness  in  the  life ; 
on  the  other  side,  especially  for  all  within 
the  Church,  the  necessity  of  the  day  is  to 
lead  and  exhibit  a  life  corresponding  to  the 
faith  it  grows  upon.  Here  it  is  safe  to  join 
full  cry  with  the  Secularists — more  charity 
— charity  in  its  largest  sense,  a  self-sacrifi- 
cing, brother-saving  love,  that  counts  noth- 
ing alien  which  belongs  to  man,  and  spares 
nothing  to  make  the  world  purer  and  hap- 
pier. A  pure,  holy,  loving,  active,  effective 
life — this  is  the  first,  and  the  second,  and 
the  third  requisite  for  the  regeneration  of 
the  world.  It  is  quite  true  that  those  who 
bear  Christ's  name  fail  to  walk  in  his  steps; 
and  to  this  defect  it  is  owing  that  so  little 
of  the  desert  has  yet  been  converted  into  a 
garden.  It  is  life — it  is  love — it  is  living 
sacrifices  that  are  wanted ;  this  is  the  cure 
for  the  sores  of  humanity ;  but  how  shall 
AVO  get  that  life  of  mighty  doing  and  suf- 
fering charity,  which  we  confess  is  lacking, 
and  Avhich,  if  we  had  it,  would  floAv  like  a 
stream  OA'er  the  world  and  heal  its  barren- 
ness ?  How  and  where  shall  we  obtain  this 
heaven-born  charity  ? 

Enter  into  thy  closet,  and  shot  the  door, 
and  seek  it  there.  Seek,  and  ye  shall  find. 
Copy,  literally,  the  simple  request  of  the 
amazed  disciples.  Say  unto  the  Lord,  In- 
crease our  faith. 

That  means  that  your  very  soul  should 
open  to  Christ,  and  accept  him  as  all  your 
salvation.  It  is  not  to  have  a  faith  printed 
in  your  creed-book  about  one  Jesus ;  it  is  to 
clasp  him  to  your  heart  as  your  Redeemer, 
your  Friend,  your  Portion.  It  is  to  taste 
and  see  that  he  is  good,  and  to  bear  about 
with  you  the  dying  of  the  Lord  Jesus.  This 
will  be  a  force  sufficient  to  impel  all  your 
life  forward,  so  as  to  please  God  and  bene- 
fit your  brother.  "  I  beseech  you,  therefore, 
brethren,  by  the  mercies  of  God,  that  ye  pre- 
sent your  bodies  a  living  sacrifice." 

Ultimately  we  must  look  to  the  soA-ereign 
Lord  God  for  a  baptism  of  the  Spirit,  great- 
er than  that  of  the  Pentecost,  to  produce  a 
revival  that  Avill  usher  in  the  glory  of  the 
latter  day;  but  mediately  and  instrumental- 
ly  that  revival  will  come  through  the  mer- 
cies of  God,  manifested  to  the  world  in  the 
incarnation  and  sacrifice  of  the  eternal  Son, 
accepted, realized,  and  felt,  in  new  and  great- 
ly increased  intensity,  by  the  members  of  the 
Christian  Church. 


PERSONAL  RELIGION,  ITS  AIDS  AND  HINDERANCES. 

BY  THE  KEY.  RICHARD  FULLER,  D.D.,  BALTIMORE,  MD. 


HE  who  would  drive  a  boat  forward  by 
rowing  must  use  both  oars ;  if  be  employ 
only  one,  bis  little  bark  will  go  round  and 
round,  will  be  a  prey  to  every  vagrant  cur- 
rent, until  it  is  dasbed  on  the  rocks  or  car- 
ried out  to  sea.  And  it  is  just  so  with  re- 
gard to  human  and  divine  agency  in  the 
matter  of  salvation.  "For  my  part,"  says 
the  hyper-Calvinist,  "  I  do  not  believe  that 
man's  will  or  efforts  have  any  thing  to  do 
with  his  salvation.  From  first  to  last  it  is 
God's  fixed  decree."  But  what  does  God 
say?  "Work  out  your  own  salvation  with 
fear  ami  trembling."  "Exactly  so,"  ex- 
claims the  Arminiau,  "that  is  my  doctrine. 
All  depends  upon  our  faithfulness,  vigilance, 
self-denying  exertions."  But  what  does  the 
Bible  declare  ?  "  It  is  God  that  worketh  in 
you,  both  to  will  and  to  do  of  his  own  good 
pleasure."  If,  then,  there  be  a  will  to  live 
for  heaven,  it  has  been  wrought  in  us  by 
God's  sovereign  grace.  And  if  this  volition 
perish  not,  if  it  acquires  "  the  name  of  ac- 
tion," it  is  wholly  through  the  efficacy  of 
preveuient,  sovereign  grace  and  mercy.  If 
we  reject  the  doctrine  of  human  agency,  we 
sink  into  all  the  indolence  and  impiety  of 
the  Antinomian.  If  wo  discard  the  great 
truth  of  God's  free,  sovereign,  indispensable 
grace,  we  will  gradually  find  all  our  pray- 
ing and  toiling  only  so  much  hopeless  drudg- 
ery, and  will  be  tempted  to  give  up  in  de- 
spair. 

I  do  not  design,  however,  to  enter  into 
this  question,  nor  to  show  that  the  life  of 
faith  requires  of  us  the  compound  attitude 
of  one  who  works  as  if  all  depended  on  him- 
self; and  who  prays,  lives  hourly,  as  if  every 
thing — will,  power,  victory,  salvation — must 
be  the  donation  of  God's  free  mercy,  the  oper- 
ation of  that  adorable  Spirit  without  whose 
immediate  influences  the  holiest  man  would 
certainly  be  lost.  My  wish  is  to  submit 
some  serious  reflections  upon  the  most  im- 
portant subject  that  can  engage  our  minds, 
some  thoughts  which  deeply  concern  our 
peace,  holiness,  preparation  for  death  and 
eternity. 

Religion  (from  re,  7/'</o)  means  the  re-at- 
tachment to  God  of  the  soul  which  had  es- 
tranged itself  from  him.  By  the  very  force 
of  the  term  we  are  reminded  of  our  dismal 
apostasy,  and  of  that  amazing  anomaly  in 
the  divine  jurisprudence  by  which  guilt  is 
pardoned,  the  piuings  of  despoiled  humani- 
ty for  reconciliation  with  "the  Father"  are 


satisfied,  and  our  entire  nature — senses,  in- 
tellect, conscience,  passions — is  re-adjusted. 

The  subject  assigued  me  is,  Personal  Relig- 
ion: its  Aids  and  Hinderances;  nor  was  there 
ever  a  period  when  this  topic  claimed  more 
serious  and  prayerful  contemplation;  for 
while  in  theory  all  admit  that  there  can  be 
no  substitute  for  holiness,  yet  in  reality  spe- 
cious counterfeits  and  nostrums  are  on  ev- 
ery side  corrupting  and  superseding  the  doc- 
trines of  the  Cross. 

There  is,  for  example,  an  artificial  ortho- 
doxy, a  dry  light  in  the  mind,  which  sheds 
no  influence  on  the  life.  Merle  d'Aubignd 
tells  us  that,  after  hearing  Haldane  reason 
upon  human  depravity,  he  said  to  him,  "Now 
I  see  that  doctrine  in  the  Bible."  "  Yes,"  re- 
plied the  Scottish  divine,  "but  do  you  see  it 
in  your  heart  ?"  It  was  this  artless  yet  pro- 
found question  which  led  to  the  conversion 
of  the  great  historian ;  and  this  is  now  tho 
inquiry  to  be  pressed  as  to  all  evangelical 
truth.  Do  we  see  it,  feel  it,  in  our  hearts  ? 
"  I  am  the  way,  and  the  truth,  and  the  life." 
It  is  one  thing  to  admit  this  imperial  self- 
assertion  of  our  Lord,  and  a  very  different 
thing  to  realize  it;  but  nothing  is  saving 
faith  which  stops'  short  of  a  full,  controlling 
reception  of  it  —  a  reception  that  thrones 
Jesus  personally  over  the  mind,  the  heart, 
the  life.  This  is  the  religion  of  the  Gospel. 
It  is  as  simple  as  it  is  severe  and  sublime. 
There  is,  however,  too  much  reason  to  fear 
that  for  this  personal  following  Christ  and 
adhering  to  him  multitudes  adopt  a  loyal- 
ty to  creeds,  confessions,  systems,  faith  in 
which  is  important,  but  faith  in  which  (yea, 
a  general  faith  in  the  Avritteu  Word)  may 
be  fatally  mistaken  for  faith  in  that  person- 
al Saviour  whose  life,  example,  death,  resur- 
rection, are,  objectively  and  subjectively,  the 
grand,  informing,  controlling  rule  of  faith  to 
his  disciples."  "  Follow  me!"  When  Jesus 
was  upon  earth,  this  was  the  .abridgment  of 
all  his  doctrines,  the  epitome  of  all  his  ser- 
mons, his  whole  body  of  divinity ;  and  this 
is  still  his  strict  demand,  refusing  to  obey 
which  we  "  lack  one  thing,"  and  are  fatally 
defective  in  every  thing.  "Follow  me!"— 
me,  not  a  religion  ;  Jesus  came  not  to  teach, 
but  to  be  our  religion.  Me ;  not  a  dogma. 
Me;  not  a  doctrine.  Me;  not  linen  decen- 
cies, apocryphal  successions,  mystical,  caba- 
listic virtues.  Me ;  not  a  creed  nor  a  con- 
fession. Me ;  not  even  faith  in  the  Bible. 
Me ;  Me !  conic  follow  me ;  that  is  what  the 


334 


CHRISTIAN  LIFE. 


Saviour  requires  of  all,  and  he  who  neglects 
to  comply  takes  up  the  whole  matter  amiss ; 
ho  misunderstands  or  neglects  the  very  Gos- 
pel by  which  he  hopes  to  be  saved. 

Then,  again,  instead  of  personal  consecra- 
tion, wre  detect  all  aroniul  us  the  religion  of 
imposing  formalisms,  of  fascinating  ritual- 
isms, of  externalisms  which  may  be  as  grace- 
ful as  the  exquisite  statuary  in  the  Greek 
temples,  but  are  just  as  destitute  of  real 
life;  which  lull  the  conscience,  regale  the 
taste  and  fancy,  but  leave  the  heart  un- 
changed. We  are  surprised  that,  in  the  midst 
of  the  noontide  illumination  of  the  Gospel, 
men  can  still  be  bewitched  by  the  super- 
stitions, impostures,  and  pageantry  of  the 
Church  of  Rome.  We  forget  two  things: 
first,  that  in  our  fallen  condition  imagina- 
tion is  stronger  than  reason.  We  see  this 
in  our  child.  You  take  your  little  boy  into 
a  toy-shop  and  purchase  an  ugly  mask.  He 
knows  you  are  his  father,  and  the  mask  noth- 
ing but  a  piece  of  painted  pasteboard ;  yet 
when  you  put  on  the  hideous  false  face  he 
is  terrified.  How  do  you  explain  this  ?  It 
is  a  proof  that  in  the  child  imagination  is 
stronger  than  reason.  Nor  is  it  otherwise 
with  children  of  a  larger  growth.  A  lady 
weeps  over  "  The  Sorrows  of  Werther,"  or 
some  other  sentimental  novel.  Does  she 
believe  it  to  be  true  ?  Does  she  not  know 
that  it  is  a  pure  fiction  ?  A  man  of  sense 
enters  the  theatre.  The  play  is  Hamlet. 
Does  he  really  suppose  that  he  is  in  Den- 
mark ?  Is  he  not  certain  that  the  actor  in 
sables,  with  such  a  rueful  countenance,  is 
not  the  Prince  of  Denmark,  but  Mr.  Jones, 
whom  he  met  the  night  before  in  a  drink- 
ing saloon  ?  And  the  lady,  with  her  di- 
sheveled hair  and  picturesque  miseries;  does 
he  think  that  she  is  really  the  love-lorn 
Ophelia?  Does  he  not  know  that  she  is 
only  Jones's  wife  ?  Yet  he  sits  there  bathed 
in  tears.  And  what  is  the  solution  of  all 
this?  We  have  already  given  it.  In  the 
lady  and  in  the  man,  as  in  the  little  boy, 
imagination  is  stronger  than  reason.  And 
now  apply  this  important  moral  principle 
to  the  matter  in  hand,  and  we  will  under- 
stand why  the  mummeries  of  Rome  exert 
such  a  magical  spell  over  people  in  their 
senses.  The  secret  is  an  open  secret.  It  is 
that  spectacles,  rites,  festivals,  processions, 
robes,  censers,  relics,  choristers,  priests,  and 
altars,  all  appeal  directly  to  the  imagina- 
tion. 

And  we  overlook  another  fact.  We  for- 
get that  these  ceremonies  are  the  most  sub- 
tile form  of  self-righteousness.  They  are 
pleasing  to  the  unrenewed  heart,  because 
they  are  performed  to  merit  God's  favor, 
and  they  thus  offer  the  most  grateful  in- 
cense to  the  self-complacency  of  our  unre- 
generate  nature.  Nor  is  it  only  in  Popery 
—the  masterpiece  of  human  craft— that  re- 
ligion thus  crystallizes  into  seductive  forms,- 


that  raateriolatries  are  a  counterfeit  for  pi- 
ety. The  bitter  hostility  of  the  Pharisees 
was  inflamed  against  Jesus,  because  they 
perceived  that  he  was  abrogating  the  gor- 
geous machinery  of  the  Temple  by  which 
their  spiritual  pride  was  intensely  nattered, 
and  was  requiring  purity  of  heart  and  life. 
And  still,  at  this  day,  the  cross  of  Christ,  the 
obedience,  the  self-renunciation,  the  holi- 
ness of  the  Gospel,  stir  up  the  enmity  of 
multitudes,  because  they  assail  the  tradi- 
tions of  their  fathers,  and  abolish  those  old 
hereditary  sanctities  -which,  under  the  in- 
sidious garb  of  religion,  natter  their  pride, 
quiet  their  consciences,  and  are  clung  to 
as  sacred  heir-looms,  transmitted  through  a 
long  line  of  honored  ancestors. 

I  mention  only  one  other  substitute  for 
personal  piety.  This  we  may  designate  as 
a  sort  of  corporate  religion,  a  devoteduess 
to  some  church  by  which  we  become  not 
Christians,  but  churchmen ;  and  the  impo- 
sitions which  men  and  women  practice  upon 
themselves  under  this  delusion  are  almost 
incredible.  Never,  perhaps,  did  any  body 
of  soldiers  regard  themselves  as  enlisted  in 
such  a  high  and  holy  enterprise  as  those 
who  rallied  under  the  banner  of  the  Cru- 
saders ;  yet  never  was  there  an  army  more 
depraved  and  dissolute.  And  a  self-decep- 
tion every  whit  as  infatuated  is  witnessed 
now  in  thousands  who  are  the  bigoted  ad- 
vocates of  some  ecclesiastical  organization, 
who  contribute  their  wealth  and  would  pour 
out  their  blood  for  some  church,  the  tenets 
of  which  they  neither  understand  nor  be- 
lieve, and  the  morality  of  which  they  treat 
with  undisguised  contempt. 

Unquestionably,  the  very  mission  of  the 
Gospel,  all  its  aims  and  appointments,  sup- 
pose and  require  the  existence  of  churches ; 
nor  do  the  Scriptures  recognize  as  a  Chris- 
tian any  one  who  refuses  to  identify  himself 
publicly  with  that  empire  which  Jesus  has 
set  up  on  the  earth.  But  few  heresies  have 
been  so  degrading  to  the  religion  of  Jesus  as 
that  which  exalts  faith  in  sacramentalism, 
in  a  priesthood,  in  church,  above  sanctity 
of  heart  and  life.  Surely,  if  union  with  any 
peculiar  society  were  essential  to  salvation, 
Jesus  would  have  clearly  defined  that  soci- 
ety. But  neither  in  the  judicature  of  his 
kingdom  published  in  the  Sermon  on  the 
Mount,  nor  in  his  programme  of  the  last 
judgment,  does  he  utter  a  single  word  about 
church.  Nor  can  this  surprise  us ;  for  visi- 
ble churches  are  only  aids,  their  ordinances 
and  ministries  are  valuable  only  as  they 
promote  personal  holiness.  No  error  of 
the  Church  of  Rome  is  more  fatal  than  that 
which  teaches  that  a  church  can  do  some- 
thing mechanically  to  save  us.  And  all 
churches  practice  the  same  imposture  which 
get  rid  of  religion  by  something  that  seems 
to  be  religious;  which  overlook  the  great 
truth  that  every  man  must  bo  his  own 


FULLER:  PERSONAL  RELIGION,  ITS  AIDS  AND  HINDERANCES.         335 


priest ;  which,  instead  of  seeking  to  awaken 
and  nourish  the  spirit  of  faith,  penitence, 
sanctity,  by  their  prayers,  hymns,  lessons, 
sermons,  services,  invest  these  performances 
•with  a  superstitious  virtue ;  and  thus  satis- 
fy the  conscience  with  something  short  of 
holiness,  and  fix  the  heart  on  some  sancti- 
monious machinery  instead  of  Christ. 

I  have  thus  indicated  some  of  the  dangers 
which,  at  this  day,  urgently  admonish  us 
to  insist  upon  the  great  duty  of  cultivating 
true,  personal  piety.  What,  however,  do  we 
mean  by  personal  piety?  This  is  a  ques- 
tion of  eternal  moment.  I  therefore  give 
the  answer,  seeking  in  this,  as  in  all  I  utter, 
to  ascertain  "  the  mind  of  the  Spirit." 

By  personal  piety  I  mean,  first,  a  princi- 
ple, a  new,  gracious  principle ;  not  a  succes- 
sion of  good  deeds,  but  a  spiritual  principle 
of  which  such  good  deeds  are  the  fruits  aud 
evidences. 

By  personal  piety  I  mean  an  internal  life ; 
not  outward  activities,  but  an  inward  pow- 
er, an  instinct  of  devotion,  of  faith,  prayer, 
self-immolation,  habitual  communion  with 
God,  which  is  incorporated  among  the  very 
elements  of  our  being.  One  of  the  most  re- 
markable features  of  our  age  is  the  energy 
with  which  men  combine  their  efforts  in  ev- 
ery sort  of  enterprise.  In  the  Church  as  in 
the  world,  whatever  people  wish  to  do  they 
form  a  society  to  do  it  with ;  and,  therefore, 
in  the  Church  as  in  the  world,  one  of  our 
perils  is  a  religion  which  is  from  without, 
not  from  within,  the  mistaking  what  we  do 
for  what  we  are,  and  consequently  the  neg- 
lect of  our  own  spiritual  health  aud  pros- 
perity, while  wo  engage  in  the  diversified 
systems  of  concerted  movements  which  in- 
cessantly claim  our  attention. 

By  personal  piety  I  mean  a  vitalizing 
principle ;  a  principle  the  vitality  of  which 
— like  all  real  life — is  attested  by  continual 
growth.  If  there  be  spiritual  life,  there  will 
be  a  progressive  enlargement  of  the  mind 
and  expansion  of  the  soul ;  we  will  "  grow 
in  grace,"  and  this  development  will  be 
"according  to  the  proportion  of  faith "- 
the  harmony  and  symmetry  of  the  Gospel. 

In  a  word,  the  personal  piety  defined  by 
the  Scriptures  is  not  any  emotional  impulse  ; 
it  is  a  real,  deep,  practical  force,  which,  de- 
riving its  strength  from  God,  raises  the  soul 
above  the  senses  and  passions,  inbreeds  in  it 
temperance,  chastity,  self-control,  cherishes 
in  it  that  abiding  consciousness  of  the  pres- 
ence and  power  of  Jesus  which  will  cause  it 
to  be  always  perfecting  its  heavenly  facul- 
ties, having  "its  fruit  unto  holiness,  and  the 
end  everlasting  life." 

Religion!  Personal  piety !  The  very  pur- 
pose for  which  Christ  "bore  our  sins  in  his 
own  body  on  the  tree  "  was  "  that  we,  being 
dead  to  sin,  should  live  unto  righteousness ;" 
and  if  we  are  Christians,  the  subject  now  in 
l:nnd  must  be  profoundly  interesting  to  us. 


For  if  we  are  Christians,  if  we  have  passed 
from  death  unto  life,  then  there  has  been 
not  merely  a  change,  but  a  spiritual  resur- 
rection, a  transition  not  only  into  the  peace 
and  privileges  of  a  new  forensic  relation  to 
God,  but  into  a  new  character,  the  very  first 
conscious  ingredient  of  which  is  an  instinct- 
ive, irrepressible  longing  and  yearning  after 
perfect  holiness.  Yet  how  far  are  we  from 
that  holiness !  Happy  the  man  whose  good 
desires  ripen  into  fruits,  whose  evil  thoughts 
perish  in  the  blossom !  But,  alas !  too  often 
the  reverse  of  this  is  our  mournful  experi- 
ence. We — even  we  who  are  the  teachers 
and  examples  for  others — would  we  be  al- 
ways willing  to  let  them  look  into  our 
hearts  ?  Woe  unto  us,  how  ineffectual  are 
our  clearest  convictions,  our  most  solemn 
resolutions ;  so  that  at  times  it  really  seems 
as  if  the  Gospel  can  not  accomplish  in  us 
what  it  promises,  as  if  remaining  sin  were 
too  much  for  God.  Not  one  of  us  but,  again 
and  again,  with  bitter  weeping,  has  exclaim- 
ed, "We  are  tied  and  bound  by  the  chains 
of  our  own  sins;  but  do  thou,  O  Lord,  of 
the  pitifulness  of  thy  great  mercy,  loose  us ;" 
yet  even  our  prayers  have  been  unavailing. 
And  now,  why  is  this  so  ?  In  ansWer  to  this 
inquiry,  it  is  generally  said  that  we  are  fall- 
en, and  the  taint  and  pollution  of  sin  still 
adhere  to  us.  But  this  is  no  answer;  for 
the  Gospel  is  the  Divine  remedy  for  this 
very  evil.  It  is  a  melancholy  fact  that  we 
have  all  been  sadly  disappointed  in  the 
hopes  which  inspired  our  hearts  when  we 
were  first  converted  to  God.  Having  tasted 
the  love  of  Jesus,  rejoicing  in  him  with  a  joy 
unspeakable  and  full  of  glory,  we  believed 
that  we  were  forever  delivered  from  the 
solicitations  of  sin.  But  too  soon  this  joy 
withered  away  from  us ;  too  soon  the  truth 
broke  in  bitterly  upon  us  that  we  were  not 
wholly  sanctified ;  too  soon  we  were  amazed 
aud  humbled  by  the  consciousness  of  re- 
maining corruptions.  Is  this,  however,  to 
be  forever  the  Christian's  experience  ?  Must 
the  prodigal,  even  after  his  return,  still  be 
continually  grieving  his  father  ?  Must  God 
be  always  thus  dishonored  by  the  motions 
of  sin  in  his  own  children?  Is  it  necessary 
that  a  cloud  should  ever  separate  between 
Jesus  aud  the  soul  he  has  redeemed?  We 
can  scarcely  adopt  a  system  which  so  mocks 
the  highest,  holiest  aspirations  of  the  "  new 
creature."  Surely  God  has  not  quickened 
in  us  a  hungering  and  thirsting  after  holi- 
ness which  is  not  to  bo  filled.  The  water 
that  I  shall  give  him  shall  he  in  him  a  well  of 
water  springing  up  into  everlasting  life.  This 
can  not  mean  that  there  is  to  be  in  us  a 
fountain  forever  sending  up  impure  and  poi- 
sonous waters.  No,  and  again  no.  Let  us 
not  bo  calculating  accurately  how  much  .1 
Christian  must  sin.  Let  us  not  be  examin- 
ing carefully  how  much  sinning  is  indispen- 
sable to  true  orthodoxy.  Let  us  not  vacate 


336 


CHRISTIAN  LIFE. 


the  exceeding  great  and  precious  promises 
of  the  Bible,  ami  limit  the  Holy  Spirit  by 
whom  we  are  sanctified,  and  depreciate  the 
efficacy  of  that  faith  which  "purifies  the 
heart,"  of  that  hope  which  engages  us  to  be 
"pure  as  Christ  is  pure,"  and  thus  deduct 
from  the  virtue  of  that  atonement,  the  effect 
of  which  should  be  that  we  walk  iu  the  se- 
curity of  an  imputed,  and  iu  the  joy  of  an 
imparted  righteousness. 

Nor  will  it  avail  much  for  our  growth  in 
personal  holiness  that  we  specify  the  beset- 
ting sin  and  peculiar  hinderances  with  which 
each  Christian  has  to  contend  —  some  of 
which  are  iu  the  body,  others  in  the  mind, 
others  in  the  heart,  the  most  formidable  in 
the  imagination.  Nor  will  a  cure  be  made 
by  prescribing  the  usual  antidotes  and  pre- 
cautions— such  as  fasting,  and  prayer,  and 
meditation,  and  reading  the  Word  of  God. 
Me,  pondering  for  years  this  eternally  mo- 
mentous subject,  with  much  prayer,  many 
tears,  and  after  most  mortifying  experiences, 
one  great  truth  now  possesses  with  all  the 
certainty  of  perfect  conviction.  It  is  that, 
with  the  children  of  God,  the  chief  cause  of 
such  deplorable  deficiency  in  holiness  is  the 
defect  in  our  conceptions  as  to  the  way  of 
holiness  revealed  iu  the  Gospel.  Enlight- 
ened as  to  a  free,  full,  present  forgiveness 
through  faith  in  Jesus,  the  error  of  those 
who  go  to  the  law,  to  their  own  efforts  for 
absolution  from  the  penalty  of  sin,  seems  to 
us  the  strangest  blindness ;  but  we  forget 
that  salvation  from  the  power  and  corrup- 
tion of  sin,  from  sin  itself,  must  be  in  the 
same  way. 

After  all  the  controversies  waged  and 
waging,  it  appears  to  me  quite  incontesta- 
ble that  in  the  seventh  chapter  of  Romans 
the  apostle  is  describing  the  painful  con- 
flicts and  defeats  of  a  child  of  God,  who  is 
seeking  to  perfect  holiness  by  the  deeds  of 
the  law.  That  was  the  very  "  falling  from 
grace,"/ro»i  the  gracious  provisions  of  the  Gos- 
pel, which  he  deplored  in  the  Galatians. 
Tine  only  would  I  learn  of  you,  Received  ye  the 
Spirit  by  the  works  of  the  laic,  or  by  the  hearing 
of  faith?  Are  ye  so  foolish?  Having  begun  in 
the  Spirit,  are  ye  now  made  perfect  by  the  flesh? 
And  I  may  appeal  to  every  Christian,  and 
ask  whether  this  same  error  and  its  lament- 
able consequences  have  not  entered  into  his 
own  experience.  Coming  to  Jesus,  casting 
your  soul  with  all  its  interests  upon  him,  you 
received  all  you  came  for ;  you  experienced 
the  peace  and  blessedness  of  pardon ;  and 
such  was  the  gratitude  and  love  glowing  in 
your  bosom  that,  "  being  made  free  from  sin, 
you  became  the  servants  of  righteousness." 

But  did  this  deadness  to  sin  continue? 
Did  the  expulsive  potency  of  this  new  affec- 
tion permanently  dislodge  the  evil  propen- 
sities of  your  nature  ?  On  the  contrary,  no 
mortification  can  be  more  substantial  than 
that  you  have  felt  at  the  revival  of  the  life 


and  power  of  sin  within  yon.  And  now,  why 
this  ?  Why  but  that  you  sought  holiness  by 
the  law  and  not  by  faith.  Nothing  could  be 
more  sincere  than  your  resolutions,  promises, 
and  efforts;  but  the  humbling  sense  of  their 
utter  insufficieucy  caused  you  in  anguish  to 
exclaim, "  O  wretched  man  that  I  am,  who 
shall  deliver  me  from  the  body  of  this 
death  f"  Nor  did  you  find  relief,  peace, 
strength,  victory  over  your  corruptions,  un- 
til you  repaired  to  the  fountain  open  for  sin 
and  uucleanness,  until,  looking  to  Jesus, 
casting  your  soul  upon  him  for  sanctifica- 
tion  just  as  you  did  at  first  for  pardon,  you 
uttered  that  exulting  shout, "  I  thank  God 
through  Jesus  Christ  our  Lord." 

The  one  great  aid,  then,  to  personal  piety, 
the  one  essential  resource  comprehending 
and  giving  efficacy  to  all  others,  is  faith  in 
Jesus — iu  him  who  was  "called  Jesus  be- 
cause he  would  save  his  people  from  their 
sins;"  not  only  from  the  guilt  of  sin,  but 
from  sin  itself.  If  we  are  to  "lay  aside  ev- 
ery weight  and  the  sin  which  doth  so  easily 
beset  us,"  there  is  but  a  single  way,  it  is 
"looking  unto  Jesus."  If  we  are  to  have 
our  fruit  unto  holiness,  there  is  but  one  way. 
"Abide  in  me,"  says  Jesus.  "In  me;"  not 
in  a  church.  "In  me;"  not  in  your  own 
works.  Of  course,  the  life  of  every  true  dis- 
ciple of  the  Redeemer  will  be  a  life  of  daily 
self-denial.  Every  evangelical  grace  sup- 
poses and  requires  daily  self-denial.  Nor 
only  so.  The  sins  most  fatal  to  Christians 
require  and  suppose  daily  self-denial ;  for  it 
is  not  through  insincerity,  or  evil  intentions, 
but  through  indolence,  effeminacy,  excess  iu 
lawful  thiugs,  that  those  who  are  really  con- 
verted so  often  dishonor  the  holy  name  they 
bear,  and  pierce  themselves  through  with 
many  sorrows.  Yet  for  all  this,  it  is  true 
that  in  subduing  our  depravities  one  act  of 
faith  is  worth  a  whole  life  of  attempted 
faithfulness.  As  the  smallest  skiff,  if  sound, 
will  bear  a  passenger  to  a  richly  furnished 
ship,  so  the  feeblest  act  of  faith,  if  it  be  gen- 
uine, will  unite  the  soul  to  Him  in  whom 
dwell  all  the  treasures  of  grace  and  strength, 
who  "  of  God  is  made  unto  us  wisdom  and 
righteousness  and  sauctification  and  re- 
demption." 

In  drawing  these  observations. to  a  close,  I 
would  remark  that,  while  we  are  all  familiar 
with  the  subject  discussed,  none  of  us  are  fa- 
miliar with  its  greatness  and  its  importance. 
No  one  can  glance  at  the  present  state  of  the 
world  without  feeling  that  Jesus  is  taking  to 
himself  his  great  name  and  asserting  his  im- 
perial supremacy.  My  soul  stands  erect  and 
exults  as  I  survey  the  rapidly  extending 
conquests  of  that  adorable  Being  who  never 
contemplated  for  his  empire  any  sphere  nar- 
rower than  the  whole  earth;  whom  three 
continents  now  worship ;  whose  victories 
are  the  standing  miracle  of  the  universe ; 
whoso  word  has,  for  nearly  nineteen  centu- 


FULLER :  PERSONAL  RELIGION,  ITS  AIDS  AND  HINDERANCES.          337 


lies,  been  the  law  of  laws  to  all  civilized  na^ 
tions  ;  who,  "  the  holiest  among  the  mighty, 
and  the  mightiest  among  the  holy,  has,  with 
his  pierced  hand,  lifted  empires  off  their 
hinges,  has  turned  the  stream  of  centuries 
out  of  its  channel,  and  is  still 'governing  the 
ages;"  who  is  presiding  in  senates,  ruling 
tribunals  of  justice,  controlling  kings  and 
cabinets,  framing  and  shaping  the  growing 
stature  of  the  world,  blessing  it  with  good 
governments,  with  the  highest  knowledges, 
with  the  fairest  humanities,  with  the  noblest 
powers,  with  the  dearest  amenities  and  chari- 
ties, with  "whatsoever  things  are  just,  what- 
soever things  are  true,  whatsoever  things 
are  lovely  and  of  good  report." 

But  let  us  not  be  imposed  upon  by  these 
external  triumphs.  The  true  kingdom  of 
Jesus  is  spiritual  and  interior.  It  is  the  em- 
pire of  truth  over  the  mind,  of  holiness  over 
the  heart  and  the  life.  Inward  sanctity, 
pure,  constraining  love  to  God  and  man,  sin- 
cere obedience — where  Jesus  reigns  these 
are  the  elements  of  his  sovereignty,  and 
without  these  no  outward  homage  can  make 
us  his  real  disciples. 

If  we  are  to  be  useful  in  winning  souls,  in 
advancing  the  true  interests  of  the  Redeem- 
er, the  secret  is  not  genius  nor  learning ;  it 
is,  as  David  declares,  "a  clean  heart,"  the 
constant  presence  and  power  of  the  Holy 
Spirit. 

If  we  are  to  enjoy  spiritual  happiness,  if 
the  joy  of  the  Lord  is  to  be  our  strength, 
the  conscience  must  be  purified  from  the 
stain  of  sin,  and  we  must  live  every  day  in 
the  consciousness  of  entire  consecration  to 
Jesus.  "  The  kingdom  of  God,"  the  reign  of 
Christ, "  is  righteousness,  peace,  and  joy  in 
the  Holy  Ghost."  It  is  first  holiness,  then 
peace  and  blessedness. 

Lastly,  our  salvation.  "  Without  holiness 
no  man  shall  see  the  Lord."  Every  human 
being  has  at  some  time  felt  that  the  one 
great  message  of  God  to  him  is, "  Be  thou 
holy,  for  I  am  holy ;"  and  again  and  again — 
in  the  most  awful  terms  and  by  every  diver- 
sity of  emphatic  admonition — Jesus  warns 
us  of  the  terrible  disappointment  which  at 
the  judgment  shall  overwhelm  those  who 
forget  that  repentance  is  not  the  utterance 
of  the  lips,  but  the  change  of  the  heart ; 
who,  living  in  self-indulgence  and  sin,  stu- 
pefy their  consciences  by  that  most  unsearch- 
able flattery  of  having  "  prophesied  in  his 
name,  and  in  his  name  done  many  wonder- 
ful works." 

Let  us  enter  into  these  thoughts.  Let  us 
begin  to  "cleanse  ourselves  from  all  filthi- 
ness  of  the  flesh  and  spirit,  perfecting  holi- 
ness in  the  fear  of  God."  And  let  us  enter 
upon  this  life  now.  To-morrow  may  be  too 
late.  Ready  or  not  ready,  death  is  steal- 
ing on  with  silent  steps.  The  summons 
may  be  sudden ;  or,  if  you  pass  into  eter- 
22 


njty  by  a  protracted  sickness,  need  I  tell 
you  what  death  -  bed  conversions  are  re- 
ally worth  ?  Believing  that  one  of  two 
brothers  who  had  long  been  at  enmity  was 
about  to  die,  a  minister  of  Jesus  was  exceed- 
ingly anxious  to  effect  a  reconciliation  be- 
tween them.  The  sick  man  had  been  the 
more  violent  in  his  feelings,  but  now  he  ac- 
quiesced in  the  proposed  interview.  They 
met,  and,  after  prayer  by  the  pastor,  each 
held  the  hand  of  the  other  and  professed  sor- 
row for  the  past.  As  his  brother  was  leav- 
ing the  chamber,  however,  the  patient  call- 
ed him  back,  and  said, "  James,  I  have  made 
it  up  because  I  think  I  am  going  to  die ;  but 
remember,  if  I  get  well,  it  will  be  just  as  it 
was  before."  This  scene  was  real,  and  it  il- 
lustrates the  nature  of  professed  changes  of 
heart  in  a  dying  hour.  All  is  penitence  and 
tears  in  prospect  of  eternity ;  but  let  health 
return,  and  with  it  comes  the  resurrection 
of  the  man's  passions.  If  he  gets  well,  it  is 
with  his  sins  just  as  it  was  before. 

May  God  in  mercy  save  us  from  this  and 
from  all  delusions  in  a  matter  of  such  infi- 
nite moment.  Let  each  of  us  so  pass  each 
day  as  to  say,  To  me  to  live  is  Christ;  remem- 
bering it  is  only  then  we  can  add,  And  to  die 
is  gain. 

Personal  piety,  growing  sanctification  of 
heart  and  life.  Without  this,  all  our  hopes 
are  fatal  self-deceptions.  Talents,  erudition, 
wealth,  influence,  life — may  we  dedicate  all 
these  to  our  Lord,  and  thus  be  faithful  in 
these  stewardships  which  have  been  confided 
to  us.  But  let  us  ever  remember  those  word  s 
so  full  of  solemn  significancy,  "Not  yours, 
but  you ;"  and,  while  devoting  our  zeal  and 
energies  to  the  cause  and  glory  of  our  com- 
mon Redeemer,  let  us  "  hold  a  good  con- 
science" as  well  as  "the  faith,"  let  us  be 
ever  exercising  that  self-mastery  without 
which,  after  having  preached  to  others,  we 
ourselves  shall  be  castaways,  ever  cultiva- 
ting that  all-pervading  sanctity  which  is 
strength,  victory,  joy  now,  and  the  foretaste 
and  earnest  of  a  blessed  immortality. 

O  Jesus,  vouchsafe  us  this  inestimable 
blessing ! 

"As  thou  didst  give  no  law  for  me; 
But  that  of  perfect  liberty, 
Which  neither  tires  nor  doth  corrode, 
Which  is  a  pillow,  not  a  load, 
Teach  both  my  eyes  and  hands  to  move 
Within  those  bounds  set  by  thy  love. 
Grant  I  may  pure  and  lowly  be, 
And  live  my  life,  O  Christ,  to  thee." 

Now  the  God  of  peace  that  brought  again 
from  the  dead  our  Lord  Jesus,  that  great 
Shepherd  of  the  sheep,  through  the  blood  of 
the  everlasting  covenant,  make  you  perfect 
in  every  good  work  to  do  his  will,  working 
in  you  that  which  is  well  pleasing  in  his 
sight,  through  Jesns  Christ ;  to  whom  be 
glory  for  ever  and  ever.  Amen. 


PERSONAL  RELIGION:  ITS  AIDS  AND  HINDER- 

ANCES. 

BY  THE  EEV.  WILLIAM  NAST,  D.D.,  CINCINNATI,  OHIO. 


IN  order  to  discern  the  aids  and  hinder- 
ances  of  personal  religion,  or,  in  other  words, 
the  aids  and  hinderances  of  the  believer 
in  his  personal  relations  to  the  Lord  Jesus 
Christ,  it  seems  to  us  to  be  of  great  impor- 
tance that  we  have  a  clear  conception  of  the 
three  chief  facts  in  the  process  of  salvation : 
to  wit,  the  impartation  of  spiritual  life  to 
the  soul  in  regeneration,  the  cleansing  of 
the  heart  from  all  moral  impurity  through 
sanctification  of  the  spirit,  and  the  maturity 
of  Christian  character. 

There  are  degrees  in  religion.  The  inte- 
rior life,  as  well  as  the  external  develop- 
ment, is  progressive ;  Christian  experience 
consists  of  successive  stages.  While  God 
commands  sinners  to  repent  that  they  may 
be  pardoned,  and  while  he  calls  vipou  back- 
sliders to  return  unto  him  that  he  may  heal 
their  backslidings,  he  requires  of  all  his 
adopted  children  that  they  should  leave  the 
principles  of  the  doctrine  of  Christ  and  go  on 
unto  perfection.  Each  class  has  its  own  ap- 
propriate work  to  do ;  and  there  is  a  beautiful 
gradation,  rising  one  above  the  other,  from  the 
lowest  to  the  highest  attainments  in  grace. 

Let  us  turn  our  attention  to  the  distinc- 
tion which  the  Word  of  God  points  out  to 
us  between  Life  and  Purity  on  the  one  hand, 
and  Christian  Maturity  on  the  other,  the  two 
former  being  the  necessary  conditions  of  a 
healthy  growth  in  grace,  while  the  latter  is 
its  product.  Let  TIS  also  notice  the  distinc- 
tion between  the  impartation  of  spiritual 
life  in  regeneration  and  the  purification  of 
the  heart  in  sanctification. 

I.  It  is  self-evident  that  there  can  be  no 
purity  of  heart,  much  less  maturity  of  Chris- 
tian character,  unless  spiritual  life  has  been 
imparted  to  the  soul  from  above.  We  are 
by  nature  dead  in  trespasses  and  sins,  and 
in  order  to  obtain  spiritual  life  we  must  bo 
born  anew,  must  become  new  creatures  in 
Christ  Jesus.  It  is  as  impossible  for  a  dead 
soul  to  grow  into  spiritual  life  as  it  is  for  a 
dead  plant  or  animal  to  be  cultivated  into 
natural  life.  Life  is  the  first  and  indispen- 
sable requisite  to  growth.  Uureuewed  hu- 
manity is  spiritually  dead,  and  no  man  can 
be  made  a  Christian  by  culture.  Spiritual 
life  is  a  life  from  the  dead,  a  resurrection 
from  the  death  of  sin.  "  He  was  dead,  and 
is  alive  again,"  can  be  said  of  every  adopted 
child  of  God.  Spiritual  and  eternal  life  is 


the  free  gift  of  Divine  Grace,  secured  to  fallen 
man  through  the  suffering  and  death  of  our 
Lord  Jesus  Christ,  "  whom  God  hath  set 
forth  to  be  a  propitiation  through  his  blood, 
to  declare  his  righteousness,  that  he  might 
be  just,  and  the  justifier  of  him  which  be- 
lieveth  in  Jesus."  "  Not  by  works  of  right- 
eousness which  we  have  done,  but  according 
to  his  mercy  he  saved  us,  by  the  washing 
of  regeneration,  and  renewing  of  the  Holy 
Ghost  ;  which  he  shed  on  us  abundantly 
through  Jesus  Christ  our  Saviour."  It  was 
"  not  that  we  loved  God,  but  that  he  loved 
us,  and  sent  his  Sou  to  be  the  propitiation 
for  our  sins."  "God  so  loved  the  world, 
that  he  gave  his  only -begotten  Son,  that 
whosoever  believeth  in  him  should  not  per- 
ish, but  have  everlasting  life."  "As  many 
as  received  him,  to  them  gave  he  power  to 
become  the  sons  of  God,  even  to  them  that 
believe  on  his  name :  which  were  born,  not 
of  blood,  nor  of  the  will  of  the  flesh,  nor  of 
the  will  of  man,  but  of  God."  Spiritual  life, 
then,  is  not  a  purchase  to  be  made,  or  wages 
to  be  earned,  or  a  summit  to  be  climbed,  but 
simply  and  only  a  gift  to  be  received,  and 
nothing  but  faith  can  receive  any  gift  from 
God.  We  are  made  the  children  of  God  by 
faith,  and  by  faith  alone. 

II.  If  a  man  receives  spiritual  life  through 
faith  in  Christ  Jesus,  if  a  man  be  in  Christ, 
he  is  a  new  creature ;  the  whole  soul  is  raised 
from  the  death  of  sin,  he  has  passed  from 
death  unto  life;  but  the  incoming  of  this 
new  spiritual  life  does  not  at  once  destroy 
the  life  of  the  old  man.  The  power  of  sin 
is  broken,  but,  though  sin  does  no  more  rule, 
it  has  not  ceased  to  exist.  The  new  life  is 
impaired  and  impeded  by  remains  of  tho 
carnal  mind,  by  inbred  corruptions  against 
which  a  constant  war  must  be  kept  up,  tho 
soul  alternately  conquering  and  being  con- 
quered. But  the  life  of  the  Christian  need 
not  and  ought  not  to  be  a  constant  succes- 
sion of  stumblings  and  risings,  an  endless 
soiling  and  recleansing  of  the  garments.  He 
who  blotted  out  our  traugressious  as  a  thick 
cloud  has  shed  his  precious  blood  to  cleanse 
our  hearts  from  the  remains  of  the  carnal 
mind,  from  all  unholy  desires  and  sinful  tem- 
pers, from  the  risings  of  pride,  auger,  or  lust, 
from  all  filthiness  of  the  flesh  and  spirit ;  to 
take  out  of  the  heart  every  tendency  which 
hinders  us  from  loving  God  with  all  our 


NAST :  PERSONAL  RELIGION. 


339 


heart,  with  all  our  soul,  and  with  all  our 
strength,  and  our  neighbor  as  ourselves ;  to 
completely  deliver  us  out  of  the  hand  of  our 
enemies,  so  that  we  may  serve  him  without 
fear,  in  holiness  and  righteousness  before 
him,  all  the  days  of  our  life,  yea,  to  destroy 
the  body  of  sin,  so  that  we  become  dead  to 
sin,  and  Christ  becomes  our  life,  taking  up 
into  himself  our  whole  personality ;  in  short, 
to  sanctify  us  wholly,  preserving  our  whole 
spirit,  and  soul,  and  body  blameless  unto  his 
coming. 

This  entire  heart  purity  is  not  any  more 
a  product  of  growth  than  the  new  spiritual 
life  we  receive  in  regeneration.  It  is  the 
gift  of  God,  received  by  an  act  of  faith,  in 
answer  to  fervent  prayer.  It  is  not  the  re- 
sult of  spontaneous  spiritual  development, 
but  the  effect  of  an  application  of  that  blood 
which  cleanses  from  all  sin.  It  is  a  special 
work  wrought  by  the  Holy  Spirit  in  the 
regenerate  heart,  distinct  from  spiritual  re- 
generation on  the  one  hand,  and  from  Chris- 
tian maturity  on  the  other.  The  soul  can 
no  more  grow  out  of  impurity  into  purity 
than  it  can  grow  out  of  death  into  life. 
That  Power  alone  which  can  speak  to  life 
the  dead,  can  wash  the  scarlet  white  or  make 
the  crimson  spotless  as  wool. 

"  I  can  not  wash  my  heart 
But  by  believing  Thee, 
And  waiting  for  thy  blood  to  impart 
The  spotless  purity." . 

Salvation  from  the  pollution  of  siu,  as  well 
as  from  its  guilt  and  power,  is  of  the  Lord. 
He  says,  "I  am  the  Lord  which  sanctify 
you."  It  is  in  the  blood  of  the  Lamb  alone 
that  we  can  wash  our  robes  and  make  them 
white.  There  is  nothing  that  can  debar 
from  his  sanctifying  grace  a  child  of  God 
willing  to  be  cleansed  from  all  sin,  except 
unbelief.  God's  unalterable  plan  in  all  his 
dealings  with  the  souls  of  men  is,  "Accord- 
ing to  your  faith  be  it  unto  you."  The  ex- 
ercise of  saving  faith  presupposes,  of  course, 
a  willingness  to  renounce  the  actual  sins,  the 
pardon  of  which  we  seek  in  penitence,  or  a 
willingness  to  be  saved  from  all  inward  sin, 
for  the  extirpation  of  which  we  pray ;  but 
as  the  awakened  sinner,  seeking  the  forgive- 
ness of  his  sins,  is  saved  the  moment  he  ac- 
cepts Christ  as  his  righteousness,  and  never 
until  that  moment,  so  is  the  child  of  God,  seek- 
ing purity  of  heart,  fully  saved  from  sin  the 
moment  he  accepts  Christ  as  his  Sanctifier. 

"Faith,  mighty  faith,  the  promise  sees, 
And  looks  to  that  alone, 
Laughs  at  impossibilities, 
And  cries,  It  shall  be  done ! 
The  thing  surpasses  all  my  thought, 
But  faithful  is  my  Lord ; 
Through  unbelief  I  stagger  not, 
For  God  has  spoke  the  word." 

Purity  is  the  result  of  cleansing  effected  by 
the  gracious  putting  forth  of  Divine  power. 
Deliverance  from  inward  as  well  as  outward 


sin  is  based  upon  a  present  command  and 
a  present  promise.  For  groicth  and  ripeniny 
we  needs  must  have  time;  but  purity  of 
heart  and  life  is  a  present  need.  "  Be  ye 
holy,  for  I  am  holy."  "  Hear,  O  Israel :  The 
Lord  our  God  is  one  Lord ;  and  thou  shalt 
love  the  Lord  thy  God  with  all  thine  heart, 
and  with  all  thy  soul,  and  with  all  thy 
might."  Can  all  the  heart  and  soul  and 
might  go  out  in  love  to  God  so  long  as  thero 
remains  within  our  breasts  an  unholy  desire 
or  a  sinful  temper  to  be  subdued  ?  It  is  af- 
ter the  assurance  that  "  now  is  the  accepted 
time,  and  now  is  the  day  of  salvation,"  that 
Paul  exhorts  us  "  to  cleanse  ourselves  from 
all  filthiness  of  the  flesh  and  spirit,  perfect- 
ing holiness  in  the  fear  of  God."  So  far  from 
teaching  us  to  grow  out  of  our  sins  and  sin- 
fulness,  he  says,  "Now  yield  your  members 
servants  to  righteousness  unto  holiness." 
And  the  beloved  disciple  declares,  "  Every 
man  that  hath  this  hope  in  him  [to  see  the 
Lord]  purifieth  himself,  even  as  he  is  pure." 
Let  us  grow  by  all  means  into  maturity  of 
character,  but  as  to  sin,  let  us  cease  there- 
from to-day.  "  For  ye  know  that  he  was 
manifested  to  take  away  our  sins,  and  in  him 
is  no  sin." 

III.  Let  us  speak  briefly  of  Christian  ma- 
turity. After  we  have  received  by  faith  the 
impartation  of  spiritual  life  in  regeneration, 
and  after  we  have  experienced  that  the  blood 
of  Jesus  cleanses  us  from  all  sin,  all  impedi- 
ments are  removed  to  our  growth  in  grace, 
up  to  the  measure  of  the  stature  of  thefullnesx 
of  Christ.  Our  progress  is  constant  and  rap- 
id, and  its  velocity  and  safety  are  constant- 
ly increasing.  As  there  are  steps  of  prepa- 
ration for  the  work  of  regeneration,  and  as 
growth  in  grace  is  necessary  to  preserve  our 
justification,  so  there  are  stages  of  progres- 
sion in  a  sanctified  state.  The  Scriptures 
speak  of  perfect  men  in  contrast  with  babes 
and  children.  This  term  is  generally  ap- 
plied to  the  legitimate  result  of  growth, 
which  is  Christian  maturity,  but  it  may  be 
applied  also  to  the  relative  growth  in  the 
different  states  of  the  Christian  life.  There 
are  babes  and  full-grown  men  and  fathers 
in  a  state  of  sanctificatiou  as  well  as  in  that 
of  justification.  But  let  us  bear  in  mind 
that  progress  from  death  to  life,  from  im- 
purity to  purity,  is  conditioned  upon  the  re- 
ception of  the  Holy  Ghost  by  acts  of  faith. 
Those  steps  of  progress  in  the  Christian  life 
are  not  spontaneous  developments,  as  growth 
is  in  natural  life.  Let  us  also  bear  in  mind 
that  spiritual  growth  is  entirely  different 
from  animal  or  vegetable  growth  in  this :  a 
plant  or  an  animal  reaches  the  limit  of  its 
expansion  in  due  time  and  grows  no  more ; 
but  the  capacity  of  the  soul  in  growing 
Christ-like  knows  of  no  limit ;  it  is  going 
on  and  on,  more  and  more  approximating, 
but  never  reaching  its  goal.  But  let  us  in 
this  conuection  not  fail  to  distinguish  bo- 


340 


CHRISTIAN  LIFE. 


tween  pnrity  of  heart  and  Christian  matu- 
rity or  Christian  perfection.  Let  us  never 
understand  the  latter  iu  any  other  but  a 
relative  sense.  We  can  not  reach  in  this  life 
.1  state  of  being  in  which  we  shall  be  freed 
from  frailties,  weaknesses,  liability  to  err 
both  iu  judgment  and  in  practice,  and  from 
the  possibility  of  falling  into  sin.  But 
"though  wo  have  no  absolute  siulessness," 
as  a  devout  Presbyterian  brother  comments 
in  a  tract  on  1  John  i.,  7, "  it  is  an  invalu- 
able blessing  and  strength  to  the  believer 
to  have  a  happy  heart,  free  from  all  known 
sin — a  heart  now  able  to  accept  the  con- 
sciousness that  Christ  does  indeed  cleanse 
from  all  sin  and  dwell  in  the  purified  tem- 
ple of  the  heart.  To  this  faith  brought  us,  in 
this  faith  keeps  us.  A  lapse  of  faith  would 
restore  our  old  condition  of  conscious  inward 
evil  and  outward  trespass.  At  this  point 
of  highest  privilege  is  also  the  pinnacle  of 
greatest  danger.  If  we  say  that  we  have 
an  inherent  holiness,  if  we  say  that  we  have 
no  sin — otherwise  than  as  the  blood  cleanses 
us — we  deceive  ourselves,  and  the  truth  is 
not  in  us.  Such  a  delusion  is  a  denial  of 
the  need  of  Christ,  the  assertion  of  a  self- 
wrought  holiness,  and  a  clothing  ourselves 
in  the  filthy  rags  of  our  own  righteousness, 
ruinous  to  our  souls  and  loathsome  to  God. 
But  if  we  walk  in  the  light  as  he  is  in  the 
light,  if  without  evasion  we  bring  every 
action,  emotion,  and  thought  into  the  all- 
searching  light  of  the  presence  of  God,  and 
the  soul  rejects  what  the  light  reveals  as 
evil,  our  fellowship  is  with  the  Father  and 


with  his  Sou  Jesus  Christ — a  fellowship  in 
the  light.  A  walk  in  the  light  always  leads 
to  the  blood,  and  all  that  the  light  shows 
of  evil  in  our  nature  becomes  effectually 
cleansed  by  the  blood." 

We  have  tried  to  show  that,  personal  re- 
ligion being  begun,  sustained,  and  matured 
by  faith  in  Him  who  loved  us  and  gave 
himself  for  us,  its  chief  hinderance  must  be 
sought  in  a  lack  of  faith.  Seeing  that  with- 
out faith  it  is  impossible  to  please  God  ;  see- 
ing that  whatsoever  is  not  of  faith  is  sin, 
but  that  all  things  are  possible  to  him  that 
believeth;  seeing  that  without  Christ  wo 
can  do  nothing,  but  by  him  we  can  do  all 
things ;  seeing  that  the  inspired  apostle 
prayed  for  the  Ephesiaus  that  they  might 
be  filled  with  all  the  fullness  of  God ;  seeing 
that  Christ  is  able  to  do  exceeding  abun- 
dantly above  all  that  we  ask  or  think — the 
precious  promise  to  the  fulfillment  of  w»hich 
the  sainted  man  of  God,  Merle  d'Aubigne", 
so  unequivocally  testified — may  none  of  us 
stagger  at  any  promise  of  God  through  un- 
belief— may  none  of  us  rest  short  of  expe- 
riencing what  is  the  exceeding  greatness  of 
his  power  to  usward  who  believe  according 
to  the  working  of  his  mighty  power!  And 
may  the  God  of  peace  that  brought  again 
from  the  dead  our  Lord  Jesus,  that  great 
Shepherd  of  the  sheep,  through  the  blood  of 
the  everlasting  covenant,  make  us  perfect  in 
every  good  work  to  do  his  will,  working  iu 
us  that  which  is  well  pleasing  in  his  sight, 
through  Jesus  Christ,  to  whom  be  glory  for 
ever  and  ever,  Amen. 


FAMILY  RELIGION— WITH  SPECIAL  KEFERENCE  TO 

ENGLAND. 

BY  THE  KEV.  JOSHUA  C.  HARRISON,  LONDON. 


MADAME  DE  STAELhas  remarked  that," if 
you  ask  an  Englishman  at  the  very  end  of 
the  world  '  where  he  is  going,'  he  will  be 
sure  to  reply, ' Home.'"  His  thoughts,  his 
hopes,  whatsoever  his  distance  from  his 
country,  are  turned  always  toward  home. 
The  love  of  Englishmen  for  their  homes  ap- 
pears to  have  been  even  then  notorious,  and 
it  is  still  a  conspicuous  feature  in  their  na- 
tional life.  They  spcud  much  of  their  time 
at  home ;  they  seek  their  chief  pleasures  at 
home ;  above  all,  their  principles  and  char- 
acter are  formed,  for  the  most  part,  at  home. 
Now,  a  man's  character  is  for  him  the  prin- 
cipal thing.  What  he  is,  is  of  far  more  im- 
portance than  what  he  possesses.  His  out- 
ward lot  is  not,  indeed,  a  matter  of  small  mo- 
ment ;  but  how  he  will  use  this,  how  he  will 
enjoy  it,  to  what  account  he  will  turn  it, 
must  always  depend  on  what  he  is  in  him- 
self. And  as  home  chiefly  determines  this, 
he  can  not  but  think  of  home  with  peculiar 
tenderness  and  gratitude.  It  ought  to  fur- 
nish— it  was  intended  by  God  to  furnish — 
the  best  conditions  for  healthy  growth  and 
development. 

Personal  influence  must  always  have  a 
greater  share  in  the  formation  of  character 
than  the  explanation  or  enforcement  of  any 
abstract  principles.  The  child  needs  to 
have  every  thing  presented,  in  the  concrete; 
even  the  adult  is  seldom  quite  sure  that  he 
has  understood  an  abstract  thought  till  it  is 
illustrated  by  some  concrete  example.  Right, 
truth,  love,  purity,  must  be  seen  in  actual 
life,  if  their  nature  is  to  be  clearly  appre- 
hended, and  especially  if  their  high  and 
holy  beauty  is  to  be  felt.  Home  is  the  place 
where  personal  influence  is  in  the  ascend- 
ant. All  that  a  child  should  learn,  all  the 
principles  which  he  should  embrace  and  ex- 
emplify, he  sees  in  those  dearest  to  him,  and 
soon  catches  and  realizes  in  himself  what  he 
admires  in  them.  They  present,  or  should 
present,  in  example  what  they  inculcate  by 
precept,  and  the  child,  under  this  double 
power,  takes  his  ultimate  character. 

Then  there  is  a  certain  moral  atmosphere, 
in  which  alone  the  life  grows  quite  healthily, 
and  the  character  is  moulded  to  the  greatest 
advantage.  Where  love  is  warm  and  disin- 
terested, where  joy  is  constant  as  the  sun- 
shine, where  self  is  forgotten  in  care  for  oth- 
ers, where  distrust  is  shut  out  by  mutual 


confidence,  where  purity  reigns  supreme, 
there  you  have  the  conditions  in  which  the 
highest  results  may  be  expected.  And  no- 
where are  these  conditions  to  be  met  with  so 
surely  aud  so  fully  as  in  a  pious  home.  As 
you  watch  the  group  of  little  ones,  you  see 
that  their  various  faculties  are  pleasantly 
exercised,  because  obedience  is  gained  by 
love,  not  enforced  by  fear;  generosity  is 
practiced,  not  selfishness;  religion  is  joy, 
not  gloom ;  the  mind  is  never  crushed  down 
by  hard,  stern  law,  but  brightened  and 
strengthened  by  kindly  words  of  encourage- 
ment and  hope. 

Hence  these  genial,  formative  influences 
have  been  provided  from  the  very  begin- 
ning. Family  life  is  as  old  as  Eden.  Its 
root  is  in  the  very  nature  of  things.  It  has 
survived  the  fall,  and  contains  beyond  aught 
else  the  promise  and  earnest  of  restoration. 
As  you  read  the  sweet  idyls  of  the  Old  Tes- 
tament, you  feel  that  their  principal  charm 
lies  in  their  descriptions  of  happy  family  life 
— the  loving,  undisputed  authority  of  par- 
ents —  the  ready,  hearty  obedience  of  chil- 
dren— the  entire  household  governed  by  the 
fear  of  the  Lord. 

On  this  the  individual  was  in  those  days 
almost  Avholly  dependent  for  the  attainment 
of  knowledge,  especially  religious  knowl- 
edge. Instruction  in  school  or  church  ap- 
parently did  not  exist.  It  devolved  wholly, 
or  at  any  rate  principally,  on  parents.  "  These 
wbrds  thou  shalt  teach  diligently  to  thy  chil- 
dren, and  shalt  talk  of  them  when  thou  sit- 
test  in  thine  house,  aud  when  thou  walkest 
by  the  way,  and  when  thou  liest  down,  and 
when  thou  risest  up."  People  passionately 
desired  offspring  in  the  hope  that  they  would 
perpetuate  not  only  their  name  but  their 
principles,  and  wished  to  see  in  them  the 
reproduction  not  merely  of  their  physical 
features,  but  of  their  mental  characteristics. 
That  which  was  the  earliest  ordination  for 
the  propagation  of  divine  knowledge  must 
bo  also  the  latest,  because  it  is  the  best  and 
the  most  natural. 

Again,  from  the  family  arose  the  nation. 
The  family  was  the  germ  out  of  which  the 
nation  grew.  The  patriarch  was  the  father 
of  his  household,  then  the  head  of  his  tribe, 
then  the  ruler  of  the  nation.  The  princi- 
ples which  were  at  the  basis  of  family  life 
thus  naturally  became  the  basis  of  national 


CHRISTIAN  LIFE. 


life,  with  only  such  modifications  aud  ex- 
pansions as  altered  circumstances  demand- 
ed. As  the  family  was  the  unit  from  which 
the  nation  sprang,  so  the  nation,  when  it 
had  reached  its  widest  extent,  was  simply 
a  congeries  of  families,  and  the  character  of 
the  nation  depended,  more  than  upon  any 
other  thing,  on  the  character  of  the  house- 
holds. National  life,  then,  no  less  than  in- 
dividual, took  its  form  and  temper  from  the 
discipline  of  home,  and  gave  to  the  family 
a  position  which  was  at  once  paramount  and 
sacred.  The  same  thing  holds  good  still, 
and  ever  must  do.  The  character  of  a  peo- 
ple will  always  be  as  the  character  of  their 
homes. 

In  the  New  Testament  the  unity  of  the 
household,  which  was  the  great  charm  and 
privilege  of  the  Jewish  family,  is  always 
implied ;  the  promise  is  to  parents  and  their 
children;  both  are  embraced  in  the  covenant. 
Parents  are  to  train  up  their  children  in  the 
nurture  and  admonition  of  the  Lord ;  chil- 
dren are  to  obey  their  parents  in  all  things. 
Acquaintance  with  the  Word  of  God,  as  the 
result  of  home  training,  is  mentioned  as  a 
subject  of  warm  congratulation:  "From  a 
child  thou  hast  known  the  Holy  Scriptures, 
which  are  able  to  make  thee  wise  unto  sal- 
vation through  faith  which  is  in  Christ  Je- 
sus." The  descent  of  piety  from  parents  to 
children  is  looked  for,  and,  when  seen,  calls 
forth  the  most  grateful  joy :  "  I  thank  God 
for  the  unfeigned  faith  Avhich  dwelt  first  in 
thy  grandmother  Lois,  and  thy  mother  Eu- 
nice ;  and  I  am  persuaded  that  in  thee  also." 

And  in  the  Acts  of  the  Apostles — those 
enchanting  records  of  the  beginnings  of 
Christianity — it  is  most  instructive  to  ob- 
serve to  how  largo  an  extent  the  Church 
was  built  up  of  converted  households,  how 
from  time  to  time  families  such  as  those  of 
Lydia  and  the  Philippian  jailer  were  added 
to  the  Lord,  and  how,  while  a  prominence, 
before  unknown,  was  given  to  the  individ- 
ual, the  aim  still  was  to  incorporate  families 
as  widely  as  possible ;  that,  just  as  a  nation 
is  a  congeries  of  families,  the  Church  might 
be  a  congeries  of  religious  families ;  and  the 
training  of  the  family  might  lend  richness 
and  vigor  to  the  life  of  the  Church.  The 
Church,  so  far  from  usurping  the  place  of 
the  family,  must  ever  be  dependent  on  the 
family  for  its  real  strength,  for  its  best,  most 
consistent,  most  steadfast,  most  useful  mem- 
bers, and  in  proportion  as  piety  rules  in  the 
home  will  the  Church  itself  be  found  to 
llourish. 

Dr.  Farrar,  in  his  "  Seekers  after  God," 
has  remarked  that  "the  ancient  writers, 
even  ancient  poets,  but  rarely  refer,  even 
in  the  most  cursory  manner,  to  their  early 

veara whereas  there  is  scarcely  a  single 

modern  poet  who  has  not  lingered  with  un- 
disguised feelings  of  happiness  over  the  gen- 
tle memories  of  his  childhood ;"  and  adds 


that  generally  "  the  explanation  rests  in  the 
fact  that  in  all  probability  childhood  among 
the  ancients  was  a  disregarded,  and  in  most 
cases  a  far  less  happy,  period  than  with  us." 
And  from  the  want  of  all  proper  home  influ- 
ences, the  very  conception  of  morality  was 
so  faint  and  low. 

Wherever  Christianity  is  in  any  consider- 
able degree  impregnated  with  the  old  pagan 
element,  as  in  Romanism,  there  ecclesiastic- 
al observances  override  domestic  exercises  of 
religion ;  and  even  individual  private  wor- 
ship is  in  many  cases  transferred  from  the 
home  to  the  Church,  as  if  the  home  were 
common,  the  Church  sacred.  Now,  while  it  is 
no  doubt  oftentimes  a  matter  of  convenience 
to  have  a  quiet  edifice  to  retire  to  when  pri- 
vate dwellings  are  small  and  crowded,  yet, 
on  the  other  hand,  a  house  can  hardly  be 
called  a  home,  and  it  never  will  be  felt  to  bo 
sacred,  unless  it  have  its  holy  of  holies  where 
the  individual  draws  near  alone  to  God,  and 
its  sanctuary  where  the  family  together  bow 
the  knee  in  worship.  Hence  the  words  of 
the  late  Norman  McLeod,  speaking  general- 
ly, are  true :  "  Romanism  is  chiefly  the  re- 
ligion of  the  Church,  Protestantism  of  the 
family."  We  may  add,  in  the  degree  in 
which  churches  approximate  to  Rome  they 
lay  stress  on  what  is  ecclesiastical  to  the  de- 
preciation of  what  is  domestic  in  religion ; 
in  the  degree  in  which  they  adopt  a  thor- 
ough-going Protestantism,  and  cleave  to  the 
Evangelical  faith,  do  they  value  domestic 
life  and  cultivate  domestic  piety. 

Those  remarkable  men,  who,  in  1620,  re- 
solved to  cross  the  Atlantic  aud  found  a 
new  settlement  on  the  shores  of  America, 
were  men  distinguished  for  family  religion 
no  less  than  for  individual  faith.  They  had 
been  driven  from  the  land  of  their  birth  by 
the  cruel  hand  of  persecution,  and,  though 
in  Holland  they  found  a  friendly  welcome 
aud  a  quiet  resting-place,  they  never  felt 
themselves  at  home.  The  English  language, 
the  English  fireside,  the  English  home  life, 
were  all  dear  to  them.  They  could  not  be 
happy  without  these ;  they  could  not  endure 
the  thought  that  their  children  should  lose 
these,  and  therefore  they  sought  a  country 
where  they  could  practice  their  faith  and 
train  their  households  as  they  believed  God 
had  enjoined.  It  is  not  required  of  me  to 
trace  the  history  of  the  family  life  of  their 
immediate  descendants,  or  of  those  who  com- 
pose this  great  and  rapidly  growing  nation 
now.  I  can  not  doubt  that  the  home  tradi- 
tions of  those  days  still  live  on,  that  family 
religion  still  does  its  part  faithfully  in  up- 
holding the  life  of  the  people  in  freshness 
aud  vigor.  But  the  "  Pilgrim  Fathers  "  were 
matched  in  faith  and  devotion  by  a  band 
that  remained  at  home  or  returned  after 
years  of  exile.  It  was  mainly  by  men  of 
this  stamp,  whether  within  or  without  the 
Establishment,  that  evangelical  religion  was 


HARRISON:  FAMILY  RELIGION. 


343 


kept  alive  iu  Old  England,  and  from  them 
it  has  spread  till  it  has  reached  its  present 
dimensions.  It  would  be  interesting  to  com- 
pare the  two  streams  that  flowed  forth  from 
the  same  fountain-head,  the  one  in  England, 
the  other  in  America ;  but  the  time  at  my 
disposal  will  not  allow  me  to  follow  the  En- 
glish current  very  closely,  and  forbids  me 
even  for  a  moment  to  glance  at  the  Amer- 
ican. 

For  many  years  after  the  departure  of  the 
"  Pilgrim  Fathers  "  from  Europe,  those  who 
held  to  evangelical  principles  and  resolved 
to  carry  them  out  to  the  full  had,  if  we  ex- 
cept the  period  of  the  Commonwealth,  hard 
times  of  it  iu  England.  Many  of  them — at 
length  most  of  them — became  Non-conform- 
ists, and  then  had  to  meet  for  public  wor- 
ship chiefly  by  stealth,  or  under  restrictions 
which  kept  them  in  continual  fear.  Prob- 
ably these  very  checks  to  public  worship 
led  them  all  the  more  diligently  to  cultivate 
family  religion.  Their  home  services  would 
become  more  elaborate  as  services  in  the 
church  became  more  disturbed  and  uncer- 
tain. At  any  rate,  we  have  now  and  then 
glimpses  of  family  religion  in  those  days 
which  are  exquisitely  beautiful  and  refresh- 
ing, and  which  account  for  the  depth  and 
intelligence  of  the  piety  which  we  then  so 
often  find.  Chief  among  these  is  the  sketch 
which  Matthew  Henry  has  lovingly  made 
of  the  home  of  his  childhood  at  Worthen- 
burg  and  Broad  Oak,  where  rule  and  order 
were  strictly  maintained,  but  where  joy  and 
freedom  equally  flourished.  His  father,  Phil- 
ip Henry,  was  one  of  those  rare  spirits,  who 
seem  always  to  dwell  on  high,  and  whose 
life  does  more  than  the  strongest  arguments 
to  draw  men  to  Christ.  Morning  and  even- 
ing you  see  his  children  and  servants  col- 
lected together  for  family  worship,  but  not 
till  he  and  his  wife  have  knelt  together  in  se- 
cret ;  for  they  wished  to  live  as  heirs  togeth- 
er of  the  grace  of  Christ,  that  their  prayers, 
especially  their  prayers  together,  should  not 
be  hindered.  "  Those  do  well,"  he  was  ac- 
customed to  say,  "that  pray  morning  and 
evening  in  their  families ;  those  do  better 
that  pray  and  read  the  Scriptures ;  but 
those  do  best  of  all  that  pray,  and  read,  and 
sing  psalms ;  and  Christians  should  covet 
earnestly  the  best  gifts."  This  rule  he  him- 
self observed.  Beginning  witli  a  short  but 
solemn  invocation  of  the  Divine  presence 
and  grace,  he  gave  out  a  psalm,  which  was 
"  sung  quick,  with  a  good  variety  of  proper 
and  pleasant  tunes ;"  for  he  used  to  say  the 
voice  of  rejoicing  and  salvation  should  be 
iu  the  tabernacles  of  the  righteous.  He 
next  read  a  portion  of  Scripture,  taking  the 
Bible  in  order.  "  In  prayer,"  he  would  re- 
mark, "  we  speak  to  God ;  by  the  Word  he 
speaks  to  us ;  and  is  there  any  reason  that 
we  should  speak  all  ?  In  the  tabernacle  the 
priests  were  every  day  to  burn  incense  and 


to  light  the  lamps;  the  former  figuring  the 
duty  of  prayer,  the  latter  the  duty  of  read- 
ing the  Word."  "  What  he  read  iu  his  fam- 
ily he  always  expounded,  and  here  he  had  a 
peculiar  excellence.  His  observations,"  his 
son  tells  us,  "  were  many  times  very  pretty 
and  surprising,  and  such  as  we  shall  not  or- 
dinarily meet  with."  After  his  exposition 
he  would  ask  his  children  for  some  account 
of  what  he  had  said,  and  would  try  to  im- 
press it  on  their  hearts.  He  encouraged 
them  also  to  write  down  afterward  what 
they  could  remember.  Then  he  knelt  down 
and  offered  prayer,  and  "  took  care  that  his 
family  should  address  themselves  to  the 
duty  with  the  outward  expressions  of  rever- 
ence and  composeduess.  He  usually  fetch- 
ed his  matter  and  expressions  in  prayer  from 
the  chapter  that  was  read  and  the  psalm 
that  was  sung,  which  was  often  very  affect- 
ing, and  helped  much  to  stir  up  and  excite 

praying  graces Immediately  after  the 

prayer  was  ended,  his  children,  together, 
with  bended  knee,  asked  blessing  of  him 
and  their  mother ;  that  is,  desired  of  them 
to  pray  God  to  bless  them ;  which  blessing 
was  given  with  great  solemnity  and  affec- 
tion ;  and  if  any  of  them  were  absent,  they 
were  remembered.  '  The  Lord  bless  you  and 
your  brother ;'  or, '  you  and  your  sister  that 
is  absent.' "  , 

And  lest  any  should  suppose  from  this  de- 
scription that  the  service  mnst  have  been 
very  protracted,  likely  to  disgust  rather  than 
attract  the  members  of  the  household,  his 
biographer  adds:  "He  managed  his  daily 
family  worship  so  as  to  make  it  a  pleasure 
and  not  a  task  to  his  children  and  servants ; 
for  he  was  seldom  long,  and  never  tedious  in 
the  services.  The  variety  of  the  duties  made 
it  the  more  pleasant,  so  that  none  who  joined 
with  him  had  ever  reason  to  say,  Behold 
ichat  a  weariness  is  it!  Such  an  excellent 
faculty  he  had  of  rendering  religion  the  most 
sweet  and  amiable  employment  in  the  world ; 
and  so  careful  was  he,  like  Jacob,  to  drive  as 
the  children  could  go.  If  some  good  people 
that  mean  well  would  do  likewise,  it  might 
prevent  many  of  those  prejudices  which 
young  persons  are  apt  to  conceive  against 
religion,  when  the  services  of  it  are  made  a 
toil  and  a  terror  to  them." 

Then  he  endeavored  to  make  the  Lord's 
day  a  day  of  special  joy.  His  common  salu- 
tation to  his  family  and  friends  on  the  morn- 
ing of  that  day  was,  "The  Lord  is  risen ;  he 
is  risen  indeed ;"  and  that  was  the  key-note 
to  which  all  the  employments  of  the  day 
were  set.  The  voice  of  praise  was  more  fre- 
quently heard,  subjects  of  an  exhilarating, 
triumphant  character  occupied  the  atten- 
tion, a  tone  of  thankfulness  and  gladness 
was  maintained. 

But  Mr.  Henry  did  not  depend  for  the 
formation  of  his  children's  character  upon 
exercises  directly  religious.  He  sought  by 


344 


CHRISTIAN  LIFE. 


mildness  and  gentleness,  combined  with  firm- 
ness, to  win  their  respect  and  affection,  and 
thereby  draw  them  into  the  path  which  he 
pursued ;  for  he  was  most  careful  not  to  en- 
join on  them  what  he  did  not  exemplify 
himself.  He  allowed  them  great  freedom 
with  him,  encouraging  them  to  ask  ques- 
tions on  any  subject  which  interested  them, 
and  taking  great  pains  to  give  them  ade- 
quate and  satisfactory  answers.  He  was 
very  anxious  to  make  them  prefer  character 
to  possessions  or  rank,  guarded  them  against 
"  minding  high  things,"  but  urged  them  to 
hunger  and  thirst  after  righteousness.  He 
encouraged  them  by  some  decided  step  to 
commit  themselves  to  the  service  of  God,  as 
by  adopting  a  form  of  covenant,  or  taking 
the  Lord's  Supper.  Thus  by  prayer,  by 
praise,  by  systematic  instruction  in  the 
Scriptures,  by  free  conversation,  by  person- 
al example  and  influence,  he  sought  to  make 
family  religion  a  joyous  reality  in  his  house- 
hold, and  in  this  was  so  successful  that  all 
his  children  became  exemplary  for  their 
piety. 

Now  I  do  not  mean  to  say  that  all  parents 
have  the  knowledge  or  skill  to  train  their 
family  as  Philip  Henry  did  his,  nor  do  I 
mean  that  it  is  desirable  that  all  should 
adopt  his  exact  method ;  but  I  do  maintain 
that  all  ought  in  their  measure  to  employ 
the  same  deliberate  thought,  that  so  the  ed- 
ucation of  their  children  may  not  be  a  thing 
of  chance,  but  a  thing  of  wisely  ordered  pur- 
pose. And  I  would  add  that  in  the  fami- 
ly life  of  Philip  Henry  you  see  the  kind  of 
training  which  in  that  day  godly  parents 
aimed  at,  and  to  the  extent  of  their  power 
carried  out. 

I  have  placed  before  you  one  represent- 
ative instance  rather  fully,  instead  of  at- 
tempting, what  my  time  would  not  allow, 
to  trace  the  history  of  family  religion  from 
those  days  to  ours.  But  I  think  this  may 
be  safely  affirmed,  that  the  religious  life  of 
the  family  has  always  been  of  the  same  spe- 
cific order  as  the  general  religious  life  of  the 
age  ;'and  it  is  so  in  the  present  day. 

Now  the  tendency  of  the  present  times  is 
to  freedom — freedom  of  thought,  freedom 
from  the  obligation  of  any  dogmatic  creed, 
freedom  from  conventional  restrictions,  free- 
dom in  the  choice  of  amusements,  style  of 
living,  parties,  etc.  This  tendency  is  espe- 
cially manifest  among  the  easier,  wealthier 
classes  of  the  community,  whose  consequent 
habits  are  unfavorable  to  the  cultivation 
of  family  religion.  The  husbands  complete 
their  day's  business,  and  come  home  to  a 
late  dinner,  after  which  they  are  disinclined 
to  any  thing  which  demands  thought  or  ef- 
fort. Rest  or,  exciting  amusement  is  what 
they  seek ;  they  have  no  taste  for  quiet, 
domestic  pleasures  or  recreations,  no  dispo- 
sition to  instruct  or  guide  their  children. 
They  omit  family  worship,  or  reduce  it  to  a 


mere  form.  They  keep  before  them  no  ideal 
of  home  which  they  carefully  endeavor  to 
realize,  but  allow  accident  very  much  to  de- 
termine what  it  shall  be.  Their  spirit  nat- 
urally spreads  through  the  whole  family, 
who  at  last  prefer  a  feverish,  sensational 
life  to  a  life  of  deep,  quiet  enjoyment.  Re- 
ligion in  such  a  household  may  not  be  for- 
mally renounced,  it  may  still  exert  some  re- 
straining power,  but  evidently  it  can  do  lit- 
tle to  mold  the  character  and  elevate  tho 
life.  I  say  that  this  is  the  tendency  of  things, 
but  I  would  carefully  add  that,  as  a  matter 
of  fact,  the  exceptions  are  both  numerous 
and  delightful.  Many  of  the  finest  exam- 
ples of  family  religion  are  still  to  be  found 
in  this  rank. 

In  the  less  easy  and  wealthy  classes,  where 
steady,  diligent  work  demands  a  certain  stur- 
diness  and  robustness,  and  tends  to  check 
both  speculation  and  luxury,  much  of  tho 
old  quiet,  domestic  religion  still  prevails. 
Family  prayer  is  maintained,  the  children 
are  regularly  instructed  in  the  Word  of  God, 
home  influence  and  example  exert  a  salutary 
power.  Even  here,  I  fancy,  there  is  less  of 
system  than  there  used  to  be,  and  more  of 
freedom.  And  this  is  by  no  means  altogeth- 
er a  disadvantage.  The  truths  of  the  Gospel 
are  presented  to  the  youthful  minds  not  in 
logical,  dogmatic  forms,  but  with  the  fresh, 
stimulative  discursiveness  of  Scripture.  The 
moral  takes  precedence  of  the  doctrinal ;  the 
life  of  Christ  is  made  prominent  rather  than 
any  systematized  account  of  his  teaching. 
The  tone  of  family  government  is  less  stern 
and  restrictive ;  less  is  done  by  authority, 
more  by  persuasion  and  love.  Greater  lib- 
erty is  allowed  in  reference  to  taste,  style  of 
dress,  companionship,  amusements,  etc. ;  and 
this  no  doubt  has  its  grave  evils,  and  some- 
times leads  to  the  late  hours  and  feverish 
excitement  which  so  frequently  lower  the 
family  life  of  the  more  opulent  classes.  But 
on  the  whole,  the  loss  and  gain,  as  compared 
Avith  the  past,  appear  to  me  nearly  equal; 
and  if  there  is  less  of  well-arranged  Scrip- 
tural knowledge  and  intelligent  conviction, 
there  is  more  of  natural,  spontaneous,  un- 
forced, healthful  piety. 

Of  the  homes  of  the  working  classes  it  is 
difficult  to  speak  with  confidence  or  accura- 
cy. Among  the  pious  poor,  domestic  relig- 
ion, I  am  inclined  to  think,  is  very  real  and 
very  beautiful.  Parents  do  their  best  to 
overcome  the  difficulties  which  arise  from 
confined  space,  from  the  fewness  of  the  wak- 
ing hours  which  they  have  with  their  chil- 
dren, from  weariness  and  need  of  rest  and 
unbending  when  they  are  with  them ;  and 
to  inspire  them  with  a  love  of  tho  Scriptures 
and  of  prayer.  They  deny  themselves  on 
Sunday  the  additional  sleep  in  which  many 
of  their  class  indulge,  in  order  to  teach  their 
families  and  pray  with  them,  and  prepare 
them  for  the  Sunday-school.  They  use  the 


HARRISON:  FAMILY  RELIGION. 


34,-) 


Sunday-school,  not  to  get  rid  of  the  trouble 
of  their  children  or  of  the  responsibility  of 
instructing  them,  but  to  bring  them  under 
beneficial  influences  and  secure  to  them  val- 
uable friendships  without.  I  confidently 
believe  that  there  is  far  more  of  true  relig- 
ion among  the  English  working  classes  than 
many  allow,  and  that  the  order  which  they 
exhibit  eveu  in  circumstances  of  great  trial, 
such  as  the  cotton  famine,  is  traceable  in 
great  measure  to  this  source.  Still  it  can 
not  be  denied  that  the  majority  of  working 
men  are  estranged  from  every  form  of  relig- 
ious worship,  and  allow  themselves  the  ut- 
most freedom  of  remark  in  reference  to  sub- 
jects the  most  sacred.  Now  these  men,  in 
many  instances,  can  hardly  be  said,  in  any 
proper  sense,  to  have  homes  at  all.  The  voice 
of  prayer  is  never  heard  in  their  dwelling ; 
they  devolve  on  their  wives  the  care  of  the 
children ;  when  work  is  ended,  if  they  are 
fond  of  reading  or  discussion,  they  resort  to 
their  clubs  or  debating  societies;  if  they  have 
no  such  tastes,  they  make  their  way  to  pub- 
lic-houses, low  theatres,  and  other  places  of 
questionable  amusement.  Now  this  irrelig- 
ion  of  laboring  men  has  many  causes ;  but 
the  cause  of  causes  is  the  want  of  home  life. 
The  want  of  home  life  is,  indeed,  at  once  an 
effect  and  a  cause :  it  is  the  effect  of  personal 
unbelief  and  irreligion,  and  it  is  the  cause  of 
personal  unbelief  and  irreligion.  Had  these 
men  any  real  personal  piety,  they  would  be 
anxious  to  bless  their  household ;  on  the  oth- 
er hand,  had  they  true  homes,  they  would  be 
constantly  surrounded  by  influences  which 
would  tend  to  create  and  foster  a  life  of  per- 
sonal piety.  The  want  of  home  life  involves 
exposure  to  an  atmosphere  which  chills  their 
heart,  and  leads  them  first  into  irreligion, 
and  then  into  unbelief. 

Nothing  affects  us  so  much  for  good  or 
evil  as  our  associations.  "He  that  walketh 
with  wise  men  shall  be  wise,  but  a  compan- 
ion of  fools  shall  be  destroyed."  The  closer 
the  intimacy,  the  stronger  is  the  influence. 
Who,  then,  can  ever  measure  the  power  of 
home  ?  Who  can  imagine  the  disadvantage 
to  which  these  men  are  exposed  who  have 
no  proper  home,  but  are  cast  among  every 
kind  of  mischievous  influence?  It  is  at 
home  that  the  blessedness  of  the  parental 
relationship  is  learned,  and  the  mind  is  turn- 
ed to  the  great  Father.  It  is  at  home  that 
love  is  cultivated,  and  the  heart  is  opened 
to  him  whose  name  is  Love.  It  is  at  home 
that  self-restraint  is  practiced,  and  that  those 
passions  which  excite  to  rebellion  against 
God  are  held  in  check.  It  is  at  homo  that 
intense  desires  for  the  welfare  of  those  de- 
pendent on  us  are  awakened,  and  that  the 
need  of  Divine  help  is  so  strongly  felt  as  to 
demand  expression  in  prayer.  In  a  word, 
home  is  the  very  nursery  of  religion ;  and 
hence,  if  ever  the  great  body  of  working  men 
in  England,  and  indeed  all  the  world  over,  are 


to  be  not  only  temporarily  aroused  to  a  sense 
of  religion,  but  permanently  attached  to  the 
Church  of  Christ,  it  will  be  done  by  improv- 
ing their  homes,  and  by  helping  them  to 
form  a  right  estimate  of  the  value  and  bless- 
edness of  home. 

Two  or  three  points  of  great  practical  im- 
portance I  may  refer  to  in  conclusion  : 

1.  The  personal  religion  of  parents  will, 
in  most  instances,  give  the  key-note  to  the 
religion  of  the  family.     The  very  concep- 
tion of  religion  in  the  mind  of  children  is 
derived  from  what  they  see  in  their  parents, 
and  therefore  they  will  hardly  aim  at  any 
thing  above  this.     All  arrangements  for  in- 
struction and  worship  are  made  by  parents, 
and  depend  for  their  character  and  spirit  on 
the  tone  of  the  parents'  religious  life.     Chil- 
dren are  intensely  imitative  and  receptive. 
In  their  play  they  act  father  and  mother ; 
in  all  their  intercourse  they  are  taking  im- 
pressions  from   father   and  mother.      And 
what  is  true  in  general  is  emphatically  true 
in  that  which  relates  to  religion.     Surely  it 
is  a  solemn  thought  that  we  who  are  parents 
are  striking  the  note  which  our  children 
will  certainly  take  up,  are  setting  the  pat- 
tern which  our  children  will  copy,  are  ex- 
hibiting the  spirit  which  our  children  will 
catch  and  perpetuate.     Surely  none  of  us 
should  allow  it  to  be  a  matter  of  accident 
what  our  own  religious  life,  and  what  our 
consequent  parental  influence,  shall  be.    We 
are  placed  in  our  honorable,  though  diffi- 
cult, position  for  a  high  end,  and  we  should 
take  care  to  qualify  ourselves  for  the  fulfill- 
ment of  that  end.     The  lower  orders  of  cre- 
ation seem  to  have  accomplished  the  pur- 
pose of  their  existence  when  they  have  giv- 
en birth  to  their  successors ;  they  produce 
offspring  and  die.     With  mankind  the  birth 
of  offspring  is  only  preliminary  to  their  chief 
work  —  the  training  of  their  offspring  for 
a  higher  life — a  life  spiritual  and  eternal. 
If  this  thought  were  ever  in  the  minds  of 
parents,  if  they  habitually  felt  that,  as  from 
them  their  children  take  the  type  of  their 
natural  life,  so  from  them  they  will,  to  a 
great  extent,  take  the  type  of  their  spirit- 
ual life,  they  would  earnestly  inquire, "  What 
manner  of  persons,  then,  ought  AVO  to  be  in 
all  holy  conversation  and  godliness  ?"     And 
this  leads  to  a  second  remark. 

2.  The  responsibility  of  parents  in  the 
family  is  a  needful,  a  most  essential  part  of 
their  own  training  and  discipline.     In  our 
young  and  tender  years  we  need  the  foster- 
ing care  of  parents.    They  are  to  us  thought, 
conscience^  will,  till  we  learn  to  think,  judge, 
resolve  for  ourselves.      Then,  with  powers 
trained  by  them,  and  therefore  akin  to  theirs, 
we  take  our  own  independent  stand.     Still, 
when  we  thus  arrive  at  maturity,  and  have, 
so  to  speak,  a  mind  and  conscience  and  will 
of  our  own,  our  training  does  not  cease ;  it 
only  passes  to  a  different  stage,  in  which  it 


346 


CHRISTIAN  LIFE. 


will  bo  prosecuted  under  most  unfavorable 
conditions  unless  we  become  heads  of  a 
household,  and  assume,  in  our  turn,  the  re- 
lation of  parents.  Our  education  is,  then, 
carried  on  very  much  by  means  of  our  chil- 
dren. In  watching  over  them,  we  are  effect- 
ually training  ourselves.  They  make  our 
hearts  tender.  All  that  is  deepest  in  our 
soul  is  brought  out  as  we  listen  to  the  sim- 
ple words,  or  watch  by  the  suffering  couch, 
of  our  own  little  child.  Our  intellects  are 
aroused  to  their  utmost  activity  in  search 
of  truth  by  the  artless  inquiries  of  our  own 
little  child.  Our  filial  affection  for  the  great 
God  seldom  reaches  its  highest  and  purest 
till  it  is  quickened  by  the  beautiful  love 
and  trust  of  our  own  little  child.  So  that 
the  direct  influence  of  our  children  on  us  is 
most  salutary. 

But  besides  this,  the  more  fully  we  real- 
ize the  greatness  of  our  work  as  parents, 
the  graver  do  we  feel  our  responsibility  to 
be.  Our  anxious,  fervent  prayer,  then,  is 
that  we  may  be  worthy  of  such  a  trust;  that 
we  may  never  mislead,  either  by  word  or 
example,  those  who  are  so  solemnly  commit- 
ted to  us  by  God,  and  are  so  dear  to  our  own 
hearts.  We  are  intensely  solicitous  to  adopt 
iuto  our  creed  nothing  but  truth,  that  we 
may  impart  nothing  but  truth  to  them.  We 
strive  diligently  after  self-control,  that  we 
may  be  competent  to  control  them.  We  aim 
at  habitual  consistency,  that  we  may  the 
more  forcibly  urge  them  to  be  consistent, 
upright,  pure,  righteous.  Thus  the  very  de- 
sire to  be  faithful  to  them  acts  most  power- 
fully on  us,  and  is  training  us  to  higher  and 
more  perfect  manifestations  of  the  Christian 
life. 

3.  Wo  shall  never,  as  parents,  conduct  the 
government  and  training  of  our  families  in 
the  right  spirit  unless  we  understand  that 
we  are  acting  under  Christ  and  are  bound 
to  carry  out  his  will.  He  claims  to  be  su- 
preme in  every  department  of  life,  in  every 
institution  founded  by  God.  By  a  symbol- 
ical act  of  authority  he  declared  himself 
Lord  of  the  Temple ;  by  a  miraculous  il- 
lustration of  the  superiority  of  spirit  to  let- 
ter and  mercy  to  judgment,  he  declared  him- 
self Lord  of  the  Sabbath ;  and  by  Ms  pres- 
ence and  divine  bountifulness  at  the  mar- 
riage feast  in  Cana,he  declared  himself  Lord 
of  the  family.  This  great  truth  we  ought 
clearly  to  apprehend,  and  always  to  remem- 
ber ;  for  if  we  forget  this  fact,  and  suppose 
that  we  arc  absolute  rulers  in  our  own  house- 
hold, we  shall  feel  ourselves  at  perfect  liber- 
ty to  try  our  own  experiments,  to  follow  our 
own  caprices  or  nostrums,  and  to  take  coun- 
sel of  ourselves  alone — than  which  we  can 
hardly  imagine  a  greater  evil ;  but  if  we 
understand  that  our  real  position  is  that  of 
workers  under  Christ,  we  shall  make  it  our 
aim  to  carry  out  his  idea.  We  shall  most 
carefully  inquire  what  he  has  enjoined  on 


the  subject,  and  with  all  our  strength  shall 
try  to  realize  that.  Or  if,  on  the  other  hand, 
we  suppose  that  the  work  of  training  our 
children  is  laid  wholly  upon  us,  and  that 
we  are  responsible  for  the  issues,  then  in 
the  degree  in  which  we  are  conscientious, 
or  timidly  distrustful  of  self,  we  shall  feel 
anxiety  lest  we  should  be  unfaithful,  and,  in 
an  agony  of  fear,  shall  sometimes  ask,  "Who 
is  sufficient  for  these  things  T"  But  if  wo 
understand  that  Christ  is  the  great  teacher, 
that  he  is  principal  in  this  home  school  and 
that  we  are  only  subordinates,  that  he  bears 
the  real  burden  and  that  our  main  business 
is  to  lead  our  children  to  him,  then  the  weight 
of  responsibility  ceases  to  be  oppressive.  We 
feel  it  an  honor  and  a  joy  to  act  in  concert 
with  him ;  and,  while  supremely  desiring 
by  our  spirit  and  our  teaching  adequately 
and  attractively  to  set  forth  both  his  truth 
and  himself,  we  can,  nevertheless,  calmly 
leave  results  in  his  hands,  assured  by  his 
gracious  words,  "  Suffer  the  little  ones  to 
come  unto  me ;  for  of  such  is  the  kingdom 
of  God." 

4.  Since  we  have  seen  that  the  Church  can 
reach  and  hold  its  highest  level  only  as  fami- 
ly religion  prospers,  it  is  certainly  worthy  of 
earnest  thought  whether  Christian  commu- 
nities are  sufficiently  alive  to  the  amount 
of  latent  spiritual  power  which  exists  in  the 
family,  but  which  is  never  called  by  them 
into  active  exercise.  It  is  impossible  that 
any  adequate  amount  of  religious  knowledge 
can  be  imparted,  or  that  character  can  be 
trained  into  stability  and  harmony  simply 
by  church  officers.  This  is  the  work  of 
home  ;  but  still  it  is  a  work  which  the 
Church  can  stimulate  and  help.  In  the 
olden  times  to  which  I  have  referred,  as  still 
in  Scotland,  earnest  pastors,  such  as  Baxter 
and  Owen,  most  diligently  catechised  the 
families  of  their  flock,  and  thereby  both 
stimulated  parents  to  teach  their  households 
with  care,  and  ascertained  the  results  of 
their  teaching.  What  examinations  are  in 
public  schools,  such  these  catechisings  would 
be  in  religious  homes.  Parents  were  kept 
up  to  their  duty,  children  were  excited  to 
do  their  best,  religious  training  was  caused 
to  be  regarded  as  a  prime  object  in  home 
life,  and  households  were  saved  from  that 
worst  of  all  ignorance,  ignorance  of  Scrip- 
tural truth  and  of  the  right  ideal  of  Chris- 
tian character.  Parents  and  pastors  were 
then  happily  conjoined  in  the  education  of 
children.  On  parents  the  chief  responsibili- 
ty rested;  but  pastors  lightened  that  respon- 
sibility, and  yet  stimulated  effort  by  draw- 
ing out  results,  giving  useful  hints,  and 
dropping  words  of  reproof  or  encourage- 
ment. The  hands  of  parents  were  strength- 
ened, children  were  brought  face  to  face 
with  their  pastor,  and  felt  the  influence  of 
his  personal  presence  and  thought.  Thus 
home  was  quickened  by  the  co-operation  of 


HARRISON :  FAMILY  RELIGION. 


347 


the  Church ;  the  Church  was  strengthened 
and  replenished  by  the  training  of  home. 
And  it  is  to  be  feared  that  the  abandonment 
of  this  practice  to  so  large  an  extent  in  En- 
gland is  one  cause  "why  religious  training 
has  been  less  systematically  pursued  than  in 
those  days,  and  why  religious  knowledge  is 
now  so  much  more  scanty  and  superficial. 

May  not  the  question  also  be  fairly  put 
whether  one  main  reason  why  revivals  of  re- 
ligion are  so  evanescent,  and  the  final  results 
often  fall  so  far  short  of  the  first  excitement 
and  promise,  is  not  that  the  grand  conserva- 
tive and  confirmatory  power  of  home  is  com- 
paratively unused?  Protracted  public  meet- 
ings are  held,  feeling  rises  to  white  heat, 
many  who  were  thought  past  hope  eagerly 
cry  for  mercy,  and  Pentecost  seems  to  be  re- 
peated. But  we  do  not  find  that  of  those  so 
moved  and  agitated  a  proportionate  number 
are  generally  converted  and  lastingly  added 
to  the  Church.  Why  ?  Is  not  home  thrust 
aside  to  make  way  for  public  demonstra- 
tions ?  Are  not  home  duties  necessarily 
thrown  into  abeyance  by  the  hour  to  which 
public  services  are  prolonged  ?  If  those 
strongly  excited  feelings  only  became  the 
stimulus  to  a  higher  home  life — if  the  mem- 
bers of  the  family  were  moved  thereby  to 


study  the  Word  of  God  together,  to  pray  to- 
gether, to  watch  over  one  another,  to  exhort 
one  another,  and  thus  sought  to  deepen  and 
perpetuate  the  feelings  which,  without  such 
help,  quickly  die  away,  these  remarkable 
seasons  might  be  as  rich  in  abiding  blessings 
as  they  are  in  immediate  results,  and  might 
become  the  harbingers  of  a  new  millennial 
day. 

Dear  brethren,  the  earthly  family  is  but 
the  shadow  of  one  larger,  purer,  nobler,  of 
which  God  is  the  great  Father — that "  fami- 
ly in  earth  and  heaven  "  of  which  the  apos- 
tle speaks  so  joyously.  To  that  family  we 
profess  to  belong.  Our  homes  are  wide 
apart,  separated  from  one  another  in  some 
cases  by  continents  and  oceans ;  but  the  tie 
which  binds  us  to  each  other  is  the  tie  of  the 
spiritual  family — we  are  brethren  in  Christ ; 
we  have  one  Father,  one  celestial  home. 
Ere  long  we  must  bid  a  last  farewell  to  the 
circle  of  earthly  love  —  shall  we,  then,  be 
gathered  together  in  our  Father's  house 
above  ?  "  I  thank  God,  through  Jesus  Christ 
our  Lord."  "  Beloved,  now  are  we  the  sous 
of  God ;  and  it  doth  not  yet  appear  what  we 
shall  be :  but  we  know  that  when  he  shall 
appear,  we  shall  be  like  him ;  for  we  shall 
see  him  as  he  is." 


FAMILY  RELIGION. 


BY  THE  REV.  WILLIAM  S.  PLUMER,  D.D., 

Professor  in  the  Theological  Seminary,  Columbia,  South  Carolina. 


IN  the  sad  aud  deep  spiritual  declensions 
which  sometimes  come  over  a  people,  the 
living  coals  of  a  pure  devotion  are  last  found 
in  the  ashes  of  the  family  altar.  In  the  cat- 
acombs, in  the  caves  and  dens  of  the  earth, 
in  the  glens  and  rocks  of  the  mountains,  vi- 
tal piety  was  chiefly  preserved  by  family 
religion,  or  by  social  intercourse  very  much 
partaking  of  its  nature.  In  the  late  terri- 
ble persecutions  in  Madagascar  this  truth 
was  remarkably  illustrated.  When  the  aw- 
ful storm  was  blown  over,  Christians  sprang 
up  in  the  most  unexpected  quarters.  Even 
many  Avho  had  never  before  witnessed  for 
the  truth  declared  themselves  satisfied  that 
Chri  st  was  the  Son  of  God.  They  had  learned 
the  lessons  of  salvation  in  secret  places.  So 
when  Elijah  complained  that  he  alone  was 
left  to  serve  God,  the  answer  of  the  Lord  to 
him  was, "  I  have  left  me  seven  thousand  in 
Israel,  all  the  knees  which  have  not  bowed 
unto  Baal,  and  every  mouth  which  hath  not 
kissed  him."  Both  the  Septuagint  and  Paul, 
in  translating  this  passage  into  the  Greek, 
use  a  word  which  we  render  men,  but  which 
commonly  denotes  the  male  head  of  a  fami- 
ly, the  husband  of  a  wife.  The  altars  had 
been  thrown  down,  and  most  of  the  prophets 
slain  with  the  sword.  The  true  religion 
seems  to  have  been  publicly  abolished.  But 
in  the  family  there  were  parents  who  still 
worshiped  the  true  God,  and  taught  their 
children  to  do  the  same. 

Nor  is  this  wonderful.  God  is  the  author 
of  the  family.  It  is  one  of  the  institutions 
of  Paradise  which  has  survived  the  fall. 
God  claims  still  to  be  its  author.  He  "  set- 
teth  the  solitary  in  families  "  (Psa.  Ixviii.,  6). 
For  full  two  thousand  five  hundred  years 
after  the  fall  of  Adam,  the  true  knowledge 
of  God  was  preserved  among  men  by  proph- 
ets and  preachers,  and  by  heads  of  fami- 
lies. Enoch  and  Noah  were  such  prophets 
and  preachers.  During  the  same  time  we 
read  of  one  great  priest,  Melchizedek.  But 
the  great  power  for  good  was  that  exerted 
in  the  family,  Of  Abraham  God  said,  "  I 
know  him,  that  he  will  command  his  chil- 
dren aud  his  household  after  him,  and  they 
shall  keep  the  way  of  the  Lord  "  (Gen.  xviii., 
19).  In  precisely  the  same  manner  was  false 
religion  propagated  in  those  early  times. 
Laban's  great  complaint  against  Jacob  was 
for  taking  away  his  household  gods,  and 


leaving  him  not  the  means  of  conducting 
his  domestic  worship. 

Moses  made  special  provision  for  the  main- 
tenance of  family  religion,  based  in  sound  and 
careful  instruction :  "  These  words,  which  I 
command  thee  this  day,  shall  be  in  thine 
heart :  and  thou  shalt  teach  them  diligently 
unto  thy  children,  and  shalt  talk  of  them 
when  thou  sittest  in  thine  house,  and  when 
thou  walkest  by  the  way,  and  when  thou 
liest  down,  and  when  thou  risest  up.  And 
thou  shalt  bind  them  for  a  sign  upon  thine 
hand,  and  they  shall  be  as  frontlets  Between 
thine  eyes  "  (Deut.  vi.,  6-8).  Again  God  says, 
"Ye  shall  lay  up  these  my  words  in  your 
heart  and  in  your  soul,  and  bind  them  for  a 
sign  upon  your  hand,  that  they  may  be  as 
frontlets  between  your  eyes.  And  ye  shall 
teach  them  your  children,  speaking  of  them 
when  thou  sittest  in  thine  house,  and  when 
thou  walkest  by  the  way,  when  thou  liest 
down,  and  when  thou  risest  up.  And  thou 
shalt  write  them  upon  the  door  posts  of  thine 
house,  and  upon  thy  gates :  that  your  days 
may  be  multiplied,  aud  the  days  of  your  chil- 
dren" (Deut.  xi.,  18-21).  That  great  and 
good  man,  Joshua,  never  supposed  that  the 
worship  of  the  tabernacle  took  away  aught 
of  his  responsibility  as  the  head  of  a  fami- 
ly, and  so  he  declared,  "  As  for  me  and  my 
house,  we  will  serve  the  Lord  "  (Josh,  xxiv., 
15).  The  prophet  David  utters  this  fearful 
curse :  "  Pour  out  thy  wrath  upon  the  hea- 
then that  have  not  known  thee,  and  upon 
the  kingdoms  that  have  not  called  upon  thy 
name  "  (Psa.  Ixxix.,  6).  The  prophet  Jere- 
miah takes  up  the  same  awful  denunciation 
and  applies  it  to  families :  "  Pour  out  thy 
fury  upon  the  heathen  that  know  thee  not, 
and  upon  the  families  that  call  not  on  thy 
name  "  ( Jer.  x.,  25).  Some  may  say  that  the 
word  families  here  comprehends  large  bodies 
of  men  of  a  common  origin,  and  so  it  docs. 
But  can  any  show  that  it  does  not  include 
lesser  bodies  of  men,  bound  together  by  homo 
ties  and  affections?  When  Zechariah  fore- 
tells the  great  outpouring  of  God's  Spirit  in 
the  latter  days,  he  distinctly  says  that  every 
family  shall  mourn  apart,  and  their  wives 
apart  (Zech.  xii.,  12-14).  And  Malachi  closes 
his  prophecy  \vith  the  statement  that  John 
the  Baptist  "  smill  turn  the  heart  of  the  fa- 
thers to  the  children,  and  the  heart  of  the 
children  to  their  fathers,  lest  I  come  and 


PLUMER:  FAMILY  RELIGION. 


349 


smite  the  earth  with  a  curse  "  (Mai.  iv.,  6). 
There  seems  to  be  no  fair  way  of  explaining 
this  Scripture  which  shall  exclude  the  idea 
of  a  tender  reciprocal  interest  between  par- 
ents and  children  in  each  other's  best  and 
highest  interests. 

There  is  not  time  to  consider  at  length  the 
bearing  on  this  subject  of  those  numerous 
passages  of  the  New  Testament  which  speak 
of  the  Church  in  the  house,  and  of  the  rela- 
tive duties  of  husband  and  wife,  parents 
and  children.  Christianity  placed  marriage 
where  it  ought  to  be,  and  developed  the  true 
idea  of  the  family. 

Clemens  Alexandrinus  says :  "  The  genu- 
ine Christian  has  the  apostles  for  his  exam- 
ple ;  and  in  truth  it  is  not  in  the  solitary  life 
one  shows  himself  a  man,  but  he  gets  the  vic- 
tory over  other  men,  who,  as  a  husband  and 
father  of  a  family,  withstands  all  the  temp- 
tations that  assail  him  in  providing  for  wife 
and  children,  servants  and  substance,  with- 
out allowing  himself  to  be  turned  from  the 
love  of  God.  The  man  with  no  family  es- 
capes many  temptations ;  but  as  he  has  none 
save  himself  to  care  for,  he  is  of  less  worth 
than  the  man  who  has  more  to  disturb  him, 
it  is  true,  in  ^he  work  of  his  own  salvation, 
but  accomplishes  more  in  social  life,  and  in 
truth  presents  in  his  own  case  a  miniature 
of  Providence."  Again,  "  The  mother  is  the 
glory  of  her  children ;  the  wife  of  her  hus- 
band ;  both  are  the  glory  of  the  wife,  and 
God  is  the  glory  of  them  all."  Tertullian 
says:  "What  a  union  is  that  between  two 
believers,  having  in  common  one  hope,  one 
desire,  one  order  of  life,  one  service  of  the 
Lord !  Both,  like  brother  and  sister,  undi- 
vided in  spirit  or  body,  nay,  in  the  true  sense 
twain  in  one  flesh,  kneel,  pray,  and  fast  to- 
gether; mutually  teach,  exhort,  and  pray 
with  each  other ;  they  are  not  separated  in 
the  Church  of  God  and  at  the  Lord's  Sup- 
per ;  they  share  each  other's  troubles,  perse- 
cutions, joys ;  neither  has  any  thing  to  hide 
from  the  other;  neither  avoids  the  other; 
there  is  free  liberty  to  visit  the  sick,  to  sus- 
tain the  needy ;  the  harmony  of  psalms  and 
hymns  goes  up  between  them,  and  each  vies 
with  the  other  in  singing  the  praise  of  God. 
Christ  rejoices  to  behold  and  hear  such 
things,  and  sends  them  his  peace.  Where 
there  are  two  such,  there  he  is  also ;  and 
where  he  is,  the  spirit  of  evil  can  not  enter." 

Let  us  briefly  inquire,  In  what  does  family 
religion  consist  t 

This  is  a  very  weighty  matter.  Much  de- 
pends on  the  answer  we  give,  or  the  views 
we  entertain  on  this  important  subject. 

1.  All  family  religion  at  least  presupposes 
good  order  in  the  house.  If  children  are  not 
in  subjection,  there  will  be  such  lawlessness 
as  is  quite  inconsistent  with  good  morals 
and  manners ;  and  where  these  are  wanting, 
piety  can  hardly  be  more  than  nominal.  In 
his  ancient  servant  God  had  confidence  that 


he  would  command  his  household  after  him, 
that  is,  that  he  would  justly  use  his  entire 
authority  on  the  right  side.  On'  the  ques- 
tion, When  does  the  head  of  a  family  rightly 
use  his  power  in  the  government  of  his  fam- 
ily ?  there  may  be  great  diversity.  Extremes 
should  be  avoided.  One  of  these  is  laxity. 
Perhaps  most  judicious  men  of  the  present 
age  admit  that  the  tendency  is  in  this  di- 
rection. But  there  are  not  wanting  exam- 
ples of  undue  sternness  and  severity.  Both 
of  these  are  dangerous.  Perhaps  the  latter 
is  the  worse  of  the  two.  No  good  character 
can  be  formed  under  a  system  of  unmingled 
severity.  Of  all  the  states  of  mind,  none  is 
more  unfriendly  to  virtue  and  piety  than 
that  produced  by  discouragement,  induced 
by  harshness  in  parents.  The  great  elements 
for  good  family  government  are  justice,  im- 
partiality, and  steadiness. 

2.  Another  great   element  of  family  re- 
ligion is  sound,  thorough  Scriptural  instruc- 
tion.    How  this  is  to  be  acquired  by  parents 
and  communicated  to  others  of  the  house- 
hold is  very  much  left  to  parental  wrisdom. 
But  there  is  no  substitute  for  the  Word 
of  God.     A  good  hymnology  for  the  young 
should  be  carefully  sought.      The  reading 
and  hearing  of  holy  Scripture  are  indispen- 
sable.    The  great  error  of  many  is  that  their 
set  instructions  are  not  clear,  and  are  tedious. 
A  little  at  a  time,  and  often  repeated,  is  the 
great  secret  of  success.     Instruction  should 
be  given  briskly,  not  flippantly ;  cheerfully, 
not  in  sombre  style.     The  themes  are  pleas- 
ing, not  melancholy. 

3.  The  spirit  and  habits  of  devotion  are 
essential  to  family  religion.     Indeed  they 
are  family  religion.    These  consist  of  prayer, 
praise,  confession  of  sin,  thankful  acknowl- 
edgment of  mercies,  supplication  of  bless- 
ings, an  awed  submission  to  the  will  of  God, 
and  adoration  of  the  glorious  attributes  of 
God.     How  often  the  family  should  be  con- 
vened for  joint  worship  is  left  somewhat  to 
Christian  discretion.   When  Pitcairn's  Island 
was  discovered,  every  family  worshiped  morn- 
ing, noon,  and  night.     The  common  usage  of 
consistent  Christians  is  to  worship  God  in 
their  families  morning  and  evening.     It  is 
only  the  ill-instructed  and  lukewarm  who 
confine  such  worship  to  the  Lord's  day. 

4.  Family  religion  never  has  flourished 
where  parental  example  is  wanting.     It  is 
impossible  to  overestimate  the  fearful  re- 
sponsibility of  parents  whose  lives  exhibit 
such  conduct  as,  if  followed  by  their  off- 
spring and  servants,  must  lead  them  to  prac- 
tical irreligion.    It  seems  amazing  that  men 
and  women  can  receive  from  God  the  solemn 
and  awful  charge  of  rearing  a  household, 
and  not  feel  that  their  personal  example,  if 
wrong,  will  probably  lead  all  dependent  on 
them  to  the  abodes  of  outer  darkness.     Ferba 
decent;  exempla  trahunt. 

Where  there  is  such  parental  government, 


350 


CHRISTIAN  LIFE. 


iiistructiou,  devotion,  and  example  as  have 
been  mentioned,  the  power  of  family  relig- 
ion -will  be  felt.  Richard  Baxter  himself 
did  not  hold  the  town  of  Kidderminster 
closely  to  the  Gospel  till  every  house  in 
many  long  streets  had  its  hours  of  prayer. 
That  burning  and  shining  light  has  told  the 
world  his  opinion  that,  if  pious  education, 
family  worship,  parental  instruction,  and  a 
holy  example  were  properly  regarded,  even 
the  preaching  of  the  Gospel  would  not  be  the 
most  common  means,  of  conversion.  Mrs. 
Hannah  More  approves  that  opinion. 

In  all  that  has  been  said,  it  has  been  tak- 
en for  granted  that  the  truths  taught  and 
the  devotions  conducted  are  evangelical. 
A  family  of  legalists  may  be  very  devout 
and  fair  in  their  exterior,  but  they  are  a 
hive  of  Pharisees  at  the  best  —  a  row  of 


whited  sepulchres.  If  men  would  be  saved, 
to  them  Jesus  Christ  must  be  all  in  all. 

It  is  a  pleasing  thought  that  early  piety, 
and  the  belief  in  its  practicability,  seem 
more  common  than  formerly.  Oh  that  the 
day  had  come  when  all  our  people  could  say, 
as  the  grandfather  of  one  whom  I  see  on  the 
platform  said,  "  I  can  not  remember  the 
time  when  I  did  not  love  the  Lord  Jesus 
Christ." 

It  is  common  to  speak  of  Stephen  as  the 
first  Christian  martyr.  In  strictness  of 
speech,  that  is  correct.  But  let  us  not  for- 
get that  the  first  who  poured  out  their  blood 
like  water  for  an  incarnate  Saviour  were  "all 
the  children  that  were  in  Bethlehem,  and  in 
all  the  coasts  thereof,  from  two  years  old  and 
under."  Blessed  be  God,  Jesus  died  for  little 
children.  Let  us  tell  them  so. 


EEVIVALS  OF  RELIGION— HOW  TO  MAKE  THEM 
PRODUCTIVE  OF  PERMANENT  GOOD. 

BY  THE  KEY.  W.  W.  PATTON,  D.D.,  CHICAGO,  ILL. 


THE  phrase  "A  revival  of  religion,"  or, 
as  more  briefly  used,  "A  revival,"  has  in 
this  country  a  somewhat  narrow  and  tech- 
nical meaning.  It  has  lost  its  wide  historic 
sense,  in  which  reference  is  had  to  a  period 
of  some  length,  to  facts  of  varied  nature, 
and  to  the  experience  of  an  entire  country 
or  of  all  Christendom ;  such  as  the  national 
religious  reformations  under  Luther,  Calvin, 
and  Knox.  It  means,  in  our  American  news- 
papers, magazines,  and  books,  a  more  local 
and  transient  excitement,  which  may  be 
limited  to  a  single  congregation,  or  may 
pervade  a  district  of  country,  and  which 
implies  an  increase  of  conversions  from  a 
worldly  to  a  spiritual  life,  and  a  large  ac- 
cession of  communicants  to  the  church.  The 
circumstances  may  vary  in  nearly  all  the 
incidental  particulars.  The  revival  may 
come  with  or  without  a  resort  to  special 
means,  such  as  more  numerous  meetings,  the 
preaching  of  an  evangelist,  or  the  labors  of 
some  minister  other  than  the  pastor;  with 
or  without  a  previous  state  of  doctrinal  or 
of  practical  declension ;  with  or  without 
careful  and  intended  preparation ;  with  or 
without  peculia*  measures  in  the  way  of 
manifesting  feeling,  testing  earnestness,  and 
directing  inquirers.  Revivals  may  differ  in 
the  degree  of  prominence  of  the  ordinary 
exercises — singing,  prayer,  the  exhortations 
of  laymen,  and  the  sermons  of  clergymen. 
They  may  bo  unlike  in  the  frequency  of 
their  return  to  the  same  community,  in  the 
rapidity  or  simultaneousness  of  their  effects, 
in  the  duration  of  the  special  influence,  and 
in  their  freedom  from  mixtures  of  supersti- 
tion, animal  excitement,  and  fanaticism.  It 
is  simply  claimed,  by  the  name  in  question, 
that,  with  whatever  peculiarities  or  imper- 
fections, there  has  been  a  truly  religious  in- 
fluence, manifested  with  more  than  usual 
power,  and  so  operating  through  social  sym- 
pathies and  channels  as  to  affect  large  num- 
bers, in  a  short  space  of  time,  with  regenera- 
tive results.  The  name  represents  a  reality. 
It  may  not  stand  for  the  highest  type  of  ex- 
perience, in  the  individual  or  in  the  church ; 
but  it  represents  a  Christian  force,  which 
deserves  study,  which  has  rewarded  use,  and 
which  such  a  mind  as  that  of  Jonathan  Ed- 
wards thought  worthy  of  defense  and  expli- 
cation. 

The  word  revival  is  peculiarly  precious  to 


our  American  churches,  from  its  relations  to 
their  past  history,  and  to  their  present  atti- 
tude before  the  hosts  of  unbelief.  At  critic- 
al times,  the  spiritual  interests  of  the  nation 
have  been  saved  by  revivals,  while  not  a  few 
churches  have  owed  their  existence  to  the 
local  revivals  in  new  settlements,  and  in 
older  communities ; — the  sudden  conversion 
of  great  numbers  to  a  religious  life  having 
furnished  the  needed  material  for  new  or- 
ganizations. A  large  proportion  of  the 
churches  in  the  evangelical  denominations 
will  testify  that  by  this  instrumentality 
they  have  been  greatly,  if  not  chiefly,  en- 
larged and  strengthened.  And  now  that 
faith  in  the  Bible  is  losing  its  hold  on  many 
minds,  and  a  supernatural  religion  is  pro- 
nounced in  high  quarters  to  be  an  absurdi- 
ty, there  is  a  moral  sublimity  in  the  aspect 
of  earnest  souls,  who  value  revivals  because 
in  them  the  presence  and  agency  of  the  Holy 
Spirit  are  manifest,  and  the  modern  as  well 
as  the  ancient  Gospel  is  seen  to  be  "  in  dem- 
onstration of  the  Spirit  and  of  power."  If 
still  there  are  Pentecostal  effusions,  primi- 
tive Christianity  survives  in  one  of  its  chief 
characteristics,  and  will  yet  vindicate  its 
reality  and  potency  by  a  repetition  of  early 
victories. 

In  learning  how  to  make  these  seasons  of 
spiritual  exaltation  and  conquest  productive 
of  permanent  good,  we  must  guard  against 
conceptions  and  acts  which,  from  a  misun- 
derstanding of  their  nature,  limit  the  use  of 
revivals,  or  introduce  into  them  vitiating 
influences.  We  need  to  understand  their 
philosophy  to  such  an  extent  as  to  enable 
us  to  seek  them  rationally,  and  to  employ 
them  in  a  wise  harmony  with  other  instru- 
mentalities. .  That  a  revival  should  not  be 
productive  of  permanent  good  seems  indeed 
to  be  a  contradiction  in  terms,  and  the  sup- 
position is  warranted  only  as  the  word  is 
used  to  cover  a  mixed  experience,  in  which 
human  errors  and  sins  appear  by  the  side 
of  phenomena  referable  only  to  divine  ac- 
tion. Allow  me,  then,  to  answer  the  ques- 
tion proposed,  by  indicating  the  leading 
truths  which  require  to  be  kept  in  mind, 
and  by  which  our  specific  judgments  and 
decisions  should  be  shaped. 

1.  We  must  keep  steadily  in  view  all  that  is 
implied  in  ihe  divine  authorship  of  revivals  of 
religion.  If  every  truly  converted  soul  is 


352 


CHRISTIAN  LIFE. 


"boru  of  God,"  and,  through  conversion,  is 
introduced  into  a  divine  kingdom,  whose 
victories  are  precisely  of  this  spiritual  na- 
ture, then  a  revival  is  the  product  of  divine 
forces,  and  the  result  of  a  previous  divine 
plan.  It  is  such  an  event  as  a  battle  in  a 
military  campaign ;  and,  whether  it  occur 
in  a  large  city  upon  the  scale  of  the  day  of 
Pentecost,  or  as  a  limited  movement  in  some 
obscure  village  church,  it  marks  the  devel- 
opment of  the  scheme  of  the  great  leader. 
God  can  not  bo  indifferent  to  such  phenome- 
na, or  separate  from  them.  As  conquests  of 
his  foes,  they  are  acts  of  his  power.  He  has 
put  his  will  into  them,  as  a  general  puts  his 
will  into  the  plan  and  conduct  of  a  cam- 
paign, with  its  resultant  battles  and  victo- 
ries. For  the  Holy  Spirit  is  a  person  and 
not  a  mere  influence.  He  therefore  enters 
into  revivals,  not  as  a  material  force,  such 
as  water,  or  steam,  enters  into  machinery, 
being  let  on  or  shut  off  by  infallible  and  in- 
flexible methods,  and  producing  uniform  re- 
sults under  uniform  appliances,  but  he  en- 
ters into  them  as  sensitive,  intelligent,  vol- 
untary divine  mind  acting  upon  similarly 
characterized  finite  minds.  There  is  then 
scope  and  demand  in  revivals  for  every  thing 
which  recognizes  on  our  part  this  divine  ac- 
tivity— for  desire  and  love,  for  prayer  and 
faith,  for  encouragement  and  submission,  for 
joy  and  humility.  The  good  is  to  be  se- 
cured in  the  spiritual  and  not  in  the  mate- 
rial kingdom  of  God.  The  effect  is  to  be 
wrought  by  a  conscious  and  purposed  divine 
influence,  in  a  way  which  introduces  us  to 
that  which,  as  above  the  realm  of  mere  nat- 
ural causation,  is  therefore  in  the  free  realm 
of  spirit,  or  the  super- natural,  though  not 
ranked  in  the  category  of  miracles.  It  will 
save  us  from  many  mistakes  in  connection 
with  revivals  to  look  this  fact  always  in  the 
face,  and  to  study  its  many  relations.  Un- 
der its  light  we  shall  see  that  there  is  ample 
space  for  a  divine  choice  and  sovereignty  in 
the  part  which  revivals  shall  have  in  the 
religious  forces  of  a  given  country,  commu- 
nity, or  church,  and  in  the  use  to  which 
God  shall  put  given  individuals.  No  abso- 
lute outward  uniformity  can  be  predicted, 
even  when  men  imagine  that  they  are  ar- 
ranging a  similarity  of  circumstances.  The 
richest  blessing  of  a  revival  is  never  to  be 
found  in  the  unwarranted  assumption  that 
it  has  been  the  product  of  a  fixed  spiritual 
force  in  the  moral  world,  parallel  to  the  law 
of  gravity  in  the  natural  world,  which  can 
always  be  counted  upon,  and  used  at  will, 
by  a  happy  adjustment  of  the  appropriate 
machinery.  Not  so  must  it  be  interpreted, 
would  we  give  due  honor  to  God,  and  cul- 
tivate in  our  own  souls  the  purest  joy,  the 
truest  humility,  and  the  deepest  reverence. 
That  we  may  be  privileged  with  other  such 
scenes  of  power,  and  may  have  the  richest 
resultant  piety,  we  must  cherish  the  thought 


that  God,  as  the  Head  of  the  Church,  has 
strictly  personal  relations  to  these  revival 
occasions,  and  in  wisdom  and  love  exercises 
his  own  judgment  as  to  time,  place,  men, 
measures,  and  results.  With  humble  prayer 
and  faith  should  we  seek  his  appearing ; 
with  grateful  joy  and  reverence  should  we 
hail  his  presence  and  accept  his  gifts ;  then 
may  we  reasonably  hope  tq  see  the  churches 
used,  through  revivals,  as  instruments  of  di- 
vine power. 

2.  We  must  as  carefully  recognize  iliefact  that 
revivals,  coming  in  a  line  of  spiritual  causation, 
involve  human  agency,  and  therefore  varied  meth- 
ods and  attendant  imperfections.  It  is  not  true 
that  divinely  induced  results  imply  an  ex- 
clusively divine  operation,  uniform  methods, 
or  freedom  from  imperfections.  In  his  mor- 
al kingdom  God  deals  with  associated  minds, 
and  under  the  limitations  of  their  ignorance 
and  sin.  He  influences  them  not  only  indi- 
vidually, but  socially ;  not  only  directly,  but 
indirectly.  He  reveals  truth  gradually  and 
in  many  ways ;  he  introduces  human  agency ; 
he  institutes  organized  religion,  the  Church, 
the  ministry,  the  sacraments;  he  uses  the 
providential  incidents  of  national  and  indi- 
vidual history ;  ho  works  through  all  appro- 
priate second  causes  as  they  exist  at  the  time. 
This  plan  involves  a  variety  of  methods  in 
producing  revivals  of  religion.  These  must 
be  adapted  to  the  peculiarities  of  particular 
periods,  nations,  classes  in  society,  and  in- 
dividuals, according  to  varying  degrees  of 
knowledge  and  culture,  changing  moods, 
shifting  tendencies  to  faith  or  unbelief,  and 
differing  temperaments.  Facts  confirm  the 
conclusions  of  theory.  No  little  astonish- 
ment has  been  caused  by  Ifce  variety  of  in- 
strumentalities and  methods  connected  with 
revivals,  and  the  outward  diversity  of  re- 
sults. Some  have  been  stumbled  at  the 
marked  contrast  of  the  phenomena,  till  they 
have  doubted  the  reality  of  a  divine  power 
therein,  and  the  wisdom  of  seeking  to  renew 
svich  scenes.  But  variety  is  characteristic 
of  all  God's  works,  in  the  spiritual  as  well 
as  in  the  natural  realm.  Consider  the  vari- 
ety of  authorship,  style,  and  contents  in  the 
books  of  Scripture ;  resorted  to,  plainly,  as  a 
means  to  reach  minds  in  every  age  and  of 
every  degree  of  development.  Similar  is 
the  variety  of  revival  agencies  and  methods 
which  are  to  work  upon  the  German,  French, 
Scotch,  Irish,  English,  or  the  conglomerate 
American  character;  upon  the  higher,  the 
middle,  and  the  lower  classes  of  society; 
upon  sanguine  and  sluggish  temperaments ; 
upon  the  children  of  the  Church  and  the 
neglected  masses  of  the  highways  and  hedges. 
It  is  to  be  expected  that,  in  this  work,  men 
will  be  used  according  to  their  personal  avail- 
ability in  relation  to  those  to  be  influenced. 
A  tasteful,  scholarly  minister,  with  methods 
ordered  by  vulture,  will  usually  have  his 
chief  power  with  the  educated  and  refined  ; 


PATTON :  REVIVALS  OF  RELIGION. 


353 


aud,  in  a  revival,  God  will  give  him  a  work 
to  do  among  them.  But  a  coarser-grained 
man,  with  less  knowledge  and  ruder  speech 
and  action,  will  ordinarily  see  his  work  pre- 
pared for  him  on  his  own  level,  and  will  find 
favor  with  the  common  people.  Very  few 
possess  a  humanity  as  broad  as  that  of  Jesus, 
who  could  reach  the  extremes  of  society. 
Religion  does  not  overlook  natural  affinities. 
To  gain  its  full  revival  power,  as  a  perma- 
nent force  in  the  Church,  we  must  so  far  lay 
aside  our  personal  likes  and  dislikes  as  not 
to  make  them  a  rule  for  others,  or  to  seek  to 
confine  the  grace  of  God  to  the  channels 
Avhich  might  be  prescribed  by  our  ideas  of 
taste,  dignity,  and  propriety.  All  fish  are 
not  caught  with  the  same  hook  or  with  the 
same  bait,  and  God  must  be  allowed  to  select 
his  "fishers  of  men"  according  to  their  skill 
in  winning  souls  from  particular  classes  or 
in  special  circumstances.  Permanent  good 
will  result  from  revivals  only  as  ministers 
and  churches  learn  to  be  as  wisely  compre- 
hensive in  their  measures  as  God  is ;  or  as 
they  grow  into  the  spirit  of  Paul,  in  their 
passion  for  souls,  and  are  ready  to  be  "  made 
all  things  to  all  men,"  that  they  may  "  by  all 
means  save  some."  Otherwise,  suspicion  will 
supplant  confidence,  alienation  will  take  the 
place  of  co-operation,  favorable  opportuni- 
ties will  be  lost,  valuable  instrumentalities 
will  be  thrown  away,  and  important  results 
will  be  disesteemed. 

And  of  course  these  varied  methods  in  re- 
vivals will  involve  a  multitude  of  human 
imperfections,  of  knowledge,  character,  and 
effect,  intermingled,  painfully  and  humili- 
atingly,  with  the  divine  influences.  Chem- 
ical laws  hold  good  in  muddy  as  well  as  in 
clear  waters,  and  the  sun  shines  as  brightly 
on  heaps  of  refuse  as  on  fields  of  grass.  The 
church  and  ministry  are  confessedly  imper- 
fect as  organizations  and  in  their  individual 
elements.  It  is  for  no  one  to  say  with  how 
much  of  imperfection  the  Holy  Spirit,  in  his 
condescension  and  meekness,  may  consent  to 
be  associated,  iu  reaching  all  orders  of  mind 
and  classes  of  society.  Revivals  may  have 
many  elements  of  error,  of  superstition,  of 
fauaticism,  of  disorder,  of  hypocrisy  even, 
aud  yet  be  of  God,  who  advances  his  cause 
in  the  Church  as  well  as  in  the  civil  state 
by  excitements  and  revolutions  which  inci- 
dentally call  into  action  the  worst  as  well  as 
the  best  characters,  and  which  bring  forth 
mixed  results  of  good  and  evil.  To  allow 
wisely  for  such  facts,  and  to  train  Christians 
to  a  considerate  estimate  of  revival  phenom- 
ena, is  absolutely  necessary  to  permanently 
happy  results.  Otherwise  there  will  be  an 
interminable  debate  and  division  over  men 
and  measures,  over  doctrines  aud  converts, 
till  religion  is  scandalized,  churches  are  rent 
asunder,  and  revivals  become  a  fear  to  the 
saints  and  a  scoffing  to  the  wicked. 

A  chief  difficulty  arises  from  the  disposi- 
23 


tion  to  claim  that  a  revival  is  a  divine  in- 
dorsement of  certain  men,  doctrines,  and 
measures;  as  though  God  could  associate 
his  saving  power  only  with  that  which  is 
true  and  good,  and  as  though  any  thing  hu- 
man possessed  only  those  qualities !  A  pas- 
tor is  blamed  for  an  inconsistent  life  or  for 
erroneous  teaching :  his  labors  are  attended 
with  a  spiritual  blessing,  and  his  friends  at 
once  claim  that  his  character  and  doctrine 
have  received  the  divine  indorsement.  A 
church  is  rent  with  discord,  and  one  party 
secedes  and  establishes  a  new  organization : 
in  a  few  months  a  revival  occurs,  and  God  is 
supposed  to  have  testified  in  favor  of  that 
faction.  An  institution  of  learning  is  es- 
tablished amidst  much  dispute  as  to  its  ne- 
cessity, the  wisdom  of  its  management,  the 
reputation  of  its  leading  officer,  or  the  sound- 
ness of  the  peculiar  principles  which  it  rep- 
resents and  propagates;  but  the  Spirit  of 
God  converts  some  of  the  students,  and  im- 
mediately it  is  announced  that  God  has  put 
his  seal  of  approbation  upon  the  enterprise. 
An  evangelist  goes  through  the  churches, 
preaching  much  truth,  but  subjecting  him- 
self to  deserved  criticism ;  and  his  blinded 
friends  claim  each  successive  revival  in  con- 
nection with  his  ministrations  as  God's  an- 
swer to  the  objections  brought  against  him. 
This  attempt  to  press  revivals  into  improp- 
er service,  to  put  upon  them  an  unwarranted 
interpretation,  tends  to  weaken  confidence 
in  their  genuineness,  and  to  make  the  dis- 
gusted listeners  to  such  reasoning  reject 
both  the  conclusion  and  the  work  of  grace. 
For  plainly  such  an  argument  overlooks  the 
most  obvious  facts  and  principles ;  not  con- 
sidering that,  unless  we  are  prepared  to  prove 
that  God  never  uses  any  but  perfect  charac- 
ters and  instrumentalities,  no  one  is  com- 
petent to  declare  the  degree  of  error  or  of 
depravity  which  will  inevitably  prevent  an 
outpouring  of  the  Divine  Spirit.  When  God 
converts  souls  in  a  revival,  it  is  the  direct 
Gospel  truth  which  he  uses  with  saving  pow- 
er ;  and  this  he  may  employ  in  despite  of 
many  undesirable  accompaniments,  even  as 
in  secular  history  he  secures  important  ben- 
eficial results  under  every  form  of  civil  gov- 
ernment, and  by  the  instrumentality  of  men 
of  the  most  varied  characters.  It  would 
make  God  indorse  the  most  contradictory 
doctrines  and  measures,  moreover,  to  apply 
the  test  in  question ;  for  sure  it  is  that  he 
has  sent  powerful  revivals  in  connection 
with  the  efforts  of  Calvinists  and  of  Armin- 
ians,  of  Baptists  and  of  Paedo-Baptists,  of 
Prelatists  and  of  Non-Prelatists,  of  Protest- 
ants aud  of  Romanists,  of  New  Measure  and 
Old  Measure  men,  of  Radicals  and  of  Con- 
servatives, of  eminent  saints  and  even  of 
those  who  afterward  proved  to  have  been 
self-deceived  or  hypocritical. 

Nor  is  it  for  our  partial  vision  and  limited 
judgment  to  decide  whether  the  true  spir- 


354 


CHRISTIAN  LIFE. 


itual  occasion  for  the  revival,  in  the  Lord's 
view,  did  not  rather  lie  iu  its  relation  to  his 
"  hidden  ones  "  in  the  bearing  of  some  quiet, 
obscure,  or  unknown  fact,  such  as  the  perse- 
vering and  importunate  prayer  of  eveu  a 
single  devoted  saint,  some  wrestling  Jacob 
of  whom  neither  the  Church  nor  the  world 
has  much  knowledge,  or  some  humble  wid- 
ow whose  closet  opens  directly  into  heaven. 
To  render  revivals  a  permanent  blessing, 
then,  we  must  study  into  their  phenomena 
sufficiently  to  avoid  all  narrow  and  party 
interpretations  of  their  meaning,  and  must 
accept  them  with  their  incidental  human 
imperfections.  "We  have  this  treasure  in 
earthen  vessels,  that  the  excellency  of  the 
power  may  be  of  God  and  not  of  us." 

3.  We  must  remember  that  revivals,  however 
precious  in  their  results,  cover  l)ut  part  of  the 
ground  of  divine  action  and  of  the  religious  life 
and  work  of  the  Church.  Forgetfulness  of  this 
truth  has  operated  disastrously,  leading  the 
friends  of  revivals  to  exalt  them  unduly,  and 
to  cast  into  the  shade  important  Christian 
duties  and  instrumentalities ;  thus  exciting 
a  measure  of  suspicion  in  regard  to  such  ex- 
periences in  the  minds  of  other  good  men, 
and  limiting,  in  a  degree,  the  comprehensive- 
ness of  their  own  labors.  The  word  revival 
may  be  taken,  indeed,  out  of  its  technical 
meaning,  and  made  as  broad  as  the  idea  of 
progress  in  religion,  in  all  departments  and 
by  all  instrumentalities ;  in  which  case  no 
such  objection  can  apply.  But,  as  generally 
used  in  this  country,  to  denote  a  powerful 
religious  movement  on  the  minds  of  the  un- 
converted, attended  by  an  awakened  zeal  of 
the  Church  in  their  behalf,  with  the  employ- 
ment, commonly,  of  special  efforts  to  reach 
and  save  them,  the  idea  covers  only  a  part 
of  the  work  assigned  to  the  Christian  by 
the  Master.  It  relates  to  external  conquest 
simply,  the  advancement  of  the  kingdom  by 
the  subjugation  of  its  pronounced  foes.  But 
this,  as  in  the  case  of  a  nation,  which  has 
properly  been  affirmed  to  be  in  certain  re- 
spects analogous,  by  no  means  exhausts  the 
conception  of  progress ;  which  ought  to  be 
largely  internal,  by  growth  rather  than  by 
conquest,  by  development  rather  than  by 
accretion.  If  we  consider  the  nature  of  pie- 
ty, and  the  circumstances  in  which  it  must 
live  and  act,  we  shall  see  that  its  ordinary 
work  must  be  to  maintain  holy  character  iu 
life's  daily  routine.  There  will  be  its  con- 
flict and  its  victory,  its  beauty  and  its  pow- 
er. Indeed,  until  its  reality  and  vigor  have 
been  tested  in  that  sphere,  it  will  have  lit- 
tle influence  beyond.  For  there  it  comes  in 
contact  with  the  mass  of  men,  in  practical 
work,  in  concrete  form,  in  a  manner  open  to 
inspection  and  sure  to  be  judged.  Its  first 
work,  therefore,  is,  to  build  up  right  charac- 
ter and  a  pure  and  impressive  life ;  to  ex- 
hibit industry  in  labor,  fidelity  in  trusts, 
truthfulness  in  speech,  interest  in  all  de- 


partments of  needful  action,  fortitude  in  suf- 
fering, courage  in  danger,  sympathy  with 
sorrow,  liberality  of  sentiment,  generosity  iu 
giving,  firmness  in  resisting  temptation,  for- 
giveness of  injuries,  complacence  in  moral 
goodness,  high  principle  in  conduct,  and  an 
unworldly  state  of  mind  in  the  midst  of 
great  worldly  activity.  Then  it  starts  from 
vantage-ground  to  urge  a  Christian  life  upon 
the  unconverted.  Indeed,  it  will  find  its  de- 
sired results  already  half  accomplished,  ac- 
cording to  the  implication  of  our  Saviour's 
words :  "Let  your  light  so  shine  before  men, 
that  they  may  see  your  good  works,  ami 
glorify  your  Father,  who  is  in  heaven." 
This,  probably,  is  the  explanation  of  the 
fact  that  tha  New  Testament  so  constantly 
insists  upon  holy  living,  and  dwells  so  little 
upon  the  methods  to  be  used  in  laboring  for 
the  impenitent.  Obviously,  then,  the  Church 
must  be  largely  occupied  in  what  Paul  calls 
"  maintaining  good  works."  (See  Titus  iii.T 
8.)  This  includes  life  in  the  family,  in  the 
varied  forms  of  secular  business,  in  the  dis- 
charge of  duties  as  a  citizen  and  as  a  friend 
and  neighbor,  and  in  helpfulness  to  the  poor 
and  distressed ;  to  which  may  be  added  the 
maintenance  of  social  and  public  religious 
worship  in  connection  with  the  Church,  oil 
the  Lord's  day  and  at  other  times.  To  live 
industriously,  peaceably,  benevolently,  con- 
scientiously, devoutly,  usefully,  and  joyfully, 
in  the  position  providentially  assigned,  must 
comprehend  a  large  part  of  Christian  duty. 
If  now  one  looks  to  the  growth  of  the 
Church  or  Christian  community,  that  will 
be  seen  to  depend  greatly  on  a  properly  re- 
ligious nurture  of  her  children  in  the  fami- 
ly, as  well  as  upon  individual  adult  conver- 
sions and  the  aggressive  power  of  what  wo 
term  revivals;  and  we  must  so  employ  tho 
latter  as  not  to  overshadow  the  former. 
When  Christianity  first  started  forth  to 
fulfill  the  command  to  "teach  all  nations," 
it  necessarily  operated  mostly  upon  adult 
minds,  and  relied  upon  the  outpouring  of 
the  Spirit  on  Jew  and  Gentile  in  a  manner 
often  resembling  that  of  modern  revivals. 
And  this  would  continue  to  be  a  leading  in- 
strumentality for  outside  effort,  as  the  Gos- 
pel was  pressed  upon  opposers,  and  was  car- 
ried to  additional  nations.  This  must  bo 
true  now,  in  connection  with  foreign  mis- 
sionary labors,  and  with  efforts  to  reach  tho 
mass  of  unconverted  adults  in  nominally 
Christian  lands.  That  Pentecostal  scenes 
will  be  renewed,  with  the  most  striking  re- 
sults, in  the  simultaneous  conversion  of 
great  multitudes,  may  be  gathered  not  only 
from  the  moral  necessity  of  the  case,  as  AVO 
look  out  upon  the  mass  of  ungodliness  in  tho 
world,  and  from  past  scenes  in  the  history 
of  the  Church,  but  also  from  the  promise  of 
Scripture  that  "  a  nation  shall  be  born  at 
once,"  as  it  were  in  a  day,  in  those  times 
when  a  "  little  one  shall  become  a  thousand, 


PATTON :  REVIVALS  OF  RELIGION. 


and  a  small  one  a  strong  nation."  But  this 
is  outside  work,  and  meanwhile  there  will 
be  going  on  the  natural  growth  of  the 
Church  from  within,  as  its  own  children  are 
"  trained  up  in  the  nurture  and  admonition 
of  the  Lord."  At  this  the  Church  has  ever 
aimed,  and  with  as  much  success  as  its 
measure  of  wisdom,  of  earnestness,  and  of 
faith  would  warrant.  To  this  means  of 
increase  have  looked  the  great  body  of 
Christians;  some  through  the  ideas  asso- 
ciated with  infant  baptism  and  a  subsequent 
confirmation,  and  others  apart  from  those 
usages.  And  American  Christians,  who  are 
accustomed  to  rely  so  extensively  upon  re- 
vivals, and  to  count  upon  them  each  winter, 
as  at  the  season  most  favorable  for  special 
services  to  this  end,  must  not  forget  that,  in 
other  lands,  this  instrumentality  has  been 
less  used,  and  that  there  the  growth  has 
been  almost  wholly  through  the  regular 
means  of  grace,  the  cultivation  of  family 
religion,  and  a  church  education  of  the  chil- 
dren by  catechism  and  liturgy.  There  must 
be,  as  there  ought  to  be,  great  power  of  de- 
velopment in  the  Church  on  this  side.  It  is 
the  natural  method  of  increase ;  it  accords, 
also,  with  the  inspired  explanation,  through 
Malachi,  of  God's  intent  in  the  institution 
of  marriage  and  of  the  family, "  that  he 
might  seek  a  godly  seed ;"  and  it  produces 
the  most  perfect  type  of  character,  free  from 
the  angularities  and  .crudities  of  adult  con- 
versions, and  beautifully  rounded  out  into 
the  symmetry  of  a  complete  and  gradually 
formed  mind  and  heart.  Indeed,  there  is 
reason  to  think  that,  in  ordinary  communi- 
ties, where  the  ingatherings  from  revivals 
are  mostly  of  youth  from  twelve  to  twenty 
years  of  age,  a  large  proportion  of  the  so- 
called  "  converts  "  are  really  persons  regen- 
erated iii  childhood,  and  awakened  by  the 
revival  to  a  new  and  more  intelligent  con- 
sciousness of  the  divine  life  in  the  soul. 
The  influence  of  the  family  and  of  the  Sun- 
day-school at  least  prepared  the  soil  and 
sowed  the  seed  for  the  seemingly  sudden 
harvest  of  the  revival. 

What  is  needed,  then,  in  this  direction  to 
make  revivals  productive  of  permanent  good 
is  to  recognize  their  true  relation  to  other 
Christian  experiences,  and  to  other  modes  of 
Christian  progress  toward  the  final  triumph 
of  the  Redeemer's  kingdom.  Made  exclusive 
in  their  demand,  they  falsely  turn  every  oth- 
er condition  of  the  Church  into  a  declension, 
draw  off  attention  from  equally  important 
duties,  and  give  to  piety  a  vacillating  char- 
acter, changing  from  the  heights  of  excite- 
ment to  the  inevitable  reactionary  depths 
of  insensibility  or  of  depression.  But  no 
such  distorted  view  of  revivals  need  be 
cherished.  They  do  not  constitute  the 
whole  of  religious  work,  but  they  belong  in 
the  Christian  system,  and  have  a  place  of 
special  honor  and  power  under  the  dispensa- 


tion of  the  Holy  Spirit.  Doubtless,  also, 
they  have  their  law,  in  the  mind  of  God, 
though  no  one  has  yet  succeeded  in  defi- 
nitely stating  it,  or  in  bringing  them  under 
fixed  conditions  of  time  and  circumstance. 
While,  as  a  general  rule,  spiritual  results 
will  be  according  to  the  prayerful  use  of  ap- 
propriate means,  God  meaning  to  encourage 
prayer  aud  to  reward  faithful  labor,  yet 
Christians  are  often  disappointed  in  the  re- 
sults of  prayer  and  effort  in  specific  cases ; 
so  that  no  man  can  surely  predict  the  range 
and  power  of  revivals  in  particular  locali- 
ties. What  pastor  has  not  been  surprised 
by  a  powerful  revival  in  spiritual  circum- 
stances seemingly  unfavorable ;  and  again 
disappointed  at  its  non-arrival  when  its  con- 
ditions appeared  to  be  more  fully  met  ? 

They  come  in  very  variant  circumstances, 
and  therefore  the  old  divines  have  associated 
them  with  the  sovereignty  of  God ;  but  to 
God  wo  may  well  suppose  that  a  sameness 
of  principle  appears  throughout.  They  are 
to  be  regarded  as  glorious  additions  or  sup- 
plements to  the  ordinary  working  of  spirit- 
ual forces  ;  in  which  God  seizes  upon  a  con- 
juncture of  facts  and  favoring  occasions,  to 
work  saving  results  on  a  large  scale  aud 
with  great  rapidity,  exalting  the  faith  of 
his  people  and  striking  terror  into  the  heart 
of  his  foes.  In  the  United  States  revivals 
have  thus  been  conspicuously  xised,  at  event- 
ful periods,  to  save  the  laud  from  prevalent 
infidelity  and  worldliness.  In  the  days  of 
Jonathan  Edwards,  after  there  had  been  a 
wide -spread  deaduess  in  religion,  accom- 
panied \>y  an  invasion  of  error,  the  "  Great 
Awakening"  was  spiritually  the  salvation 
of  the  country.  Again,  after  the  Revolu- 
tionary War  had  left  religion  in  a  low  con- 
dition, and  French  infidelity  had  infected 
large  numbers,  God  used  the  powerful  re- 
vivals at  the  beginning  of  this  century  to 
give  new  life  to  religion  in  the  nation.  Sim- 
ilarly, the  second  Avar  with  Great  Britain, 
the  mercantile  prosperity  and  subsequent 
reverses,  twenty  years  later,  aud  .also  the 
financial  crash  of  1857,  were  followed  by  ex- 
tensive and  powerful  revivals.  Aud  now, 
in  accordance  with  the  inspired  declaration, 
that  "  when  the  enemy  shall  come  in  like  :i 
flood,  the  Spirit  of  the  Lord  will  lift  up  u 
standard  against  him,"  the  praying  and  be- 
lieving ones  are  expecting  that  the  present 
spread  of  skepticism  will  furnish  the  occa- 
sion for  mighty  outpourings  of  the  Holy 
Spirit,  which  shall  demonstrate  the  divine 
character  of  the  Gospel,  and  shall  convert 
the  very  leaders  of  unbelief  into  apostles  of 
the  faith. 

They  may,  therefore,  properly  bo  objects 
of  desire,  of  prayer,  aud  of  effort,  on  the 
part  of  ministers  and  of  churches,  while  not 
allowed  to  interfere  with  the  steady  prose- 
cution of  ordinary  Christian  work,  and  the 
expectation  of  a  continual  success  in  the 


CHRISTIAN  LIFE. 


conversion  of  sinners  and  in  the  upbuilding 
of  personal  character.  Indeed,  as  the  spe- 
cial activities  of  a  merchant  in  his  spring 
and  fall  trade  subside  into  the  regular  rou- 
tine of  industry  during  the  remainder  of  the 
year,  so  when  the  excitement  and  labor  of 
a  revival  pass,  it  should  be  to  allow  steady 
play  to  the  regular  duties  of  family,  social, 
and  church  life;  it  being  understood  that 
piety  equally  inspires  both  modes  of  action, 
and  that  the  converts  of  a  revival  need  sub- 
sequently to  bo  trained  to  obey  the  unex- 
citing demands  of  the  details  of  a  daily  life 
that  shall  be  inspired  by  faith  in  Christ,  and 
love  to  God  and  their  neighbor.  In  this 
light,  that  pastor  is  most  wisely  a  friend  of 
revivals  who  follows  them  most  faithfully 
with  the  use  of  the  ordinary  means  of  grace, 
and  with  a  recommendation  of  piety  in  its 
cvery-day  aspect.  That  church  also  gives 
the  best  evidence  of  having  received  per- 
manent good  from  a  revival  which  accom- 
panies its  zeal  for  conversions  with  an  equal 
care  for  the  growth  and  education  of  "  the 


babes  in  Christ,"  and  for  the  exhibition  by 
the  older  members  of  a  proportionate  char- 
acter, and  a  readiness  for  all  forms  of  useful- 
ness, whether  these  be  technically  religious 
or  secular.  The  converts  will  thus  be  made 
to  understand  that  the  revival  is  religion  in 
only  one  of  its  phases,  and  in  one  of  its  forms 
of  power ;  and  that  a  church  does  not  nec- 
essarily decline  in  piety  when  those  special 
scenes  pass,  but  often  goes  on  to  greater 
trials  and  triumphs  of  Christian  principle, 
which  require  daily  communion  with  God 
and  an  abiding  faith  in  the  perpetual  aid 
of  the  indwelling  Spirit,  in  order  to  "  over- 
come the  world." 

And  now  may  that  same  Spirit  of  all 
grace  which  moved  Christian  minds  to  con- 
vene this  body,  so  largely  representative  of 
the  Church  of  Christ,  renew  Pentecostal 
scenes  throughout  the  world  wherever  the 
Gospel  is  preached,  till  the  nations  shall  be 
converted,  and  the  Redeemer  "  shall  see  of 
the  travail  of  his  soul,  and  shall  be  satis- 
fied." 


THE  RIGHT  USE  OF  WEALTH. 


BY  M.  B.  ANDEKSON,  LL.D., 

President  of  the  University  of  Kochester,  Bochester,  N.  Y. 


WE  take  it  for  granted  that  it  is  the  duty, 
iu  the  sight  of  God,  of  every  Christian  to  en- 
gage diligently  in  the  production  of  moral 
or  economical  values.  When  the  production 
of  economical  values,  or  wealth,  is  the  imme- 
diate object,  there  should  bo  an  indirect  ref- 
erence to  moral  ends  and  purposes.  But  the 
obligation  to  labor  is  imposed  upon  us  by 
the  capacity  for  it,  and  exists  independent- 
ly of  the  uses  to  which  we  may  apply  the 
proceeds.  The  New  Testament  rule,  that  if 
a  man  will  not  work  neither  shall  he  eat, 
is  universal  in  its  application. 

The  man  who  lives  on  the  labor  of  the 
public  without  adding  any  thing  himself  to 
the  wealth  or  moral  well-being  of  the  com- 
munity is  a  pauper.  If  he  is  capable  of  work 
and  refuses,  he  becomes  at  once  a  criminal, 
.and  the  State  compels  him  to  work  by  law. 
Ho  seeks  to  share  the  wealth  of  the  body 
politic  without  bearing  his  part  of  the  pub- 
lic burdens.  He  adds  to  the  character  of 
the  pauper  that  of  the  thief.  In  a  slightly 
modified  sense  we  may  apply  this  law  to  him 
who  lives  upon  the  labor  of  parents  or  ances- 
tors without  adding  by  his  own  labor  to  the 
wealth  or  well-being  of  the  community  in 
which  he  lives.  The  possession  of  inherited 
Avealth  does  not  release  him  from  the  obliga- 
tion to  work.  His  wealth  can  make  his  ex- 
ertion enormously  productive.  His  failure 
to  work  is,  therefore,  more  criminal  even 
than  if  he  were  poor ;  for  his  capacity  in  the 
production  of  values,  both  moral  and  eco- 
nomical, may  equal  that  of  a  thousand  men. 

Here  we  see  the  unsoundness  of  the  ad- 
vice so  often  given  to  men  who  have  secured 
wealth,  to  retire  from  business  and  cease 
from  labor.  It  is  every  man's  duty  to  work 
so  long  as  he  has  the  capacity.  The  mer- 
chant may  justifiably  withdraw  from  the 
most  dangerous  risks  of  business,  but  he  may 
not  escape  the  obligation  to  work,  and  there- 
by to  add  to  the  means  of  the  public  welfare. 

The  obligation  to  labor  is  obviously  im- 
perative upon  those  engaged  in  those  pur- 
suits whose  products  are  moral  or  intellect- 
ual. No  amount  of  learning  or  discipline 
will  relieve  the  scholar  or  the  moral  teach- 
er from  the  duties  which  these  possessions 
themselves  impose.  The  greater  his  capac- 
ity the  more  imperative  is  the  duty  to  use 
it.  He  is  or  ought  to  bo  a  producer  of  mor- 
al values,  and  as  his  labor  is  an  indispensable 


condition  of  the  best  success  of  those  en- 
gaged directly  in  the  production  of  materi- 
al wealth,  he  for  this  reason  falls  under  u 
similar  obligation  to  labor.  As  the  moral 
tone  of  a  community  becomes  degraded,  its 
productive  power  diminishes  in  the  same 
proportion.  Honesty,  industry,  and  self-de- 
nial, which  lie  at  the  very  foundation  of 
material  production,  are  Christian  virtues. 
Of  all  those  elements  which  make  man  an 
instrument  of  production,  none  are  so  valu- 
able as  intelligence  and  character.  Never 
have  they  borne  so  high  a  market  value  as 
they  do  now.  Just  in  the  proportion  that 
business  relations  become  complicated  and 
far-reaching  do  honesty  and  intelligence, 
clear-headed  and  trustworthy  agencies,  be- 
come indispensable. 

The  production  of  moral  and  the  produc- 
tion of  economical  values  are  reciprocally 
necessary,  and  each  value  is  convertible  into 
the  other.  Credit,  the  life-blood  of  modern 
commerce,  is  faith  in  the  honesty  and  effi- 
ciency of  those  to  whom  it  is  given.  It  has 
been  the  outgrowth  of  Christianity.  Credit, 
in  the  modern  sense,  was  unknown  to  the 
ancients.  With  them  the  merchant  was  a 
supercargo  or  a  peddler.  Commerce,  in  the; 
magnificent  dimensions  of  modern  times,  can 
not  exist  without  the  controlling  presence  of 
moral  obligation  in  the  minds  of  those  who 
carry  it  on.  No  system  of  checks  and  safe- 
guards, no  spy  or  police  system,  however 
skillfully  arranged,  can  give  security.  When 
faith  in  character  is  lost,  commerce  is  strick- 
en with  paralysis. 

Up  to  a  comparatively  recent  time,  colo- 
nies and  subject  states  upon  whom  unfair 
prices  could  be  imposed  with  impunity  wen- 
supposed  to  be  the  conditions  of  growth  in 
national  wealth.  Legislation  and  diplomacy 
were  supposed  best  to  accomplish  their  eco- 
nomical ends  when  they  gave  the  opportuni- 
ty for  unequal  and  unfair  exchanges.  But 
now  scientific  political  economists  are  pro- 
foundly convinced  that  all  legislation  or  di- 
plomacy which  has  for  its  purpose  to  secure 
wealth  to  nations  or  classes  of  individuals  by 
unequal  laws  or  unjust  treaties,  is  sure  to  fail 
in  the  end. 

If  political  economy  has  settled  any  thing, 
it  is  that  no  bargain  is  a  good  one  which  is 
not  beneficial  to  both  parties  in  the  transac- 
tion. As  this  science  becomes  settled  in  its 


CHRISTIAN  LIFE. 


principles  anil  clear  in  its  definitions,  it  is 
seen  more  and  more  clearly  that  they  are  in 
entire  harmony  with  morality,  and  that  the 
whole  range  of  economic  science  is  bnt  an 
application  of  the  Ten  Commandments. 

We  see,  then,  that  the  pursuit  of  wealth 
liy  legitimate  processes  is  in  entire  harmony 
with  morality,  and  depends  upon  it ;  that  the 
highest  aims  of  the  scholar  and  the  Chris- 
tian have  no  antagonism  with  sound  meth- 
ods of  accumulation.  Methods  of  accumula- 
tion which  the  moralist  condemns  as  wrong 
the  economist  proves  to  be  inexpedient.  It 
is  clear  that  he  who  by  example  and  precept 
makes  a  community  more  moral  and  more 
intelligent  in  any  marked  degree  will,  in  the 
end,  add  more  to  its  capacity  to  accumulate 
wealth  than  he  who  is  individually  the  most 
successful  producer. 

But  this  influence  of  Christian  morality 
upon  material  production  is  only  incident- 
al. In  the  eye  of  the  Christian,  the  uses  of 
wealth  constitute  the  all-important  object 
of  interest.  The  increase  of  the  breadth, 
richness,  and  power  of  the  Divine  life  iii 
men  is  an  end  in  itself  transcending  in  im- 
portance all  results,  however  magnificent, 
which  are  realized  in  the  present  life  and 
expire  with  it.  With  the  Christian,  wealth 
is  mainly  to  be  valued  as  the  evidence  of  in- 
dustry and  self-denial  on  the  part  of  its  pos- 
sessor, and  as  a  means  of  elevating,  purify- 
ing, and  saving  men.  It  is  this  wThich  dig- 
nifies and  consecrates  the  labor  and  thought 
of  the  Christian  merchant  or  manufacturer. 

The  accumulation  of  wealth  is  simply  the 
accumulation  of  power,  which  is  valuable  in 
the  sight  of  God  only  so  far  as  it  is  turned 
to  noble  uses.  It  is  subject  to  the  same  law 
with  accumulations  of  learning,  discipline, 
culture,  or  skill  in  the  arts.  These,  like 
wealth,  are  forms  in  which  power  is  gener- 
ated and  stored  up.  The  use  and  applica- 
tion of  all  these  forms  of  power  should  be 
controlled  by  one  common  Christian  law. 
If  any  one  of  these  forms  is  used  for  selfish 
gratification,  the  possessor  becomes  an  of- 
fender, in  proportion  to  the  value  and  quan- 
tity of  the  power  which  he  misuses. 

Whoever  accumulates  learning,  or  disci- 
pline, or  culture  for  selfish  gratification 
alone,  regardless  of  what  he  ow.es  to  Christ 
and  humanity,  has  in  him  all  the  essential 
elements  of  a  raiser.  We  talk  of  misers  as 
if  they  were  found  among  the  commercial 
Classes  only.  But  the  term  is  applicable  to 
all  who  hoard  up  God's  gifts  in  selfish  care- 
lessness of  the  duties  which  those  posses- 
sions impose.  It  is  the  use  of  power  for 
blessing  which  alone  can  bring  happiness 
to  him  who  has  it.  Especially  is  this  il- 
lustrated by  wealth.  All  experience  shows 
that,  when  wealth  is  hoarded  to  an  amount 
beyond  the  reasonable  requirements  of  the 
holder  or  his  dependents,  it  loses  its  power 
to  confer  well-being.  It  imposes  a  constant- 


ly increasing  amount  of  labor,  thought,  and 
anxiety,  for  which  the  owner  can  by  no 
possibility  receive  a  personal  return.  In  a 
country  where  entails  are  not  permitted, 
where  wealth  has  a  natural  tendency  to- 
ward redistribution,  it  is  notorious  that  the 
most  anxious,  hard-worked,  and  care-worn 
members  of  society  are  the  holders  of  enor- 
mous wealth.  It  is  found  that  the  labor  and 
capacity  required  to  keep  it  are  as  great,  oft- 
en greater  than  was  required  to  amass  it. 

A  man  labors  and  denies  himself  in  early 
life  that  he  may  have  ease  and  quiet  from 
his  money.  He  too  often  finds  that  cares 
and  responsibilities  accumulate  more  rapid- 
ly than  wealth.  It  is  God's  law  that  true 
enjoyment  can  never  be  attained  unless  we 
forget  ourselves  in  the  use  of  our  power  for 
the  benefit  of  others.  This  law  can  not  by 
any  possibility  be  evaded  or  transcended, 
and  its -penalties  become  stringent  and  em- 
phatic just  in  the  proportion  that  property 
selfishly  hoarded  increases  in  amount. 

This  law  finds  a  modified  application  also 
in  its  bearing  upon  children.  Wealthy  men 
who  shut  their  hearts  against  the  appeals 
of  benevolence  often  persuade  themselves 
that  they  are  hoarding  for  the  benefit  of 
their  children.  This  is  often  but  a  disguised 
form  of  avarice — a  fruitless  attempt  to  evade 
the  penalties  which  God  has  attached  to  this 
form  of  vice.  A  noble  manhood  or  wom- 
anhood is  inconceivable  except  as  the  out- 
growth of  labor,  burden-bearing,  and  self- 
denial.  Character,  whether  intellectual  or 
moral,  is  a  kind  of  manufacture  of  which 
the  self-control,  the  moral,  mental,  and  phys- 
ical efforts  of  the  individual  himself  furnish 
the  raw  material.  The  result,  the  most  val- 
uable thing  on  earth,  genius  ,cau  not  give, 
money  can  not  buy. 

Whatever  weakens  or  destroys  the  mo- 
tives to  personal  exertion,  so  far  diminishes 
a  young  person's  chances  of  attaining  the 
fullest  and  richest  development  of  manhood. 
The  knowledge  on  the  part  of  a  child  that 
he  will  be  heir  to  an  estate  which  will  re- 
lieve him  from  the  ordinary  necessity  of 
working  for  his  living,  in  all  but  exception- 
ally constituted  natures,  strikes  with  paral- 
ysis the  most  effective  impulses  to  exertion. 
Even  those  for  whom  some  sort  of  activity 
is  a  necessity  we  often  find  busied  about 
trifles,  and  in  the  end  sinking  into  a  feeble 
dilettanteism,  developing  a  superficial  var- 
nish of  culture  rather  than  the  broad  mind, 
strong  will,  and  administrative  capacity 
which  make  up  real  manhood.  This  law, 
thus  applicable  to  the  rich  man  and  his 
children,  is  but  one  of  the  varied  illustra- 
tions of  the  divine  principle,  that  he  who 
would  save  his  life  for  selfish  ends  and  pur- 
poses shall  really  lose  it. 

It  should,  however,  be  distinctly  under- 
stood that  Christianity  guarantees,  in  the 
strongest  wny,  the  right  of  property  and  the 


ANDERSON :  THE  RIGHT  USE  OF  WEALTH. 


359 


right  of  inheritance.  But  it  balances  this 
moral  sanction  to  the  possession  of  property 
by  the  duties  attached,  to  such  possession 
which  it  places  over  against  the  right.  It 
secures  to  the  scholar  or  artist  the  right  of 
ownership  in  the  product  of  his  thought,  but 
it  imposes  upon  him  the  paramount  obliga- 
tion to  use  the  property  which  he  has  in  his 
intellectual  endowment  or  production  for  the 
benefit  of  his  fellow-man.  O%Ter  against  ev- 
ery right,  personal  or  political,  Christianity 
places  its  corresponding  duty.  The  severi- 
ty and  extent  of  the  obligation  to  benevolent 
action  are  in  exact  proportion  to  the  brill- 
iancy of  a  person's  intellectual  gifts  or  the 
amount  of  his  wealth.  These  rights  and  du- 
ties may  be  separated  in  thought,  but  may 
not  be  in  fact ;  they  are  parts  of  a  common 
system ;  each  is  a  complement  of  the  other. 
This  relation  is  so  fundamental  that  it  is 
recognized  in  the  lowest  forms  of  utilitarian- 
ism as  well  as  in  the  loftiest  Christian  mor- 
ality. The  haw  of  self-sacrifice  must  be 
admitted  as  the  universal  condition  of  all 
individual  moral  development,  and  all  so- 
cial growth  and  well-being.  The  doctrine 
of  "altruism,"  set  forth  by  Comte  and  his 
followers  as  a  scientific  discovery,  is  but  a 
new  name  for  the  old  Christian  law  which 
received  its  highest  sanction  and  exemplifi- 
cation on  the  cross  of  redemption.  In  this 
non-recognition  of  rights  and  duties  in  re- 
spect to  property  as  correlative,  we  find  the 
origin  of  the  great  and  dangerous  collisions 
between  labor  and  capital.  The  relative 
value  of  labor  and  capital  in  the  market 
can  only  be  determined  by  the  law  of  sup- 
ply and  demand.  Exchangeable  values  must 
always  depend  on  common  opinion.  The 
teachings  of  a  sound  political  economy  and 
.a  sound  morality  are  at  one  in  forbidding  in- 
terference with  the  natural  currents  of  ex- 
change, distribution,  and  accumulation.  In- 
deed the  main  function  of  the  State  is  to 
prevent  all  abnormal  interferences  with  free 
exchanges  of  nil  forms  of  capital  ami  labor. 
Taxation  by  the  State  finds  its  justification 
in  the  fact  that  such  protection  against  in- 
terference is  given.  When  the  State  under- 
takes to  fix  prices,  it  is  almoSI  sure  to  be- 
come an  oppressor. 

Taxation  for  the  support  of  schools,  for 
the  support  of  the  poor,  for  the  prosecution 
and  reform  of  criminals,  is  made  necessary, 
that  the  burdens  of  society  and  the  expense 
necessary  for  the  preservation  of  its  exist- 
ence shall  be  equitably  distributed.  If  the 
State  may  not  prescribe  the  rates  of  ex- 
change between  different  kinds  of  economic 
quantities,  how  are  the  questions  which  arise 
between  labor  and  capital  to  find  their  solu- 
tion •?  Capital  is  accumulating  in  all  Chris- 
tian countries  with  a  rapidity  to  which  the 
past  furnishes  no  parallel.  These  accumu- 
lations tend  by  an  inevitable  law  to  pass 
into  the  control  of  the  able  and  intelligent. 


How  are  we  to  prevent  these  enormous  ac- 
cumulations of  power  from  becoming  dan- 
gerous and  oppressive  ?  If  we  weaken  by 
law  the  right  of  our  merchant  princes  to  the 
possession  of  their  wealth,  we  weaken  in  the 
same  degree  the  right  of  the  poorest  laborer 
to  the  products  of  his  daily  toil.  In  like 
manner  we  weaken  the  impulse  to  accumu- 
lation, natural  to  man,  which  is  one  of  the 
prime  factors  in  a  healthy  and  progressive 
civilization.  Nothing  so  taxes  the  ability 
of  the  legislator  as  the  framing  of  laws 
which  shall  preserve  the  right  of  property, 
and  at  the  same  time  prevent  its  power 
from  being  abused.  Whatever  the  legisla- 
tion of  the  future  may  accomplish  in  this  di- 
rection, we  believe  that  the  only  complete 
and  satisfactory  solution  of  this  problem 
must  be  a  moral  one. 

In  the  wide-spread  uneasiness  among  the 
laboring  classes  we  find  a  growing  appre- 
hension on  their  part  of  the  duties  which  at- 
tach to  the  possession  of  wealth.  Of  the 
rights  of  the  holders  of  property  they  are 
often  sadly  unmindful.  On  the. other  hand, 
the  wealthy  classes  are  keenly  alive  to  their 
own  rights,  while  they  are  often  fearfully 
neglectful  of  the  manifold  and  weighty  du- 
ties which  their  wealth  imposes  upon  them. 
Hence  this  antagonism  between  the  rich 
and  the  poor.  Neither  party  has  adequate- 
ly learned  the  great  lesson  of  Christian 
brotherhood,  nor  that  the  rights  and  duties 
of  every  moral  being  are  inseparable  rela- 
tives. 

When  the  keen  sensitiveness  to  the  duties 
and  obligations  of  capital,  which  lies  at  the 
basis  of  strikes  and  trades-unions,  is  moder- 
ated and  controlled  by  an  equal  sensitive- 
ness to  the  rights  of  capital ;  when  the  great 
masters  of  associated  wealth  become  as 
keenly  alive  to  the  duties  which  they  owe 
to  the  poor  as  they  are  to  the  protection 
of  their  own  wealth ;  when  Christian  love 
shall  become  the  common  atmosphere  of  the 
rich  and  the  poor;  when  every  man  shall 
deem  himself,  like  Christ,  the  servant  of  all 
in  exact  proportion  to  the  power  which  he 
possesses,  these  collisions  between  the  oppo- 
site forms  of  power,  represented  by  capital 
and  labor,  will  pass  away  forever. 

It  is  the  duty  of  all  Christian  men,  and  es- 
pecially of  the  wealthy  among  them,  to  study 
this  problem  with  the  greatest  care,  lest,  di- 
rectly or  indirectly,  they  become  unwitting- 
ly agents  of  oppression.  The  aristocracy 
of  caste  and  the  aristocracy  of  feudalism  are 
rapidly  passingaway.  Centuries  of  servile  in- 
surrections, accompanied  by  untold  suffering, 
have  workcnl  out  this  still  incomplete  eman- 
cipation. But  a  new  feudalism  is  coming  to 
the  front,  as  powerful  and  as  all-pervading 
as  the  old.  This  is  found  in  associated  cap- 
ital. The  control  of  this  is  in  the  hands  of 
corporations,  the  sole  end  of  whose  existence 
is  to  increase  and  defend  the  power  which 


360 


CHRISTIAN  LIFE. 


they  already  possess.  The  common  maxim 
that  "  corporation  liave  no  souls  "  expresses 
the  average  judgment  of  men,  that  financial 
corporations  are  in  some  way  endowed  by 
law  with  all  the  rights  of  property,  while 
they  are  emancipated  from  its  correspond- 
ing duties. 

Right  here  arises  one  of  the  great  dangers 
which  threaten  modern  society.  The  power 
which  associated  capital  will  possess,  in  com- 
mercial nations,  by  the  end  of  another  cen- 
tury, is  appalling  in  anticipation.  If  the 
power  thus  given  by  the  fundamental  right 
of  property  shall  continue  to  be  exercised 
without  regard  to  the  moral  obligations 
which  limit  and  control  it,  the  enginery  for 
oppression  thus  existing  will  be  almost  in- 
conceivable. Even  now  worthless  securities 
are  forced  upon  the  market  by  those  illegiti- 
mate appliances  so  well  known  to  the  finan- 
cier. Great  combinations  are  formed  for  the 
elevation  or  depression  of  prices,  in  defiance 
of  the  natural  action  of  the  law  of  supply  and 
demand.  The  feverish  anxiety  for  sudden 
wealth  overstrains  credit,  tempts  to  frauds 
and  defalcations,  regardless  alike  of  the  prin- 
ciples of  political  economy,  of  moral  obliga- 
tion, and  of  civil  law.  Sooner  or  later  these 
combinations  must  miscarry.  Financial  bub- 
bles break,  frauds  are  exposed,  confidence  is 
lost,  and  poverty,  pain,  and  suffering  are  car- 
ried to  every  cottage  throughout  our  land. 
Capital  is  power  —  mighty  for  good,  when 
controlled  by  intelligent  benevolence ;  ter- 
rible for  evil,  when  made  an  instrument  of 
oppression. 

Our  safeguard  against  this  form  of  evil, 
which  threatens  us  now,  and  must  be  still 
more  dangerous  in  future,  can  be  found  only 
in  subjecting  capital,  as  well  as  every  other 
form  of  power,  to  the  control  of  the  Chris- 
tian law  of  sacrifice  and  service.     When 
capitalists,  in  their  individual  and  associa- 
ted capacity,  shall  consider  themselves  as 
stewards  for  the  administration  of  the  wealth 
with  which  God  has  endowed  them,  so  that 
it  shall  conduce  to  the  blessing  of  man  and 
the  glory  of  God,  these  dangers  will  no  long- 
er exist.    It  is  high  time  that  the  elementary 
limitations  of  Christian  morality  should  be 
recognized  in  the  accumulation  and  admin- 
istration of  wealth.     No  Christian  man  may 
do  that  as  a  director  of  a  corporation  which 
he  would  shrink  from  as  an  individual.    He 
may  not  share  the  gain  acquired  by  the 
oppression  of  the  poor,  or  by  combinations 
skillfully  contrived  for  the  robbery  of  the 
rich.     There  are  moral  laws  which  govern 
the  accumulation  and  management  of  prop- 
erty.   They  may  not  be  violated  with  impu- 
nity.   The  great  financial  revulsions  which, 
like  pestilences,  have  smitten  the  world  from 
the  time  of  the  Mississippi  Scheme  and  the 
South  Sea  Bubble  to  the  present  hour,  are  so 
many  several  illustrations  of  the  retributive 
justice  of  God. 


While  the  laws  of  Christian  morality 
should  control  the  processes  and  set  limits 
to  the  rapidity  of  accumulation,  and  while 
the  duty  of  appropriating  wealth  to  benev- 
olent uses  is  apparent,  it  is  also  clear  that 
great  discrimination  should  be  exercised  in 
selecting  the  objects  to  which  the  appropri- 
ation shall  be  made.  Indiscriminate  alms- 
giving may  be  productive  of  unlimited  evil. 
The  mere  giving  of  money  to  the  poor  is  not 
necessarily  charity.  It  often  exaggerates  the 
very  evil  that  it  is  designed  to  remedy.  It  may 
be  so  distributed  as  to  destroy  self-respect 
in  the  recipients,  and  train  up  a  class  willing 
to  live  upon  the  public  bounty,  and  too  in- 
dolent to  labor  for  their  own  support  or  to 
bear  their  share  of  public  burdens. 

The  truest  charity  is  that  which  educates 
and  trains  the  poor  into  the  capacity  to  sup- 
ply their  own  wants  by  their  own  labor  and 
skill.  He  who  supplies  the  physical  wants 
of  the  poor  in  such  a  way  as  to  take  away 
their  motives  for  labor,  and  induce  in  them 
a  willingness  to  live  upon  the  labor  of  the 
public,  so  far  trains  them  to  crime. 

The  Mendicant  Orders  in  the  Catholic 
Church  made  beggary  respectable,  and  have 
given  currency  to  the  idea  that  the  giving 
of  alms  is  a  virtue  in  itself,  without  refer- 
ence to  the  purposes  to  which  it  is  applied. 
Nothing  more  rapidly  demoralized  Romo 
than  the  custom  on  the  part  of  the  State 
of  providing  food  for  the  large  body  of  the 
poorer  citizens.  It  is  just  as  clearly  the 
duty  of  men  of  wealth  to  bestow  their  bene- 
factions wisely  as  it  is  to  bestow  them.  The 
great  object  should  be  so  to  bestow  wealth 
that  it  shall  be  continuously  productive  of 
elevating  and  purifying  forces.  Large  sums 
are  often  given  indiscriminately  in  such  a 
way  that  they  are  really  a.  premium  upon 
beggary  and  crime. 

Those  benefactions  are  most  productive 
of  blessing  which  are  devoted  to  some  form 
of  technical,  moral,  religious,  or  intellectual 
education.  If  the  poor  are  vicious,  they, 
and  in  geuer.il  their  children,  need  to  be 
reformed.  With  reformation,  the  cause  of 
their  poverty  will  be  removed.  If  they  are 
poor  through  want  of  skill  or  capacity,  they 
and  their  children  need  .education  and  in- 
dustrial training.  This  will  enable  them  to 
care  for  themselves. 

In  the  order  of  Providence,  a  large  seg- 
ment of  most  communities,  and  a  majority  of 
many,  is  composed  of  persons,  old  and  young, 
who  are  either  too  weak,  too  vicious,  or  too 
ignorant  to  keep  themselves  above  want.  All 
men  alike,  learned  or  ignorant,  rich  or  poor, 
need  the  inspiring,  elevating,  and  sanctifying 
influence  of  the  Gospel  of  Christ.  Here,  then, 
we  have  laid  out  before  us  two  grand  spheres 
for  the  exercise  of  enlightened  benevolence. 
Our  Saviour  was  the  great  teacher.  Every 
minister  of  religion,  every  Christian  man 
and  woman,  is  bound,  directly  or  indirectly, 


ANDERSON :  THE  RIGHT  USE  OF  WEALTH. 


361 


to  follow  his  example  in  this  respect.  The 
world  can  be  made  better,  healthier,  and 
happier  only  as  it  is  made  acquainted  with 
the  laws  of  God,  and  persuaded  to  obey  them. 
The  preaching  of  the  Gospel  is  but  a  process 
for  the  moral  and  religious  instruction  and 
training  of  men. 

The  most  productive  field,  then,  for  Chris- 
tian benevolence  is  education,  when  taken 
in  its  broadest  sense.  It  is  true  that  the 
sick  and  the  aged  must  be  cared  for,  often 
without  hope  of  improving  their  condition 
in  the  present  life ;  but  they  may  be  trained 
for  the  life  to  come.  Criminals  must  be  re- 
strained and  punished;  but  their  restraint 
and  punishment  may  be  made  a  process  of 
training  for  a  better  life.  The  children  of 
the  vicious  poor  must  be  clothed  and  fed; 
but  it  is  of  tenfold  greater  importance  that 
they  be  trained  in  economy,  industry,  and 
the  fear  of  God.  How  this  mass  of  imbe- 
cility, ignorance,  and  crime  shall  be  taught, 
elevated,  and  christianized  is  the  great  prob- 
lem of  society,  and  the  great  task  of  the  Chris- 
tian Church.  To  furnish  the  spiritual  force 
for  its  accomplishment  was  our  Saviour's 
mission  to  earth.  To  become  the  conductors 
of  this  spiritual  force  to  the  minds  and  hearts 
of  men  is  the  function  of  all  who  would  be 
classed  as  his  followers. 

It  so  happens  that  our  own  country  pre- 
sents a  greater  demand  upon  consecrated 
wealth  than  perhaps  any  other  nation.  The 
teeming  populations  of  the  Old  World,  East 
and  West,  are  rushing  in  to  the  vacant  spaces 
of  our  vast  domain.  They  are  becoming 
participants  and  powers  in  our  social  and 
political  life.  We  must  fuse  them  into  our 
own  nationality.  We  must  vitalize  them 
with  the  power  of  Christian  truth  and  emo- 
tion. Here  a  nation  is  born  in  a  day.  In- 
stitutions of  learning  must  be  founded  and 
endowed  in  a  generation,  for  which  a  thou- 
sand years  have  been  required  in  the  Old 
World.  Houses  of  worship  must  be  erected, 
and  the  school-teacher  and  the  missionary 
must  be  equipped  and  furnished  to  follow, 
in  a  lock-step  with  the  progress  of  our  hardy 
pioneers  as  they  march  forward  to  subdue 
the  wilderness  into  luxuriance  and  beauty. 

Unless  our  country  shall  be  left  to  become 
a  moral  desert,  this  work  must  be  done,  and 
done  in  our  own  generation.  To  meet  these 
moral  wants,  God  has  given  ns  in  our  coun- 
try a  career  and  a  capacity  for  rapid  accu- 
mulation beyond  that  of  any  other  people. 
God  has  graciously  adjusted  our  financial 
strength  to  the  moral  burdens  which  he  has 
called  us  to  bear.  Unless  our  benevolence 
in  giving  shall  more  than  equal  our  capaci- 
ty for  accumulation,  the  forces  of  ignorance, 
evil,  and  superstition  will  take  possession  of 
our  fair  laud ;  and  in  spite  of  our  boasted 
freedom  of  thought  and  action,  we  shall  be- 
come a  by-word,  and  a  hissing,  and  a  shak- 
ing of  the  head  among  the  nations. 


This  principle  finds  its  application  in  the 
Old  World  as  well.  Hitherto  the  institu- 
tions of  religion  have  been  controlled  and 
supported  by  the  State.  It  needs  no  proph- 
et's ken  to  foretell  that,  sooner  or  later,  the 
union  of  Church  and  State  will  be  dissolved. 
All  the  spiritual  and  political  forces  of  mod- 
ern life  seem  to  tend  in  that  direction.  The 
time  is  not  far  distant  when  Christian  men 
in  Europe  must  take  upon  their  shoulders 
the  work  of  home  evangelization,  as  well  as 
that  of  foreign  missions. 

This  condition  of  things  will,  in  no  dis- 
tant future,  call  for  a  development  of  Chris- 
tian benevolence  such  as  the  Old  World  has 
never  seen  realized.  The  unevangelized  and 
ignorant  masses,  the  bequest  of  feudalism  to 
the  present  age,  are  pressing  forward  for  a 
recognition  of  their  political  rights,  un- 
taught though  they  may  be  in  the  first  ele- 
ments of  political  duty.  These  masters  of 
the  future  must  be  brought  within  the  con- 
trol of  an  intelligent  Christianity,  or  their 
emancipation  will  be  fraught  with  equal  woe 
to  themselves  and  to  social  order.  These 
are  no  fancied  dangers.  France  and  Spain, 
torn  and  bleeding,  tell  ns  how  valueless  is 
mere  liberty  of  action  when  uuguided  by 
Christian  love  and  unrestrained  by  moral 
law.  The  moral  and  intellectual  training 
of  these  new  depositaries  of  political  power 
is  an  indispensable  condition  of  the  main- 
tenance of  that  social  order  through  which 
the  quiet  possession  of  Avealth  is  rendered 
possible. 

Socialism,  that  spectre  which  so  haunts  the 
European  mind,  is  due  to  the  consciousness  of 
the  new  possession  of  political  power  on  the 
part  of  those  to  whose  minds  the  intelligent 
self-restraint  born  of  an  educated  conscience 
is  a  stranger.  No  police  system,  however 
omniscient,  no  standing  armies,  however 
powerful,  can  hold  in  check  these  demoral- 
ized millions  when  they  choose  to  assert 
their  rude  power. 

To  meet  these  social  dangers  of  the  fu- 
ture, an  evangelical  activity,  more  intelli- 
gent and  loving  than  has  blessed  the  world 
since  the  apostolic  era,  is  immediately  de- 
manded. It  is  the  pride  of  the  Swiss  Con- 
federation that,  when  a  hostile  cannon-shot 
is  heard  on  its  border,  every  Swiss  is  in- 
stantaneously converted  into  a  soldier.  Such 
is  the  condition  of  the  Old  World  and  the 
New,  that  no  man  and  no  woman  can  claim 
to  be  a  follower  of  Christ,  who  is  not  ready  in 
some  way  to  be  incorporated  into  the  great 
army  of  evangelical  laborers.  Whatever 
the  Christian  is,  whatever  the  Christian 
has,  whatever  the  Christian  may  become, 
whatever  the  Christian  may  acquire,  be- 
longs to  Christ  and  to  humanity,  whom 
Christ  in  his  own  person  represents. 

These  workers  for  Christ  and  humanity 
may  be  roughly  divided  into  two  great  class- 
es. The  one  constitutes  the  great  body  of 


362 


CHRISTIAN  LIFE. 


Christian  preachers  and  Christian  teachers 
of  both  sexes  and  every  order;  the  other 
class  consists  of  those  whose  immediate  aim 
is  accumulation  of  wealth  for  the  support  of 
the  class  first  named  while  engaged  in  the 
direct  processes  of  benevolent  activity. 

The  obligations  resting  upon  these  two 
classes  of  Christians  are  precisely  similar. 
The  Christian  preacher,  teacher,  or  mission- 
ary is  under  no  obligation  to  consecrate 
his  life  to  benevolent  action  to  the  neglect 
of  all  efforts  for  the  amassing  of  property 
which  does  not  bear  upon  the  manufacturer 
or  merchant.  For  both  classes  .alike  Christ 
lived  and  died.  Both  classes  alike  are  wor- 
thy to  be  called  Christians  only  to  the  ex- 
tent that  they  live  over  again  Christ's  life, 
and,  under  the  limitations  of  their  capaci- 
ties, carry  forward  Christ's  plans  of  mercy 
for  man.  The  one  class  are  called  upon  to 
devote  learning,  eloquence,  intellectual  pow- 
er, and  time  directly  to  these  benevolent  ends 
and  purposes.  The  other  class  are  alike  call- 
ed upon  to  devote  their  surplus  accumulations 
to  the  same  great  end.  All  these  forms  of 
power  alike  belong  to  the  Saviour.  To  their 
use  he  has  a  common  claim.  The  moral  law 
which  prescribes  fidelity,  industry,  and  con- 
secration to  the  Christian  scholar  applies 
equally  to  the  merchant. 

The  duty  of  the  preacher  to  preach,  of  the 
scholar  to  teach,  is  no  more  imperative  than 
the  obligation  which  lies  upon  the  wealthy 
to  give — to  consecrate  a  similar  proportion 
of  the  particular  forms  of  power  which  they 
wield  to  benevolent  ends.  If  we  would  as- 
certain, then,  the  right  use  of  wealth  and  the 
extent  of  the  obligation  which  binds  men  who 
control  it,  we  should  recur  to  the  New  Testa- 
ment, and  there  study  the  precepts  and  exam- 
ple of  Christ  and  his  immediate  followers. 
Whatever  of  self-denial,  whatever  of  self- 
sacrifice,  whatever  of  consecration  of  pow- 
er to  the  salvation  of  men  and  the  glory  of 
God  marked  the  career  of  these  exemplars 
of  our  faith,  is  binding  to-day  upon  the 
Christian  teacher,  the  Christian  preacher, 
and  the  Christian  merchant. 

The  doctrine  of  Atonement  is  the  prime 
element  of  power  in  the  example  of  Christ. 
The  sooner  this  is  recognized  by  the  Chris- 
tian Church,  the  sooner  will  Christianity  bo 
restored  to  its  pristine  efficiency.  The  ex- 
ample of  our  Saviour  is  not  exhausted  in  the 
perfect  exhibition  of  the  negative  forms  of 
virtue.  It  is  in  the  realization  of  the  great 
positive  idea  of  living  for  others,  of  conse- 
crating all  the  power  of  action  or  endurance 
which  we  may  possess  for  the  salvation  of 
men,  that  we  approach  the  example  of  Christ. 
It  is  this  type  of  Christianity  which  shall 


reach  and  consecrate  every  form  of  power 
in  the  completest  degree  to  Christian  uses 
that  is  the  world's  great  want.  When  the 
atonement  on  Calvary  shall  be  recognized 
as  the  pith  and  substance  of  the  example  of 
Christ,  as  well  as  the  objective  condition  of 
our  salvation,  a  new  era  will  have  dawned 
upon  the  Church  and  upon  humanity.  The 
question  will  then  not  be  "how  little  we 
may  do  for  the  cause  of  Christ,"  but  rather, 
"how  much  of  power  we  may  accumulate, 
to  the  end  that  all  of  it,  without  reserve, 
shall  be  laid  upon  the  altar  of  sacrifice." 

We  have  heard  much,  during  the  sessions 
of  this  Alliance,  in  defense  of  the  Christian 
faith.  All  this  is  well;  but  may  it  not  be 
that  we  attach  an  exaggerated  importance 
both  to  the  attacks  of  its  enemies  and  the 
defenses  of  its  friends  f  No  weapon  can  pre- 
vail against  a  Divine  and  Christ-like  charity. 
Is  it  not  the  best  defense  of  Christianity  to 
exhibit  it  before  the  world  in  its  purity  and 
glory  ?  What  a  conception  of  the  Christian 
faith  heaved  the  heart  of  the  great  apostle 
when  he  exclaimed,  "I  bear  about  in  my 
body  the  dying  of  the  Lord  Jesus" — when 
he  could  wish  himself  "accursed  from  Christ 
for  his  brethren,  his  kinsmen  according  to 
the  flesh .!" 

Christianity  does  not  so  much  need  to  be 
apologized  for  and  defended  as  it  needs  to 
be  shown.  When  holiness  to  the  Lord  shall 
be  written  upon  the  scholar's  attainments 
and  the  titles  to  the  merchant's  wealth ; 
when  every  form  of  power  which  the  Chris- 
tian Church  controls  shall  be  a  continually 
smoking  sacrifice  upon  the  altar  of  conse- 
cration, our  faith  will  need  no  other  defense. 
Christianity  will  never  be  saved  from  its 
enemies  by  theological  engineering.  When 
every  form  of  Christian  activity  and  force 
shall  be  devoted  to  aggression  upon  the 
kingdom  of  darkness,  there  will  bo  no  time 
nor  need  for  apologetics.  The  victorious 
army  with  the  light  of  battle  in  its  eye  cores 
little  for  the  slow  processes  of  the  engineer. 
When  all  our  resources  are  converted  hon- 
estly and  faithfully  iuto  engines  of  attack 
upon  sin  and  wrong,  apologies  for  Christ 
and  his  doctrines  will  be  a  grand  imperti- 
nence. The  simultaneous  consecration  of  a 
tithe  of  the  great  fortunes  in  the  possession 
of  Christian  men  in  the  countries  represented 
by  this  Alliance  would  have  greater  imme- 
diate weight  with  unbelievers  than  all  the 
books  on  Christian  evidence  that  have  been 
published  since  the  revival  of  learning.  Sec- 
ond only  in  importance  to  the  right  use  of 
Christian  capacity  in  the  work  of  preaching 
the  Gospel  of  Christ  is  the  Christian  concep- 
tion of  the  right  uses  of  wealth. 


SECOND  SECTION-EDUCATION  AND  LITERATURE. 


MODERN  LITERATURE  AND  CHRISTIANITY. 

BY  THE  REV.  A.  L.  SIMPSON,  D.D.,  OF  DERBY,  ENGLAND. 


THERE  are  some  things  which  give  this 
subject  a  special  claim  to  be  looked  at.  For 
example,  there  is  its  extraordinary  profu- 
sion. Literature  has  attained. to  such  di- 
mensions that  it  may  be  said  to  be  every- 
where. It  surrounds  us  like  an  atmosphere. 
It  is  not  as  it  was  once  in  history,  when 
wandering  minstrels,  story-tellers,  and  trou- 
badours were  the  only  books  in  Europe.  It 
is  not  as  it  was  long  after  the  invention  of 
printing,  when  books  were  unpiirchasable 
by  the  mass  of  the  people.  It  is  not  as  it 
was  even  a  few  years  ago,  when  the  paper 
duty  and  other  governmental  restrictions 
greatly  limited  the  production  by  limiting 
the  sale.  Now  all  such  artificial  restrictions 
are  gone  (in  Great  Britain,  at  least),  and  the 
result  is  something  before  which  we  stand 
almost  appalled.  When,  apart  from  books 
properly  so  called,  we  think  of  the  legions 
of  monthly  and  weekly  periodicals,  and  when 
to  these  we  add  the  daily  newspapers  dis- 
tributed in  houses  and  workshops,  and  at 
.ill  railway  stations,  in  myriads,  we  can  not 
help  feeling  that  there  is  a  power  in  the 
midst  of  us  perpetually  at  work  which  must 
go  far,  according  to  its  nature  and  tendency, 
to  make  us  or  mar  us,  as  individuals,  as  fam- 
ilies, and  as  nations — a  power  which  implies 
a  tremendous  responsibility  somewhere,  or 
rather  everywhere.  For,  although  it  m'ay 
attach  to  some  in  a  special  degree,  no  man 
with  any  patriotism  will  be  able  to  put  it 
entirely  away  from  himself.  It  is  certain 
that  a  thing  of  the  nature  of  literature,  thus 
so  incessantly  supplied  and  so  universally 
diffused,  must  be  exerting  a  prodigious  in- 
fluence of  one  kind  or  other.  For  although 
all  literature  is  passive  at  first,  not  creating 
social  tendencies,  but  only  timidly  reflecting 
those  that  exist,  yet  it  speedily  passes  from 
this  pupilage  state,  and  becomes  the  princi- 
pal nutriment  of  social  tendencies,  intensi- 
fying what  it  reflects,  till  it  gets  down  to 
the  very  springs  of  human  thought  and  ac- 
tion, and  attains  something  like  a  master- 
ship over  all  the  channels  of  life. 

It  was  in  view  of  this  subtle  power  of 
literature  that  a  statesman  said,  "Give  me 
the  making  of  a  people's  songs,  and  I  will 
give  yon  the  making  of  their  Jaws;"  the 
idea  being  this,  that  a  people's  songs,  inas- 


much as  they  are  the  language  of  emotion, 
come  up  from  a  greater  depth  in  our  nature 
and  with  a  more  fervid  glow,  and  must  al- 
ways have  a  stronger  hold  upon  it,  than  laws 
which  are  a  matter  of  utilitarian  calculation, 
shaped  and  formed  for  a  defined  end.  The 
latter  are  a  social  necessity  which  we  simply 
accept ;  the  former  are  an  intellectual  in- 
stinct which  we  can  not  resist — the  true 
"speaking  out"  of  our  nature  in  all  those 
circumstances  in  which  it  must  speak  out,  and 
when  its  language  becomes  at  once  the  sign 
and  the  measure  of  the  earnestness  which  is 
in  us.  Hence  all  people  have  songs  (and 
that,  too,  before  they  have  laws)  just  be- 
cause they  have  passions,  emotions,  affec- 
tions. But  their  "  songs,"  technically  speak- 
ing, are  only  one  form  of  literary  art ;  and 
what  is  true  of  one  of  its  forms  is  equally 
true  of  them  all.  In  order,  indeed,  to  get 
at  the  full  meaning  of  the  statesman's  pro- 
found saying,  we  must  consider  the  word 
"  songs  "  as  standing  for  all  art,  and  then  it 
becomes  enunciative,  although  somewhat  in- 
directly, of  the  truth  that  art,  in  one  form 
or  other,  is  the  refuge  of  our  nature  in  every 
emotional  state — that  into  which  it  instinct* 
ively  passes  in  its  endeavors  to  rise  out  of 
itself,  so  to  say,  into  that  fuller  life  which  in 
such  circumstances  it  feels  itself  capable  of. 
The  province  of  science  and  legislation  is 
not  meant  to  be  disparaged,  and  the  social 
and  individual  comforts  which  flow  from 
them  are  not  to  be  scorned.  Man  is  of  com- 
plicated faculty  and  of  manifold  need,  and 
every  thing  in  the  world  has  its  place  and 
its  power.  But  surely  the  distinction  of  hu- 
manity, psychologically  speaking,  lies  in  its 
idealism  (to  which  religion  gives  sustain- 
meut  and  wise  direction),  and  thus  the  in- 
fluence of  such  things  is  to  the  soul  more 
than  they  seem,  and  the  whole  universe  be- 
comes, under  the  guidance  of  God,  as  a 
spring-board  to  the  spirit,  in  its  bound  to- 
Avard  the  infinite  and  the  shadowless. 

Debasing  Features  of  Modern  Literature. 

It  is  evidently,  therefore,  of  the  greatest 
importance  that  this  subtle  influence,  which 
is  so  constantly  and  so  universally  at  work, 
should  be  in  proper  hands  —  should  be  in 
unison  with  the  spirit  of  Christianity,  and 


3G4 


CHRISTIAN  LIFE. 


moving  in  the  same  direction  with  it.  And 
yet  what  do  we  find!  Much,  no  doubt, 
blessed  be  God,  very  much  which  is  true 
and  good — rooted  in  Christian  motive,  and 
fruited  with  Christian  effects.  To  the  great 
Bible  and  Tract  Societies  we  are  deeply  in- 
debted, on  both  sides  of  the  ocean,  in  this 
regard,  and  I  pray  God  to  bless  these  agen- 
cies more  and  more  in  their  noble  endeavors. 
They  are  much  needed ;  for,  when  we  look 
forth  on  the  wide  field  of  modern  literature, 
we  find,  in  the  first  place,  much  that  is  sim- 
ply and  entirely  bad — bad  in  its  art  element, 
if  it  can  be  said  to  have  any,  and  bad  in  its 
essence.  This  is  what  Mr.  Charles  Knight 
called  the  "  garbage  field,"  or  the  stream  of 
sewer  literature  of  which  he  said  that  "  all 
the  garbage  that  belongs  to  the  history  of 
crime  and  misery  is  raked  together  to  diffuse 
a  moral  iniasma  through  the  laud  in  the 
shape  of  the  most  vulgar  aud  brutal  fiction." 
And  if  this  was  the  case  in  1846,  when  these 
words  were  written,  it  is  much  more  so  now. 
The  quantity  of  this  sort  of  literature  is  ab- 
solutely overwhelming — a  literature  of  such 
a  kind  that  to  call  it  sensational  is  to  say 
little  or  nothing.  It  is  coarse  and  brutal — 
indecent,  too,  up  to  the  limits  of  the  law, 
and  often  beyond  them.  Its  tendency  is,  of 
course,  all  in  the  direction  of  the  sort  of  life 
it  depicts,  the  situations  of  which  are  made 
use  of  for  the  purpose  of  pleasing  the  mill- 
ion by  stimulating  their  passions  and  pan- 
dering to  their  lusts.  We  need  not  wonder 
that  appetites  nurtured  on  such  garbage 
should  turn  from  the  lessons  of  the  mission- 
ary with  disgust,  and  that  churches  should 
be  empty  while  beer-shops  and  casinos  are 
full.  Under  such  a  cuisine  the  heart  is  worse 
than  starved — it  is  poisoned  and  petrified ; 
conscience  is  killed  out,  and  what  of  the  in- 
tellect remains  must  be  only  as  the  purveyor 
of  passion  and  lust,  the  demon  in  the  herd 
of  swine,  impelling  them  down  the  steep  of 
ignominious  concession  into  the  foul  sea  of 
indulgence. 

But  now,  in  the  second  place,  there  is  a 
considerable  proportion  of  modern  literature 
which  is  so  far  good  in  its  artistic  qualities, 
but  decidedly,  I  may  almost  say  avowedly, 
bad  in  its  morality.  This,  like  the  preced- 
ing, chiefly  consists  of  works  of  fiction,  and 
to  a  certain  extent  of  poetry.  Of  course,  I 
do  not  object  to  any  class  of  writings  on  ac- 
count of  their  form  ;  although,  when  the  es- 
sence is  bad,  the  fictional  form  is  the  most 
ensnaring.  The  literature  of  the  drama  is 
not  to  be  denounced  because  it  is  dramatic, 
nor  the  literature  of  fiction  simply  because 
it  is  fictitious.  These  are  particular  meth- 
ods of  expressing  sentiment  and  thought, 
and  they  are  perfectly  legitimate  methods. 
In  the  hands  of  a  master  they  may  be 
mighty  for  their  purpose,  and  works  under 
this  or  any  other  special  designation  are  to 
be  judged  of  by  a  reference  to  their  spirit 


and  subject-matter  alone.  The  dramatic 
poets  of  the  Restoration  "  who  sauntered 
Europe  round,  and  gathered  every  vice  on 
Christian  ground,"  we  summarily  condemn, 
not  because  they  were  dramatic,  but  because 
they  were  grossly  immoral.  So  with  many 
novels  of  the  last  century,  and  so  also  with 
not  a  few  of  the  present  day.  There  are 
many  works,  perhaps  not  of  the  very  high- 
est art,  but  still  works  of  accomplished  and 
powerful  writers  which  have  been  intro- 
duced by  translation  into  English  literature, 
which,  both  directly  on  those  who  read  them, 
and  indirectly  through  their  influence  on 
other  writers,  who  are  led  to  imitate  them, 
have  a  widely  corrupting  effect,  and  that, 
too,  extending  pretty  high  up  in  the  social 
scale.  There  are  some  writers,  indeed,  who 
hold  as  a  theory  that  the  free  treatment  of 
such  subjects  as  involve  the  details  of  social 
and  domestic  immorality  is  not  only  admis- 
sible, but  necessary  to  the  completeness  of 
literary  art,  and  that  literature  in  many 
cases  suffers  from  oversqueamishness  in  this 
regard.  This  theory  is  avowed,  I  believe, 
by  one  of  the  most  learned  and  brilliant,  and, 
in  a  general  way,  one  of  the  most  interest- 
ing and  influential  of  the  French  critics  of 
the  day.  I  refer  to  M.  Taine,  of  Paris.  -He 
raises  the  question  whether  literature  is  the 
better  or  the  worse  for  being  strictly  moral, 
and  he  considers  that  it  is  the  worse.  And 
this  view  has  found  advocates  in  England, 
notably  in  Mr.  Algernon  Swinburne,  who  not 
only  accepts  the  theory,  but  has  in  his  own 
published  poems  given  it  unblushing  prac- 
tical effect.  And  along  with  him,  to  use  the 
words  of  a  writer  in  The  Daily  News,  "  Some 
young  writers  of  the  rising  generation  seem 
inclined  to  get  up  a  reaction  against  the 
excessive  purism  of  the  last  eighty  or  nine- 
ty years.  They  consider  their  intellectual 
limbs  fettered,  and  long  to  free  themselves 
from  customary  restrictions,  so  that  it  be- 
comes a  serious  question  whether  or  not 
such  an  immunity  from  the  restraints  of  con- 
ventional morals  is  a  desirable  thing  in  these 
days."  With  regard  to  this  question  in  the 
abstract,  I  should  say  that  it  is  neither  de- 
sirable nor  allowable  in  any  days,  and  for 
this  simple  reason  that,  just  like  all  other 
men,  writers  are  bound  to  be  moral,  what- 
ever else  they  may  be.  This  is  the  first  law 
of  rational  life,  and  nothing  can  change  it, 
or  for  a  moment  suspend  it ;  and  as  regards 
its  being  necessary  to  the  completeness  of 
literary  art,  which  is  M.  Taino's  plea,  I  shall 
only  say  this — that  it  can  be  shown,  and 
that  it  has  been  shown  by  a  reference  to  the 
fundamental  principles,  both  of  art  and  of 
the  human  mind,  that  such  license  is  op- 
posed to  true  completeness  and  fatal  to  the 
highest  reach  of  art,  whether  in  the  literary 
form  or  any  other. 

It  were  strange,  indeed,  if  it  were  other- 
wise— strange  if  the  highest  beauty,  which 


SIMPSON:  MODERN  LITERATURE  AND  CHRISTIANITY. 


365 


is  as  the  earthly  shadow  of  heaven's  holiness, 
could  be  approached  only  by  such  miry  ways  ; 
and  if  that  reserve  with  which  civilized  so- 
ciety has  ever  found  it  necessary  to  treat 
those  numerous  associations  which  gather 
round  the  tie  of  sex  were  incompatible  with 
completeness  of  intellectual  work,  which  is 
just  a  means  of  progressive  elevation  for  the 
race — if  it  were  so,  then  we  should  be  com- 
pelled to  say, "  Welcome  the  incomplete,  and 
perish  the  completeness  that  can  come  to  us 
only  thus."  If  this  be  the  only  path  to  the 
empyrean  of  literary  art,  then  let  us  fly  low 
— let  us  keep  down  among  the  insipid  decen- 
cies and  the  vulgar  moralities  of  life.  We 
would  not  in  this  way  know  good  and  evil, 
even  though  Satan  promises  as  of  old  that 
we  shall "  be  as  gods." 

To  speak  of  the  aspect  to  Christianity  of 
a  literature  springing  from  such  a  root  is 
quite  superfluous.  That  which  holds  com- 
mon morality  so  cheap  that  it  must  go  to 
the  wall  before  the  fancied  demands  of  some 
wild  theory  of  aesthetics  is,  of  course,  the  de- 
nial of  all  religion,  and  is  bound  to  treat  it 
as  a  jest,  which  indeed  it  does,  or  seems  to 
do,  as  when  M.  Taine  says,  in  his  description 
of  a  Sunday  service  in  Edinburgh,  that "  the 
doctrine  of  the  sermon,  though  rather  ab- 
stract, might  awaken  reflections  and  individ- 
ual reasoning  in  some  heads,  more  especially 
in  winter  or  when  rain  falls."  Perhaps  I 
should  not  have  said  that  this  was  a  jest, 
though  it  sounds  very  much  like  one ;  for, 
after  all,  it  is  at  once  the  key-note  and  the 
sum  of  M.  Taine's  philosophy.  With  him 
materialistic  conditions  dominate  man,  and 
he  undertakes  to  explain  all  that  man  has 
been  or  done,  and  all  the  differences  in  his 
being  or  doing  in  different  ages  and  places, 
by  a  reference  to  these.  Intuitional  truths, 
individual,  subjective  will,  independent 
choice,  or  determination  of  mind,  go  for  lit- 
tle or  nothing ;  art,  philosophy,  religion,  are 
just  what  soil,  climate,  and  topographical 
features  have  made  them,  and  therefore  we 
need  not  wonder  very  much  to  find  him 
making  man's  religious  feelings  come  and  go 
with  the  weather.  All  the  same  however, 
a  literature  born  under  such  influences  must 
be  inherently  bad.  It  can  never  run  clear, 
for  it  is  poisoned  at  the  fountain.  Our  only 
hope  concerning  it  is  that  it  may  not  be  able 
to  run  long. 

And  now  I  touch  upon  another  branch  of 
literature,  emphatically  modern  literature, 
which  is  both  large  and  important.  It  is 
of  a  much  higher  type  than  the  preceding, 
being  avowedly  promotive  both  of  morality 
and  religion,  pure  in  its  motive,  tender  in  its 
feeling,  more  or  less  graceful  and  artistic  in 
its  execution,  and,  for  all  these  reasons,  ex- 
ceedingly fascinating,  and  actually,  I  believe, 
doing  good  in  a  general  way ;  but  which,  as 
I  think,  would  do  much  more  were  it  not  for 
some  characteristics  which  tend  in  another 


direction.  I  refer  to  those  stories  which  ap- 
pear in  our  religious  periodicals,  and  which 
are  more  extensively  read  perhaps  than  any 
others.  And  what  I  find  in  many  of  them 
is  a  hostility,  not  indeed  to  religion,  but  to 
every  thing  like  defined  beliefs.  They  as- 
sert or  insinuate  the  idea  that  such  beliefs 
have  only  a  contracting  and  hardening  ef- 
fect, and  that  they  are  quite  incompatible 
with  that  free  play  of  the  human  spirit  in 
the  wide  atmosphere  of  human  sympathy, 
and  that  consciousness  of  the  divine  love 
which  is  the  true  and  only  religion  for  man. 
It  is  a  tree  which  is  bound  to  have  beautiful 
blossoms  and  all  manner  of  fruit,  but  its  root, 
if  it  have  any,  like  that  of  the  orchids,  must 
be  in  the  air.  It  must  have  none  going  down 
into  the  soil  of  positive  doctrine,  or  the  whole 
virtue  is  gone.  As  if  it  were  true  in  point 
of  fact  that  the  acceptance  of  a  creed  meant 
the  stoppage  of  all  spiritual  growth,  or  as  if, 
on  the  contrary,  it  were  not  the  case  that  the 
Pauls  and  the  Johns,  the  Luthers  and  the  Cal- 
vins,  the  Edwards  and  the  Hodges,  the  Alex- 
anders, the  Leightons,  Henrys,  and  Chalmers, 
and  all  such  great  trees  of  righteousness  as 
have  adorned  and  enriched  the  world — as  if 
it  were  not  the  case  that  such  were  deeply 
planted  in  the  soil  of  fixed  and  definite  be- 
lief, and  from  that  grew  up ;  or  as  if  it  could 
be  true  that  the  intellect,  which  is  supposed 
to  have  mainly  to  do  with  dogma  (though 
that  is  not  so  exclusively  the  case  as  many 
suppose),  were  such  an  irreconcilable  enemy 
to  the  heart  that  it  must  first  be  seized  and 
imprisoned  before  the  heart  can  have  free- 
dom to  beat ;  or  as  if  it  were  conceivable 
that  God  should  grant  a  revelation  of  his 
will,  and  yet  leave  us  to  take  just  as  much 
or  as  little  of  it  as  we  liked.  Nevertheless, 
this  sacrificing  of  truth  on  the  altar  of  a 
vague  sentimentalism  meets  us  continually 
at  present,  and  as  often  as  anywhere  else  in 
the  serial  stories  to  which  I  refer. 

There  is  in  many  of  them,  too,  a  vague 
idea  with  regard  to  the  inspiration  of  Scrip- 
ture, "  taking  away,"  as  one  has  observed, 
"  its  value  as  supplying  an  objective  stand- 
ard, both  of  truth  and  duty  —  making  the 
Bible  not  the  word  of  God,  but  only  a  word 
of  God,  which  is  to  be  interpreted  and  acted 
upon  only  in  the  measure  that  it  receives  the 
seal  of  the  individual  consciousness  which 
has  brought  itself  into  harmony  with  the 
absolute  will  of  God."  Now  I  am  not  here 
to  stand  up  for  any  particular  denomina- 
tional belief.  I  am  not  called  upon  to  do 
so.  But  I  certainly  protest  against  a  form 
of  literature  passing  under  the  name  of  re- 
ligious, which  asserts  or  insinuates  and  uses 
all  the  power  of  fictional  art  to  enforce  the 
idea  that  no  such  thing  as  a  definite  belief 
is  required.  I  hold  that  sentiment  to  be  op- 
posed to  Christianity,  both  in  its  spirit  and 
precepts.  "  Prove  all  things :  hold  fast  that 
which  is  good."  There  must  be  a  right  and 


S.V. 


CHRISTIAN  LIFE. 


ji  -wrong,  a  true  aud  a  false,  in  tlio  matter  of 
•what  wo  believe,  else  \vhy  was  the  Bible 
given  us  at  all  T  And  how  otherwise  could 
the  Jews  be  said  to  have  much  advantage 
over  other  nations,  every  way,  aud  chiefly 
that  to  them  had  been  committed  the  oracles 
of  God  f  There  surely  is  such  a  thing  as  truth 
in  the  world,  and  the  missing  of  the  truth 
in  the  sphere  of  religion  must  be  attended 
by  consequences  more  serious  than  those 
attaching  to  error  or  mistake  in  any  other 
sphere.  And  I  question  very  much  the  pro- 
priety of  making  works  of  fiction  the  obvi- 
ous vehicles  of  individual  opinion.  It  seems 
to  me  to  be  taking  an  undue  advantage  of 
literary  art.  At  all  events,  it  is  not  good 
policy  in  the  writer ;  for  no  man  can  make 
use  of  his  imaginary  characters  to  enforce 
his  own  individual  opinions  without  lessen- 
ing the  dramatic  effect  of  his  works  aud  de- 
ducting from  their  value  as  works  of  art. 
In  some  of  these  stories,  too,  we  find  very 
loose  and  irreverential  views  of  Divine  Provi- 
dence and  prayer.  The  literature  I  now  re- 
fer to  is  exceedingly  popular,  but  in  these 
respects  it  is  exceedingly  unwholesome.  It 
may  have  much  that  is  good  in  its  lessons 
of  patience,  hopefulness,  self-abnegation,  and 
reliance  in  some  dim  way  on  a  higher  pow- 
er, all  wrought  out  with  considerable  ar- 
tistic feeling  and  dramatic  skill,  but  still 
in  the  particulars  at  which  I  have  glanced 
we  have  much  to  regret  and  to  be  watchful 
against. 

There  is  also  a  considerable  root  of  liter- 
ature connected  with  the  culturist  school, 
which  enforces  a  theory  of  life  which  has 
much  that  is  plausible,  and  to  some  even 
fascinating,  about  it,  but  which,  by  making 
the  individual  his  own  centre,  cherishes  an 
unhealthy  self-consciousness,  and  gives  to 
religion,  which  must  be  supreme  if  it  is  any 
thing,  only  a  secondary  place,  as  one  of  the 
means  which  culture  makes  use  of,  along 
with  many  others,  to  attain  its  professed 
end,  the  perfection  of  our  nature  on  every 
side.  Goethe,  the  "  high-priest  of  culture," 
as  he  has  been  called,  was  the  earliest  pro- 
moter of  this  view,  followed  in  England  by 
Thomas  Carlyle,  and  more  recently  by  Pro- 
fessor Huxley,  looking  at  it  from  a  material- 
istic point  of  view,  and,  in  its  more  spiritual 
aspect,  by  Mr.  Matthew  Arnold.  With  this 
aud  cognate  questions,  President  M'Cosh 
has  dealt  with  all  his  characteristic  knowl- 
edge and  ability  in  his  "Christianity  and 
Positivism,"  aud  also  Principal  Shairp,  of 
St.  Andrews,  Scotland,  in  his  book,  entitled 
"  Culture  and  Religion,"  where  both  aspects 
of  the  theory  are  handled  in  a  manner  which 
leaves  little  or  nothing  to  be  desired. 

Literature  Noble,  nevertheless,  and  to  le  Well 

Used. 

I  trust  that  no  one  will  fancy  for  a  mo- 
ment that  any  thing  I  have  said  is  dictated 


by  opposition  to  literature  in  the  true  sense 
of  the  word.  On  the  contrary,  I  maintain 
that  the  study  of  it  in  all  its  purer  and 
higher  forms  is  not  more  pleasant  than  it  is 
profitable.  Apart  from  the  stores  of  posi- 
tive knowledge  which  are  thus  obtained,  it 
is  stimulating,  enlarging,  and  elevating  from 
the  very  fact  of  bringing  the  mind  into  con- 
tact with  the  great  leaders  of  thought  in  all 
places  and  all  times.  Thackeray  used  to 
say  to  his  audiences :  "  Cultivate  the  society 
of  your  betters ;"  and  we  do  this  emphatic- 
ally by  the  study  of  literature,  for  it  intro- 
duces us  into  valuable  society — the  moral 
and  intellectual  chiefs  of  the  world.  The 
sympathizing  student  makes  acquaintance 
with  such  through  means  of  their  works, 
and  comes  ere  long  to  regard  them  as  friends. 
No  stern  conventionalities  exclude  him  from 
their  presence.  They  are  the  chosen  and 
trusty  companions  in  all  the  outgoings  of 
his  mind.  He  has  been  with  them  round 
the  world.  He  has  sounded  the  depths  of 
human  passion  with  Shakspeare;  he  has 
breathed  the  sweet  gales  of  Paradise  with 
Milton ;  he  has  wandered  through  the  far- 
off  region  of  allegory  with  Spenser ;  he  has 
climbed  the  Hill  Difficulty  and  stood  on  the 
Delectable  Mountains  with  Bunyan ;  he  has 
wept  over  the  mountain  daisy  and  mused  to 
the  singing  water-fall  with  Wordsworth ;  he 
has  trodden  the  bold  region  of  chivalric  ro- 
mance, in  which  the  stern  features  of  Histo- 
ry are  seen  through  the  uncertain  twilight 
of  fiction,  with  Scott ;  and  he  has  passed 
through  dim  alleys  of  stunted  poverty,  and 
peered  into  dark  abodes  of  misery  and  vice, 
with  Crabbe.  He  is  the  true  cosmopolitan 
in  the  widest  sense,  and  he  finds  society  to 
his  liking  wherever  he  strays.  His  senses 
are  evermore  saluted  by  the  voices  of  the 
gifted,  and  his  dwelling  is  beneath  the  shad- 
ow of  their  renown.  For  him  Homer  sings 
the  wars  of  Greece  and  the  woes  of  Troy, 
and  the  thunderous  echoes  of  Demosthenes 
yet  linger  in  his  ears ;  and  still,  as  he  passes 
downward  with  the  stream,  Truth  and  Beau- 
ty are  his  companions.  There  are  chasms, 
no  doubt,  from  time  to  time  in  the  birth  of 
genius,  for  Nature  is  sparing  of  her  prodi- 
gies of  the  loftier  type,  and  Alp  is  separated 
from  Alp  by  a  lengthening  plain ;  but  the 
beacon-fire  flashes  from  hill  to  hill,  and  the 
subjacent  level  is  ever  rescued  from  total 
obscurity.  And  there  is  no  little  pleasure 
in  the  marking  of  those  giant  steps  of  gen- 
ius down  the  steep  of  time ; 

"Ages  elapsed  ere  Homer's  lamp  appeared, 
And  ages  ere  the  Mantuan  swan  was  heard. 
To  carry  nature  lengths  unknown  before 
And  give  a  Milton  birth,  asked  ages  more : 
Thus  genius  rose  and  set  at  ordered  time?, 
And  phot  a  dayspring  into  distant  climes, 
Ennobling  every  region  where  it  chose ; 
In  Greece  it  sunk,  in  Italy  it  rose- 
Till,  tedious  years  of  Gothic  darkness  past, 
Emerged  all  splendor  in  our  isle  at  last. 


SIMPSON:  MODERN  LITERATURE  AND  CHRISTIANITY. 


3G7 


Thus  lovely  halcyons  dive  into  the  main, 
Then  show  far  off  their  shining  plumes  again." 

Do  we  pity  the  man  whose  blindness  ex- 
cludes him  from  the  glories  of  this  outer 
world  of  creation?  Not  less  is  he  the  ob- 
ject of  pity  to  whom  this  great  volume  of 
literature  is  a  sealed  book ;  this  bright  world, 
which  is  the  dwelling  of  thought  audof  thick- 
coming  fancies,  where  mind  has  its  throne, 
its  sceptre,  and  its  spoils,  its  innumerable 
pictures  of  the  beautiful  and  the  true,  its 
palaces  of  enchantment,  called  up  by  more 
than  the  art  of  the  Eastern  magician,  and 
stored  with  more  than  the  wealth  of  Eastern 
maguificence ;  where  Fancy  sits  weaving  her 
innumerable  spells,  and  History  is  teaching 
from  the  book  of  nations  her  solemn  lessons, 
and  Science  from  her  watch-tower  points 
her  telescope  to  the  skies,  or  sounds  with 
her  plummet  the  depths  of  an  almost  fath- 
omless antiquity ;  and  Philosophy,  with  her 
mirror  to  the  heart,  is  looking  soulward  with 
introverted  eye;  and  Biography  is  setting 
up  her  model  heroes  for  the  future  ;  and  Po- 
etry is  singing  her  melodious  songs, 

"Dead  things  with  inbreathed  sense  able  to  pierce;" 

and  Religion  (for  she,  too,  has  her  throne  in 
this  palace  of  the  mind)  casts  over  all  the 
girdle  of  her  love,  while  her  radiant  fore- 
head strikes  the  stars,  and  her  eye  "  looks 
forward  into  eternity." 

But  the  greater  a  thing  is  in  its  healthy 
and  normal  condition,  so  much  the  more  per- 
ilous is  it  when  it  is  improperly  used  and  falls 
iuto  the  service  of  evil.  And  we  can  not  be 
blind  to  the  fact  that  such  is  the  case  with 
our  modern  literature  in  many  respects.  It 
panders  to  sensationalism,  it  stimulates  pas- 
sion, it  feeds  many  evil  roots  of  skepticism 
in  relation  both  to  Christian  goodness  and 
Christian  truth.  It  weakens  the  intellect 
by  its  superficialism  and  rapid  succession — 
obviousness  for  the  sake  of  haste,  and  the 
circumstances  in  which  much  of  it  is  ex- 
pected and  intended  to  be  read,  on  railroad 
journeys,  etc.,  being  the  constant  demand 
nowadays;  while  that  which  is  more  solid 
iu  its  character  as  the  exponent  of  philo- 
sophic speculation  and  scientific  theories  is 
to  a  great  extent  opposed  to  the  very  possi- 
bility of  a  spiritual  sentiment  and  a  religious 
life,  eliminating  as  it  does  the  supernatural 
element  from  the  world,  and  enforcing  a  life 
which  is  purely  sensuous  in  its  nature,  or  at 
all  events  materialistic  in  its  limit  and  range. 
"  Science  has  done  so  much  for  us,"  says  Prin- 
cipal Sbairp,  "  in  the  way  of  increasing  our 
comforts  and  removing  many  of  the  surface 
ills  of  life,  that  vague  and  exaggerated  hopes 
are  entertained  of  what  it  may  yet  do  for 
the  healing  of  the  deepest  disorders." 

The  vast  increase  of  wealth,  too,  leading 
to  a  proud,  ostentatious,  and  luxurious  life, 
falls  in  with  the  current,  while  the  great 


competition  in  business  and  the  unwonted 
facilities  for  locomotion  keep  up  an  excite- 
ment by  no  means  favorable  to  thoughts  of 
the  unseen.  All  this,  of  course,  conies  oufc 
in  our  literature,  since  whatever  an  age 
thinks  and  feels  it  must  express  iu  its  forms 
of  art.  It  is  first  a  symptom  before  it  is  a 
cause — a  symptom  of  something  deeper  than 
itself,  which,  however,  it  feeds  and  strength- 
ens by  the  very  fact  of  expressing  it.  And 
hence  it  is  not  merely  by  attacking  the  lit- 
erature that  we  must  seek  to  do  good,  but 
also  by  attacking  the  life  of  which  it  is  the 
exponent,  and  bringing  into-  play  more  and 
more  widely  and  prayerfully  all  holy  Chris- 
tian influences,  and,  in  so  far  as  literature 
itself  is  concerned,  encouraging  and  circu- 
lating what  is  unmistakably  pure  and  good. 
There  is  no  better  way  of  keeping  chaff  out 
of  a  bushel  than  by  just  filling  it  with  grain ; 
and  let  us  be  thankful  there  is  grain  at  our 
command  sufficient  to  displace  the  chaff, 
abundant  though  it  be.  In  the  Bible  alone 
(not  to  speak  of  the  literature  which  grows 
out  of  it)  there  is  the  seed-corn  of  a  harvest 
which  no  tares  of  the  enemy  will  be  able  to 
choke,  and  which,  made  vital  by  the  power 
of  the  Holy  Ghost,  shall  yet  cover  the  earth 
with  those  fruits  of  righteousness  which 
shall  be  gathered  (to  the  praise  and  glory 
of  God)  unto  life  everlasting.  We  do  not 
intend  to  part  with  the  Bible  yet,  for  all 
that  science  can  either  promise  or  threaten. 
There  is  too  much  sin  and  misery  in  the 
world  for  that,  and  chiefly  because  the 
world  does  not  esteem  that  Bible  as  it 
ought  to  do.  But  were  the  Bible  away,  the 
sin  would  be  greater  and  the  misery  deep- 
er, for  in  that  case  it  would  be  sin  without 
check  and  misery  without  hope.  In  so  far 
as  the  world  is  any  way  better  than  it  was, 
it  is  the  Bible  that  has  taught  the  world  to 
think,  and  science  need  not  be  so  anxious  to 
put  out  the  eyes  of  the  giant  on  whose  shoul- 
ders it  stands.  Wo  can  not  forget  even  the 
indirect  benefits  we  have  derived  from  the 
Bible,  from  its  influence  on  the  general  sen- 
timent of  society— an  influence  so  great  and 
so  salutary  as  to  justify  the  conclusion  that, 
were  that  Bible,  and  what  we  owe  to  it,  even 
remotely,  abolished,  the  philosophic  infidel 
who  holds  it  so  cheap  would  speedily  find 
himself  in  the  abysses  of  barbarism  and  n 
general  chaos.  And  that  is  only  its  effect 
by  the  way — the  gold  dust,  as  it  were,  which 
it  throws  off  from  its  chariot  wheels  in  its 
burning  progress  to  victory.  That  victory 
is  achieved  in  the  depths  of  the  individual 
soul,  to  which  (if  it  be  received)  it  brings 
light  and  grace,  .and  a  spirit  of  holiness,  and 
a  Saviour  mighty  to  save.  These  are  things 
for  the  loss  of  which  neither  science  nor 
philosophy  provides  any  compensation.  And 
this  must  be  remembered  in  view  of  that  dis- 
tinguishing feature  of  the  infidelity  which 
is  now  rising  everywhere  into  prominence, 


CHRISTIAN  LIFE. 


namely,  that  it  is  not  infidelity  for  its  own 
sake,  as  it  were  pure  ami  simple,  but  for  the 
sake  of  a,  certain  style  of  scientific  progress 
to  which  it  is  alleged  to  bo  necessary,  and 
in  the  way  of  which  a  spiritual  sentiment 
and  belief  in  the  supernatural  are  supposed 
to  stand.  If  that  be  the  case  (which,  how- 
ever, I  do  not  believe — as  true  science  can 
not  be  hindered,  but  only  helped  by  faith  in 
God  and  the  Bible) — yet,  I  say,  if  that  be  the 
case,  it  does  nothing  to  reconcile  us  to  the 
dismal  alternative  of  surrendering  our  Bi- 
bles. And  seeing  how  much,  not  for  the 
present  only,  but  for  the  awful  and  endless 
future,  that  surrender  would  involve,  we  de- 
mand to  be  made  much  more  assured  of  our 
ground,  and  to  be  supplied  with  much  more 
satisfactory  evidence  than  we  have  yet  been 


supplied  with,  before  wo  can  even  think  of 
entertaining  the  idea  at  all. 

What  we  have  got  to  do  is  to  give  all  of 
our  strength  to  the  promotion  of  an  enlight- 
ened Christian  sentiment — speaking,  writ- 
ing, and  living  in  the  spirit  of  the  Gospel, 
not  acting  iu  any  way  as  if  we  were  afraid 
of  the  Ark  of  the  Lord,  but  each  one  in  his 
own  sphere  and  according  to  his  ability  com- 
mending it  to  the  world  by  his  life,  and  com- 
mitting it  to  God  in  his  prayers;  in  which 
case  we  shall  have  reason  to  expect  that, 
when  the  enemy  cometh  in  like  a  flood,  tho 
Spirit  of  the  Lord  shall  lift  up  a  standard 
against  him,  and  that,  sooner  or  later,  "Ho- 
liness to  the  Lord"  shall  be  written  upon 
literature  as  well  as  upon  every  other  forna 
of  human  activity. 


MODERN  LITERATURE  IN  ITS  RELATION  TO  CHRIS- 
TIANITY. 

BY  THE  REV.  NOAH  POETER,  D.D.,  LL.D., 

President  of  Yale  College,  New  Haven,  Conn. 


THE  term  literature,  strictly  interpreted, 
would  include  every  printed  work  which  at- 
tracts the  attention  of  the  smallest  number 
of  readers.  Used  in  a  more  limited  sense,  it 
would  comprehend  all  those  works  which, 
by  the  importance  of  their  matter  or  the 
perfection  of  their  form,  impress  themselves 
upon  one  or  more  generations.  Thus  ap- 
plied, it  would  include  every  able  treatise 
upon  theology,  science,  and  philosophy.  It 
is  obvious  that  the  theme  proposed  for  the 
present  essay  excludes  such  works,  and  cov- 
ers only  those  printed  productions  which  pos- 
sess a  more  general  character  and  awaken  a 
more  popular  interest ;  as  history,  biography, 
poetry,  fiction,  popular  orations,  and  essays, 
as  also  criticism  and  journalism  in  all  their 
branches. 

All  these  descriptions  of  literature  have 
this  in  common,  that  they  address  the  popu- 
lar ear,  and  suppose  a  circle  of  miscellaneous 
readers,  as  distinguished  from  such  as  are  tech- 
nical or  special.  This  circle  may  be  narrow 
or  wide,  according  to  the  nature  of  the. sub- 
ject, the  tastes  and  culture  of  the  readers, 
and  the  power  and  skill  of  the  writer.  lu 
respect  to  any  or  all  of  these  varying  ele- 
ments, no  definite  limits  need  be  prescribed. 
And  yet  we  may  say  that  every  writer  who 
takes  a  significant  place  in  the  literature 
of  even  a  single  generation  must  have  spe- 
cial gifts  for  conceiving  and  setting  forth 
what  he  would  say.  Such  a  gift  we  call 
genius,  in  a  general  way.  Genius  attains  its 
highest  form  when  it  divines  the  popular 
thought  by  keen  sagacity,  and  moulds  it  by 
fitting  words,  teaching  with  authority,  in- 
spiring by  eloquence,  or  entrancing  through 
poetry  or  fiction. 

The  works  of  writers  thus  endorsed,  con- 
stituting the  literature  of  an  age,  must  nec- 
essarily present  a  more  or  less  faithful  tran- 
script of  the  age  itself,  as  to  the  problems 
and  questionings,  the  conclusions  and  im- 
pulses, which  make  up  its  intellectual  and 
moral  life.  But  great  writers  do  much  more 
than  reflect  an  age.  They  react  upon  it, 
and  mould  it  by  their  individual  influence 
and  energy,  as  they  instruct  and  elevate 
or  delude  and  debase  it.  They  make  the 
truth  to  become  evident  and  attractive,  and 
thus  become  ministers  of  wisdom  and  bless- 
24 


ing,  or  they  give  to  error  and  falsehood  the 
authority  and  charm  of  truth,  and  thus  cor- 
rupt the  life  of  one  or  many  generations. 
The  words  of  great  writers  symbolize  the 
faiths  or  the  no  faiths  of  all  reading  and 
thinking  men.  They  are  shouted  in  their 
battle-cries,  they  are  quoted  in  their  argu- 
ments, they  are  sung  at  their  feasts,  they 
give  comfort  in  sorrow,  and  peace  in  death. 
Thus  it  is  that  great  novelists  and  poets, 
great  historians  and  critics,  great  essayists 
and  journalists,  become  both  the  representa- 
tives and  the  leaders  of  their  times. 

Literature  asserts  to  itself  an  independent 
sphere  and  an  undivided  authority.  All 
writers  who  obtain  a  hearing  assume  to 
know  of  what  they  affirm.  They  may  defer 
to  higher  authorities  than  themselves  as  to 
matters  of  fact,  of  science,  of  speculation, 
and  of  religion,  nay,  even  of  literature  it- 
self; but  in  such  cases  they  assume  to  know 
and  to  decide  who  is  entitled  to  the  decisive 
word.  They  stand  between  such  authorities 
and  the  public,  they  interpret  their  words 
and  translate  their  arguments  and  conclu- 
sions into  the  language  of  letters.  They 
claim  to  know  and  to  indicate  what  has 
been  established  as  true,  to  sift  the  true 
from  the  false,  the  solid  from  the  plausible, 
and  to  diffuse  into  the  public  mind  the  re- 
sults of  the  higher  and  the  more  advanced 
thinking  of  the  times.  It  by  no  means  fol- 
lows that  literature  is  infallible.  It  has  oft- 
en been  the  vehicle  of  monstrous  delusions 
and  dangerous  doctrines,  in  respect  to  every 
important  interest  of  man.  On  the  other 
hand,  whatever  is  established  as  true  be- 
comes the  property  of  the  race  by  becoming 
recognized  and  assented  to  in  literature. 

If  literature  is  independent,  it  must  be  free 
from  all  political  and  ecclesiastical  author- 
ity. If  the  censor  may  restrain  or  erase 
or  confiscate  whatever  displeases  the  ruling 
magistrate  or  dominant  party  or  contradicts 
what  is  laid  down  by  the  doctor  of  science 
or  the  priest  of  the  church,  literature  can  be 
hardly  said  to  exist.  It  certainly  can  not 
exercise  its  functions  as  the  herald  of  new 
thoughts  and  the  exponent  of  new  principles. 
On  the  other  hand,  there  are  self-imposed  re- 
straints of  courtesy  and  decorum,  of  fairness 
and  tolerance,  which  grow  out  of  the  fuuc- 


370 


CHRISTIAN  LIFE. 


tion  of  literature  itself  as  the  professed  ex- 
pounder of  truth  by  the  light  of  reason.  Lit- 
erature also  aims  at  culture,  and  culture  pre- 
supposes refinement  of  manners  as  truly  as 
of  diction  and  imagery. 

The  character  and  the  influence  of  a  lit- 
erature depend  on  two  elements :  the  com- 
munity whose  opinions  and  culture  it  re- 
flects, and  the  genius  and  tone  of  the  writers 
who  represent  and  mould  it.  A  superficial 
and  frivolous  people  will  demand  and  ac- 
cept a  superficial  and  frivolous  literature; 
an  unbelieving  and  sensual  age  will  sustain, 
and  be  sustained  by,  a  godless  and  corrupt 
literature ;  a  generation  that  thinks  and 
feels  strongly  and  nobly  will  produce  a 
strong  and  elevated  literature,  provided 
that  readers  and  writers  have  sufficient  gen- 
ius and  culture  to  require  and  to  furnish  the 
expression  of  what  is  thought  and  felt. 

It  follows  that,  if  a  people  or  an  age  is  ca- 
pable of  literature,  this  literature  must  hold 
intimate  relations  to  the  religious  faith  and 
life  of  the  people  or  the  age.  Religious  faith 
and  feeling  confessedly  have  much  to  do 
with  that  life  and  culture  which  literature 
expresses  and  to  which  it  appeals.  A  relig- 
ion which  is  founded  in  the  nature  of  man, 
and  is  adapted  to  his  wants,  which  com- 
mends itself  to  his  conscience,  and  trans- 
forms and  purifies  the  springs  of  action,  can 
not  but  act  for  good  on  both  the  matter  and 
form  of  literature.  Such  a  religion  will  ele- 
vate and  refine  the  manhood  of  an  age, 
reaching  its  manners  and  speech.  It  will 
stimulate  the  intellect,  and  guide  and  in- 
spire the  imagination.  A  religion  which  is 
against  man's  true  nature  must  dwarf  and 
corrupt  the  literature,  or  the  literature  must 
overthrow  or  reform  it.  It  does  not  follow 
that  a  very  religious  people  or  religious  era 
will  necessarily  produce  a  splendid  litera- 
ture. Many  conditions  may  be  wanting — of 
culture  in  the  people,  and  in  the  writers  who 
reflect  and  react  on  their  life,  in  history, 
poem,  or  novel.  An  age  in  which  religion 
is  becoming  effete  or  corrupt  may  produce 
great  writers  who  are  inspired  by  the  faith 
and  fervor  of  the  apostles  and  martyrs  for 
liberty  and  for  God,  of  whom  their  readers 
are  not  worthy,  although  they  admire  the 
sentiments  and  truths  which  they  do  not 
translate  into  action. 

On  the  other  hand,  the  literature  of  a  peo- 
ple may  exert  a  powerful  influence  for  good 
or  evil  on  its  religions  faith  and  life.  Its 
great  writers  hold  the  ear  of  their  readers. 
It  is  the  prerogative  of  genius  to  give  en- 
ergy and  attractiveness  to  truth,  and  plau- 
sibility and  power  to  falsehood.  It  can  thus 
befriend  or  dishonor  the  most  sacred  convic- 
tions of  man's  nature  concerning  God  and 
the  eternal  life.  It  can  cleanse  or  pollute 
the  most  hallowed  of  his  emotions. 

That  literature  exerts  a  powerful  influ- 
ence at  the  present  moment  can  not  be  de- 


nied. It  is  almost  a  truism  to  say  that  its 
influence  was  never  so  great  as  now.  Nev- 
er was  the  authority  of  its  tribunal  so  im- 
posing. Never  did  it  assume  to  itself  the 
function  of  summoning  before  itself  the  de- 
fenders of  a  greater  variety  of  opinions, 
however  firmly  rooted  or  sacredly  cherish- 
ed ;  never  did  it  criticise  so  boldly,  and  yet 
with  such  show  of  courtesy  and  reason,  the 
faiths  and  traditions,  the  tastes  and  the  cus- 
toms of  the  Household,  of  Society,  of  the  Fo- 
rum, and  the  Church.  It  would  seem  that 
there  was  never  a  time  when  new  theories 
were  so  hospitably  entertained,  or  adopted 
on  a  briefer  examination  and  more  slender 
evidence;  never  a  time  when  a  brilliant  im- 
agination, copious  illustrations,  and  a  cap- 
tivating diction  could  give  such  extensive 
currency  to  extemporized  theories  in  respect 
to  religion,  morals,  society,  manners,  tastes, 
and  even  in  respect  to  literature  itself.  The 
reasons  for  the  greater  influence  of  literature 
in  our  times  are  obvious :  the  diffusion  of 
intelligence ;  the  multiplication  of  readers ; 
the  power  of  ideas  to  propagate  themselves; 
the  disposition  to  try,  if  not  to  distrust,  ev- 
ery thing  that  is  received,  and  a  headlong 
hospitality  toward  every  thing  which  is 
new  in  fact,  or  which  seems  new  under  the 
lights  of  new  illustrations  and  diction. 

There  are  those  who  contend  that  the  in- 
fluence of  literature,  with  these  attendants, 
can  only  be  for  good.  The  bold  and  critic- 
al spirit  of  modern  literature,  in  their  view, 
must  necessarily  sift  truth  from  error,  and 
wisdom  from  folly,  and  tame  down  to  sobri- 
ety every  species  of  extravagance  and  ex- 
cess. Its  permeating  fire  must  melt  the 
dross  from  every  alloy.  Its  subtle  chemis- 
try everywhere  disintegrates,  that  it  may 
reunite,  ;the  elements  of  the  best-compacted 
structures — and  those  only  which  literature 
reunites  are  certain  to  endure.  Whatever  the 
all-powerful  time-spirit  shall  utter  through 
the  oracles  of  literature  should  be  received  as 
true ;  and  whatever  the  cultured  sensibility 
of  public  sentiment,  as  purified  and  enlight- 
ened by  literature,  shall  accept  or  reject 
with  subtle  tact,  should  be  regarded  as  wor- 
thy or  unworthy  of  trust.  These  exalted 
estimates  of  the  functions  of  literature  might 
easily  be  shown  to  bo  extravagant.  It 
might  readily  bo  seen  that  the  time-spirit 
of  literature  may  be  very  good  or  very  bad, 
according  as  by  action  and  reaction  the  age 
is  corrupt,  and  manifests  itself  in  a  corrupt 
literature ;  or  again,  that  a  literature  may 
be  better  than  its  age,  and  may  tend  to  re- 
deem it.  The  fact  that  such  extravagant 
estimates  of  the  infallibility  of  literature  are 
entertained  indicates  that  at  present,  litera- 
ture, as  compared  with  the  other  forces  of 
society,  is  rapidly  increasing  in  its  relative 
importance  and  energy.  The  books  and 
journals  which  men  read  have  more  to  do 
with  what  men  believe  aud  care  for  than 


PORTER :  MODERN  LITERATURE. 


371 


ever  before.  lu  philosophy,  the  word  of  lit- 
erature ofteu  seems  more  potent  than  the 
argument  or  dictum  of  any  single  philoso- 
pher or  school.  In  theology,  the  essayist 
disputes  and  silences  the  theologian.  In 
matters  of  religious  feeling  and  duty,  the 
journalist  is  more  potent  than  the  preach- 
er. The  fashionable  poet,  novelist,  or  crit- 
ic of  the  hour  casts  a  spell  over  his  readers 
\vhich  no  other  enchanter  can  dissipate. 

The  foregoing  considerations  will  have 
prepared  us  to  estimate  rightly  the  rela- 
tions of  modern  literature  to  Christianity. 
We  divide  these  into  two  classes,  the  hos- 
tile and  the  friendly.  We  concede  that,  to 
a  limited  extent,  they  may  be  indifferent. 
There  are  branches  of  literature,  and  single 
authors  and  works,  which  may  seem  to  have 
no  influence  upon  the  existing  Christianity, 
and,  in  turn,  to  be  unaffected  by  it.  Such  are 
the  lighter  species  of  fiction,  poetry,  and  es- 
says which  reflect  and  affect  only  the  more 
superficial  experiences  of  man  and  his  life, 
and  leave  his  graver  opinions  and  senti- 
ments untouched.  Wit  and  humor  are  not 
necessarily  Christian  or  unchristian  in  char- 
acter and  tendency.  The  literature  of  soci- 
ety and  the  minor  morals,  of  criticism  and 
the  essay,  it  might  be  urged,  need  not  recog- 
nize religion  or  the  Christian  faith.  How 
far  this  may  be  true  is  of  little  consequence. 
It  is  sufficient  for  us  to  know  that  litera- 
ture, in  its  graver  and  more  serious  forms, 
must  be  either  hostile  or  friendly  to  Chris- 
tianity. It  is  also  true  that  modern  litera- 
ture is  becoming  more  and  more  earnest, 
and,  even  in  its  lighter  manifestations,  finds 
it  difficult  to  forget  the  higher  activities 
and  relations  of  man. 

We  regret  that  our  limits  must  restrict  us 
to  those  relations  of  modern  literature  ichich 
are  unfriendly  to  Christianity.  We  shall  con- 
sider Christianity  under  four  aspects :  as 
to  its  assumptions,  its  facts,  its  truths,  and  its 
life.  It  presupposes  certain  assumptions,  it 
attests  certain  facts,  it  reveals  certain  truths, 
and  it  enforces  a  peculiar  life.  How  far  is 
modern  literature  unfriendly  to  each  ? 

The  assumptions  which  Christianity  sup- 
poses are  the  existence  of  a  personal  God,  his 
providential  interest  in  the  beings  who  are 
made  in  his  image,  the  survival  of  the  spirit 
after  the  dissolution  of  the  body,  the  respon- 
sibility of  man  to  God,  the  fact  of  depravity 
and  sin,  involving  the  relations  of  guilt  and 
evil,  and  the  need  of  help  and  deliverance. 
It  can  not  too  often  be  repeated  that  Chris- 
tianity does  not  make  these  facts,  but  it 
finds  them  to  be  true.  The  man  who  does 
not  believe  or  find  them  to  be  true  can  not 
accept  Christianity.  That  not  a  little  of 
modern  literature  rejects  these  assumptions 
needs  no  enforcement.  In  respect  to  them, 
it  is  largely  Pantheistic,  Atheistic,  and  Epi- 
curean— either  avowedly  or  practically.  So 
long  as  Pantheism  was  a  doctrine  of  meta- 


physics, it  was  an  inert  and  impotent  specu- 
lation, as  repulsive  as  it  was  dry.  It  was 
not  till  it  had  been  dissolved  in  the  menstru- 
um of  literature  that  it  became  so  attractive 
to  the  imaginations  of  thousands  of  culti- 
vated men  as  to  displace  the  living  God  of 
common  sense  and  of  common  speech.  Pan- 
theism, in  the  hands  of  Spinoza,  was  a  log- 
ical inference  from  an  imperfect  definition. 
It  was  not  till  it  was  glorified  by  the  imag- 
ination of  Schelling,  who  was  as  much  of  a 
poet  as  philosopher,  and  was  warmed  by  the 
eloquence  of  Jacobi,  and,  above  all,  was  made 
plastic  through  the  all-subduing  genius  and 
wonderful  diction  of  Goethe,  that  it  became 
so  intelligible  and  fascinating,  and  passed 
into  the  literature  of  poetry  and  fiction,  and 
became  a  practical  theory  of  modern  culture. 
The  English  Carlyle  and  the  American  Emer- 
son might  both  resent  the  charge  of  intro- 
ducing and  glorifying  Pantheism  for  their 
confiding  and  admiring  readers,  and  with 
some  show  of  reason ;  but  the  most  generous 
and  kindly  critics  of  either,  after  the  most 
painstaking  search,  will  find,  in  the  varia- 
tions of  their  magnificent  verbiage,  almost 
every  form  of  conceiving  and  describing  the 
living  God — except  such  as  ascribe  to  him 
personality  and  the  capacity  of  communion 
with  man.  This  studied  evasion  by  the  de- 
vices of  a  fertile  invention,  and  amidst  the 
resources  of  copious  diction,  produces  the 
effect  upon  their  readers  of  the  displace- 
ment of  a  personal  God  by  that  impersonal 
Absolute  which  amply  satisfies  the  capacity 
and  the  demand  in  man  for  natural  worship, 
while  it  makes  no  demand  upon  man  for  per- 
sonal loyalty  and  love.  That  is  no  evasive 
or  indefinite  doctrine  which  Matthew  Arnold 
proclaims  when  he  sets  forth  the  only  God 
whom  literary  criticism  recognizes  to  be 
"  the  stream  of  tendency  whereby  all  things 
strive  to  fulfill  the  law  of  their  being,"  and 
seeks  to  establish  this  as  positively  affirmed 
in  the  Scriptures  when  interpreted  as  litera- 
ture. Scores  of  attractive  novels  have  ap- 
peared of  late  in  Germany  and  England,  in 
which  this  conception  of  God  is  set  forth  as 
the  only  trustworthy  faith  on  which  a  cul- 
tivated and  refined  soul  of  large  experience 
of  culture  and  of  life  can  possibly  rest.  Some 
of  this  school  of  writers  may  hold  fast  to 
moral  law;  many  regard  moral  evil  as  a 
necessary  stage  in  development ;  very  many 
fail  to  assert  the  continued  existence  of  the 
spirit,  but  substitute  for  it  some  indefinite 
satisfaction  in  a  union  with  the  life  of  the 
glorified  universe.  The  Pantheism  of  modern 
literature  in  all  its  forms  is  more  a  senti- 
ment than  a  speculation ;  but  it  is  not,  there- 
fore, weak  or  impotent ;  there  is  nothing  so 
attractive  or  imposing  to  the  cultured  imagi- 
nation as  a  sentiment  when  it  takes  the  form 
of  thought. 

The  Atheistic  school  of  letters  differs  from 
the  Pantheistic,  at  least  in  its  speculative 


372 


CHRISTIAN  LIFE. 


starting-point.  While  the  Pantheist  begins 
\vith  organization  and  ends  with  the  Abso- 
lute, which  manifests  itself  in  the  finite  in 
returning  cycles — perhaps  with  rational  and 
moral  ends — the  new  Atheism  starts  with 
development  from  simple  elements  along  an 
infinite  series  of  blind  forces,  straggling  into 
order  and  life  through  the  chance  results  of 
naturalselection.  The  one  satisfies  the  imag- 
ination with  its  Absolute,  in  which  the  wor- 
shiper may  claim  a  continuous  life ;  the  oth- 
er positively  denies  immortality,  and  sup- 
plies to  the  imagination  the  spectacle  of  a 
progressive  humanity  in  future  generations. 
The  Atheistic  school  finds  its  philosophy  in 
Comte  and  Mill,  Lewes,  Darwin,  and  Spencer. 
It  is  applied  in  literature  by  Buckle  and 
Draper,  John  Morley,  Taine,  and  St.  Beuve, 
and  a  host  of  critics  and  sociologists.  Poets 
this  school  has  none,  for  in  speculations  like 
these  poetry  can  not  thrive.  The  dry  spec- 
ulation of  Atheism  is  repulsive  from  its  bald- 
ness. The  arguments  on  which  it  rests  are 
uniformly  barren  and  negative.  But  the 
literature  of  Atheism  is  made  plausible  and 
interesting  to  the  imagination  and  the  feel- 
ings because  it  leans  on  the  last  discoveries 
in  physics,  and  is  enlivened  by  an  amplitude 
of  manifold  illustrations  from  science,  and 
art,  and  government.  There  is  something 
attractive  and  imposing  in  the  assurance 
that  all  the  problems  of  history,  of  litera- 
ture and  art,  nay,  even  of  psychology  and 
philosophy,  can  be  solved  by  the  single  for- 
mula of  evolution.  There  is  an  impression 
of  solidity  and  of  common  sense  in  the  teach- 
ings which  propose  to  explain  the  mysteri- 
ous and  the  spiritual  by  forces  that  are  fa- 
miliar, and  laws  that  can  be  verified.  The 
writers  of  this  school  are  never  impassioned, 
but  they  assert  an  almost  religious  confi- 
dence in  the  truth  of  their  doctrines.  They 
condescendingly  profess  a  catholic  sympa- 
thy with  all  creeds,  and  with  that  of  the 
Christian  Church  as  the  best  and  noblest. 
It  is  only  under  the  force  of  an  imperative 
necessity  that  they  have  outgrown  the  Theist- 
ic  and  Christian  prepossessions  of  their  coun- 
trymen. But  the  claims  of  science  are  su- 
preme, and  its  devotee  must  follow  its  lead- 
ings whithersoever  they  conduct  him.  One 
can  scarcely  believe  what  he  knows  when  he 
reflects  on  the  rapid  growth  and  the  strong 
rooted  hold  of  this  Atheistic  school  of  letters 
on  English  soil,  and  its  temporary  triumph  in 
what  has  claimed  to  be  the  most  Christian 
of  its  universities.  That  it  exists,  and  pre- 
sents a  most  formidable  front  to  the  hered- 
itary faith  of  the  English  people,  can  not  be 
denied.  The  cool  propositions  to  the  Chris- 
tian Church  to  subject  its  faith  in  prayer 
to  the  verifications  of  experiment,  and  to 
resort  to  suicide  and  scientific  homicide  as 
humane  expedients  to  limit  human  suffering, 
illustrate  the  lengths  of  practical  atheism  to 
which  literature  may  be  insensibly  led. 


It  deserves  to  be  noticed  that,  bold  and 
positive  as  is  the  attitude  of  these  modern 
deniers  of  God  and  immortality,  they  not  in- 
frequently betray  a  secret  consciousness  of 
the  weakness  of  their  position.  While  the 
Pantheism  of  modern  literature  is  devout 
and  reverent  in  its  language,  its  Atheism 
is  sad  and  apologetic  that  it  must  yield  to 
the  necessity  which  forces  it  to  say  that 
there  is  no  God.  It  concedes  that  the  with- 
drawmeut  of  this  faith  from  human  society 
may  involve  temporary  inconvenience  to  so- 
cial order  and  private  morality.  But  it  sym- 
pathetically re-assures  the  timid  that  an  in- 
telligent faith  in  the  beneficent  laws  and  a 
comprehensive  knowledge  of  the  stream  of 
tendency  will,  in  due  course  of  time,  be  more 
than  an  adequate  substitute  for  the  personal 
God  whom  modern  thought  has  been  forced 
to  abandon ;  that  an  educated*  and  refined 
sympathy  with  those  who  suffer  from  our 
mistakes  will  become  more  efficient  to  re- 
strain and  to  reform  than  the  sharp  sense 
of  personal  guilt  which  science  resolves  into 
uncomfortable  associations,  and  the  vision 
of  that  abstract  humanity  which  in  the  per- 
sons of  future  generations  is  to  exist  in  ad- 
vanced perfection  shall  minister  greater  com- 
fort than  that  hope  of  personal  existence  of 
which  modern  science  can  find  no  proof.  John 
Morley  thus  protests  against  the  inference 
that  the  creed  of  the  Atheist  furnishes  no 
guidance  and  inspiration  for  the  conduct. 
"  There  are  new  solutions  for  him  if  the  old 

are  fallen  dumb The  purifying  anguish 

of  remorse  will  be  stronger,  not  weaker,  when 
he  has  trained  himself  to  look  upon  every 
wrong  in  thought,  every  duty  omitted  from 

act less  as  a  breach  of  the  decrees  of  an 

unseen  tribunal  than  as  an  ungrateful  infec- 
tion, weakening  and  corrupting  the  future 
of  his  brothers;  and  he  will  be  less  effectual- 
ly raised  from  inmost  prostration  of  soul  by 
a  doubtful  subjective  reconciliation  so  mean- 
ly comfortable  to  his  own  individuality  than 
by  hearing  fall  on  the  ear  the  sound  of  the 
cry  of  humanity  craving  sleepless  succor  from 

her  children ; and  a  man  will  be  already 

in  no  mean  paradise  if,  at  the  hour  of  sun- 
set, a  good  hope  can  fall  upon  him,  like  har- 
monies of  music,  that  the  earth  shall  still  be 
fair,  and  the  happiness  of  every  feeling  crea- 
ture still  receive  a  constant  augmentation, 
and  each  good  cause  yet  find  worthy  defend- 
ers, when  the  memory  of  his  own  poor  name 
and  personality  has  long  been  blotted  out 
of  the  brief  recollection  of  men  forever" 
(Voltaire,  chap,  v.,  3).  This  passage  is  one 
of  many  illustrations  that  the  new  Atheism  is 
far  more  sentimental  than  the  old.  Though 
it  boasts  of  moral  strength,  it  makes  confes- 
sion of  moral  Aveakness.  While  it  accepts 
science  as  against  sentiment,  it  avails  itself 
of  the  thinnest  gauze  of  sentimentalism  to 
cover  and  hide  the  ghastly  skeleton  of  its 
negative  and  hopeless  creed.  Herbert  Spen- 


PORTER :  MODERN  LITERATURE. 


373 


cer  is  never  weary  iu  his  Essays  designed  for 
the  popular  ear,  of  sneering  at  the  "  carpenter 
theory  "  of  the  universe,  but  he  is  as  forward 
as  any  theologian  to  set  forth  his  doctrine 
of  the  infinite  unknowable  force  in  advan- 
tageous contrast  with  the  doctrines  of  Ham- 
ilton and  Mausel.  Stuart  Mill  is  aroused  to 
such  a  pitch  of  moral  indignation  at  Man- 
sel's  ethical  conceptions  of  God  that  he  un- 
wittingly falls  back  upon  a  theory  of  con- 
science, which  he  has  spent  all  his  life  in 
refuting,  in  the  most  passionate  and  elo- 
quent sentence  which  he  is  known  to  have 
written.  We  notice,  also,  that  the  Atheistic 
school  has  little  unity  of  positive  opinion. 
Its  bond  of  union  is  its  opposition  to  received 
opinions,  its  interest  iu  political  and  social 
reforms,  and  what  is  called  scientific  cul- 
ture. But  the  Atheism  of  literature  is  as 
truly  a  sentiment  as  is  Pautheism.  While 
Pantheism  seeks  to  stimulate  and  satisfy 
the  imagination  by  its  splendid  cloudland, 
Atheism  appeals  to  the  more  earthly  satis- 
factions which  proceed  from  conscious  illu- 
mination and  scientific  pride. 

We  consider,  next,  the  unfriendly  attitude 
of  modern  literature  with  respect  to  the  facts 
of  Christianity.  These  facts  are  the  Incar- 
nation and  the  Miraculous,  as  possible  and 
accredited  events  of  human  history.  That 
modern  literature  extensively  distrusts  and 
denies  these  facts  need  not  be  argued.  This 
denial  and  distrust  did  not  begin  with  litera- 
ture. Philosophy  first  declared  that  the  mi- 
raculous is  impossible  on  speculative  grounds. 
Historical  criticism  undertook  to  separate 
the  supernatural  from  the  actual  in  the  Chris- 
tian records.  Physics  recognize  in  their  the- 
ories nothing  beyond  fixed  and  inexorable 
law,  which  they  discern  in  the  great  and  the 
little  alike.  Literature  follows  with  its  dec- 
larations and  insinuations  that  the  advanced 
sentiment  of  the  age  has  eliminated  the  su- 
pernatural out  of  its  faith.  With  assured  re- 
iteration, it  pronounces  this  question  to  be 
decided.  Matthew  Arnold  says  ("Lit.  and 
Dogma,"  v.,  2),  "It  is  what  we  call  the  time- 
spirit  that  is  sapping  the  proof  from  miracles. 

Whether  we  attack  them  or  defend  them 

does  not  much  matter;  the  human  mind,  as 
its  experience  widens,  is  turning  away  from 
them It  sees  that  under  certain  circum- 
stances they  always  do  arise,  and  that  they 
have  not  more  solidity  in  one  case  than  au- 
other." 

What  Matthew  Arnold  thus  writes  with 
sufficient  flippancy,  a  thousand  more  flippant 
journalists  and  Bohemians  have  been  for- 
ward to  reiterate,  till,  as  it  would  seem,  all 
faith  iu  the  supernatural  and  wonder-work- 
ing Christ  has  been  banished  from  many  cir- 
cles and  schools  of  literature  of  every  grade, 
from  the  highest  to  the  lowest.  In  these 
circles  it  is  received  as  an  axiom  that  no 
cultured  and  enlightened  critic  in  letters, 
unless  in  exceptional  cases,  can  be  a  believ- 


er in  the  Incarnation  or  in  Miracles.  These 
cases  are  explained  by  traditional  associa- 
tions, or  some  private  theory  which  takes 
the  man  out  of  harmony  with  general  en- 
lightenment. The  New  Testament,  which 
is  full  of  the  supernatural  Christ,  is  felt  to 
be  more  and  more  estranged  from  the  asso- 
ciations of  modern  culture,  and  is  either 
thrust  aside  with  a  bewildered  or  impatient 
gesture,  or  quietly  let  alone. 

On  the  other  hand,  it  is  worthy  to  be  no- 
ticed that  the  Christ  of  the  New  Testament 
can  not  and  will  not  be  dismissed  from  the 
minds  of  the  thoughtful  men  of  these  times. 
The  incomparable  symmetry  and  purity  of  the 
character  of  this  wonder  of  history,  this  sin- 
gular phenomenon  of  humanity,  is  more  and 
more  justly  estimated,  as  critics  grow  more 
thoughtful  and  tolerant.  His  incomparable 
superiority  to  the  men  of  any  and  all  ages 
is  more  widely  confessed  as  men  become 
more  exact  and  comprehensive  in  their 
knowledge  of  the  wisest  and  the  best,  and 
more  refined  in  their  estimates  of  the  char- 
acters whom  fiction  and  poetry  have  invent- 
ed. Though  critics  and  litterateurs  may  fail 
to  confess  Christ  to  be  supernatural  in  his  be- 
ing and  his  works,  yet,  when  confronted  with 
him,  they  are  forced  to  confess,  or  at  least 
are  afraid  to  deny,  that  he  is  the  wisest  and 
noblest,  the  most  exalted  and  God-like,  of  all 
who  have  either  lived  or  been  conceived  to 
live  on  the  earth.  The  accomplished  biog- 
rapher of  Voltaire  is  constrained  to  apolo- 
gize for  the  philosopher  for  his  incapacity  to 
appreciate  and  honor  Christ,  and  to  confess 
that  his  passionate  hostility  to  Christ  was  a 
blot  on  himself  and  his  age.  The  historical 
critic,  who  is  forced,  by  the  necessities  of  his 
position,  to  find  some  flaw  or  defect  in  his 
character  or  claims,  often  betrays  the  weak- 
ness of  his  cause  by  hastily  dismissing  the 
theme.  The  majority  leave  it  untouched,  or 
abandon  it  with  a  few  words  of  superficial 
eulogy.  The  puzzled  silence  of  others,  and 
their  manifest  reserve,  which  almost  takes 
the  air  of  worship,  indicate  that  the  super- 
natural Christ  is  a  problem  which  was  nev- 
er so  hard  to  solve  as  it  is  now.  The  Christ 
of  the  New  Testament  is  more  than  ever  the 
Sphinx  that  draws  all  thoughtful  men  to  its 
presence,  again  and  again  to  propound  the 
riddle  of  its  being,  and  to  force  from  them 
an  answer.  The  thoughtful  student  of  hu- 
man history,  the  accomplished  devotee  of 
manifold  culture,  and  the  pensive  thinker 
on  man  and  society  can  not  but  raise  the 
question  more  and  more  distinctly,  What  is 
the  origin,  and  whence  the  charm,  of  this 
mysterious  personage,  who  has  wrought  with 
such  magic  energy  in  other  ages,  and  who 
continues  to  captivate  so  many  tender  and 
trusting  hearts,  and  is  even  able  to  refine  and 
lift  up  those  who  dishonor  and  degrade  him 
by  their  defective  conceptions  of  his  glory  f 

Literature   is,  indeed,  not  so  thoughtful 


374 


CHRISTIAN  LIFE. 


anil  earnest  as  might  bo  desired.  It  always 
is  exposed  to  this  defect.  Culture  with- 
draws men  from  the  immediate  experiences 
and  relations  of  humanity,  and  delights  it- 
self in  factitious  refinements  of  art,  diction, 
and  the  imagination.  That  it  is  specially 
tempted  at  present  to  be  flippant  and  scorn- 
ful, with  the  increase  of  wealth,  and  ease, 
and  artificial  life,  is  manifest.  Culture  and 
literature  themselves  tend  to  become  dainty 
and  conventional,  and  so  to  depart  from  na- 
ture and  from  humanity;  and  when  they 
leave  nature  and  humanity,  they  must  de- 
part from  God.  Many  of  those  doubters  of 
culture,  who  always  seek  and  never  find,  in 
whom  there  dwells  more  faith  than  in  half 
our  creeds,  the  men  like  Blanco  White,  Thom- 
as Carlyle,  John  Sterling,  Arthur  Clough, 
William  Smith,  and  James  Anthony  Froude, 
are  to  be  regarded  more  as  the  abnormal  pro- 
ducts of  a  one-sided  culture  than  as  pro- 
nouncedly Anti-  or  ETnchristian. 

There  are,  however,  influences  in  the  op- 
posite direction,  all  which  tend  to  make  lit- 
erature more  simple,  and  honest,  and  ear- 
nest. So  far  as  it  yields  to  these  influences, 
so  fast  must  it  bethink  itself  of  who  Christ 
is,  and  find  in  the  daring  paradoxes  of  its 
own  denials  and  the  contradictions  of  its 
own  unbeliefs  an  argument  for  faith  in  the 
supernatural,  as  the  adequate  explanation  of 
man's  past  history  and  his  present  culture. 
Nor  will  it  fail  to  learn  from  the  history  of 
literature  itself  that  the  distrust  of  the  su- 
pernatural is  largely  a  matter  of  fashion,  and 
may  be  carried  so  far  as  to  reach  the  extreme 
of  credulity.  It  may  also  learn  that  a  belief 
in  the  supernatural  is  itself  an  essential  con- 
dition of  any  literature  which  is  to  be  fresh, 
and  growing,  and  true  to  the  wants  and  as- 
pirations of  man ;  that  without  a  living  God 
and  a  supernatural  Christ,  not  only  in  the 
past  but  in  the  present,  man  must  fail  of  the 
highest  thoughts  and  inspirations  of  which 
he  is  capable,  and  can  not  reach  the  noblest 
achievements  in  poetry  and  art ;  that  with- 
out a  living  faith  human  culture  must  feed 
upon  itself,  and  of  necessity  be  impoverished, 
and  die  of  atrophy  and  inanition. 

We  pass,  next,  to  the  relations  of  modern 
literature,  as  unfriendly  to  the  trutlia  of 
Christianity.  The  supernatural  facts  of 
Christianity  are  significant  and  important, 
because  they  imply  certain  truths  of  the 
nature  of  man,  and  reveal  and  enforce  cer- 
tain truths  of  the  administration  of  God. 
If  Christ  is  not  an  Example,  a  Redeemer, 
and  an  inward  Power,  his  incarnation  be- 
comes simply  a  spectacular  theophany, 
which,  whether  it  is  true  or  false,  may  al- 
most equally  well  stimulate  the  imagina- 
tion and  furnish  materials  for  the  poet.  If 
Christ's  death  and  resurrection  have  no  re- 
lations to  man's  life  with  God  and  in  the 
future  world,  it  is  of  no  special  moment 
•whether  they  are  believed  or  denied.  The 


relations  of  these  facts  to  man  and  to  God, 
when  received  as  true,  constitute  what  we 
call  the  Christian  Faith ;  when  they  are  de- 
fined and  defended  in  the  forms  of  science, 
they  constitute  Christian  Theology.  To 
both  of  these  modern  literature  is  more  or 
less  unfriendly.  So  far  as  it  is  Pagan  in  its 
Spirit  and  tastes,  it  is  hostile  to  the  Chris- 
tian Faith.  It  is  Pagan  so  far  as  it  believes 
in  the  development  of  nature  as  opposed  to 
redemption  from  sin ;  in  the  free  spontanei- 
ty of  impulse  as  against  subjection  to  duty; 
in  the  aesthetic  perfection  of  culture  as  op- 
posed to  the  higher  beauty  of  unselfish  love. 
This  Pagan  spirit  has  always  been  more  or 
less  active  ever  since  the  revival  of  Greek 
literature  in  Italy,  which  blossomed  into  sud- 
den beauty,  and  faded  into  as  sudden  decay, 
not  being  rooted  in  a  Christian  faith  or  phi- 
losophy. It  has  re-appeared  in  modern  times 
in  grander  proportions,  and  with  many  graces 
inspired  by  that  Christian  truth  which  it 
would  ignore  or  dispense  with. 

It  was  the  life-work  of  Goethe  to  combine 
the  Greek  perfection  of  form  and  the  Greek 
delicacy  of  taste  with  that  imaginative  spir- 
ituality which  is  peculiar  to  Christianity, 
and  to  do  this  without  faith  in  Christian 
truth.  The  effort  was  vain.  The  two  ele- 
ments struggled  in  his  soul  in  a  war  em- 
brace, but  the  Pagan  element  prevailed. 
Ever  since  his  time  the  worship  of  genius 
has  very  largely  taken  the  place  of  the  wor- 
ship of  Christ,  and  modern  literature  has 
become  more  Pagan  in  its  spirit  and  creed. 
While  it  would  not  dispense  with  the  beau- 
ty and  fragrance  of  Christian  civilization, 
and  has  sedulously  developed  new  refine- 
ments in  culture,  it  has  sought  to  cut  itself 
off  from  the  Christian  faith  from  which  it  has 
drawn  the  best  of  its  life,  and  now  passionate- 
ly insists  that  literature  has  at  last  developed 
a  permanent  life  of  its  own.  The  catholic 
tolerance  of  Goethe  has  long  ago  been  dis- 
owned. A  more  definite  and  passionate  hos- 
tility to  the  Christian  faith  has  manifested 
itself  among  many  leading  writers  of  Ger- 
many, France,  England,  and  America.  The 
truths  which  were  formerly  received  with 
decent  homage,  and  perhaps  were  invested 
with  elevating  associations,  are  now  often 
alluded  to  with  undisguised  contempt  or 
assailed  with  hissing  scorn.  The  leaders  in 
this  direction  are  imitated  by  many  second 
and  third  rate  camp  followers. 

Such  a  mood  can  not  long  continue.  The 
Pagan  adoration  of  beauty  and  grace,  to  the 
exclusion  of  duty  and  of  God,  can  not  satis- 
fy more  than  one  or  two  generations.  Mat- 
thew Arnold,  in  the  thoughtless  negations 
into  which  he  has  plunged  headlong,  mani- 
fests a  healthful  reaction  in  his  estimates  of 
"  the  beauty  of  holiness"  which  should  lead 
him  to  be  a  warm  defender  of  the  faith  from 
which  it  springs.  The  Pagan  substitutes 
for  Christian  truth  will,  sooner  or  later,  be 


PORTER:  MODERN  LITERATURE. 


375 


recognized  even  by  their  own  worshipers, 
not  only  as  impotent  to  help  and  to  comfort, 
but  even  as  powerless  to  inspire  to  the  best 
achievements  in  art  and  literature. 

The  antagonism  of  modern  literature  to 
Scientific  Theology  is,  in  part,  anecessary  form 
of  the  antagonism  which  must  always  exist 
between  the  stiff  and  arid  terminology  of 
the  men  of  the  schools  and  the  free  and  flex- 
ible language  of  men  of  letters,  which  is  also 
warm  with  the  associations  of  common  life. 
That  this  antagonism  is  in  part  unreasonable 
is  too  obvious  to  be  insisted  on ;  that  it  is 
in  part  excusable  is  equally  clear.  It  will 
never  be  abated  until  theologians  learn  to 
distinguish  between  the  metaphysical  defi- 
nitions and  systems  of  theology,  and  even  of 
Church  symbols,  on  the  one  hand,  and  the  vi- 
tal truths  of  Christianity  on  the  other ;  and 
men  of  letters  can  discern  that  the  language 
of  science,  to  whatever  subject  it  is  applied, 
must  be  exact  and  rigid ;  and  that  theology, 
so  far  as  it  is  scientific,  must  be  metaphys- 
ical. So  long,  also,  as  Christian  preachers 
and  writers  are  limited  so  much  to  the  dia- 
lect of  human  creeds  and  systems,  or  to  ste- 
reotyped phrases  of  any  kind,  and  avail  them- 
selves so  little  of  the  popular  and  imagina- 
tive diction  of  literature  and  of  common  life, 
so  long  must  they  repel  many  whom  they 
might  convince  and  win. 

It  is  encouraging  to  observe,  meanwhile, 
that  the  themes  of  theology  are  to  a  large  ex- 
tent becoming  the  themes  of  literary  discus- 
sion, if  often  with  little  reverence,  yet  gener- 
ally without  a  theological  dialect.  Prayer, 
moral  recovery,  and  spiritual  progress,  the 
development  of  man  in  this  life  and  the  fu- 
ture, are  all  stock  themes  iu  modern  litera- 
ture. If  literature  is  largely  Autichristian, 
it  is,  by  the  same  rule,  largely  theological, 
and  it  follows  that  theologians  must  become 
men  of  literary  breadth  and  culture.  They 
must  be  willing,  and  even  forward,  to  enter 
the  arena  of  literary  discussion,  and  on  the 
only  terms  on  which  they  can  gain  a  hearing. 
They  must  forego  all  special  privileges,  and 
meet  their  antagonists  simply  as  cultivated 
men,  using  the  language  which  men  of  let- 
ters employ.  They  must  forego  the  lan- 
guage of  creeds  and  confessions,  and  define 
and  defend  the  principles  of  Christian  truth 
iu  language  warm  with  familiar  associations, 
and  elevated  by  refined  sentiment.  They 
must  be  willing  to  take  blows  as  well  as  to 
give  them.  They  must  respect  the  rules  of 
courteous  debate,  and  abstain  from  offensive 
personalities.  In  short,  they  must  bo  ac- 
complished as  men  of  culture,  and  bo  will- 
ing to  use  culture  in  the  exposition  and 
defense  of  Christian  philosophy.  The  true 
evangelist  will  not  only  go  out  into  the 
highways  and  hedges,  where  vice  and  squal- 
or disgust  and  repel,  but  will  enter  also  into 
the  high  places,  in  which  spiritual  wicked- 
ness luxuriates  in  art  and  letters,  and  de- 


lights itself  with  the  enchantments  of  gen- 
ius. 

The  relations  of  modern  literature  to  the 
Christian  life  are  the  most  important  of  all. 
This,  and  this  only,  gives  the  supreme  inter- 
est to  Christian  truth  and  Christian  history. 
If  this  peculiar  life  can  not  justify  itself  as 
supremely  excellent,  neither  the  facts  nor 
the  history  can  stand  before  the  searching 
scrutiny  of  modern  criticism  and  the  refined 
sensibility  of  modern  culture.  The  oppo- 
nents of  Christianity  understand  this ;  and 
hence  they  would  fain  persuade  themselves 
that  what  is  distinctively  Christian  in  the 
advancing  moral  and  spiritual  life  of  the 
race  is  so  defective  and  evil  that  it  must 
speedily  be  outgrown  and  laid  aside.  What- 
ever they  may  concede  to  this  life  in  the 
past,  they  contend  that  better  ideals  have 
now  been  attained,  and  these  are  realized 
in  better  achievements.  For  the  exhibition 
and  enforcement  of  their  judgments,  litera- 
ture is  a  convenient  and  effective  instru- 
ment. The  impersonations  of  the  novelist 
and  the  poet,  the  analyses  of  the  historian 
and  the  critic,  and  the  satires  and  carica- 
tures of  the  essayist  are  all  largely  used. 
These  estimates  of  the  Christian  life  respect 
its  inner  spirit  and  its  outicard  manifestations. 

The  inner  manhood  of  the  Christian  is  un- 
selfish and  unworldly,  humble  and  prayerful 
on  the  one  hand,  and  prudent,  frugal,  self- 
respecting,  and  aggressive  on  the  other. 
Both  these  aspects  of  the  Christian  spirit 
are  misconceived  and  dishonored  in  litera- 
ture. The  first  is  scorned,  as  abject  and  un- 
manly, and  over  against  it  is  set  the  Stoic 
ideal,  which  knows  neither  pity  nor  love  in 
their  purest  forms,  which  is  too  proud  to 
confess  its  human  weaknesses  and  faults, 
and  too  disdainful  to  seek  help  in  prayer. 
The  sterner  aspects  of  the  Christian  spir- 
it offend  the  Epicurean  scnsuousness  that 
is  naturally  fostered  by  literary  refinement 
and  artistic  culture.  Each  of  these  is  so 
one-sided  as  to  confute  the  other.  Each  is 
so  unnatural  as  to  provoke  a  reaction.  Both 
are  reconciled  in  the  equilibrium  of  the  Chris- 
tian ideal,  before  which  neither  the  Stoic  nor 
the  Epicurean  ideal  can  fiually  prevail.  The 
man  of  culture  who  lives  by  faith  in  Christ 
will  shoAv  himself  superior  to  the  man  who 
lives  by  faith  in  Marcus  Aurelius.  The  Syb- 
arite must,  sooner  or  later,  show  his  selfish- 
ness, however  refined. 

The  manifestations  of  the  Christian  spirit 
in  the  outward  life  are  fertile  themes  for 
vivid  if  not  exaggerated  portraiture  in  lit- 
erature. The  more  consummate  is  the  fin- 
ish of  the  mirror,  the  more  distinct  is  the 
image  which  it  reflects.  The  slightest  de- 
viation in  its  form  may  transform  what  pro- 
fesses to  bo  a  faithful  transcript  into  a  gross 
and  ludicrous  caricature.  If  the  Christian 
ideal  is  confessed  to  be  the  highest  conceiv- 
able, it  is  none  the  less  easy  to  draw  a  con- 


376 


CHRISTIAN  LIFE. 


trast  between  what  is  proposed  in  aim  and  as- 
piration, and  what  is  achieved  in  fact.  The 
outward  Christian  life  may  also  bo  imper- 
fectly understood  even  by  the  most  enlight- 
ened disciple.  It  encounters,  by  its  own 
concessions,  powerful  antagonists  within  the 
hearts  of  the  most  single-minded  and  ear- 
nest. To  a  large  extent,  also,  it  is  followed 
hy  those  who  are  deficient  in  the  knowledge 
and  refinement  which  are  essential  to  its 
most  attractive  and  appropriate  manifesta- 
tion in  manners  and  speech.  Its  intrinsic 
spirituality  and  truth  furnish  uo  absolute 
security  against  hypocrisy.  From  the  days 
of  Lucian  to  the  present,  the  real  or  supposed 
defects  of  Christian  living  have  furnished 
ample  material  for  the  criticism  and  satire 
of  literature.  They  are  especially  open  to 
these  at  the  present  time.  The  resources 
of  literature  were  never  more  abundant. 
Its  readers  were  never  more  numerous  and 
enlightened.  The  insight  of  both  readers 
and  writers  was  never  more  sagacious,  and 
the  susceptibilities  of  both  were  never  more 
wakeful.  Never  was  Antichristiau  litera- 
ture, apparently,  so  sincere  and  conscien- 
tious even  when  it  is  the  most  caustic  and 
contemptuous  in  its  judgments.  It  ought 
not  to  occasion  surprise  that  it  should  set 
forth  in  high  relief  the  supposed  or  actual 
defects  of  the  Christian  life ;  that  with  its 
abundant  material  and  resources  it  should 
produce  powerful  portraitures  of  the  evils 
which  it  discerns,  and  exaggerated  carica- 
tures of  the  defects  which  it  chooses  to 
misrepresent ;  that  writers  of  every  variety 
should  be  active  in  this  work,  from  the 
lowest  Bohemian,  whose  ribaldry  is  scarce- 
ly redeemed  from  vulgar  abuse,  to  the  most 
accomplished  essayest  or  novelist,  who  him- 
self scarcely  knows  whether  his  Antichris- 
tian  portraitures  are  written  in  sadness  or 
in  scorn.  The  courteous  decorum  and  the 
refined  sympathies  of  St.  Beuve  did  not  save 
him  from  betraying  his  refined  disdain  of  the 
misguided  spirituality  of  those  earnest  phi- 
losophers and  saints  whose  history  he  wrote. 
The  intensely  ethical  Froude  sets  forth,  in 
biting  words,  the  bondage  of  modern  Prot- 
estantism to  greed,  and  its  craven  subjection 
to  the  bold  and  insidious  temptations  of  the 
times.  George  Eliot  does  homage  to  the 
Christian  spirit  in  every  feature  except  its 
personal  love  to  a  personal  Christ,  but  em- 
phasizes her  hostility  to  actual  Christianity, 
and  her  dishonor  to  the  Master  of  our  faith, 
in  the  portraits  which  she  draws  of  Chris- 
tians of  every  type,  even  of  the  most  saintly. 
How  sad  and  depressing  are  her  representa- 
tions, we  all  have  felt.  A  kindly  critic  says 
of  her  most  truly, "  She  is  a  melancholy  teach- 
er— melancholy,  because  skeptical ;  and  her 
melancholy  skepticism  is  too  apt  to  degen- 
erate into  scorn"  (The  Spectator,  June,  1872). 
The  Christianity  of  to-day  will  be  none 
the  worse  if  she  is  mindful  that  she  is  watch- 


ed as  never  before  by  keen-sighted  critics, 
Avho  have  the  power  of  setting  forth  her  de- 
fects with  wit  and  grace,  and  with  energy  and 
sarcasm.  Her  foes  can  do  her  far  more  good 
than  her  flatterers.  It  would  be  well  that  she 
should  listen  to  their  sharpest  sarcasm  and 
their  keenest  gibes.  It  would  not  be  amiss 
to  inquire  how  these  hostile  critics  view  the 
littleness  and  meanness  of  the  sectarian  spir- 
it which  is  forced  everywhere  upon  their  at- 
tention ;  what  they  think  of  the  manifold  ex- 
communications of  our  ecclesiastics,  which 
are  equally  impotent,  whether  enacted .  at 
St.  Peter's  or  in  the  pulpit  of  a  log  chapel ; 
of  the  dogmatism  of  our  theologians,  wheth- 
er it  be  solemnly  uttered  in  a  professor's 
chair  or  fiercely  shrieked  at  the  fireside; 
of  the  fanaticism  of  our  worship,  whether  it 
expends  itself  in  the  genuflections  and  pros- 
trations of  a  ritualistic  chapel  or  shouts  it- 
self into  convulsions  in  a  conventicle;  of 
the  equally  offensive  cant  of  the  latitudi-' 
uarian  and  the  evangelical,  and  of  all  those 
overdoings  and  half-doings  which,  being  nei- 
ther thoroughly  sincere  nor  thoroughly  man- 
ly, can  not  be  truly  Christian.  Do  none  of 
our  so-called  religious  journals  and  newspa- 
pers give  just  occasion  to  these  sharp  ob- 
servers to  misjudge  and  misrepresent  Chris- 
tianity itself?  Do  the  insinuations  in  which 
many  abound,  the  injurious  aspersions  which 
they  calumniously  affix,  the  hollow  platitudes 
to  which  they  resort,  and  the  commercial  spir- 
it in  which  they  are  managed  represent  the 
Christianity  of  our  times,  or  do  they  more 
or  less  grossly  misrepresent  and  dishonor  it  ? 
It  is  one  thing  to  be  able  to  show  that 
many  of  the  hostile  attacks  and  more  effect- 
ive insinuations  against  the  Christian  living 
of  our  day  are  unjust  and  unwarranted,  and 
altogether  another  to  conclude  that  noth- 
ing is  to  be  learned  from  them.  It  may  be 
true  that  literature  in  all  ages  has  derid- 
ed and  belied  the  best  of  Christians.  It  may 
be  true,  also,  that  with  the  decorum  and 
conscientiousness  of  some  of  the  Antichrist- 
ian  literature  of  the  times,  it  is  essentially 
unfriendly,  and  therefore  unjust  in  its  judg- 
ments. But  it  may  not,  therefore,  bo  ne- 
glected or  despised.  Its  discernment  was 
never  so  keen,  its  weapons  were  never  so 
sharp,  and  their  thrusts  were  never  more  ef- 
fective, whether  made  in  sober  earnest  or  the 
solemn  and  admonitory  banter  of  a  literary 
Mephistophiles.  So  far  as  it  is  earnest,  so 
far  does  it  demand  of  the  believing  Christian 
Church  more  simplicity  of  faith,  more  spir- 
ituality of  aims,  more  upright  Christian  liv- 
ing in  its  homes,  its  neighborhoods,  its  com- 
mercial dealings,  and  its  political  activities. 
In  the  presence  of  such  a  Christian  life  as 
is  conceivable  under  our  human  limitations, 
the  most  hostile  literature  would  bow  in  si- 
lence, if  it  did  not  confess  from  the  heart  that 
Christ  is  in  very  deed  present  in  a  living  and 
united  Christendom. 


RELATIONS  OF  THE  SECULAR  AND  RELIGIOUS  EL- 
EMENTS  IN  POPULAR  EDUCATION  IN  ENGLAND. 

BY  THE  REV.  JAMES  H.  RIGG,  D.D., 

Principal  of  the  Wesleyan  Training  College  for  Male  Teachers,  Westminster,  London. 
[Born  at  Newcastle-on-Tyne,  January  IQth,  1821.] 


THE  subject  on  which  I  have  consented  to 
address  the  Conference  is  one  of  the  utmost 
difficulty  and  delicacy,  especially  at  the  pres- 
ent moment ;  and  I  feel  as  if  I  had  to  choose 
my  steps  over  ground  dangerously  mined  in 
all  directions,  and  to  hreathe  an  atmosphere 
full  of  questions  and  controversies.  I  shall 
endeavor,  however,  as  far  as  possible,  to  es- 
cape controversies  by  giving  little  more  than 
a  clear  statement  of  facts,  with  here  and  there 
an  intimation  of  opinions  or  a  suggestion,  on 
grounds  of  pure  induction,  of  practical  con- 
clusions. I  shall  avoid  what  are  called  ab- 
stract principles.  Nothing  is  so  easy  as  to 
dogmatize  by  announcing  what  pass  for 
abstract  propositions,  and  what  sound  like 
plausible  or  even  evident  principles,  and  by 
deducing  from  these  a  tissue  of  conclusions, 
on  almost  any  side  of  a  pressing  and  prac- 
tical controversy.  But  very  little  is  gain- 
ed by  high  general  arguments  on  practical 
questions,  unless  they  are  continually  and 
throughout  tested  and  illustrated  by  facts. 
Indeed,  what  men  take  to  bo  an  abstract  prin- 
ciple is  very  seldom  indeed  a  true  abstrac- 
tion. It  is  often  little  more  than  a  working 
prejudice  founded  upon  limited  and  ill-iu- 
terpreted  experience — at  best  a  shell  or  en- 
velope of  words  in  which  some  principle  is 
involved,  which  those  who  use  the  words 
have  not  learned  truly  to  abstract  and  de- 
fine. 

My  subject  is  announced  as  "Religious 
and  Secular  Education ;"  but  the  half  hour 
at  my  disposal  will  not  allow  me  to  illus- 
trate, even  in  my  own  practical  fashion, 
more  than  a  small  part  of  the  whole  ground 
included  under  such  a  title.  I  shall,  accord- 
ingly, deal  almost  exclusively  with  the  "  Re- 
lations of  the  Secular  and  Religions  Ele- 
ments in  Popular  Education."  To  the  sub- 
ject of  University  Education,  in  particular,  I 
shall  barely  be  able  to  advert.  I  shall,  more- 
over, concern  myself  almost  altogether  with 
European  aspects  of  the  questions  which 
come  within  view.  Americans  will  draw 
their  own  conclusions,  and  will  define  and 
arrange  for  themselves  their  educational 
economy. 

There  is  no  such  thing  as  an  organized 
and  exclusive  state  system  of  secular  edu- 


cation to  be  found  in  the  world,  except  in 
Holland :  there  the  secular  system  has  been 
established  not  a  great  many  years.  It  is 
possible,  however,  that,  while  the  public 
schools  of  a  nation  may  not  be  secular,  but 
may  combine  secular  and  religious  instruc- 
tion, the  state,  in  its  oversight  and  aid,  may 
concern  itself  exclusively  with  the  methods 
and  results  of  secular  instruction.  In  this 
case,  although  the  schools  themselves  may 
not  be  secular,  the  government  stands  in  re- 
lation only  with  the  secular  instruction ;  and 
thus  refuses  all  concern  or  share  or  responsi- 
bility in  religious  instruction.  This  is  the 
principle  on  which  government  deals  iu  En- 
gland with  all  education  given  in  day-schools 
founded  and  conducted,  under  given  regu- 
lations, by  religious  denominations,  by  be- 
nevolent associations,  or  by  voluntary  effort. 
In  these  schools  the  government  in  England 
simply  ignores  the  religious  element. 

The  only  schools  in  England  in  which  re- 
ligious instruction  is  systematically  and  on 
principle  paid  for  out  of  public  funds — funds 
raised  by  levy  on  the  householders — are  the 
new  School  Board  schools,  in  which  general 
Christian  instruction  is  given  out  of  the 
Scriptures  by  the  teacher,  or  some  person 
(it  may  be,  and  sometimes  is,  a  clergyman) 
appointed  by  the  School  Board.  These 
schools  are  wholly  built  by  rate,  and  their 
final  or  residuary  charge  lies  continually 
and  necessarily  on  the  rates,  a  small  portion 
only  of  the  expense  being  provided  for  by 
the  school-fees,  and  about  one-third  (at  pres- 
ent) by  the  national  exchequer,  more  or  less, 
according  to  the  secular  results.  The  in- 
struction given  is  called  undenominational. 
The  Roman  Catholic,  however,  objects  to  it 
as  to  him  sectarian,  as  anti-Catholic,  as  Prot- 
estant; while  the  rationalist,  or  skeptic,  ob- 
jects to  it  as  inevitably  dogmatic,  more  or 
less,  and  as  almost  inevitably,  at  all  events 
as  commonly,  as  for  the  most  part,  more  or 
less  evangelical. 

The  imperial  taxation,  however,  is  not  ap- 
plied to  the  payment  and  maintenance  of 
these  schools,  so  far  as  respects  the  religious 
instruction  given.  The  imperial,  the  nation- 
al, oversight,  examination,  and  pecuniary 
aid,  are  limited  altogether  to  the  secular 


378 


CHRISTIAN  LIFE. 


methods  and  results  of  instruction,  as  in 
the  case  of  the  voluntary  or  denominational 
public  schools.  The  local  rates,  the  rates 
Irvii-d  :ind  raised  \\itliin  the  borough  or  the 
school  district,  are  charged  with  the  whole 
*  responsibility  of  providing  for  the  religious 
instruction  in  thqse  schools.  The  School 
Board  and  its  funds  stand  in  relation  to 
School  Board  schools  precisely  as  the  Chris- 
tian denomination  or  the  voluntary  benev- 
olent association  stands  in  relation  to  the 
schools  founded  by  Christian  Churches  or 
voluntary  associations. 

The  religious  instruction  given  in  the 
School  Board  schools  usually  includes  a  Bi- 
ble lesson,  singing,  and  prayer.  Scarcely 
any  Boards — very  few  indeed — have  estab- 
lished secular  schools  in  their  districts. 
Perhaps  there  is  no  one  principle,  or  motto, 
or  rallying  cry  at  this  moment  so  potent 
and  popular  in  England  as  "The  Bible  in 
the  Schools." 

A  certain  \ving  of  the  advanced  liberal 
party  has  unquestionably  lost  credit  both 
for  itself,  and,  I  fear,  also  for  the  principles 
of  advanced  liberalism  in  general,  by  be- 
ing understood  to  oppose  Bible  lessons  and 
Christian  instruction  in  the  public  schools. 
This  is  one  of  the  causes,  there  can  be  little 
doubt,  of  what  is  called  the  conservative  re- 
action now  proceeding  in  England. 

In  England,  accordingly,  the  imperial  gov- 
ernment, the  government  from  the  national 
centre,  proceeds  virtually,  in  its  organization 
and  administration  of  popular  education,  on 
the  secular  principle.  On  the  other  hand, 
the  local  School  Boards  teach,  for  the  most 
part,  a  free  and  broad  Protestant  Christian- 
ity in  their  schools,  using  the  Bible  as  the 
authoritative  text-book.  It  seems  to  me 
that  these  School  Boards  have  for  their  re- 
spective towns  or  school-districts  set  up  a 
kind  of  supplementary  and  children's  week- 
day church  establishment,  where  Protestant 
Christianity  is  in  a  sense  preached — that  is, 
explained  and  applied,  practically  taught — 
to  children ;  and  where,  to  some  extent,  com- 
mon worship  is  maintained.  But  then  there 
is  no  territorial  rooting,  no  "  priesthood,"  no 
ministerial  order,  no  real  property  endow- 
ment. 

In  the  case  of  reformatories,  of  industrial 
schools,  and  wherever  the  public  necessities 
in  the  way  of  reclaiming  or  absolutely  pro- 
viding for  children — the  children  of  vice  or 
of  destitution — render  boarding  as  well  as 
schooling,  and  something  like  family  life, 
necessary — it  seems  agreed  by  tacit  consent 
that  anti- denominational  scruples  must  be 
set  aside.  Both  the  imperial  revenue  and 
the  local  rates  are  applied  in  contribution  to 
denominational  institutions,  such  as  I  have 
indicated,  especially  Roman  Catholic  reform- 
atories and  industrial  schools. 

Yon  have  probably  heard  something  of  a 
controversy  in  England  about  the  25th  and 


17th  clauses  of  Mr.  Forster's  Education  Act. 
The  clauses  relate  to  the  education  of  the 
children  of  indigent  parents.  The  17th  clause 
gives  School  Boards  the  power  to  remit  the 
fees  in  their  own  schools  at  their  pleasure ; 
the  25th  clause  gives  the  power  to  pay  the  fees 
of  indigent  children  at  any  public  and  in- 
spected elementary  school  to  which  they  may 
be  sent.  School  Board  schools  are  not  yet,  and 
are  not  soon  likely  to  be,  available  in  all  parts 
of  England ;  very  many  parishes,  many  small 
towns,  and  even  some  largo  towns,  are  already 
well  supplied  with  efficient  and  inspected 
public  elementary  schools.  The  rate-payer 
sturdily  objects  to  any  attempt  to  set  aside 
or  ignore  these  schools,  and  at  his  expense 
to  set  up  and  maintain  new  schools.  The 
parent  objects  to  be  obliged,  if  he  happens 
to  be  very  poor,  to  take  away  his  child  from 
what  he  regards  as  his  own  school. 

In  the  case  of  the  Roman  Catholic  parent 
this  objection  would  be  persistent  and  em- 
bittered. Under  these  circumstances,  if  in 
England  universal,  compulsion  was  to  be  ap- 
plied, or  to  be  contemplated  as  possible  and 
desirable,  it  was  necessary  to  arrange  for  the 
payment  of  fees  in  other  public-inspected 
schools  as  well  as  their  remission  in  Board 
schools ;  which  latter  schools,  indeed,  if  there 
were  no  Roman  Catholic  public  schools,  no 
Church  of  England  public  schools — if  these 
and  all  voluntary  denominational  public 
schools  were  to  be  done  away — would  very 
soon  become  purely  secular  schools. 

In  many  parts  of  your  own  States  it  be- 
comes increasingly  evident  that  the  common 
schools  must  become  purely  secular ;  or  else 
that  special  provision  must  be  made  for  the 
Roman  Catholics.  In  Canada,  the  price  paid 
for  the  maintenance  of  common  schools  for 
the  rest  of  the  population  is,  that  there  be 
separate  and  special  provision  for  the  Roman 
Catholics.  So  in  England,  unless  separate 
schools  were  allowed  for  the  Roman  Catho- 
lics, School  Board  schools  would  of  necessity 
become  secular.  The  Roman  Catholic  popu- 
lation could  hardly  be  invited  into  a  Protest- 
ant common  school.  And  into  a  secular 
common  school,  though  they  might  perhaps 
be  invited  without  any  manifest  injustice,  it 
is  certain  that  in  England  they  could  not  be 
forced.  Educational  compulsion  could  not 
be  applied,  unless  denominational  as  well  as 
board  schools  were  allowed  to  exist,  and  un- 
less fees  were  paid  in  such  schools  for  indi- 
gent children,  as  well  as  fees  remitted  in 
board  schools. 

In  Holland,  where  the  common  schools  are 
secular,  this  difficulty  has  rendered  it  im- 
possible to  apply  a  compulsory  law.  I  may 
add  here,  on  the  authority  of  the  Dutch 
Minister  of  Education,  Baron  Mackay,  that 
the  incidence  of  the  secular  system  of  schools 
on  the  Roman  Catholic  population  in  Hol- 
land, is  eased  by  the  fact  that  for  the  schools 
in  Roman  Catholic  districts,  of  town  or 


EIGG :  SECULAR  AND  RELIGIOUS  EDUCATION  IN  ENGLAND. 


379 


country,  Roman  Catholic  teachers  are  ap- 
pointed. 

I  have  explained  that  the  25th  and  17th 
clauses  give  to  the  School  Boards  the  power 
to  pay  or  remit  fees.  It  is  a  question,  how- 
ever, keenly  debated  in  England,  whether 
the  School  Board  is  a  fit  and  proper  body 
for  investigating  claims  to  poor-relief.  Of 
course,  the  payment  or  remission  of  fees  is 
only  one  form  of  poor-relief.  All  our  polit- 
ical economists  are  of  opinion  that  the  Foor 
Law  Guardians  should  have  this  work  as- 
signed to  them,  and  that  fees  should  only 
be  paid  or  remitted  on  their  authority. 

The  Education  Amendment  Act,  however, 
passed  last  session,  has  greatly  lessened  the 
difficulty  and  responsibility  connected  with 
this  subject,  so  far  as  School  Boards  are  con- 
cerned. That  Amendment  Act  remits  all 
cases  of  the  children  of  out-door  paupers, 
paupers  residing  out  of  the  work-house  or 
poor-house,  and  receiving  out-door  relief,  to 
the  poor  Law  Guardians  for  payment.  These 
children  now  must  needs  go  to  school  be- 
tween the  ages  of  five  and  thirteen,  and  the 
guardians  must  pay  the  fees,  which,  how- 
ever, are  not  to  exceed  a  fixed  and  moderate 
sum.  Voluntary  Benevolence  on  the  one  side, 
and  the  Poor  Fund  on  the  other,  will  leave 
but  little  margin,  as  I  hope,  for  either  pay- 
ment or  remission  of  fees  on  the  part  of  the 
School  Boards. 

The  conscience  clause  in  the  English  Edu- 
cation Act  requires  that  religious  instruction 
in  all  public  elementary  schools — i.  e.,  schools 
inspected  by  government  and  receiving  gov- 
ernment aid  —  whether  such  schools  be  of 
voluntary  foundation  or  be  School  Board 
schools — shall  only  be  given  at  a  fixed  hour 
either  preceding  or  following  the  appointed 
hours  of  secular  instruction.  Within  these 
hours — the  proper  hours  of  state-recognized 
and  secular  instruction,  viz.,  from  9.30  or  10 
A.M.  to  4.30.  P.M,  excluding  the  dinner  hour 
— no  sort  of  religious  instruction  can  be 
given.  The  managers  are  also  strictly  pro- 
hibited from  using  any  influence  to  bring 
the  children  to  any  church  or  connect  them 
Avith  any  congregation,  or  in  favor  of  or 
against  any  particular  denomination ;  any 
violation  of  these  regulations  would  entail 
the  forfeiture  of  the  government  grant. 

So  much  as  to  the  relations  between  re- 
ligious and  secular  instruction  in  our  En- 
glish public  elementary  schools.  It  is  quite 
impossible  at  this  transition  stage  to  give,  as 
to  several  important  points,  any  but  the  most 
vague  and  general  estimate  of  the  statistics 
bearing  upon  the  subject.  It  may  be  safely 
affirmed,  indeed,  that  the  number  of  public 
inspected  school  departments  in  England  at 
this  time  can  not  fall  much  short  of  11,000, 
i.  e,,  boys',  or  girls',  or  mixed,  or  infants'  sep- 
arate departments ;  that  the  number  on  the 
school-rolls  is  about  2,000,000,  with  an  average 
attendance  of  1,500,000 ;  that  three-fourths 


of  the  children  are  in  schools  established 
during  the  last  sixty  years,  and  worked  by 
the  Church  of  England ;  that  the  inspected 
schools — i.  e.,  separate  school  departments — 
belonging  to  the  Church  of  England  number 
nearly  8000 ;  those  of  the  Methodists  about 
1000 ;  of  the  Roman  Catholics  about  500 ; 
those  of  the  British  and  Foreign  School  So- 
ciety (Protestant  Undenominational)  and  of 
different  Protestant  Non-conformist  congre- 
gations, excluding  the  Methodists — many  of 
this  class  of  schools  having  been  transferred 
to  School  Board  schools — about  900 ;  and  of 
School  Bbard  schools,  making  a  very  rough 
guess,  perhaps  400  at  present,  built  or  trans- 
ferred. The  next  three  years,  however,  will 
probably  see  this  last  figure — the  number  of 
School  Board  schools — mount  up  to  two  or 
three  thousand.  I  should  myself  like  to  see 
a  British  school  (so  called)  or  a  School  Board 
school  brought  within  walking  distance  of 
every  child  of  ten  years  old  in  the  kingdom. 
But  neither  time  nor  place  is  suitable  to-day 
for  stating  my  reasons  for  such  a  wish ;  and, 
much  as  I  might  wish  it,  I  have  no  expec- 
tation of  seeing  it  accomplished  within  any 
assignable  period.  But  within  a  very  few 
years  I  have  no  doubt  that  a  good  inspect- 
ed school,  under  strict  and  efficient  national 
regulations,  by  whatever  name  it  may  be 
called,  will  be  available  for  all  the  children 
of  our  country.  It  will  be  seen  from  what  I 
have  stated  how  strong  the  Church  of  En- 
gland has  made  itself  by  its  schools,  what 
an  immense  educational  work  it  has  done. 
These  schools  are  now  a  most  important  part 
of  its  line  of  intrenchments.  Having  paid 
nearly  or  quite  three-fourths  of  the  cost  of 
building  these  schools,  and  having  raised 
from  year  to  year,  by  voluntary  contribu- 
tions, perhaps  three-sevenths  of  the  annual 
cost,  and  having  thus  furnished  the  country 
with  three-fourths  of  its  available  supply 
of  popular  elementary  education,  it  holds  a 
wide  and  mighty  purchase  upon  the  country. 
When  School  Boards  have  done  all  that  re- 
mains to  be  done,  and  the  supply  of  schools 
is  fully  equal  to  the  demands  of  the  coun- 
try, it  is  probable  that  still  two-thirds  of  the 
school-provision  of  the  country  will  be  work- 
ed by  the  Church  of  England.  I  simply  state . 
facts.  I  do  not  comment  on  them.  But  they 
tell  a  full  and  various  tale  as  to  the  past,  the 
present,  and  the  future,  as  to  hopes,  and  fears, 
and  heart-burnings,  as  to  forces  and  contro- 
versies. 

Let  me  now  turn  to  the  much  misunder- 
stood question  of  Irish  popular  education. 
In  round  numbers,  there  are  in  Ireland  7000 
so-called  national  schools ;  of  these  5000  are 
non-vested,  that  is,  schools  owned  and  con- 
fessedly managed  by  the  different  denomi- 
nations, corresponding  very  nearly  to  the  so- 
called  denominational  schools  of  England, 
except  that  the  power  of  the  denomination- 
al element  is  stronger  and  less  guarded,  while 


38Q 


CHRISTIAN  LIFE. 


the  contribution  of  the  public  revenue,  the 
state  contribution  toward  the  expense  is 
much  greater.  In  England,  the  govern- 
ment only  pays,  on  an  average,  one -third 
of  the  cost  of  the  denominational  schools, 
and  is  prohibited  in  any  case  whatever  from 
paying  more  than  one-half;  whereas  iu  Ire- 
land the  government  pays  not  less,  I  believe, 
than  four-fifths  of  the  cost  of  these  denomi- 
national— the  non-vested — schools. 

The  other  2000  schools  are  vested  schools, 
have  been  built  out  of  public  funds,  and  are 
vested  as  property  in  public  trustees  in  the 
National  Board.  These  schools, however,  are 
really  as  denominational  as  the  other.  The 
description  which  I  am  about  to  give  ap- 
plies equally  to  both  classes  of  schools,  vest- 
ed or  non-vested,  and  will  show  in  what  re- 
spects the  Irish  national  schools  differ  from 
or  agree  with  the  English  public  inspected 
schools.  In  all  the  Irish  schools,  vested  or 
non-vested,  the  catechisms  of  the  respective 
denominations,  in  each  case  of  the  dominant 
denomination  in  the  place,  or  at  least  in 
the  school,  are  taught  by  the  school-teacher. 
The  schools  are  managed,  all  alike,  by  sole 
denominational  patrons,  who  in  almost  all 
cases  are  clergymen,  Roman  Catholic  or  Prot- 
estant, who  are  checked  by  no  committee  or 
local  board  of  any  sort,  and  who,  till  with- 
in the  last  three  months,  could  dismiss  a 
teacher  at  their  own  mere  option,  with  or 
without  reason  assigned.  In  all  the  schools, 
the  clergymen  of  the  ruling  denominations — 
that  is,  for  the  most  part,  the  patrons  of  the 
schools — give  specific  religious  instruction 
themselves ;  all  the  school-rooms  are  used 
as  Sunday-schools;  in  nearly  all,  the  chil- 
dren are  prepared  for  confirmation  by  their 
spiritual  pastors ;  most  are  used  by  the  de- 
nominations to  which  the  patrons  belong 
for  denominational  purposes,  not  only  on  the 
Sunday  but  on  the  week-night.  Finally,  in 
all  the  Irish  schools,  whether  vested  or  non- 
vested,  unlike  the  English  inspected  denom- 
inational schools,  religious  instruction  may 
be  given  either  by  the  patron  or  by  the 
teacher  at  any  fixed  hour,  any  fixed  inter- 
mediate hour,  during  the  ordinary  hours  of 
general  instruction,  provided  the  hour  be 
duly  specified  and  made  publicly  known. 

The  only  distinction  of  any  importance 
between  the  vested  and  the  non- vested 
schools  is,  that  in  the  vested  schools  minis- 
ters of  all  the  different  denominations  may 
demand  a  fixed  time,  before  or  after  the  gen- 
eral studies  of  the  day  begin,  for  giving  in- 
struction to  the  children  of  their  flock  in 
the  school-room.  In  a  large  proportion  of 
the  vested  schools,  however,  this  is  only  a 
right  on  paper. 

There  are  twenty -seven  Model  Schools. 
These  are  the  best  schools  in  Ireland ;  but 
they  are  too  few  to  influence  the  general 
estimate  of  the  system.  They  have  chief- 
ly been  established  during  the  last  twen- 


ty years.  Originally,  and  for  many  years, 
there  was  but  one  such  school — at  Dublin. 
They  may  be  said  fairly  to  represent  what 
the  Irish  National  Board,  at  least  iu  its  bet- 
ter days,  would  have  desired  all  the  schools 
of  Ireland,  as  far  as  possible,  to  resemble. 
In  their  common  teaching  they  are  not  sec- 
ular, but  uusectarianly  Christian ;  in  their 
special  arrangements  they  are,  as  far  as  need 
be  or  can  be,  omni-sectarian  and  dogmatic. 
They  provide  for  teachers  of  different  relig- 
ious persuasions  in  the  same  school,  each 
of  whom  is  bound  religiously  to  instruct 
the  children  of  his  own  persuasion,  and  for 
the  attendance  at  the  school  weekly  of  the 
clergy  of  the  different  churches,  each  to 
examine  and  supplement  what  the  teach- 
ers have  been  doing,  and  to  keep  up  the 
pastoral  charge  of  the  children  of  his  own 
flock. 

The  original  principle  of  the  Irish  system, 
as  officially  defined  in  Mr.  Stanley's — the  late 
Lord  Derby's — famous  letter,  forty-two  years 
ago,  was  to  furnish  a  "combined  literary 
and  moral  and  separate  religious  instruc- 
tion." From  the  very  first,  however,  the 
Irish  Board  of  Education  found,  or  at  least 
believed  that  they  found,  that  the  moralities 
of  instruction  could  not  be  practically  sep- 
arated from  religious  convictions  and  priii- 
cipjes.  Accordingly,  from  the  beginning, 
they  officially  interpreted  "combined  liter- 
ary and  moral"  to  mean  " literary,  moral, 
and  religious  instruction."  They  provided 
lesson -books  which  were  largely  impreg- 
nated with  religious  teaching ;  they  pre- 
pared and  published  four  volumes  of  Scrip- 
ture Extracts ;  they  even  issued  and  recom- 
mended for  use  a  little  work  (by  Archbishop 
Whately)  on  the  Evidences  of  Christianity. 
At  the  same  time,  they  made  express  and 
abundant  provision  for  the  instruction  of 
the  children  in  the  catechism  and  special 
doctrines  of  their  different  churches  by  their 
clergy,  and,  under  the  clergy-patrons,  by  the 
school-teachers.  Besides  the  school-patron 
and  the  teacher,  acting  on  behalf  of  the 
prevalent  creed  and  sect,  all  clergymen  were 
to  have  access  to  the  children  of  their  sev- 
eral flocks. 

At  first  there  were  to  have  been  none  but 
vested  schools.  On  this  principle,  however, 
the  system  took  very  little  hold  of  the  coun- 
try. In  1840,  the  Presbyterians  made  terms 
with  the  Board  for  the  admission  of  non- 
vested  or  denominational  schools.  These,  as 
I  have  stated,  now  constitute  five-sevenths 
of  the  whole. 

Twelve  years  earlier  than  the  foundation 
of  the  Irish  system,  that  is  in  1819,  a  system 
agreeing  strictly  in  principle  with  the  orig- 
inal Irish  system  had  been  introduced  into 
Germany.  In  practice,  however,  it  was 
found  unworkable.  Within  five-aud-twen- 
ty  years  it  had  slidden  and  grown  into  a 
liberal  denominational  system.  Such  has 


EIGG :  SECULAR  AND  RELIGIOUS  EDUCATION  IN  ENGLAND. 


381 


been  the  system  iii  Germany  now  for  many 
years  past. 

In  France  the  liberal  statesmanship  of  Gui- 
zot,  instructed  and  sustained  by  the  philo- 
sophic capacity  aud  culture  of  Victor  Cousin, 
naturally  and  congenially  inclined  to  attempt 
for  the  French  the  experiment  of  combined 
instruction,  of  which  the  failure  in  Germany 
was  not  yet  declared,  and  of  which  the  ex- 
periment was  being  made,  in  a  spirit  so  large 
aud  with  objects  so  elevated  and  enlight- 
ened, in  Ireland.  Nevertheless,  in  France  as 
in  Germany  and  in  Ireland — in  Germany  ear- 
lier, and  in  Ireland  about  the  same  time — the 
experiment  proved  a  failure.  The  combined 
system  in  France  also  worked  into  a  virtu- 
ally denominational  system,  although  the 
denominationalism  is  not,  I  believe,  so  fully 
or  impartially  carried  out  among  the  free 
churches  as  some  think  it  ought  to  be. 

Thus  has  the  combined  system  everywhere 
proved  a  failure  on  the  principle  of  united 
moral  and  secular  instruction  —  that  is,  of 
united  uusectariau  and  generically  Christian 
instruction,  both  secular  and  religious — and 
separate  specifically  doctrinal  instruction. 
All  the  countries  of  Europe,  with  the  single 
exception  already  named  of  Holland,  provide 
in  some  way  for  the  denominational  manage- 
ment of  public  elementary  schools.  This  is 
so  even  in  republican  Switzerland  with  its 
free  system  of  common  schools.  Nowhere  is 
it  more  distinctly  the  case  than  in  Germa- 
ny, where  the  clergy  of  the  three  established 
denominations  are  state  officers.  The  pres- 
ent controversy  in  Germany  as  to  education 
arises  from  the  determination  on  the  part  of 
the  government  to  keep  the  state  regula- 
tions supreme  in  the  school,  and  to  reduce 
the  Romish  hierarchy  and  fraternities  no  less 
than  the  Lutheran  or  the  Reformed  clergy 
to  the  position  of  the  loyal  executive  of  all 
government  regulations.  It  is  parallel  to 
the  resolution  of  all  parties  in  England  not 
to  submit  to  the  Ultramontane  demands  as 
to  education  in  Ireland. 

In  Ireland,  as  we  have  seen,  the  teacher 
teaches  his  own  patron's  catechism  in  the 
school.  In  Scotland,  Presbyterian  Scotland, 
the  common  national  teaching  will,  under 
the  act  recently  passed,  be  definitely  religious 
iu  a  sense  unknown  elsewhere  in  the  British 
empire.  There  the  School  Board  and  rate- 
built  schools  will  pervade  the  land,  and  there 
the  education  given  by  the  teacher  is  to  be 
not  only  Christian  and  religious,  but  very 
definitely  dogmatic.  The  Bible  will  bo  used 
as  a  common  reading-book  in  the  schools, 
and  the  Westminster  Catechism,  as  well  as 
the  Bible,  will  be  taught  by  the  teacher  to 
the  children,  of  course  under  the  protection, 
as  in  England  and  Ireland,  of  a  Conscience- 
clause.  In  both  Ireland  and  Scotland  as 
much  common  religious  instruction  aud  in- 
fluence is  incorporated  with  the  universal 
education  as  can  be  practically  accomplished. 


The  same  also  may  be  said  to  be  the  princi- 
ple generally  adopted  by  the  School  Boards 
in  England,  but  our  lively  controversies  re- 
strict the  common  Christian  instruction  with- 
in narrow  limits.  The  imperial  administra- 
tion, in  fact,  except  in  the  case  of  reforma- 
tories or  industrial  schools,  proceeds  strictly 
on  the  secular  principle,  the  principle  of  pay- 
ing only  in  consideration  of  secular  methods 
and  results.  Only  the  School  Boards,  I  re- 
peat, pay  expressly  or  properly  for  common 
religious  instruction. 

In  agreement  with  my  promise  at  starting, 
I  have  not  attempted  to  argue  iu  this  paper, 
or  to  ventilate  theories,  but  simply  to  pre- 
sent facts  in  clear  relation  to  each  other. 
Before  closing,  let  me  touch  again  upon  the 
case  of  Holland,  the  country  of  secular  edu- 
cation. Roman  Catholicism  forced  secular- 
ism upon  Holland  about  sixteen  years  ago, 
not  without  great  division,  and  struggling, 
and  controversy.  But  the  condition  and 
circumstances  of  Holland  have  enabled  that 
country  to  work  a  secular  system  as  no  oth- 
er country  could.  Unlike  the  popular  mass- 
es in  England,  but  like  the  ancient  and  truly 
indigenous  Scottish  lowland  population  of  all 
classes,  and  like  the  New  England  of  earlier 
times,  the  lower  classes  in  Holland  are  all 
church-going  people,  and  seldom  or  never 
omit  to  have  their  children  instructed  by 
their  pastor  and  confirmed  at  the  proper  age. 
This  is  no  consequence  of  the  modern  and 
highly  developed  education  of  Holland.  It 
is  the  basis  of  character  and  quality  on 
which  that  education  has  been  established. 
The  lower  classes  in  Holland — at  least  the 
Protestants — and  the  Roman  Catholic  popu- 
lation are  always  sure  to  be  religiously  in- 
doctrinated to  a  sufficient  extent  by  their 
priests — the  lower  classes  in  Holland  gener- 
ally resemble,  and  seem  to  have  for  genera- 
tions resembled,  in  respectability,  economy, 
prudence,  respect  for  Christian  profession, 
and,  at  least,  external  worship,  our  middle 
classes  in  England,  aud  your  people  of  al- 
most all  classes  in  the  States,  except  certain 
foreign  strains  of  immigrant  blood.  Cleanli- 
ness and  thrift  are  universal.  Christian  civ- 
ilization pervades  the  community.  If  a  sec- 
ular system  can  be  made  to  work  iu  Holland, 
it  does  not  follow  that  it  would  be  practicable 
in  England.  The  masses  on  behalf  of  which 
there  is  the  most  urgent  need  for  us  to  care 
in  England,  unless  they  are  Christiauly  in- 
structed and  civilized  iu  the  schools,  unless 
there  they  are  morally,  I  will  say,  religious- 
ly trained  and  impressed,  are  certainly  not 
likely  elsewhere  to  receive  any  Christian  iu- 
struction  or  training.  Their  homes  are  too 
commonly  the  abodes  of  profanity  and  irre- 
ligion,  not  seldom  of  all  that  is  coarse,  aud 
animal,  and  degrading. 

I  will  be  frank  enough  to  confess,  in  this 
my  last  paragraph,  abstaining  still  from  con- 
troversy or  discussion,  that  ideally  and  in 


CHRISTIAN  LIFE. 


fundamental  principle  I  am,  as  to  national 
education,  a  pure  voluntary,  or,  if  you  like, 
a  free-trader.  I  hold  here  to  the  principles 
of  John  Stuart  Mill,  that  great  economist. 
Government  should  require  for  every  child 
a  good  education,  should  take  proper  man- 
ner to  have  the  educational  condition  of 
children— especially  before  they  are  allowed 
to  go  to  work,  whether  whole  time  or  half 
time— of  electors,  of  competitors  for  public 
employment,  tested,  but  should  not  under- 
take to  provide  education  for  the  nation. 

"An  education  established  by  the  state," 
says  Mr.  Mill,  "  should  only  exist,  if  it  exist 
at  all,  as  one  among  many  competing  experi- 
ments, carried  on  for  the  purpose  of  example 
and  stimulus,  to  keep  the  others  up  to  a 
certain  standard  of  excellence."  And  the 
competition  should,  of  course,  be  fair  and 
equal  in  all  conditions  and  respects.  The 
interference  of  government  in  England  dur- 
ing the  last  forty  years  is  indeed  to  be  jus- 
tified, as  I  think,  but  only  as  exceptional, 
transitional,  temporary ;  and  on  principles 
which  Mr.  Mill  has  himself  distinctly  laid 
down.  "  When,"  he  says, "  society  in  general 
is  in  so  backward  a  state  that  it  could  not 
or  would  not  provide  for  itself  any  proper 
institutions  of  education,  unless  the  gov- 
ernment undertook  the  task ;  then,  indeed, 
government  may,  as  the  lesser  of  two  evils, 
take  upon  itself  the  business  of  schools  and 
universities,  as  it  may  that  of  joint-stock 
enterprises,  when  private  enterprise  in  a 
shape  fitted  for  undertaking  great  works 
of  industry  does  not  exist  in  the  country." 
On  this  principle  the  interference  in  England 
of  the  Government  during  the  last  forty 
years  may  be  fully  justified.  But  I  hope 
that  another  generation  may  see  the  vast 
system  and  net-work  of  government  protec- 
tion and  pecuniary  aid,  and  direct  interfer- 
ence and  management  in  my  own  country, 
gently  and  gradually  done  away.  With  the 
disappearance  of  that  system,  all  the  varie- 


!  ties  and  complications  of  the  religious  diffi- 
culty will  also  disappear. 

I  am  aware  that  what  I  have  now  said  will 
appear  very  heretical  to  many  of  my  Amer- 
ican hearers.  It  is  not  my  business  to  de- 
fend it.  I  will,  however,  say  that  Mr.  Mill's 
principles  are  not,  as  I  seem  to  see,  incon- 
sistent with  the  principle  of  the  common- 
school  system  of  this  continent  according  to 
its  original  conception  and  essential  prin- 
ciple. 

Meantime  I  venture  to  think  that  a  large 
State,  including  among  its  people  many  de- 
grees and  varieties  of  belief,  and  doubt  or 
disbelief,  so  far  as  it  contributes  by  vote  out 
of  State  Funds  to  schools  or  universities, 
would  find  it  both  convenient  and  just  to 
ignore  religions  diversities  and  distinctions 
altogether,  and  to  respect  alone  and  abso- 
lutely secular  objects,  attainments,  and  re- 
sults. It  seems  to  sound  right  when  men 
say  that  the  contribution  of  the  State  shall 
be  only  to  unsectarian  institutions.  But  a 
rigidly  and  necessarily  unsectarian  institu- 
tion is  apt  to  become  sectarianly  secular, 
and  even  propagandistly  skeptical  and  anti- 
religious.  To  maintain  such  institutions  out 
of  public  revenue,  while  liberal  and  largely 
tolerant,  broadly  catholic  institutions  are 
left  unaided,  merely  because  they  are  the 
property  and  charge  of  a  practically  and 
closely  cemented  Christian  organization, 
seems  to  be  a  policy  which  at  least  is  open 
to  question.  I  venture  to  doubt  whether 
this  is  really  pure  secularism,  or  true  unsec- 
tarianism,  in  principle.* 


*  [The  reading  of  this  paper  was  followed  by  a  dis- 
cussion in  the  morning  and  evening  on  the  religions 
element  in  popular  education,  in  which  Dr.  M'Cosh, 
Mr.  James  Girdlestone,  Rev.  J.  Carwell  Williams,  Dr. 
Haven,  Dr.  Conrad,  Dr.  Onniston,  and  others  took 
part.  Papers  on  the  same  subject  had  been  previous- 
ly engaged  from  Professor  Pfleiderer  of  Germany,  Mr. 
Van  Loon  of  Holland,  who,  however,  found  it  impos- 
sible to  attend.—  Ed.) 


THIRD  SECTION.-THE  PULPIT  OF  THE  AGE. 


MODERN  PREACHING  AND  ITS  EEQUIREMENTS. 

BY  THE  REV.  JOSEPH  PARKER,  D.D.,  LONDON. 


Ix  discussing,  even  cursorily,  the  question 
of  modern  preaching,  my  contention  through- 
out will  be  that  in  proportion  as  we  follow 
the  apostolic  method  of  stating  and  apply- 
ing truth  will  our  preaching  bo  adapted  to 
this  day  and  all  other  days  of  human  sin 
and  want.  In  order  to  wield  the  original 
power,  is  it  not  needful  to  recur  to  the  orig- 
inal method  of  preaching  ?  Take,  for  exam- 
ple, the  preaching  of  the  Apostle  Paul,  and 
inquire  somewhat  into  its  substance  and 
manner.  What  did  Paul,  the  Apostle  of  Je- 
sus Christ,  preach  ?  Paul  himself  answers 
the  question :  "  I  preach  Christ  crucified ;" 
"I  preach  the  unsearchable  riches  of  Christ;" 
"Christ  sent  me  to  preach  the  Gospel." 
Here  is  definiteness  of  conviction.  The 
man  knows  his  business — his  one,  simple, 
beneficent  business  —  and  his  mind  is  set 
upon  it  without  doubtfulness  or  distraction. 
He  does  not  preach  about  the  Gospel :  he  does 
not  show  how  skillfully  he  can  abstain  from 
touching  it  even  where  it  seems  impossible 
for  him  to  escape  it  altogether :  contrari- 
wise, he  preaches  the  Gospel  itself  with  full- 
ness of  statement,  and  with  a  supreme  desire 
to  make  it  understood  and  felt.  To  Paul, 
Jesus  Christ  himself  was  the  Gospel:  the 
man  was  the  doctrine;  the  doctrine  was  the 
man :  hence,  the  preaching  was  quickened 
by  those  elements  which  set  the  personality 
of  the  Saviour  at  the  head  of  all  life,  and 
make  that  personality  the  complement  of 
all  being.  Thus  much,  then,  for  the  sub- 
stance of  Paul's  preaching,  viz.,  a  living,  dy- 
ing, triumphing,  almighty,  and  unchangea- 
ble Saviour.  Is  it  not  such  a  Lord  that  is 
needed  in  this  day,  when  men  are  mad  in 
wickedness  and  have  become  the  makers  of 
their  own  gods  ? 

We  have  inquired  as  to  the  substance  6f 
Paul's  preaching;  what  was  the  manner  of 
the  preacher  ?  On  this  point,  also,  the  apos- 
tle speaks  with  peculiar  and  instructive  em- 
phasis. We  ask  him,  How  do  you  preach  f 
and  he  answers, "  Not  with  wisdom  of  words, 
lest  the  Cross  of  Christ  should  be  made  of 
none  effect ;"  "  My  preaching  was  not  with 
enticing  words  of  man's  wisdom ;"  "  I  came 
not  with  excellency  of  speech  or  of  wisdom." 

This  law  of  speech  would  destroy  niue- 
tenths  of  what  is  falsely  called  "eloquent 


preaching."  What  care  is  bestowed  upon 
the  manufacture  of  sentences !  how  periods 
are  smoothed  and  rounded!  how  anxious 
are  many  speakers  lest  by  a  slip  in  quanti- 
ty they  should  impair  the  rhythm  of  their 
utterances!  Is  not  this  the  "wisdom  of 
words"  which  the  apostle  religiously  es- 
chewed, lest  the  Cross  of  Christ  should  be 
made  of  none  effect  ?  Are  not  these  the  "  en- 
ticing words  of  man's  wisdom  "  which  Paul 
avoided  in  his  ministry?  I  put  the  case 
thus  interrogatively  rather  than  dogmatic- 
ally, lest  I  should  even  seem  to  bring  un- 
just reproach,  or  inflict  needless  pain,  on 
some  honest  man.  Am  I,  then,  discounte- 
nancing the  highest  uses  of  speech,  or  would 
I  exclude  eloquence  from  the  sanctuary  of 
the  Lord?  Far  from  it.  Seeing  that  we 
can  not  preach  without  words,  I  would  have 
all  words  fit  and  seasonable ;  on  the  right 
hand  of  Truth  I  would  set  Beauty,  and  on 
her  left  hand  I  would  set  Music,  but  as  they 
stood  together  in  the  smiling  light  I  would 
say,  Now  abideth  Truth,  Beauty,  and  Music, 
but  the  greatest  of  these  is  Truth — Truth 
is  the  infinite  quantity;  beauty  aud  music 
are  measurable  and  determinate  elements. 
There  is  a  danger  among  us,  aud  it  should 
be  clearly  pointed  out — a  danger  of  setting 
up  an  idolatry  of  mere  words,  and  so  drawing 
attention  to  the  casket  to  the  disadvantage 
of  the  jewel.  What  do  we  often  hear  re- 
specting a  preacher  and  his  preaching? 
That  he  is  a  polished  speaker ;  that  his  lan- 
guage is  exquisite  in  chasteness  and  bal- 
ance ;  that  his  sermons  are  literary  models, 
and  that  his  composition  is  a  study  in  art. 
This  is  thought  to  bo  complimentary — com- 
plimentary to  an  angel  of  the  Lord,  clothed 
with  fire,  and  put  in  trust  of  mighty  tlum- 
derings,  a  preacher  of  the  Cross,  and  a  re- 
vealer  of  judgment  to  come!  God-speed  to 
the  eloquence  of  the  heart ;  but  as  for  the 
mere  sentence-maker,  his  pulpit  is  a  store 
of  carved  wood,  not  Lebanon  or  Bashan,  not 
the  mountain  of  myrrh  or  the  hill  of  frank- 
incense. 

The  probability  is  that  the  Apostle  Paul 
would  bo  impatient  with  a  good  deal  of 
what  passes  among  us  as  eloquent  preaching. 
Would  he  not  be  ill  at  ease  until  the  preach- 
er came  to  the  Cross  and  showed  its  bearing 


384 


CHRISTIAN  LIFE. 


upon  human  sin  anil  human  need ?  Would 
he  be  BO  pleased  with  an  epithet  as  to  forget 
n  doctrine  T  Is  ft  sermon  to  be  an  entertain- 
ment or  a  lesson  T  Is  the  preacher  a  cunning 
trickster  in  the  use  of  words,  or  a  teacher 
sent  from  God  T  Let  us  have  a  clear  under- 
standing upon  these  points,  that  wo  may 
know  the  scope  and  urgency  of  our  work, 
and  do  it  mightily  with  both  hands. 

There  is  a  third  question  which  the  Apos- 
tle Paul  will  answer  in  a  remarkable  man- 
ner, In  what  spirit  did  you  conduct  your  minis- 
try f  Hear  his  reply : 

"I  was  with  you  in  weakness  and  fear 
and  much  trembling."  "  With  all  humility 
of  mind  and  many  tears."  "  I  warned  every 
one  night  and  day  with  tears." 

Mark  this  as  one  secret  of  the  apostle's 
power — he  always  felt  his  own  weakness,  and 
lie  always  saw  the  pathetic  aspects  of  his  work. 
He  trembled;  he  feared;  he  wept;  he  travail- 
ed in  birth !  Yet  how  few  suspected  the 
existence  of  such  experiences !  So  bold  that 
he  could  stand  alone ;  so  resolute  that  nei- 
ther bonds  nor  afflictions  could  move  him ; 
yet  was  he  heart-broken  as  a  minister  of  the 
Cross  of  Christ.  Paul  did  not  attempt  his 
work  in  an  off-hand  manner,  as  if  he  were 
superior  to  it,  and  could  do  it  without  strain 
or  effort.  It  was  evermore  above  him;  it 
exhausted  and  mocked  the  mean  sufficiencies 
of  human  resource ;  it  scorched  and  consumed 
him  like  an  altar  fire !  "  Who,"  said  he,  "  is 
sufficient  for  these  things  ?"  Think  of  Paul 
weeping !  When  he  wept  it  was  with  "  many 
tears."  Who  could  argue  like  Paul,  whose 
every  word  struck  like  a  battering  ram,  yet 
who  could  cry  with  tears  so  many  and  so 
bitter  ?  A  good  deal  of  useful  work  may  be 
done  with  logic,  but  without  pathos  we  can 
never  get  that  special  and  indescribable  in- 
fluence which  touches  all  hearts,  speaks  all 
languages,  and  sheds  the  light  of  hope  upon 
all  lives.  Pathos  is  not,  indeed,  one-sided. 
There  is  a  pathos  of  laughter  as  well  as  a 
pathos  of  tears ;  there  is  a  godly  laughter, 
easily  enough  distinguishable  from  the  mer- 
riment of  fools.  Argument  applied  with 
pathos  means  mastery  the  world  over ;  argu- 
ment without  pathos  may  burn  up  ill  weeds, 
but  can  never  produce  gardens  of  loveliness 
or  Edens  of  delight.  We  must  have  the  dew 
as  well  as  the  fire. 

Looking,  then,  at  the  substance,  the  man- 
ner, and  the  spirit  of  Paul's  preaching,  I  con- 
tend, in  answer  to  the  question  which  is  in- 
volved in  my  subject,  that  in  proportion  as 
we  return  to  apostolic  doctrine  and  method 
will  our  preaching  be  adapted  to  all  the  great 
necessities  of  our  own  and  every  succeeding 
age.  I  trust  I  am  not  violating  the  spirit 
of  an  honest  charity  in  expressing  the  belief 
that  the  time  is  at  hand  when  the  preaching 
of  Christ  crucified,  without  the  wisdom  of 
mere  words,  and  with  much  trembling  and 
pathos,  will  be  the  only  original  preaching. 


In  some  quarters  we  have  a  Christ,  but  not 
a  Christ  crucified;  a  character  in  history,  but 
not  a  sacrifice  for  sins,  or  a  mediator  between 
God  and  man.  When  Peter  mentioned  the 
name  of  Christ  to  the  Sanhedrim,  ho  set  an 
example  to  all  preachers  evermore — "  Jesus 
Christ  of  Nazareth  whom  ye  crucified  " — that 
is  the  full  style  and  title  of  the  Saviour!  Eu- 
inous  mistakes  may  arise  out  of  its  abbre- 
viation. We  have  now  to  be  very  definite 
in  the  statement  of  his  name,  because  many 
false  Christs  have  gone  out  into  the  world 
— creatures  of  the  imagination,  spectres  seen 
in  troubled  dreams,  painted  things  made  to 
order  and  sold  for  a  price.  Let  us  in  so  foul 
a  market-place  remember  that  the  name  of 
the  Infinite  Saviour,  God  the  Son,  is  Jesus — 
Jesus  Christ — Jesus  Christ  of  Nazareth — Je- 
sus Christ  of  Nazareth  whom  every  man  has 
crucified  by  his  own  great  sin! 

This  call  to  reproduce  the  substance,  the 
manner,  and  the  spirit  of  apostolic  preach- 
ing is  not  a  call  to  a  narrow  or  superficial 
ministry.  An  inexperienced  man  might,  on 
hearing  the  range  of  Paul's  preaching,  sug- 
gest the  easy  possibility  of  speedily  exhaust- 
ing it.  "  Preach  Christ  crucified !"  he  might 
exclaim.  "  Why,  that  may  be  done  in  a  ser- 
mon or  two!"  Such  are  the  mistakes  of 
ignorance  and  vanity!  The  maturest  and 
ablest  men  in  the  Christian  ministry  will 
testify,  with  tears  of  delight  and  thankful- 
ness, that  the  gracious  mystery  of  redemp- 
tion by  the  Cross  has  evermore  grown  before 
the  vision  of  their  reverence  and  love  until 
it  has  filled  all  things  with  its  mournful,  its 
holy  and  infinite  glory.  They  will  testify 
further  that  the  Cross  of  Christ — the  Christ 
of  Nazareth — is  the  only  key  which  can 
open  the  secrets  of  human  history,  and  that 
human  history  apart  from  that  Cross  is  con- 
fusion without  hope — a  wild,  fierce  fight,  end- 
ing in  the  hopelessness  of  a  beast's  grave. 
He  who  has  no  crucified  and  redeeming 
Christ  to  preach  wastes  his  little  strength 
within  the  narrowest  limits,  though  he  may 
appear  to  have  wide  liberty  of  action:  he 
can  but  talk  at  men ;  ho  can  never  speak  to 
them,  to  their  agonies,  their  heart-hunger, 
their  helplessness,  their  dumb  and  vehement 
aspirations.  His  mouth  is  filled  with  mock- 
ing, and  his  words  are  instruments  of  cruel- 
ty ;  as  for  his  prayers,  they  are  as  birds  with 
broken  wings,  tormented  by  their  'own  im- 
potence, testifying  to  the  presence  of  an  in- 
stinct, but  never  reaching  the  gates  of  tho 
sun.  Seest  thou  not,  O  student  of  God,  that 
tho  great,  dear,  sad  Cross  is  everywhere, 
and,  if  thy  course  as  a  teacher  be  determined 
by  any  other  meridian,  thou  shalt  be  as  a 
thief  among  men,  and  at  last  be  damned  as 
a  slayer  of  souls  ?  History  will  show  that 
the  preachers  who  have  taken  deepest  hold 
of  human  life  have  been  most  faithful  to 
the  Cross  of  Christ ;  others  have  had  their 
reward  for  divers  gifts  and  excellences,  yet 


PAEKER :  MODERN  PREACHING  AND  ITS  REQUIREMENTS. 


385 


beyond  a  momentary  applause  they  have 
had  but  little  lieu  upon  the  love  and  thank- 
fulness of  human  hearts.  The  preaching  of 
Josus  Christ  crucified  has  always  elicited 
the  greatest  answers  from  those  who  have 
heard  it.  These  answers  have  confirmed 
the  divinity  of  the  doctrine,  and  set  the  seal 
of  heaven  upon  the  preacher's  purpose  and 
method.  What  have  those  answers  been? 
Answers  of  penitence,  of  loyalty,  of  service; 
grief  on  account  of  sin,  devotion  to  the  Re- 
deemer's Cross ;  service  without  weariness, 
a  pursuit  of  the  lost ;  a  healing  of  the  dis- 
eased; a  teaching  of  the  ignorant,  and  uu- 
despairing  prayer  for  those  who  are  out 
of  the  way.  What  results  have  attended 
preaching  of  an  opposite  kind  ?  Pedantry, 
sciolism,  self-worship,  a  theology  without  re- 
ligion, a  temple  without  a  God — these  wo 
have  found,  together  with  a  gentility  cold 
as  death,  and  a  self-absorption  cruel  as  the 
grave ;  but  nowhere  have  we  discovered  the 
"  living  sacrifice  "  and  the  godly  self-denial 
which  are  born  of  the  atonement  of  God  the 
Son. 

Faithfulness  to  the  apostolic  doctriue  and 
method  will  save  the  preacher  from  all  the 
narrowness  of  mere  denominationalism  in 
the  exercise  of  his  ministry,  and  from  all 
other  narrowness  of  thought  and  sympathy. 
Denominatioualism,  properly  understood  and 
wisely  administered,  has  most  excellent  uses, 
yet  we  can  not  have  too  little  of  it  in  the 
Christian  pulpit.  In  the  pulpit  we  should 
hear  the  universal  language  of  God's  love  to 
mankind,  and  not  the  provincial  dialect  of 
zealotry  and  sectarianism.  The  wise  pastor 
will  have  his  classes  for  private  instruction 
in  many  points  of  secondary  and  relative  im- 
portance, but  his  pulpit  will  be  sacred  to  the 
proclamation  of  the  eternal  truth  which  man 
needs  in  all  places  and  at  all  times.  This 
brings  me  to  a  point  which  should  be  treated 
with  delicate  discrimination.  The  preach- 
er's lips  need  not  be  sealed  upon  what  are 
called  the  questions  of  the  day ;  yet,  in  my 
opinion,  he  will  treat  such  questions  more 
successfully  by  the  exposition  of  great  prin- 
ciples than  by  becoming  a  special  pleader 
or  sinking  into  a  mere  debater.  On  the  oth- 
er hand,  allowance  must  be  made  for  men 
of  exceptional  gifts  and  peculiar  influence. 
There  are  ministers  of  Ararious  denomina- 
tions, in  whom  we  glorify  God,  and  for  whom 
we  can  never  cease  to  thank  him,  who  are 
specially  qualified  to  discuss  secular  ques- 
tions iu  the  course  of  a  religious  service. 
Such  men  must  ever  be  a  law  unto  them- 
selves. I  have  no  reference,  how  remote  so- 
ever, to  them  when  I  urgently  advise  those 
who  are  younger  than  myself  to  refrain  while 
in  the  pulpit  from  the  discussion  of  all  pa- 
rochial, secular,  political,  and  other  tempo- 
rary questions.  They  will  find  enough  to 
do  without  discussing  such  topics.  In  lead- 
ing public  worship,  tn  expounding  the  Scrip- 
25 


tures,  and  in  holding  up  the  Cross  over  the 
whole  field  of  human  sin  and  want,  the  fin- 
est powers  of  the  most  brilliant  preacher 
may  well  be  exhausted. 

As  to  "preaching  to  the  day,"  I  have  a  dis- 
tinct opinion  to  express.  In  so  exercising 
our  ministry  there  is  a  danger  that  we  speak 
very  loudly  and  eloquently  to  men  who  nev- 
er hear  us.  The  young  preacher  reads  the 
last  number  of  a  skeptical  review,  and  in- 
stantly sits  down  to  the  composition  of  a 
sermon  which  is  to  destroy  the  logical  posi- 
tion of  the  reviewer ;  yet,  alas  for  the  vigor 
of  the  preacher  and  the  dignity  of  the  whole 
situation,  not  a  man  in  the  assembly  ever 
heard  of  the  article,  and  the  reviewer  him- 
self is  unaware  of  the  very  existence  of  the 
preacher.  Possibly,  too,  the  people  may  un- 
fortunately remember  the  objection  when 
they  have  forgotten  the  answer,  and  thus 
the  preacher  may  become  the  ally  of  the 
skeptic.  That  some  people  may  be  pleased 
with  the  kind  of  preaching  which  is  ad- 
dressed to  "  the  day  "  is  far  from  improbable, 
seeing  that  it  never  stings  the  conscience; 
it  never  condescends  to  enter  the  region  of 
moral  discipline ;  it  is  simply  a  sublime  fight 
in  the  air,  in  the  exciting  progress  of  which 
the  combatants  fiercely  strike  at  nothing, 
and  hit  it  with  magnificent  precision.  There 
is  neither  irony  nor  sarcasm  in  the  state- 
ment that  in  listening  to  some  preachers — 
deservedly  conspicuous  and  influential,  it 
may  be — one  receives  the  impression  that 
there  is  an  eager  though  invisible  auditory 
before  them  whose  one  object  is  to  give  them 
the  lie  at  the  end  of  every  sentence,  and  to 
convict  them  of  lunacy  in  the  construction 
of  every  argument.  This  is  supposed  to  be 
"  preaching  to  the  day !"  The  fact  is  that 
in  such  cases  the  preacher  is  rather  replying 
to  the  books  which  he  has  been  reading  dur- 
ing the  week  than  devoting  himself  to  the 
treatment  of  the  actual  experience  repre- 
sented by  his  congregation.  I  am  far  enough 
from  denying  that  notice  should  be  paid  to 
current  criticism  upon  Christian  doctrine, 
but  quite  as  far  from  asserting  that  such  no- 
tice should  be  paid  from  th«  pulpit.  Writ- 
ten attacks  are  best  mot  by  written  defenses, 
and,  even  Avere  it  not  so  in  a  literary  point 
of  view,  it  is  certainly  more  honorable  to 
meet  an  enemy  on  his  own  ground  thaiv  to 
fire  upon  him  from  the  security  of  a  privi- 
leged position.  More  than  this:  the  Chris- 
tian pulpit  turned  into  a  medium  for  the 
advertisement  of  unchristian  books  is  a 
flagrant  violation  of  public  stewardship. 
Preachers  have  enough  to  do  without  de- 
grading the  sanctuary  into  an  arena  of  ex 
parte  debate :  "  Take  heed  therefore  unto 
yourselves,  and  to  all  the  flock,  over  the 
which  the  Holy  Ghost  hath  made  you  over- 
seers, to  feed  the  Church  of  God,  which  ho 
hath  purchased  with  his  own  blood." 

That  the  Gospel  is  a  message  to  humanity 


CHRISTIAN  LIFE. 


ratlior  than  to  any  special  set  of  men  will  be 
unanimously  agreed.  The  Christian  sanc- 
tuary is  not  a  high  school  for  the  technical 
education  of  a  few  pupils,  but  a  free  public 
school  for  the  instruction  of  the  whole  world: 
the  rich  and  the  poor  meet  together ;  the  mas- 
ter and  the  servant ;  the  old  man  and  the  lit- 
tle child ;  the  strong  and  the  weak,  all  are 
there,  and  upon  them  all  the  rain  of  a  com- 
mon blessing  should  descend.  Loss  of  sym- 
pathy is  loss  of  power.  If  as  preachers  we 
become  separated  from  the  common  mass  by 
betaking  ourselves  to  some  specialty  of  our 
vocation — as,  for  example,  the  refutation  of 
skeptics  who  never  listen  to  us,  and  the  de- 
struction of  theories  of  whose  very  existence 
nine-tenths  of  our  hearers  are  totally  una- 
ware— we  shall  cut  ourselves  off  from  those 
currents  of  sympathy  upon  whose  right  use 
so  much  of  ministerial  usefulness  depends. 
From  the  ministry  of  pedantic  debaters, 
mothers  (whose  lives  oscillate  between  pain 
and  care)  will  retire  without  a  word  that 
can  make  their  families  glad,  little  children 
will  escape  as  from  a  great  weariness,  and 
men  of  business  will  turn  away  with  the 
pain  of  grievous  disappointment ;  and  thus 
the  man  who  should  have  come  down  upon 
human  life  as  an  angel  charged  with  mes- 
sages from  the  secret  place  of  th'e  Most  High 
will  become  a  mere  chatterer  of  unprofitable 
words,  talking  an  unknown  tongue  to  men 
who  long  for  truth  and  love. 

As  to  the  manner  of  the  preacher,  I  may 
express  the  hope  that  the  day  will  never 
come  when  individuality  will  cease  to  dis- 
tinguish the  ministry.  It  is  written  upon 
all  the  works  of  God :  why  should  it  not  be 
written  upon  the  sanctuary,  the  chiefest  and 
brightest  of  his  creations  ?  Who  am  I  that 
I  should  find  fault  censoriously  with  my 
brother's  way?  Have  I  had  some  secret 
revelation  from  heaven  which  has  been  de- 
nied to  him  ?  Hath  God  made  but  one  in- 
strument ?  Is  not  the  trumpet  his,  and  the 
lute,  the  organ,  and  the  instrument  of  ten 
strings  ?  Do  I  not  hear  in  his  house  the 
clash  of  cymbals,  the  throb  of  drums,  and 
the  silver  of  sweet  bells  ?  Every  man  must 
preach  in  the  way  in  which  he  can  use  his 
power  to  advantage — the  advantage  always 
being  the  spiritual  progress  of  the  hearer, 
and  not  the  mere  elevation  and  fame  of  the 
speaker.  It  would  appear  as  if  to  win  a 


world-wide  renown,  to  make  the  ears  of  all 
nations  tingle,  it  is  necessary  to  pass  through 
a  period  of  offense  and  antagonism.  Fault- 
less respectability  never  made  itself  known 
afar.  Gentility  seldom  gets  beyond  its  own 
parish.  And  even  the  highest  quality  of 
power — intellect  in  its  inspired  moods,  and 
excitement  so  terrible  that  it  is  mistaken 
for  calmness — is  sometimes  doomed  to  lim- 
itation, if  not  obscurity.  The  men  who  have 
become  the  chief  figures  in  the  Christian  pul- 
pits of  all  lauds — the  men  whose  names  are 
known  in  out-of-the-way  places  and  by  the 
most  unlikely  people — the  men  who  belong 
to  the  world,  have  all,  in  some  degree,  been 
a  by- word  and  an  offense  for  a  time ;  in  some 
sense  it  has  been  said  of  each  of  them,  "  He 
hath  a  devil  and  is  mad,  why  hear  ye  him  f " 
But  if  the  word  of  the  Lord  has  been  in  him, 
and  his  soul  has  been  the  dwelling-place 
of  the  Holy  Ghost,  he  has  thrown  off  all  the 
crudeness  and  vulgarity  of  early  practice, 
and  become  a  master  and  a  ruler  in  the 
kingdom  of  the  Church.  The  fear  is,  how- 
ever, that,  in  making  an  admission  like  this, 
some  young  man  may  begin  as  an  ape  and 
end  as  a  fool ;  that  is  to  say,  he  will  repeat 
extravagances  and  eccentricities,  without 
knowing  any  thing  of  the  spiritual  power 
and  genius  of  his  model.  There  is  no  help 
for  it.  I  can  not  waste  my  time  in  any  at- 
tempt to  reclaim  such  a  man.  It  would  ap- 
pear as  if  there  must  be  "  a  son  of  perdition  " 
in  every  company.  In  such  a  man  there  is 
a  great  law  at  work,  and  he,  by  his  mad- 
ness, is  giving  all  diligence  to  make  his  call- 
ing and  election  sure.  May  his  day  be  short, 
and  his  death  easy ! 

To  those  Avho  do  not  preach  let  me  say : 
POM  determine  to  a  large  extent  the  kind  of 
preaching  which  is  popular.  I  look  to  hear- 
ers as  well  as  to  preachers  for  a  genuine  re- 
form of  the  pulpit  wherever  reform  is  need- 
ed. You  must  insist  upon  hearing  the  Gos- 
pel! When  you  distinguish  between  gold 
and  tinsel,  when  yon  show  your  disgust  for 
the  mere  prettinesses  of  pulpit  dolls,  when 
you  protest  against  all  trilling  with  the  real- 
ities of  life  and  destiny,  when  you  set  your 
face  like  a  flint  against  all  that  is  unsub- 
stantial in  doctrine  and  all  that  is  vicious  in 
ritual,  you  will  soon  drive  the  hireling  from 
the  pulpit  and  banish  the  tallow-chandler 
from  the  altar  of  God. 


THE  BEST  METHODS  OF  PKEACHING. 


BY  THE  KEY.  DANIEL  P.  KIDDER,  D.D., 

Professor  in  the  Drew  Theological  Seminary,  Madison,  New  Jersey. 


THE  experiments  of  eighteen  hundred 
years  have  proved  that  the  world  needs  no 
new  gospel,  and  equally  that  the  wisest 
minds  can  not  hope  essentially  to  improve 
upon  the  original  plan  for  diffusing  Chris- 
tian truth  throughout  the  earth.  Whatever 
improvement  is  possible  was  comprehended 
in  the  scope  of  that  original  plan,  and  was 
designed  to  grow  out  of  its  appropriate  work- 
ing. The  desideratum  of  the  present  as  of 
other  times  is  a  hotter  comprehension  of  the 
great  designs  of  the  Author  of  the  Gospel, 
and  of  the  means  and  methods  which  he 
appointed  for  its  promulgation.  Whoever, 
therefore,  would  learn  the  best  methods  of 
preaching  must  take  his  first  and  highest 
lessons  in  the  school  of  Christ.  Let  him 
study  -with  devout  attention  the  precepts 
and  the  example  of  Him  who  "  spake  as 
never  man  spake."  Then  let  him  well  con- 
sider those  direct  illustrations  of  the  Mas- 
ter's word  and  will  furnished  in  the  practice 
and  teaching  of  the  Apostles.  From  the  in- 
spired Word  let  him  learn  the  power  of  di- 
vine truth  in  its  application  to  his  own  heart 
and  life.  Then  let  his  soul  become  deeply 
imbued  with  the  love  and  zeal  which  char- 
acterized Him  who  came  to  seek  and  to  save 
the  lost. 

These  essential  preliminaries  having  been 
attained,  it  is  proper  to  seek  auxiliary  in- 
struction from  the  experience  of  .successive 
ages,  and  also  to  make  sure  of  those  special 
adaptations  to  our  own  age  and  circum- 
stances which  God  in  his  providence  sug- 
gests. 

"Great  has  been  the  company  of  the 
preachers  "  in  the  past,  and  we  of  the  pres- 
ent may  hope  to  profit  by  the  successes  and 
failures  of  those  who  have  gone  before  us. 
As  time  rolls  on,  and  as  the  human  mind 
becomes  educated  to  a  better  comprehension 
of  Christian  truth,  the  practical  uses  of  that 
truth  should  be  ever  improving,  while  Chris- 
tian men  and  ministers  become  more  capable 
of  avoiding  errors  and  mistakes.  Much  has 
already  been  learned  of  the  deep  things  of 
God,  but  how  far  are  we  yet  from  having 
sounded  the  depths  of  the  ocean  of  revealed 
truth!  So,  with  all  that  has  been  accom- 
plished in  preaching  the  Gospel,  who  can 
suppose  that  the  maximum  of  preaching 
power  has  yet  been  attained ! 

While  we  may  thankfully  claim  that  the 


preaching  of  the  past  has  done  much  for  the 
salvation  of  men  and  the  glory  of  God — in- 
deed, directly  or  indirectly,  all  that  has  been 
done  toward  evangelizing  the  nations  and 
diffusing  Christianity  in  the  world — .yet 
how  much  more  that  it  might  have  done 
has  it  left  unaccomplished  1 

What  multitudes  within  the  hearing  of 
its  voice  have  lived  and  died  unmoved  and 
unsaved!  What  long  periods  of  time  have 
been  barren  of  evangelical  results !  What 
vast  regions  of  the  earth  have  never  yet  been 
reached  by  the  proclamation  of  the  Gospel ! 
Even  in  the  most  favored  lands,  what  myr- 
iads, what  majorities,  have  remained  indif- 
ferent to  the  great  salvation ! 

When  we  consider  what  the  Gospel  was 
appointed  to  do,  and  what  it  was  capable  of 
having  done  ere  this,  we  are  compelled  to 
lament  that  the  preaching  of  the  past  and 
even  of  the  present  has  fallen  very  far  short 
of  its  possibilities  for  good.  What  is  worse, 
preaching  has  been  found  capable  of  perver- 
sion, and  successive  ages  have  suffered  from 
its  power  for  evil. 

In  the  early  centuries  it  was  the  propa- 
gcitor  of  prolific  heresies.  During  the  pe- 
riod of  the  ancient  Church,  it  insinuated 
into  well-intentioned  minds  the  false  princi- 
ples of  asceticism,  and  thus  exiled  to  deserts 
and  monasteries  many  of  the  best  men  and 
women  of  the  Church  whoso  presence  was 
indescribably  needed  in  society  and  in  Chris- 
tian work.  In  mediaeval  times,  under  the 
lead  of  such  men  as  Peter  the  Hermit  and 
Bernard  of  Clairvaux,  it  waved  a  fire-brand 
over  the  nations,  and  urged  millions  of  men, 
and  even  thousands  of  children,  to  set  out 
on  warlike  crusades,  in  which  most  of  them 
fell  victims  to  the  false  zeal  which  pervert- 
ed preaching  and  ecclesiastical  authority 
had  aroused.  Even  in  this  last  generation 
of  the  nineteenth  century,  the  debasing  il- 
lusions of  Spiritism  and  the  loathsome  doc- 
trines of  Mormouism  are  propagated  and 
maintained  by  a  system  of  perverted  preach- 
ing. But  as  such  perversions,  however  per- 
petrated in  the  name  of  Christ,  are  obvious 
departures  from  the  truth  and  method  of  the 
Gospel,  so  their  one  essential  remedy  is  to 
bo  found  in  the  more  diligent  and  faithful 
preaching  of  the  truth  as  it  is  in  Jesus. 

The  practical  question  before  us  now  is 
whether  we  can  not  by  means  of  Scripture 


CHRISTIAN  LIFE. 


and  experience  ami  the  aid  of  the  Holy  Spirit  office  lie  not  only  exploded  the  en-ore  which, 

go  measure  up  to  the  original  and  authorita-   +'"•""-'• »-  —„„*„„ *  i *-:..  u~ ,1 

tive  standard  of  preaching,  as  that  hence- 
forth it  may  answer  ita  full  design  of  at- 


through  man's  apostasy  and  love  of  sin,  had 
long  brooded  like  thick  darkness  over  the 
minds  both  of  Jews  and  Gentiles,  but  ho 


tracting  all  cars,  impressing  all  minds,  and  j  introduced  a  system  of  pure  and  positive 


winning  all  hearts.  Let  us,  therefore,  with 
practical  ends  in  view,  proceexl  to  a  brief 
analysis,  seeking  to  determine  what  are  the 
essential  elements  of  that  preaching  which 


truth,  adequate  to  the  spiritual  wants  of 
mankind.  He  also  set  in  a  clear  light  many 
truths  previously  but  dimly  revealed,  and 
some  that  had  been  partially  obscured  by 


was  appointed  by  the  great  Head  of  the   the  shadows  of  error.     In  this  manner  ho 
Church  for  the  evangelization  of  the  world,     illustrated  his  own  declaration,  "I  am  the 

We  find  that  its  fundamental  idea  is  based  way,  the  TRUTH,  and  the  life." 
upon  the  social  nature  of  man,  and  his  inher-  In  the  great  commission  he  invested  his 
ent  desire  of  communications  from  his  fellow-  ministers  with  the  teaching  office,  magnify- 
men.  Hence  human  lips  are  employed  to  ad-  ;  ing  their  work  as  the  instructors  of  men  by 
dress  human  ears  and  human  hearts.  We  (  a  double  stress,  "Go  teach  all  nations,  TEACH- 
here  strike  the  clue  to  a  series  of  elements  IXG  them  to  observe  all  things  whatsoever 


which  have  always  been  found  in  the  suc- 
cessful preaching  of  the  past,  and  which 
need  to  be  combined  in  a  greater  degree  and 
more  thoroughly  intensified  in  the  preaching 
of  the  present  and  future. 

1.  The  Power  to  arrest  and  command  Atten- 
tion.— Men  are  naturally  averse  to  Christian 
truth.  They  prefer  entertainment,  excite- 
ment of  the  fancy,  amusement,  indifference, 
any  tiling  that  will  leave  them  to  the  in- 
clinations of  their  hearts  or  the  wayward- 


I  have  commanded  you."  It  is  only  in  com- 
pliance with  this  feature  of  the  Saviour's 
command  that  they  can  claim  his  added 
promise,  "  Lo,  I  am  with  yon  alway,  to  the 
end  of  the  world."  "Apt  to  teach"  was 
also  the  requirement  of  a  representative 
apostle,  who  commanded  his  son  in  the  Gos- 
pel to  commit  the  teaching  office,  as  it  is 
still  required  of  the  Church  to  do,  "  to  them 
who  shall  be  able  to  teach  others  also." 
The  perpetual  renewal  of  human  society 


ness  of  their  lives.  It  is  the  preacher's  busi-  by  successive  generations  of  the  young  and 
ness  to  break  the  spell  that  binds  them,  to  j  inexperienced  makes  perpetual  the  necessity 
disturb  their  self-satisfaction,  and  to  diseii-  i  of  the  task  of  Christian  instruction.  Bnty 
gage  their  anxieties  from  the  worldliuess  if  it  were  not  so,  the  fathomless  depths  and 
that  absorbs  them.  This  is  not  to  be  ac- 1  the  infinite  extension  of  Christian  truth  de- 
complished  by  petty  surprises  or  by  star- !  mand  for  it  ever  new  applications  to  the- 
tling  paradoxes.  They  may  excite  atten-  changing  circumstances  of  humanity,  and 
tion  for  the  moment,  but  usually  they  will  invite  its  students  onward  to  ever  new  and 


react  both  against  the  preacher  and  his 
message.  True-  and  effective  preaching 
demands  a  manner  worthy  of  the  truth  it 
seeks  to  proclaim.  That  manner  must  be 


expanding  regions  of  thought.  Thus  it  is 
that,  while  secular  oratory  exhausts  itself 
with  special  occasions,  and  even  science  be- 
comes a  "tale  that  is  told,"  the  Word  and 


dignified,  though  not  austere.  It  must  in-  ;  truth  of  God  are  like  perennial  fountains, 
dicate  a  consciousness  of  the  supreme  im-  ever  sending  forth  streams  of  freshness  and 
portance  of  the  message  to  be  delivered,  and  beauty.  It  is  the  privilege  of  the  preacher 
the  extreme  necessities  of  those  who  ought  to  draw  from  those  fountains,  and  minister 
to  receive  it.  Such  a  consciousness  will  the  waters  of  life  to  them  "that  hunger  and 


banish  formality  as  an  impertinence  scarce- 
ly less  tolerable  than  frivolity  itself.  It 
will  appeal  alike  to  the  self-respect  and  the 
conscious  wants  of  the  hearer,  and,  having 
arrested  his  attention,  will  tend  to  fasten 
it  upon  the  growing  interest  of  the  theme. 
No  preacher  can  hold  the  attention  of  an 
audience  who  has  not  important  thoughts 
to  utter,  and  who  can  not  utter  them  in  a 
manner  worthy  of  their  import  and  design. 
Distinctness  of  articulation,  skill  in  empha- 
sis, clearness  of  arrangement,  and  fervor  in 


delivery,  all  have  their  uses  for  this  object, 


thirst  after  righteousness."  Whatever  elso 
preaching  may  lack,  it  ought  never,  consid- 
ering the  richness  and  productiveness  of  its 
themes,  to  be  barren  or  unfruitful  of  profit- 
able instruction  in  reference  to  "  the  things 
of  the  kingdom  of  God." 

3.  Preaching  should  convince  the  Judgment. — 
"Knowing  the  terrors  of  the  law," said  Paul, 
"  we  persuade  men."  It  was  the  compulsion 
of  persuasion  which  the  Saviour  enjoined 
upon  his  disciples  as  a  means  of  inducing 


men  to  come  in,  that  his  Father's  houso 
might  be  filled.     Hence  the  control  of  at- 

and,  well  combined,  ought  to  secure  an  ever-  j  tendon  and  the  impartation  of  instruction, 
deepening  interest  to  the  truth  uttered  in   however  important  of  themselves,  are  nev- 


application  to  the  heart,  and  life,  and  des- 
tiny of  the  hearer.  •  . 

2.  Tlte  Quality  of  imparting  Instruction.— 


ertheless  to  be  regarded  as  means  to  tho 
higher  end  of  convincing  men  of  spiritual 
truth  and  religious  duty.  As  God  has  im- 


One  of  the  most  important  phases  of  Christ's  planted  reasoning  faculties  in  every  mind, 
character  was  that  in  which  he  appeared  as  it.  is  the  preacher's  duty  to  bring  Christian 
the  world's  great  Teacher.  In  his  teaching  truth  within  the  action  of  those  faculties, 


KIDDER:   THE  BEST  METHODS  OF  PREACHING. 


389 


so  that  they  may  be  enlisted  iu  its  reception 
and  study.  To  this  end,  he  must  be  a  lov- 
er of  truth,  and  must  illustrate  its  influence 
not  only  in  his  life,  but  in  his  modes  of  rea- 
soning. No  mental  reservations  must  be  al- 
lowed to  underlie  his  statements,  no  covert 
sophistries  to  impeach  his  candor,  and  no 
evasions  to  betray  his  lack  of  confidence  in 
the  truths  he  assumes  to  utter.  His  motto 
must  be,  "  Having  believed,  therefore  do  I 
speak,"  and,  in  showing  forth  the  reasons  for 
the  hope  that  is  in  him,  he  will  not  fail  to 
persuade  others  also. 

4.  Preaching  should  arouse  the  Conscience. — 
It  was  specially  designed  to  reach  and  quick- 
en that  silent  and  often  silenced  monitor  of 
every  breast,  which,  however  averse  its  pos- 
sessor may  be,  seldom  fails  to  respond  to  ear- 
nest reasoning  on  "  temperance,  righteous- 
Jiess,  and  a  judgment  to  come."     Powerless 
and  valueless  for  true  religious  effect  are 
those  sermons  which  .awaken  no  echoes  in 
the  chambers  of  conscience ;   whereas  the 
faithful  word  which  startles  into  action  a 
dormant  consciousness  of  guilt  before  God, 
and  confronts  a  careless  soul  with  its  own 
short-comings  and  their  consequences,  is  of 
priceless  value  in  the  moral  history  of  that 
Boul. 

When  the  conscience  is  properly  aroused, 
it  becomes  au  auxiliary  of  untold  power  to 
aid  the  preacher  in  his  further  work.  It  sup- 
plies the  listening  ear,  the  tender  heart,  the 
consenting  will.  Thus  it  is  that,  through 
the  office  of  preaching,  God  works  within 
men  "  to  will  and  to  do  of  his  own  good  pleas- 
ure," and  yet  in  perfect  harmony  with  their 
individual  freedom  of  choice  and  action. 

5.  Preaching  should  melt  the  Sensibilities. — 
As  man  embraces  in  his  nature  the  most  va- 
ried powers  and  susceptibilities,  so  preach- 
ing was  designed  to  address  and  influence 
every  faculty  of  his  being.     Intensely  falla- 
cious, therefore,  is  the  theory  of  some  that 
preaching  should  only  address  the  judgment. 
That,  indeed,  is  to  be  done  in  a  manly  and 
.faithful  manner  ;  but  the  more  delicate  task 
of  warming  the  heart  and  kindling  the  emo- 
tions is  not  to  be  left  undone.     For  this 
there  is  no  power  equal  to  a  right  exercise 
and  an  unaffected  expression  of  the  religious 
affections.     How  tamo  is  the  classic  precept 
of  Horace,  "  Weep  yourself  if  you  would  see 
others  weep,"  compared  with  the  heart  ut- 
terances of  the  Hebrew  prophets  and  psalm- 
ist!    Listen  to  Jeremiah  as  he  exclaims, 
"  Oh  that  my  head  were  waters,  and  mine 
eyes  a  fountain  of  tears,  that  I  might  weep 
day  and  night  for  the  slain  of  the  daughter 
of  my  people !"    Also  to  David  when  ho  said, 
"  They  that  sow  in  tears  shall  reap  in  joy. 
He  that  goeth  forth  and  weepeth,  bearing 
precious  seed,  shall  doubtless  come  again 
with  rejoicing,  bringing  his  sheaves  with 
him."      The  preacher  who  cherishes  or  il- 
hjstrates  a  cold,  unsympathetic  nature,  or 


whose  ideas  of  propriety  would  repress  ev- 
ery emotion  that  does  not  freeze  in  its  ut- 
terance, is  but  a  poor  representative  of  Him 
who  shed  tears  over  Jerusalem  and  who 
wept  at  the  grave  of  Lazarus ! 

If  "  love  is  the  fulfilling  of  the  law,"  and 
if  Christian  "  faith  works  by  love  and  pu- 
rifies the  heart,"  then  let  no  preacher  of  the 
Gospel  fear  or  fail  to  cherish  a  consuming 
love  for  his  fellow-men,  and  to  imbue  his 
messages  with  a  warmth  of  sentiment  which 
will  soften  frigid  hearts  and  melt  down  the 
obduracy  of  impenitence.  Well  has  it  been 
said  that  he  who  loves  most  will  preach  best. 

6.  The  great  End,  Aim,  and  Result  of  Preach- 
ing should  be  to  lead  Sinners  to  the  Saviour,— 
All  other  elements  focalize  in  this.     Hence, 
whether  by  instruction,  persuasion,  convic- 
tion, or  entreaty,  or  by  all  combined,  the 
preacher  must  by  all  means  strive  to  save 
men.     Hence,  also,  that  method  or  combi- 
nation of  methods  which  will  save  most  is 
without  question  the  best.     At  this  point 
the  controlling  purpose  of  the  preacher  will 
greatly  influence  the  character  of  his  preach- 
ing.    Moral  and  spiritual  results  rarely  en- 
sue by  accident.     The  laws  of  intellectual 
and  spiritual  influence  are  not  less  positive 
than  those  which  govern  matter.     He  that 
would  preach  the  Gospel  for  the  glory  of 
God  and  the  salvation  of  men  must  study 
those  laws  and  avail  himself  of  their  power. 
Of  all  the  good  gifts  which  it  is  permitted 
men  to  covet,  that  of  winning  souls  is  the 
greatest.     For  the  attainment  of  this  it  is 
the  privilege  of  every  minister  of  the  Lord 
Jesus  to  toil  with  a  holy  ambition  and  to 
pray  with  an  unwavering  faith,  relying  upon 
the  promised  aid  of  the  Holy  Ghost.     For 
this,  he  should  account  no  labor  irksome,  no 
study  hard,  no  experiment  profitless.     For 
this,  even  failures  may  become  to  him  les- 
sons of  help,  and  sacrifices  the  source  of 
glorious  rewards. 

A  ministry  that  is  not  crowned  with  the 
result  of  soul-saving,  however  it  may  win 
human  applause  or  snuft'  the  incense  of  ad- 
miration, is  poor  indeed!  Whereas  he  that 
is  blessed  of  God  in  using  the  appointed 
means  of  converting  sinners  from  the  error 
of  their  ways  enjoys  a  privilege  that  angels 
might  covet. 

7.  Preaching  should  educate  and  train  immor- 
tal Souls  for  Heaven. — The  Christian  life  is  a 
scene  of  probation  and  development.     Con- 
version, by  introducing  souls  into  the  fel- 
lowship of  the  Church,  places  them  iu  rela- 
tions in  which  they  can  be  taught  with  much 
greater  hope  of  profit  than  when  in  the  world. 
In  the  school  of  Christ,  ministers  should  not 
only  be  diligent  students,  but  practical  and 
faithful  instructors,  ministering  to  the  in- 
creased knowledge  and  spiritual  growth  of 
all  who  hear  them.     In  this  task  they  will 
prove  the  truth  of  the  Saviour's  words, "  Man 
shall  not  live  by  bread  alone,  but  by  every 


390 


CHRISTIAN  LIFE. 


word  that  proceedeth  ont  of  the  month  of 
God;"  also  of  Paul's  declaration,  "All  Scrip- 
ture is  given  by  inspiration  of  God,  and  is 
profitable  for  doctrine,  for  reproof,  for  cor- 
rection, for  instruction  in  righteousness." 

How  powerless  are  the  precepts  of  merely 
human  wisdom,  and  how  vain  the  devices  of 
men,  in  the  great  task  of  preparing  inhabit- 
ants  of  earth  for  the  companionship  of  an- 
gels and  the  society  of  God  in  heaven !  It  is 
here  that  secularists  and  all  who  clamor  for 
poetry,  philosophy,  and  the  arts  and  parade 
of  oratory  in  the  pulpit  fall  utterly  below 
the  essential  idea  of  preaching.  Paul  re- 
jected similar  solicitations  to  deviate  from 
his  one  theme  and  object,  and  his  words  fur- 
nish a  perfect  and  overwhelming  answer  to 
many  of  the  modern  would-be  reformers  of 
pulpit  themes  and  methods.  "Christ  sent 
me  to  preach  the  Gospel :  not  with  wisdom 
of  words,  lest  the  cross  of  Christ  sbould  be 
made  of  none  effect."  "I  determined  not 
to  know  any  thing  among  you,  save  Jesus 
Christ,  and  him  crucified."  "  And  my  speech 
and  my  preaching  was  not  with  enticing 
words  of  man's  wisdom,  but  in  demonstra- 
tion of  the  Spirit  and  of  power." 

Let  the  preacher,  then,  rely  supremely  ou 
the  revealed  truth  of  God,  through  which 
alone  true  Christian  successes  are  won ;  but 
let  him  seek  to  use  it  with  pertinence  and 
power,  that  bis  labor  may  not  be  in  vain 
in  the  Lord.  Regarding  redeemed  souls  as 
God's  building,  let  him  strive  to  build  them 
up  into  Christ,  their  living  Head.  The  best 
methods  of  doing  this  will  usually  corre- 
spond closely  to  those  by  which  his  own  soul 
is  strengthened  and  developed  in  all  good- 
ness and  in  the  graces  of  the  Christian  life. 
In  this  respect,  like  the  disciples,  he  should 
receive  the  bread  of  life  at  the  hand  of  Jesus 
and  distribute  it  among  the  multitudes. 

Although  it  is  impossible  to  overestimate 
the  essential  elements  of  successful  preach- 
ing, yet  let  it  not  be  supposed  that  absolute 
rules  or  unvarying  methods  are  to  be  pre- 
scribed to  all  ministers  of  the  Word.  Vari- 
ety of  mental  constitution  and  of  spiritual 
experience  prevails  as  extensively  among 
preachers  as  among  hearers.  Not  every  one 
that  is  truly  called  of  God  can  be  a  son  of 
thunder,  nor  can  all  ministers  of  the  truth 
bo  equally  the  sons  of  consolation.  The  va- 
rieties of  character  and  capacity  exhibited 
in  the  original  company  of  the  disciples  are 
strikingly  illustrative  of  similar  varieties 
ever  to  be  expected  in  the  increasing  multi- 
tude of  laborers  called  to  work  in  the  vine- 
yard of  the  Lord. 

Whatever  special  gifts  or  graces  any 
preacher  may  have  received,  he  should  con- 
scientiously cultivate  and  diligently  use  for 
the  instruction  and  salvation  of  his  fellow- 
men,  confident  that,  if  employed  with  an  eye 
single  to  God's  glory,  they  will  be  found  to 
the  advantage  of  many,  if  not  of  all,  who 


may  hoar  him.  Moreover,  while  coveting 
the  best  gifts  and  seeking  to  practice  the 
best  methods,  the  preacher  of  the  present 
day  should  not  remain  uninstructed  by  the 
bad  methods  and  mistaken  practices  of  those 
who  have  preceded  him  in  the  sacred  office. 
It  is  the  province  of  history  to  teach  by 
examples,  and  unfortunately  the  history  of 
preaching  records  many  examples  of  poor 
success,  and  indeed  of  utter  failure,  which 
should  serve  as  admonitions  to  the  ministry 
of  the  future. 

Happily  the  most  serious  errors  illustrated 
in  the  history  of  the  past  find  their  most 
hopeful  means  of  correction  in  the  cultiva- 
tion of  a  true  and  worthy  MINISTERIAL  CHAR- 
ACTER. 

If  heathen  rhetoricians  taught  the  neces- 
sity of  the  orator  being  a  good  man,  it  cer- 
tainly is  not  surprising  that  Divine  authori- 
ty should  require  "the  man  of  God,"  the  pub- 
lic preacher  of  righteousness,  to  "  be  perfect, 
thoroughly  furnished  unto  all  good  works" 
(2  Tim.  iii.,  17).  This  Scripture  at  its  very 
lowest  interpretation  demands  not  only  a 
genuine  conversion  and  a  divine  call,  but  a 
high  type  of  Christian  experience. 

How  can  a  man  teach  others  "the  things 
pertaining  to  the  kingdom  of  God  "  who  is 
not  divinely  taught  himself?  How  can  he 
persuade  other  men  of  the  truth  so  well  as 
when  deep  convictions  rule  his  own  thoughts 
and  govern  his  actual  life?  How  can  he 
hope  to  arouse  the  conscience  of  sinners  if 
his  own  conscience  be  palsied  by  self-seek- 
ing or  hypocrisy !  How  can  he  hope  to  lead 
unconverted  men  to  a  Saviour  whom  he  fol- 
lows "  afar  off,"  or  how  can  he  train  Chris- 
tians to  a  higher  state  of1  grace  than  he  him- 
self maintains?  Such  questions  answer 
themselves,  and  in  so  doing  clearly  demon- 
strate that  a  prime  and  indispensable  pre- 
requisite to  all  preaching  worthy  of  the  name 
is  a  deep,  personal,  and  living  experience 
of  the  power  of  Christian  truth.  Such  an 
experience  should  be  deemed  incompatible 
with  mental  indolence.  It  should  be  to  the 
preacher  a  continual  prompting  to  improve 
every  opportunity  of  self-cultivation,  and  to 
acquire  all  that  knowledge,  human  and  di- 
vine, which  is  requisite  to  make  him  "  a  work- 
man needing  not  to  be  ashamed,  rightly  di- 
viding the  word  of  truth." 

The  preacher  who  Avalks  worthy  of  his 
high  vocation,  which  is-of  God  in  Christ  Je- 
sus, will  hold  his  time,  his  talents,  and  his 
energies  consecrated  to  the  one  great  busi- 
ness of  proclaiming  the  Gospel  to  his  fellow- 
men.  Ho  will  make  all  other  engagements 
subsidiary  to  this,  and  with  continual  prac- 
tice and  experience  in  it  he  will  acquire  not 
only  increasing  skill,  but  a  holy  enthusiasm 
which  will  kindle  the  emotions  and  enlist 
the  sympathies  of  those  who  hear  him. 

When  in  addition  to  his  natural  and  ac- 
quired abilities  he  receives  in  answer  to 


KIDDER:  THE  BEST  METHODS  OF  PREACHING. 


391 


promise  and  to  prayer  "wisdom  from  oil 
high  "  and  the  blessed  "  unction  of  the  Holy 
One,"  by  whom  he  may  hope  to  be  spiritu- 
ally anointed  for  his  work,  he  may  rest  as- 
sured that,  however  great  the  difficulties  be- 
fore him,  his  labors  will  not  be  fruitless,  or 
fail  in  the  final  day  to  have  the  approval  of 
the  Judge  of  quick  and  dead. 

Such  methods  of  preaching  and  of  prepa- 
ration for  that  great  function  of  the  Chris- 
tian ministry  are  open  to  all  who  are  in- 
vested with  the  sacred  office,  and  for  all  the 
grand  and  glorious  results  that  ought  to  fol- 
low from  the  faithful  exercise  of  this  divine- 
ly appointed  agency,  the  preachers  of  the 
present  and  the  future  will  be  held  responsi- 
ble. Let  none  be  deluded  with  the  idea  that 
the  preacher's  office  is  obsolescent,  or  that 
the  absolute  or  relative  importance  of  preach- 
ing is  diminishing  with  the  spread  of  gener- 
al intelligence  or  the  multiplying  issues  of 
the  press.  The  truth  is  that  Christian  preach- 
ers speak  to  more  ears  and  more  hearts  to- 
day than  they  ever  reached  before.  More 


nations  and  more  individuals  invite  their  ap- 
proach and  welcome  their  message  than  at 
any  former  period  of  the  world's  history. 

Hence,  through  the  opening  doors  of  God's 
providence  and  the  accumulating  power  of 
Christian  influence,  it  is  to  be  hoped  and  ex- 
pected that  preaching  will  win  increasing 
triumphs,  and  that  the  trophies  of  its  past 
success  will  hereafter  be  regarded  as  only 
the  first-fruits  of  the  grand  conquest  of  the 
world  for  Christ.  For  such  issues  it  becomes 
every  minister  of  the  Gospel  to  consecrate 
his  best  energies  and  efforts,  in  the  determi- 
nation to  do  his  full  part  toward  the  has- 
tening of  that  glorious  consummation.  Then 
let  each  one,  however  humble  his  talent  or 
obscure  his  position,  deem  it  the  highest 
possible  privilege  as  well  as  the  most  sacred 
duty  to  "  preach  the  Word ;  be  instant  in 
season,  out  of  season ;  reprove,  rebuke,  ex- 
hort with  all  long-suffering  and  doctrine," 
thus  sowing  the  seed  of  the  kingdom  of 
heaven,  and  not  doubting  that  in  due  time 
he  will "  reap  if  he  faint  not." 


THE  MISSION  OF  THE  PULPIT. 


BY  THE  REV.  HENRY  WARD  BEECHER,  OF  BROOKLYN,  N.  Y. 


WHY  is  it  that  it  is  necessary  at  this  time 
<if  the  world,  when  civilization  has  advanced 
:\a  it  has,  that  there  should  be  au  order  of 
Christian  ministers?  They  do  very  well 
among  the  heathen.  They  might,  perhaps, 
l>e  sent  to  advantage  among  the  semi-civil- 
ized and  the  newer  parts  of  our  country ; 
hut  why  should  there  be  a  need  here  in  New 
York,  where  we  have  so  many  newspapers  to 
instruct  us?  Where  academies  and  colleges 
:uid  societies  for  the  diffusion  of  scientific 
knowledge  are  abundant,  where  books  are 
overplenty,  where  men  are  stuft'ed  with 
knowledge,  why  is  it  needful  that  an  order 
of  men  should  continue  who,  in  the  earlier 
periods  of  civilization,  before  that  analysis 
and  separation  of  functions  took  place  which 
always  goes  with  civilization,  embodied  ill 
themselves  so  much  that  now  thsy  mostly 
must  lay  aside  ?  Is  there  any  distinct  field 
for  the  Christian  minister  separable  from 
that  of  any  other  profession?  Is  he  any 
thing  more  than  a  teacher  of  general  moral- 
ity ?  I  hold  that  in  the  divine  economy  the 
whole  globe  is  in  some  sense  a  university 
with  its  different  colleges.  There  is  the  col- 
lege of  matter — nature,  physical  nature  — 
which  is  au  instructor,  not  alone  in  the  uses 
of  life,  but,  in  a  low  and  germinal  way,  in  the 
rudiments  of  morality,  springing  from  our 
relations  to  physical  nature ;  and  man  is  in- 
structed by  the  rising  and  setting  sun,  and 
all  that  intervenes  between.  Then,  again, 
another  college  in  the  great  university  is 
society  itself,  with  the  household,  with  busi- 
ness, with  laws  civil  and  criminal ;  and  all 
these  go  to  the  making  np  of  a  great  man. 
If  men  were  to  live  in  this  life  alone,  I 
scarcely  see  that  there  would  be  any  need 
of  other  instructing  agencies  than  those  pro- 
vided through  the  uses  of  nature  and  the 
uses  of  human  society;  but. if  man  is  des- 
tined to  live  again  and  forever,  if  the  life 
aud  immortality  brought  to  light  in  the  Lord 
Jesus  Christ  are  a  verity,  and  if  this  life  is 
l>nt  a  bud  and  the  blossom,  then  there  is  a 
transcendent  need  of  those  agencies  which 
shall  bring  in  this  last  and  highest  element, 
viz.,  the  Spiritual  Element. 

While  we  are  taught  by  the  scientists  in 
truths  that  belong  to  the  sensual  nature, 
while  we  are  taught  by  the  economists  of 
things  that  belong  to  the  social  nature,  we 
need  the  Christian  ministry  to  teach  us  of 
those  things  which  are  invisible.  Around 
about  this  terraqueous  globe  is  a  spiritual 


1  universe,  and  there  are  truths  not  only  more 
radiant  aud  numerous,  but  transceudently 
more  important  than  any  that  wo  grope  for 
and  dig  out  of  the  crust  of  the  globe,  or  out 
of  the  experience  of  human  society.  To 
teach  the  great  population  of  the  universe 
that  above  all  is  the  Father  of  all,  who  in 
his  own  kingdom  waits  to  receive  us,  to  im- 
part the  knowledge  of  man's  spiritual  na- 
ture, and  the  knowledge  of  the  invisible  lift-, 
and  the  knowledge  of  that  manhood  whic'.i 
is  to  fit  us  for  that  life — this  is  the  special 
function  of  the  Christian  ministry.  To  sup- 
plement, to  throw  the  light  of  this  higher 
j  world  upon  all  the  phases  of  the  present  in 
!  order  to  give  all  the  natural  world  and  all 
I  its  functions  a  meaning  which  could  not 
have  been  found  out  otherwise,  to  give  to 
the  human  life  both  stimulus  and  support 
such  as  there  would  not  be  in  this  alone, 
bringing  the  light  of  the  spiritual  and  the 
invisible  world  to  bear  upon  it — this  makes 
it  transcendently  more  important,  and  adds 
to  its  territory,  and  opens  a  magazine  of  mo- 
tives beyond  comparison  purer  and  more 
pungent  and  universal  and  more  adapted  to 
the  wants  of  men  than  can  be  devised  upon 
the  surface  of  the  earth. 

Here,  then,  is  where  the  Christian  minis- 
try comes  in.  It  undertakes  to  inspire  men 
with  an  idea  of  manhood,  and  undertakes 
to  bring  upon  them  those  motive  forces  by 
which  that  manhood  can  be  developed.  Let 
me  not  speak  without  book.  I  accept  the 
apostle's  declaration  in  the  most  literal 
sense:  "And  he  gave  some,  apostles;  aud 
some,  prophets ;  aud  some,  evangelists ;  aud 
some,  pastors  and  teachers,"  all  sorts ;  "  for 
the  perfecting  of  the  saints,  for  the  work 
of  the  ministry,  for  the  edifying  of  the  body 
of  Christ;"  and  here  is  the  full  purpose, 
"  till  we  all  come  in  the  unity  of  the  faith, 
and  of  the  knowledge  of  the  Son  of  God, 
unto  a  perfect  man.  unto  the  measure  of 
the  stature  of  the  fullness  of  Christ."  Be- 
ginning where  the  animals  begin,  or  if  pos- 
sible lower,  born  into  weakness,  and  through 
weakness  long  waiting,  men  come  at  last 
to  a  certain  element  of  strength,  wisdom, 
and  power  by  the  ordinary  ministrations 
of  wisdom,  nature,  and  society.  But  this, 
which  is  in  us,  the  divine,  which  is  in  sympa- 
thy with  God,  which  brings  us  into  relation- 
ship with  him,  this  comes  only  through  the 
interposition  of  higher  agencies.  No  school 
teaches  this.  No  scientist  teaches  this.  No 


BEECHER :  THE  MISSION  OF  THE  PULPIT. 


393 


economist  teaches  this.  It  is  taught  of  God 
only  by  the  power  of  God  from  on  high. 

And  again  Paul  speaks  to  this  effect, 
when,  in  writing  to  the  Corinthians,  he  de- 
clares the  motives  which  brought  him  to 
them,  "  I  was  with  you  in  weakness,  and  in 
fear,  and  in  much  trembling.  And  my  speech 
and  my  preaching  was  not  with  enticing 
words  of  man's  wisdom ;"  not  simply  to  the 
fancy,  to  the  ear,  to  the  aesthetic  persuasion, 
"  but  in  demonstration  of  the  Spirit  and  of 
power :  that  your  faith  should  not  stand  in 
the  wisdom  of  men,  but  in  the  power  of 
God."  A  character  formed  upon  the  model 
of  the  Lord  Jesus  Christ  is  a  perfect  man- 
hood, making  men  according  to  the  new 
theory  of  psychology,  introducing  along  the 
line  of  development  a  new  economy,  in  which 
the  most  perfect  exemplar  and  pattern  is 
the  Lord  Jesus  Christ,  and  attempting  to 
develop  in  men  that  close  ideal  of  the  force 
and  power  which  comes  from  the  immediate 
contact  of  the  Divine  soul  with  the  human 
soul ;  not  despising  reason,  not  despising 
imagination,  not  despising  all  the  faculties 
of  the  human  soul,  but  giving  to  them  the 
vivacity  and  power  of  the  direct  impact  by 
the  inspiration  of  the  Holy  Ghost.  By  this 
power  it  is  attempted,  by  the  Christian  min- 
istry, to  bring  mankind  into  the  royalty  of 
the  new  manhood  which  is  in  Christ  Jesus. 

If,  then,  it  be  asked  what  is  needed  in  our 
age  of  the  pulpit,  if  you  propose  to  me  to 
discuss  the  pulpit  in  the  present  age,  what 
is  its  object,  in  what  respects  does  it  need 
re-enforcing,  where  is  its  power,  where  is  its 
weakness,  I  say  that  the  first  power  needed 
in  every  pulpit  is  that  so  signally  made 
known  in  the  first  pulpit — the  intense  sense 
of  the  need  of  men,  of  their  limitations,  of 
their  ignorance,  of  their  want,  of  their  weak- 
ness. Call  it  by  what  terms  you  please  in 
your  systematic  theology ;  call  it  depravity, 
total  depravity,  siufulness,  disobedience,  ig- 
norance; call  it  unskilled  and  undisciplined; 
whatever  you  choose  to  call  it,  if  there  is  in 
the  soul,  in  the  pitying  consciousness  of  ev- 
ery human  being — midwife  at  birth,  nurse 
at  the  next  step,  and  father  all  the  way 
through,  from  top  to  bottom — that  sense  of 
the  want  which  .ill  the  wealth  that  comes 
from  hearts  in  Christian  society  can  not 
supply,  and  which  can  only  bo  medicated 
by  the  touch  of  Him  who  gave  the  soul  to 
man — that  is  the  first  thing  that  man  needs ; 
man  full  of  flashes  or  germs  of  that  which 
is  to  be  yet  born ;  so  poor  that  there  is  not 
a  bird  that  does  not  hatch  out  more  perfect 
children  than  man  docs;  so  poor  that  the 
lion  licks  a  better  cub,  with  better  pros- 
pects of  lionhood,  than  the  child  born  to  the 
noblest  mother  that  laughs  and  weeps  at  the 
same  moment. 

Of  all  the  things  upon  the  earth,  the  only 
thing  that  is  so  rich  that  it  gets  lost  in  it 
is  man.  There  is  so  little  to  mistake  in  the 


lion  that  he  always  grows  up  to  be  a  per- 
fect lion.  They  find  their  way  themselves ; 
but  man  is  the  metropolis  of  all  created 
things,  and  in  him  are  consummated  the 
hints  found  everywhere  else.  So  much  is 
there  of  animal  force  in  various  ways,  so 
much  of  social  affection,  so  much  of  moral 
element  reaching  out  everywhere  and  losing 
itself  iu  selfish  yearnings,  so  much  of  aspira- 
tion, that  no  man  can  take  hold  of  himself 
and  build  himself  up.  And  so  there  is  no 
creature  beginning  so  low,  with  such  pros- 
pects, that  gets  so  much  help  as  man,  but  it 
is  a  help  which  no  one  present  can  give  to 
man.  The  eye  can  see,  the  heart  can  feel, 
and  the  understanding  can  aspire,  but  the 
help  from  the  source  whence  our  souls  come 
is  necessary  for  our  perfect  birth,  even  when 
it  is  the  beginning  of  that  manhood  of  which 
Christ  is  the  most  perfect  example  in  life. 

The  next  requisite  iu  the  pulpit  is  the 
sense  of  "  God  with  us."  It  is  a  good  thing 
to  believe  that  there  is  a  God  whom  we  shall 
one  day  see  as  he  is.  We  have  seen  him  as 
we  thought  he  was,  as  we  imagined  he  was, 
and  we  have  seen  him  as  we  have  been 
taught  here  and  there  by  vain,  adulterated 
philosophy ;  but,  after  all,  we  now  see  through 
a  glass  darkly,  and  shall  only  then  see  face 
to  face.  We  all  know  and  all  believe  that 
there  is  this  supreme,  spiritual,  benevolent 
Father ;  but  there  is  a  revelation  of  God  by 
the  Holy  Ghost  in  the  hearts  of  men  which, 
although  it  can  not  be  stated  in  words, 
amounts  to  something  more  than  philoso- 
phy. It  amounts  to  force. 

It  is  precisely  that  which  the  apostle  ex- 
pressed when  he  said  that  he  should  stand 
on  the  power  of  God  rather  than  on  the 
natural  effects  from  human  causation.  And 
when  he  took  occasion  thus  to  speak  he 
spoke  as  an  orator.  We  know  he  was  such 
by  his  letters.  He  could  not  help  himself. 
Paul  could  not  have  spoken  without  being 
an  orator.  He  used  the  wisdom  of  Athens 
when  he  belonged  to  Athens,  and  in  Rome 
he  did  as  the  Romans  did — in  things  that 
were  good.  We  know  perfectly  well  that 
all  the  instruments  by  which  human  life  is 
influenced  or  fomented  he  felt  at  liberty  to 
employ ;  but  there  was  something  behind 
all  this.  There  was  in  his  soul  the  con- 
sciousness that  there  Avas  a  power  before 
which  all  other  things  or  elements  of  power 
paled,  and  that  was  the  power  of  God ;  not 
him  that  dwells  behind  or  within  philoso- 
phy, but  God  with  us,  a  God  we  might  feel, 
a  God  that  fires  the  soul,  that  lifts  us  with 
strange  exultations  above  ourselves;  that 
gives  power  and  an  unaccountable  enthu- 
siasm of  love  to  God,  and  a  faith  in  God,  by 
which  when  one  man  is  possessed  of  the 
Holy  Ghost  he  becomes  a  power  altogether 
transcending  the  measure  of  ordinary  causes. 
It  is  this  sense  of  the  belief  of  God,  tin* 
belief  that  the  Divine  Spirit  is  poured  out 


394 


CHRISTIAN  LIFE. 


oil  tho  souls  of  men  as  directly  as  the  sun- 
light is  poured  out  on  the  soil  when  it 
makes  flowers,  and  into  flowers  when  it 
gives  prisms  and  colors,  and  into  both  when 
it  gives  fruit  behind  the  flower  —  the  il- 
limitable want  of  man  and  the  illimitable 
supply  of  God,  the  endless  hunger  and  the 
endless  food,  the  mighty  weakness  and  the 
mighty  power,  the  nothingness  of  the  be- 
ginning and  the  transcendent  glory  of  the 
end,  when  we  shall  be  presented  perfect  be- 
fore the  throne  of  our  Father. 

Here  are  the  twogreatelemeuts  of  the  Chris- 
tian ministry.  And  no  man  can  have  them 
and  be  ever  so  ignorant  and  yet  be  fruitless, 
aud  a  man  may  have  every  thing  else  besides 
these  and  he  will  have  little  fruit.  It  is 
sympathy  with  a  human  want,  aud  it  is  faith 
and  feeling  of  God  in  the  soul — tho  two 
combined  —  which  constitute  a  Christian 
minister,  which  open  the  door,  the  invisible 
gate,  which  lead  men  to  say,  "What  of  it?" 
which  move  back  the  horizon  no  mean  thou- 
sands of  miles  like  our  horizon,  lit  by  no  morn- 
ing star  such  as  astronomers  tell  is  our  morn- 
ing star,  but  by  the  Sun  of  Righteousness 
that  rises  in  the  eternal  horizon  that  we 
believe  in  and'  teach  continually.  These 
give  the  strength  and  the  power  to  the 
Christian  minister.  When  that  power  is 
in  man, it  may  be  augmented;  it  may  be 
supplemented  in  a  thousand  ways ;  it  may 
be  made  more  efficacious  by  adding  those 
elements  of  knowledge  by  means  of  which 
easy  access  is  obtained  among  men,  by  which 
we  can  control  the  forces  in  them.  But  the 
primary  constituent  of  the  true  Christian 
minister  is  a  refined  sense  of  sympathy  in 
the  sinfulness  of  man,  in  man  as  a  sinner 
because  he  is  a  sinner,  and  the  essential  cer- 
tainty that  a  great  overreaching  and  reign- 
ing God  is  pouring  out  his  soul  upon  the 
human  family,  and  that  by  that  power  man 
may  be  lifted  out  of  animalhood  into  more 
than  rational  intelligence,  into  divinity  it- 
self, and  become  a  son  of  God. 

Here,  then,  is  the  end  aud  aim  of  the 
Christian  minister— to  create  such  a  man- 
hood that  it  will  last  forever.  It  is  to  be 
more  than  a  philosopher,  more  than  a  phi- 
lanthropist :  it  is  to  be  a  son  of  God.  It  is  a 
manhood  on  which  the  light  never  fades, 
which  hath  no  summer  nor  winter,  and  is 
as  God,  and  will  last  as  long  as  God.  Who 
but  feels  this  greatness  of  God,  as  made 
manifest  in  the  Lord  Jesus  Christ  who  is 
the  interpretation  of  God  ?  Poems  are  trans- 
lated from  one  language  into  another,  but 
who  shall  translate  God,  who  shall  tell  what 
his  thoughts  are,  as  they  move  in  the  eter- 
nal spaces  ?  You  know  what  a  mother's  love 
is,  aud  what  a  father's  love  is.  You  know 
what  tho  love  of  noble  hearts,  one  to  an- 
other, is  in  this  life.  But  these  are  saplings 
arising  from  the  great  central  root.  And 
what  is  that  central  fire  of  love  that  carries 


in  it  true  justice,  and  in  its  vnstuess  aud  al- 
titude and  its  dignity  and  glory  is  willing 
to  lay  down  and  suffer  and  become  a  road 
that  men  may  walk  upon  it,  saying,  "  I  aui 
the  way  and  the  life;  walk  with  me,"  a  con- 
servative God,  a  bleeding  God,  a  sympathiz- 
ing God  ?  That  is  Jesus  Christ's  interpreta- 
tion of  the  eternal  ruler  of  the  universe,  and 
that  is  the  precise  thing  that  Paul  declared 
when  he  said  that  he  never  would  hide  him- 
self, nor  by  any  ingenuity,  by  any  dexteri- 
ty, prevent  man  from  seeing  him  full  in  the 
face.  Your  great  God  must  be  a  perfect 
God,  aud  to  be  a  perfect  God  ho  must  be 
lifted  above  all  else,  perfect  as  a  statue  is, 
and  as  cold.  The  idea  of  those  mediaeval 
times  was  of  a  God  lifted  above  all  care; 
grand  was  he  as  a  sovereign,  reigning  by 
centripetal  forces,  who  sat  central  and  re- 
ceived all,  a  gulf  into  which  all  praise  ran ; 
but  the  God  that  Paul  quivered  before  with 
intense  admiration — whom  he  could  not, 
sleeping  or  waking,  living  or  dying,  forget 
— is  the  God  interpreted  by  him  who  show- 
ed his  great  love  by  laying  down  his  life. 
That  is  the  God;  that  the  cross — the  sac- 
rifice of  the  cross,  the  shame  of  dying,  the 
willingness  of  God  to  die,  defeated  and  over- 
thrown, and  yet  suffering  for  man,  as  the 
interpretation  of  the  innermost  nature  of 
God,  who  dwells  in  tho  fullest  self-sacrifice. 
Think  of  the  grandeur  and  beauty  of  this 
great  fatherhood  of  God,  who  is  justice,  is 
the  minister  of  love. 

Wherever  he  went,  Christ  was  a  suffering 
God,  suffering  for  man.  Is  there  any  thing 
so  sad  as  to  look  on  human  life  with  an 
inside  eye  at  the  jealousies,  the  raspings, 
the  yearnings,  without  knowing  what  they 
yearn  for  ?  Is  there  any  thing  so  piteous  as 
human  life  ?  I  do  not  wonder  at  the  words 
that  the  noble  men  of  antiquity  have  sent 
down  through  ages.  Spread  abroad  the  can- 
opy of  God's  love  in  Jesus  Christ !  There  is 
an  inspiration,  a  reason  for  working  that 
makes  the  Christian  ministry  tho  most  joy- 
ful vocation  in  the  world,  and  a  vocation 
Avhich  may  be  more  fruitful  than  any  voca- 
tion in  life.  If  you  ask  mo  what  does  the 
modern  minister  want,  I  say  he  wants  more 
realization  of  the  human  fact  of  sinfuluess, 
and  much  doctrinal  realization  of  it.  A 
man  can  take  the  doctrine  of  human  sinful- 
ness,  and  make  it  into  a  theory  and  ride  it, 
and  it  is  like  riding  a  hobby-horse — it  is  a 
hard  and  useless  task.  But  after  realiza- 
tion, you  pity  men ;  your  heart  yearns  to 
them,  you  feel  like  a  mother  with  a  sick 
child  that  is  fretful  aud  peevish,  unreason- 
ably so,  and  yet  every  thing  that  the  child 
does  touches  the  mother's  heart  with  pity. 
The  Christian  minister  can  have  compassion 
on  those  who  need  it,  doing  more  in  pro- 
portion as  men  need  more,  giving  that  sort 
of  sympathy  with  human  wants  because  of 
human  infirmity,  because  of  infirmity  whose 


BEECHER:  THE  MISSION  OF  THE  PULPIT. 


395 


roots  are  sin.  That  is  the  want  of  the  Chris- 
tian mini3ter. 

What  other  want  is  there  ?  The  want  of 
humanity,  not  in  the  sense  of  general  kind- 
ness, for  I  believe  ministers  are  the  kindest 
people  alive.  They  require  the  human  ele- 
ment, the  preaching  that  has  in  it  that  which 
is  congenial  to  man.  We  preach  sermons 
— express  our  own  thoughts.  But  do  you 
think  that  there  is  any  mother  alive  who 
would  hire  a  nurse  who  was  to  talk  to  the 
baby  out  of  a  book?  Dp  you  believe  in 
strong  souls  kindled  by  each  other's  light 
and  love,  and  that  one  should  say,  "  Wait 
until  I  go  home  and  ask  my  father  to  write 
me  a  discourse,  so  that  I  can  talk  to  you  ?" 
It  is  one  thing  to  have  a  philosophy  of  those 
things ;  it  is  another  thing  to  have  sense  and 
spirit — the  sense  of  mankind,  the  feeling  of 
man  in  you.  We  go  off  for  knowledge  and 
forget  ourselves,  and  come  back  with  knowl- 
edge. We  go  for  philosophy,  wrhich  is  a 
very  good  thing,  and  come  back  with  phi- 
losophy. What  we  want  is  a  man  here. 
Therefore  was  the  Gospel  committed  to 
men,  because  they  are  sinners,  because  they 
are  weak ;  they  are  weeping,  they  stumble ; 
men  ought  to  have  compassion  on  those  do- 
ing the  same  things  all  round  about  them. 
Aud  it  is  this  yearning  and  longing  for  man 
that  is  to  be  the  root  of  the  true  Christian 
ministry.  We  want  that  enthusiasm  which 
comes  from  the  certainty  of  all- concluding 
faith.  We  can't  reform  them,  we  can.  not 
build  them  up,  we  can  not  make  them  men 
in  Christ  Jesus  by  reason  of  wit  and  wis- 
dom, by  eloquence  or  appeals,  but  because 
God  is  in  us.  It  tingles  to  the  ends  of  our 
fingers.  It  fills  the  soul  with  the  blood  of 
the  Lamb.  The  holy  man  is  full  of  God. 
When  men  have  this  want,  they  are  more 
powerful  than  their  fellow-men — they  have 
that  certainty,  that  enthusiasm  that  allows 
no  denial,  running  over  all  things,  knowing 
neither  high  nor  low,  strong  nor  weak.  This 
is  the  element  we  want. 

Brethren,  there  are  a  great  many  men  who 
are  getting  to  be  ashamed  to  be  enthusiastic, 
to  be  ashamed  of  glowing  zeal  and  of  that 
nobility  of  a  heart  opened  Avheu  God  has 
touched  it.  Let  the  mountains,  when  the 
snn  comes  in  spring  to  thaw  them  out  and 
set  their  rills  to  music  and  running  down, 
bringing  out  flowers  on  every  side  of  every 
bank,  let  them  be  ashamed  of  all  that  comes 
when  they  send  their  streams  down — and 
the  human  heart  be  ashamed  of  those  en- 
thusiasms and  feelings  when  God  is  to  be 
considered. 

What,  then,  does  the  modern  pulpit  want  ? 
Just  what  the  old  pulpit  wanted.  It  wants 
still  that  homely  sense  of  the  sinfiilness  of 
man  and  the  remedial  forces  provided  for  it. 
It  wants  the  men  that  believe  in  their  work, 
and  think  it  the  best  work  human  life  could 
be  devoted  to.  It  wants  men  that  believe 


in  a  heaven — men  that  believe  they  are  but 
a  hand's-breadth  from  their  own  immortali- 
ty— men  that  can  take  penalty,  shame,  and 
disgrace,  knowing  that  in  a  very  short  time 
it  may,  it  will,  be  all  the  same  to  them — 
men  who  are  willing  to  spend  and  be  spent, 
though  the  more  they  love  the  less  they  are 
loved,  looking  just  beyond  to  that  which  is 
more  certain  than  what  the  senses  interpret 
here.  It  is  this  view  of  God  and  immortal- 
ity, and  this  yearning  toward  man,  that  is 
the  root  and  substance  of  the  Christian  min- 
istry. I  am  satisfied  that  as  soou  as  this 
kind  of  ministry  begins  to  operate  there  is 
that  in  the  heart  of  man  that  responds  to  it 
and  ratifies  it.  It  is  what  men  want.  We 
hear  a  great  deal  said  by  those  catechisers 
of  the  pulpit — the  daily  papers.  They  are 
instructing  us  all  the  time  as  to  the  way  to 
preach,  warning  us  about  sensational  preach- 
ing ;  and  we  are  greatly  indebted  in  our  pro- 
fession to  them.  But  I  notice  that  wherever 
the  stateliest  eloquence  and  the  richest  wis- 
dom prevail,  without  human  feeling  here  and 
the  inspiration  of  the  Holy  Ghost,  the  con- 
gregations are  apt  to  be  thin,  and  the  min- 
istrations of  the  sanctuary  are  ineffectual. 

Why  do  not  people  go  to  church  more  ? 
One  thinks  it  is  this,  and  another  thinks  it 
is  that.  You  can  open  a  church  in  a  hovel, 
and  let  a  voice  go  forth  that  has  the  power 
of  touching  men,  and  you  will  find  it  crowded 
and  thronged.  You  do  not  want  the  cobs 
that  used  to  have  corn.  That  which  man 
wants  is  sappy  food,  refreshing  food.  Men 
are  willing  to  be  dealt  with,  to  have  their 
sins  flashed  in  their  faces,  willing  to  have 
their  consciences  aroused,  but  do  not  want 
to  be  handled.  They  want  a  preacher  that 
takes  hold  of  them  in  some  way,  one  who 
can  do  more  than  that,  one  who  can  give 
to  them  that  which  every  man  consciously 
needs — some  men  have  aspiration,  and  some 
more  indulge  in  superficial  thought— one 
who  can  give  strength  to  bear  their  burdens 
to  men  that  are  sore  in  life,  men  who  are  in 
sorrow ;  to  women  who  don't  know  how  to 
bring  up  their  children,  and  who  are  contin- 
ually having  more  and  more  added  to  their 
flock ;  to  people  who  want  to  know  where  the 
next  hod  of  coal  is  coming  from,  people  who 
are  afraid  of  the  sheriff,  men  who  are  pricked 
with  the  ten  thousand  nettles  of  human  life. 
Often  they  come  to  church  and  hear  a  long 
discussion  on  the  fall  of  Adam.  Well,  that  is 
not  inopportune,  but  still  they're  so  flat  them- 
selves that  they  feel  as  if  they  would  like  to 
know  something  about  their  own  fall.  They 
want  something  that  deadens  the  struggle 
that  is  going  on  within  them  ;  they  want 
some  one  who  will  take  part  with  them,  a 
minister  who  brings  God  down  to  the  side 
of  men,  not  as  an  everlasting  condemuer,  but 
one  who  brings  God  down  as  a  present  help 
in  time  of  trouble ;  a  minister  who  brings 
the  Prodigal  Son  home  to  his  father,  who, 


39C 


CHRISTIAN  LIFE. 


ticeiug  him  afur  oft',  runs  to  him,  and  before 
he  cau  speak  throws  his  arms  around  his 
neck.  The  helper  we  need  is  He  who  will 
help  a  sinner,  who  will  help  a  hard-hearted, 
proud  man,  who  knows  ho  is  selfish  and 
wants  to  get  over  it,  but  he  is  too  proud  to 
do  so.  He  wants  a  God  to  convert  him,  that 
is  what  he  wants. 

When  I  quarry  my  stone  and  build  my 
house,  you  will  come  and  live  with  me.  Oh ! 
it  will  bo  very  well,  but  I  want  some  one  to 
help  me  quarry  my  stone  and  build  my  house. 
The  greatest  soul  is  that  which  is  lifted  out 
of  carnality.  I  don't  blame  Darwin  for 
thinking  that  we  came  from  a  lower  order 
of  animals,  for  we  even  now  have  snakes  in 
us,  bears — something  of  almost  every  thing 
in  us ;  and  men  have  a  hard  time  in  the  me- 
nagerie of  their  souls. 

Now  there  is  help  for  such  things ;  help 
while  we  are  lying  flat  upon,  the  ground. 
The  bounty  is  not  the  bounty  which  comes 
in  at  the  last  moment.  God  is  our  leader 
and  captain,  who  leads  us  on  to  salvation. 
He  goes  before  us  in  our  fight.  That  is  what 
men  need,  and  the  preacher  who  preaches 
this  help  to  human  want  will  never  have 
empty  pulpits. 

Let  me  say  a  word  for  sensational  preach- 
ing. I  know  it  is  not  considered  as  the 
highest  kind.  The  fact  is,  it  is  thought  to 
be  dangerous,  and  there  are  a  great  many 
men  sitting  on  empty  nests  who  thank  God 
that  there  never  will  be  any  eggs  hatched. 
There  is  a  great  deal  of  outcry  against  sen- 
Rational  preaching.  Very  well ;  there  may 
be.  There  is  a  great  deal  of  nonsense,  but, 
after  all,  do  you  suppose  the  reason  people 
throng  to  hear  sensational  preaching  is  cu- 
riosity alone,  a  tickling  of  the  fancy  ?  There 
is  something  in  the  preaching  which  goes 
down  to  men  that  interests  them  and  takes 
hold  of  them,  and  it  is  to  hear  that  they  go. 
And  whose  fault  is  it  ?  You  ought  to  thank 
the  sensational  preachers  that  they  bring 
men  up  somewhere — that  there  is  not  a  clear 
slide  from  the  top  down  to  the  bottom.  But 
there  is  a  great  deal  of  that  which  is  called 
sensational  preaching  which  is  not  the  kind 
spoken  of  by  Paul  when  he  said  men  were 
Hometimes  saved  by  the  foolishness  of  preach- 
ing. There  are  a  great  many  thoughts  that 
are  adapted  to  a  genteel  sinner  that  don't 
do  much  good.  There  are  a  great  many  dis- 
organized and  unbalanced  statements,  but, 


after  all,  the  heart  of  the  preacher  corrects 
him  in  what  his  head  mistakes.  Great  is 
the  power  of  the  human  soul  when  it  is  in- 
spired by  communion  with  God.  What  we 
want  is  no  new  schemes.  We  want  men. 
Wo  want  men  with  the  faith  of  Jesus  Christ ; 
we  want  men  with  hearts  that  weep  over 
men,  who  have  the  sense  that  it  is  more  no- 
ble to  work  for  one  single  soul — the  mean- 
est— and  save  it,  than  to  wear  the  crown  of 
an  empire. 

This  is  what  we  want.  Go  out  into  the 
wildest  portions  of  the  West  where  the 
throngs  of  our  Methodist  brothers  go  from 
the  plow  and  the  store ;  they  are  ill  adapt- 
ed in  knowledge  to  all  the  exigencies  of  a 
large  ministration,  and  yet  wherever  they 
go  the  grain  falls  before  their  sickles.  What 
does  it  ?  The  Spirit  of  God  in  their  souls, 
the  working  and  the  power  of  God's  Spirit, 
the  most  powerful  instrumentality  in  the 
world.  Men  say  that  the  pnlpit  has  run  its 
career,  and  that  it  is  but  a  little  time  before 
it  will  come  to  an  end. .  Not  so  long  as  men 
continue  to  be  weak  and  sinful  and  tearful 
and  expectant,  without  any  help  near ;  not 
so  long  as  the  world  lieth  in  wickedness ; 
not  so  long  as  there  is  an  asylum  over  and 
above  that  one  which  we  see  by  our  phys- 
ical senses;  not  until  men  are  transformed 
and  the  earth  empty;  not  until  then  will 
the  work  of  the  Christian  ministry  cease. 
And  there  never  was  an  epoch,  from  the 
time  of  the  Apostles  to  our  day,  when  the 
Christian  ministry  had  such  a  field,  and 
there  was  such  need  of  them  and  such  hope 
and  cheer  in  the  work,  and  when  it  was  so 
certain  that  a  real  man  in  a  spirit  of  God 
would  reap  abundantly  as  to-day ;  and  if  I 
were  to  choose  again,  having  before  me  the 
possibilities  of  profits  and  emoluments  of 
merchant  life,  and  the  honors  to  be  gained 
through  law,  the  science  and  love  that  come 
from  the  medical  profession,  and  the  hon- 
ored ranks  of  teachers,  I  still  again  would 
choose  the  Christian  ministry.  It  is  the 
sweetest  in  its  substance,  the  most  enduring 
in  its  choice,  the  most  content  in  its  pover- 
ty and  limits  if  your  lot  is  cast  in  places  of 
scarcity,  more  full  of  crowned  hopes,  more 
full  of  whispering  messages  from  those  gone 
before,  nearer  to  the  threshold,  nearer  to  the 
throne,  nearer  to  the  brain,  to  the  heart  that 
was  pierced,  but  that  lives  forever,  and  says, 
"  Because  I  live  ye  shall  live  also." 


WHAT  TO  PREACH. 


BY  THE  REV.  JOHN  HALL,  D.D.,  OF  NEW  YORK. 


[A  crowd  of  eager  friends  of  the  Alliance,  unable 
to  obtain  admission  to  Dr.  Adams's  Church,  having 
filled  Association  Hall,  two  of  the  speakers  from  the 
former  building  were  brought  to  give  their  addresses 
in  the  Hall.  At  the  conclusion  of  Mr.  Beecher's  ad- 
dress, there  was  a  general  call  from  the  audience  for 
Dr.  Hall,  who  happened  to  be  on  the  platform.  Upon 
this  being  repeated  persistently,  he  rose  and  said:] 

I  AM  unwilling  to  occupy  your  time  with 
any  remarks  which,  as  I  did  not  expect  to 
say  any  thing,  must  necessarily  he  desulto- 
ry and  inconsecutive;  for  one  thing  may  he 
said  regarding  all  puhlic  speaking,  namely, 
that  what  has  not  heen  prepared  with  care 
is  usually  of  little  value,  and  what  costs  the 
speaker  little  effort  does  little  good  to  the 
hearer.  With  the  remarks  of  the  eloquent 
speaker  to  whom  you  have  just  listened  I 
substantially  agree,  although  I  should  prob- 
ahly  employ,  in  some  instances,  a  different 
phraseology. 

The  sinners  to  whom  we  preach  are  to  be 
pitied  ;  and  we  can  not  show  too  much  com- 
passion for  them :  hut  they  are  also  to  be 
blamed ;  and  Ave  are  bound  to  tell  them  that 
they  are  culpable  for  rejecting  and  despising 
the  Gospel  we  are  sent  to  proclaim.  Their 
condition,  until  they  believe,  is  dreadful  in 
the  extreme  ;  and  we  should  labor  to  make 
them  understand  and  feel  that ;  but  it  is  the 
dreadful  misery  not  of  a  misfortune  that  has 
come  upon  them,  an  evil  chance  that  has  hap- 
pened to  them,  but  of  a  crime  which  they  are 
still  committing,  and  williugly  persisting  in. 
Very  likely  this  will  not  always  gratify  them ; 
very  likely,  instead  of  soothing  them,  this  will 
vex  and  irritate  them,  and  make  them  secret- 
ly angry ;  and  then  we  must  go  on  and  preach 
so,  and  live  so,  that  they  shall,  by  the  bless- 
ing of  the  Holy  Ghost,  see  that  they  have  no 
reason  to  be  angry  with  us,  who  only  carry 
God's  message,  but  that,  in  point  of  fact,  they 
are  angry  with  the  truth — in  other  words, 
with  the  message  which  the  Lord  sends  them 
concerning  themselves. 

We  can  not,  again,  feel  too  keen  a  sympa- 
thy with  the  people  who  hear  us — some  of 
them  altogether  in  the  dark,  some  of  them 
opening  their  eyes  a  little,  some  of  them  see- 
ing men  as  trees  walking,  some  of  them  lov- 
ing the  light  and  craving  for  more,  and  some 
of  them  sorely  beaten  down  and  crushed  by 
trials  and  difficulties  in  their  life.  We  can 
not  feel  too  keen  a  sympathy  with  them, es- 
pecially when  we  remember  our  own  strug- 
gles, and  the  dim  twilight  through  which 
many  of  us  have  groped,  if  now.  in  God's 


light,  we  see  light  clearly.  But  what  shall 
we  do  f  What  sympathy  is  best  for  all  these 
varied  conditions  of  the  human  spirit  ? 

Here  it  is  that  the  evangelical  system — that 
is,  the  system  which  magnifies  at  every  turn 
the  objective  truth  regarding  the  person  and 
work  of  Jesus  Christ — gives,  it  seems  to  me, 
its  true  and  proper  power  to  the  pulpit.  My 
sympathy  is  good  as  far  as  it  goes ;  but  di- 
vine sympathy  is  infinitely  better.  And 
what  do  I  know,  what  can  I  present,  of  di- 
vine sympathy,  but  in  Jesus  Christ  ?  What 
can  I  gather  and  disclose  of  this  sympathy 
from  general  considerations  regarding  Dei- 
tyf 

The  world — God's  world — is  a  mystery  to 
all  of  us.  Even  to  Christians  Providence  is 
a  perpetual  puzzle,  and  they  must  wait  to 
see  how  good  and  wise  God  is  by  seeing  the 
end.  But  in  the  face  of  Jesus  Christ,  God's 
glory,  ay,  the  light  of  the  knowledge  of  it, 
shines.  Him  we  can  preach  to  the  people : 
on  his  sympathy  we  can  expatiate ;  him  wo 
can  lift  up  and  unfold,  the  personal  Redeem- 
er, Son  of  God  and  Son  of  man — divine — hu- 
man, the  might  of  omnipotence  in  his  arm, 
even  when  it  was  nailed  to  the  tree ;  him, 
the  prophet  for  the  ignorance  of  man,  tho 
priest  for  the  guilt  of  man,  and  the  daily 
recurring  wants  and  sins  of  man,  the  king 
for  the  defense  and  government  of  man,  tho 
true  and  tender  brother  to  the  believer,  tho 
Captain  of  salvation  to  the  Christian  sol- 
dier, the  good  master  to  the  disciple,  tho 
Lord  and  Saviour  to  the  meanest  and  poor- 
est believer,  yes,  to  the  weakest  and  least 
effective  of  his  servants  here,  as  truly  as  to 
the  Apostle  Paul ! 

When  we  preach  this  Jesus  to  men,  ami 
they  receive  him,  it  is  not  only  that  they 
get  more  light,  are  elevated,  helped,  carried 
forward  beyond  the  lengths  to  which  other 
forms  of  teaching  carry  them  ;  it  is  not  this 
only,  nor,  indeed,  this  at  all.  It  is  that  they 
are  now  enlightened  with  this  kind  of  light 
for  the  first  time ;  and  they  find  out  that 
whatever  they  knew  before,  in  this  kind  of 
light  they  were  blind,  and  in  this  kind 
of  knowledge  they  were  utterly  ignorant. 
Now  they  are  the  subjects  of  a  change, 
more  or  less  conscious;  call  it  conversion, 
or  regeneration,  or  illumination,  or  any  oth- 
er name  you  will,  that  is  understood  in  its 
meaning  by  the  people,  and  in  the  preach- 
er's sense  of  it,  which  ought  surely  to  be  tho 
Scriptural  sense  of  it.  Now  they  have  par- 


:HH 


CHRISTIAN  LIFE. 


don,  they  arc  accepted,  they  arc  in  Christ, 
they  are  in  a  new  condition,  and  are  set  out 
upon  the  attainment  of  a  new  character.  It 
is  uot  that  this  revelation  of  God's  mercy, 
through  belief  of  which  they  are  in  Christ, 
has  made  them  better,  has  improved  their 
manhood,  or  elevated  them — a  temperance 
society  might  do  that— a  literary  society 
might  do  that — it  is  that  they  are  changed, 
that  the  secret  springs  of  the  will  are  touch- 
ed. If  any  man  be  in  Christ,  he  is — a  better 
man  T  No.  A  broader  man  f  No.  He  is  a 
new  creature  —  made  a  new  man  by  an  act 
of  God,  by  his  word — as  truly  a  divine  act 
as  -when  God  said,  Let  there  be  light,  and 
there  was  light.  And  that  we  ministers, 
ourselves  thus  enlightened  by  Divine  grace, 
can  preach  this  glorious  Gospel  of  the  bless- 
ed God,  and  in  lifting  up  Jesus  Christ  pro- 
duce, instrumentally,  these  results,  this 
seems  to  me  to  be  the  real  power,  and,  -when 
done,  the  dignity  and  glory  of  the  pulpit — 
any  pulpit,  ancient  or  modern. 

We  who  preach  are  poor  creatures;  but 
the  word  of  the  Lord  is  mighty.  Of  that  word 
Jesus  Christ  is  the  sum  and  substance ;  and 
the  sum  and  substance  of  any  ministry  of 
permanent  spiritual  power  must  be  the  set- 
ting forth  of  him,  the  living  Christ  for  dead 
souls,  the  bread  of  life  for  starving  souls,  the 
water  of  life  for  thirsty  souls,  the  one  Life- 
giver  of  divine  appointment,  in  coming  to 
whom  the  dead  in  sins  are  quickened,  and 


in  cleaving  to  whom  the  new  life  of  believ- 
ers is  fed  and  strengthened. 

Now  as  to  this  sensationalism  in  the  pul- 
pit, there  is  but  a  word  to  be  said.  When 
a  minister,  by  the  selection  of  odd  and  queer 
topics,  in  form  or  reality  away  from  the  Gos- 
pel— by  unique  or  grotesque  ways  of  put- 
ting himself,  or  putting  his  things  before 
the  people,  by  vulgarisms,  or  startling  novel- 
ties of  expression,  aims  at  making  a  sensa- 
tion that  shall  terminate  with  the  hour,  or, 
at  least,  terminate  upon  the  preacher,  there  is 
sensational  preaching,  -which  is  offensive  to 
true  taste,  as  it  is  away  from  the  spirit  of 
the  Gospel,  and  the  dignity  and  power  of  the 
pulpit.  That  is  uot  only  contemptible  as  tri- 
fling— it  is  base  and  criminal,  as  trifling  with 
the  most  solemn  themes  and  for  selfish  ends. 
I  hope  there  is  not  much  such  sensationalism. 

But  give  us  the  ministers  who  go  directly 
with  Bible  truth  to  the  souls  of  men — who 
preach  to  them  of  their  guilt  in  denying  the 
Holy  One  and  the  Just,  who  urge  this  home 
on  judgment  and  conscience  with  an  earn- 
estness begotten  of  the  Spirit  of  God,  and 
flowing  out  of  souls  set  on  fire  from  above, 
until  the  crowds,  carried  away,  subdued,  and 
terrified,  cry  out,  "  What  shall  we  do  to  be 
saved  ?"  Let  us  have  sensations  like  this  pro- 
duced, anywhere,  by  any  ministry,  and  I  for 
one — if  no  part  of  this  honor  is  given  me — 
shall  yet  fall  on  my  knees,  and  give  thanks 
to  God  who  hath  given  such  power  unto  men. 


FOURTH  SECTION.-SUNDAY-SCHOOLS. 


THE  SUNDAY-SCHOOL  WORK— ITS  GREATNESS— 
THE  CHURCH  RESPONSIBLE  FOR  IT. 

BY  CHAKLES  EEED,  ESQ.,  M.P.,  LOXDOX. 


I  AM  deeply  sensible  of  my  obligation  to 
the  Sunday-school,  personally  and  officially, 
and,  when  asked  to  represent  the  Old  World 
institution  in  the  New,  I  was  rejoiced  to  ac- 
cept so  honorable  a  position.  The  time  al- 
lotted to  mo  is  too  brief  to  allow  of  my  in- 
dulging myself  in  an  historical  review  of 
the  origin  and  growth  of  this  educational  or- 
ganization, and,  while  many  paths  are  open 
before  me,  it  will  be  my  duty  to  select  one, 
and  that  the  practical,  and  up  that  path  I 
propose  to  lead  you  by  a  direct  course. 

Of  the  past  I  will  only  say,  What  has  God 
wrought?  It  is  ninety-two  years  since 
Eaikes  gathered  his  first  school  in  59  Cath- 
erine Street,  Gloucester,  and  through  allthose 
years,  though  suspected,  frowned  upon, 
abused,  and  denounced,  the  course  of  the 
Sunday-school  has  been  onward,  its  sup- 
porters have  never  relaxed  their  effort,  its 
advances  have  been  rapid,  and  its  achieve- 
ments marvelously  great.  Adam  Smith, 
the  author  of  "  The  Wealth  of  Nations,"  has 
declared  that  no  plan  has  effected  a  greater 
change  of  manners,  with  equal  ease  and  sim- 
plicity, since  the  days  of  the  apostles  ;  and 
Chief- justice  Marshall,  your  own  distin- 
guished jurist,  says,  "I  can  not  be  more 
iirmly  convinced  than  I  am  that  virtue  and 
intelligence  are  the  basis  of  our  independ- 
ence and  the  conservative  principles  of  na- 
tional and  individual  happiness;  nor  can 
any  one  believe  more  firmly  that  Sabbath- 
school  institutions  are  devoted  to  the  pro- 
tection of  both."  And  that  which  may  be 
said  of  the  United  States  and  of  the  British 
Empire  may  with  truth  be  averred  of  the 
great  European  countries,  represented  by 
distinguished  friends  of  religious  education 
around  me  here.  Having  mentioned  them, 
I  shall  not  be  misunderstood  if  my  refer- 
ences are  mainly  to  the  schools  of  the  two 
great  Anglo-Saxon  communities,  with  whose 
schools  I  am  more  familiar,  by  long  expe- 
rience, and  by  recent  extended  observation. 
Of  the  English  institution  it  may  be  said  that 
it  has  been  benevolently  intended  as  a  mis- 
sion to  the  poor  and  the  neglected,  not  em- 
bracing to  any  great  extent  the  children  of 
the  congregations.  The  aim  has  been  high, 
the  numbers  in  proportion  to  population 


large,  and  the  devotion  of  the  teachers  be- 
yond all  praise ;  yet,  encumbered  by  secu- 
lar processes,  its  success  has  not  been  com- 
mensurate with  the  effort  put  forth.  The 
schools  of  America,  on  the  other  hand,  have 
been  mainly  for  the  children  of  the  Church, 
while  in  her  noble  mission  schools  the  chil- 
dren of  the  poorest  are  found.  The  fusion 
of  classes  has  been  more  marked,  a  higher 
class  of  agency  has  been  secured,  and  the 
results,  if  not  holier,  have  been  greater. 
America  has  reaped  the  advantage  of  her 
system  of  common  schools,  in  the  habit  of 
order  and  completeness  of  secular  teaching 
among  the  children,  and  in  the  creation  of  a 
public  opinion  among  Christian  people  in 
favor  of  the  Sunday-school.  Great  Britain 
is  now  about  to  realize  America's  great  ad- 
vantage ;  henceforth  the  two  countries  will 
carry  on  the  work  of  religious  teaching  un- 
der more  equal  conditions,  and  these  two 
great  nations,  one  in  blood  and  in  language, 
and  bound  by  the  closest  ties  of  amity  and 
Christian  affection,  with  a  vast  agency,  no- 
ble, gratuitous,  earnest,  and  pious,  having  for 
their  aim  the  conversion  of  souls,  and  their 
standard  the  Word  of  God,  will  present  to 
the  world  a  spectacle  worthy  its  admiration 
and  imitation. 

The  question  then  is,  not  how  to  preserve 
peace  and  quiet  in  our  streets  on  the  Lord's 
day,  not  how  shall  neglected  children  be 
taught  reading  and  writing,  but  how  shall 
we  secure  to  our  children  a  sound  religious 
education.  When  I  say  our  children,  I  mean 
the  youth  of  the  nation.  The  work  is  to  be 
done  not  by  the  State,  but  by  religious  peo- 
ple ;  not  in  cities  and  towns,  but  in  the  West- 
ern territories  and  in  scattered  hamlets,  and 
by  the  combined  and  systematic  effort  of 
Christian  people. 

Truly,  this  is  a  noble  mission.  It  is  to 
plunge  deeper  for  the  rescue ;  it  is  to  strike 
higher  for  the  prize ;  it  is  to  embrace  two 
classes,  the  richest  and  the  poorest,  hitherto 
neglected.  Deeper  down,  to  rescue  the  off- 
spring of  the  stolid,  the  vicious,  the  brutal, 
the  blasphemer,  and  the  drunkard.  Higher 
yet,  to  win  the  children  of  our  artisans,  un- 
friendly to  religion  and  bitterly  hostile  to 
what  they  deem  cant  and  priestly  device. 


•KK) 


CHRISTIAN  LIFE. 


Higher  still,  to  gain  access  to  yontli,  ex- 
cluded from  the  true  influences  of  Christian 
life,  shut  out  from  the  glad  tidings  of  the 
Gospel  message,  members  of  families  whose 
creed  it  is  that  it  is  not  the  thing  to  be  seri- 
ous, and  that  it  is  a  crime  to  be  religious, 
"  where  the  doors  are  barred  against  the  en- 
try of  any  but  the  worshipers  of  this  world." 
And  is  it  possible  that  you  are  going  to  in- 
terfere with  these,  the  upper  classes  of  soci- 
ety T  I  say,  yes,  if  it  be  possible ;  and  I  be- 
lieve it  is.  By  what  right  do  you  do  this  ? 
I  reply,  by  every  right.  Is  the  poor  man's 
neglected  child  more  dangerous  to  society 
than  the  profligate  son  of  the  wealthy  man  ? 
If  we  are  justified  in  lifting  the  latch  of  the 
poor  man's  cottage,  why  should  we  avoid 
the  rich  man's  mansion  ?  This  we  know, 
that  "it  is  not  the  will  of  our  Father  in 
heaven  that  one  of  these  should  perish."  I 
divide  the  constituency  now  outside  the 
school  into  three  classes.  The  first  are  our 
own  children.  Our  own  peculiarly.  I  mean 
by  these  the  children  of  godly  parents, 
members  of  our  churches  and  congrega- 
tions, and  belonging  to  the  middle  class  of 
society,  that  class  which  forms  the  back- 
bone of  the  strength,  the  virtue,  and  the 
honor  of  a  community.  Happily,  America 
has  laid  hold  of  this  class,  and  she  has  her 
reward.  England  has  not.  The  children 
of  her  respectable  people,  her  "  superior  peo- 
ple," the  children  of  her  deacons  and  of  her 
ministers,  are  not,  as  a  rule,  in  the  Sabbath- 
school.  Our  poorest  are  wretchedly  poor, 
our  ragged  are  miserably  clad,  if  clad  at  all, 
and  their  habits  and  language  beget  a  whole- 
some fear  that  "  evil  communications  cor- 
rupt good  manners."  Before  prejudice  can 
be  overcome,  we  must  adapt  our  arrange- 
ments to  meet  the  proper  expectations  of 
the  mother ;  and  by  such  suitable  provision 
we  shall  conquer  her  objections.  Parents 
must  have  satisfactory  assurance  of  some 
advantage  to  be  secured,  some  proof  that 
good  influences  will  be  exercised.  Fortu- 
nately, I  have  this  assurance;  hence  I  give 
my  testimony  in  favor  of  it,  and  I  press 
home  upon  ministers  and  deacons  this  ques- 
tion :  Do  they  act  wisely  in  withholding 
the  influence  of  their  example — do  they  not 
do  an  injustice,  by  this  conduct,  to  the  Sun- 
day-school T  Ottr  duty  is  to  create  a  pub- 
lic opinion,  and  when  that  opinion  is  begot- 
ten fathers  and  mothers  will  hasten  to  com- 
mit their  children  to  our  trust.  The  second 
class  to  be  secured  is  the  neglected,  the  hea- 
then—yes, the  heathen  of  London  and  New 
York.  The  easiest  way — and  the  way  is  not 
difficult — is  to  get  them  early.  Parents  are 
not  reluctant ;  it  gives  happiness  to  the  lit- 
tle ones ;  and  remember,  those  who  come 
earliest  stick  the  closest,  yes,  as  ivy,  their 
young  affections  cling  to  the  training-place 
of  early  childhood.  And  the  rough,  untu- 
tored parent,  bad  as  he  may  be,  does  not 


wish  his  dimpled  little  one  to  grow  up  as 
hard  and  as  rough  as  he  is,  and  the  mother 
yields  her  child  to  the  teacher  whose  visits 
bring  light  and  comfort  to  their  dismal 
dwelling.  You  take  tho  infant  to  your 
school,  and  tho  elder  sister  can  come  too ; 
and  if  the  mother  does  not  come  to  the 
house  of  prayer,  we  secure  to  her  the  oppor- 
tunity of  doing  so.  And  who  shall  say  that 
the  little  one  will  not  bring  back  notes  of 
music  which  may  prove  "heavenly  notes" 
caught  in  the  infant  class?  And  here  let 
me  repeat,  the  earlier  children  are  secured, 
the  longer  they  are  retained.  At  fourteen, 
the  turning  point  of  life,  when  boys  claim 
a  kind  of  independence,  and  girls  are  in  tho 
habit  of  asserting  their  own  will,  the  special 
teacher,  tho  separate  apartment,  the  table, 
the  chair,  and  the  Bible  attract  and  hold 
those  who,  but  for  these  special  arrange- 
ments, leave  us  at  the  most  critical  period. 

The  third  section  includes  the  youth  of 
wealthy,  wrorldly,  and  indifferent  families — 
children  of  the  fashionable  mother  who  sacri- 
fices all  for  pleasure ;  whose  children  dwell  in 
the  nursery  and  are  seldom  seen,  except  at 
dessert,  to  be  admired,  coaxed,  and  spoiled ; 
whose  great  concern  is  brilliancy  of  com- 
plexion, purity  of  teeth,  and  gracefulness  of 
carriage,  but  has  no  thought  of  the  welfare 
of  the  soul.  In  such  a  family  it  may  be  tho 
mother  or  the  father  who  is  at  fault — not 
usually  both — for  my  experience  teaches  me 
that  one  is  frequently  prepared  to  admit  the 
error  and  to  accept  help  toward  amendment 
of  life.  The  mother  will  favor  the  visits  of 
a  Christian  friend,  or  the  father  will  say, 
when  the  invitation  of  some  pious  neighbor 
comes,  "  Let  the  boys  go."  Is  it  whispered. 
Who  dare  attempt  this  ?  The  best  answer 
is  to  say,  Some  have  dared  and  have  suc- 
ceeded. A  friend  of  my  own,  living  in  one 
of  the  fashionable  parts  of  London,  took  r, 
handsome  house  next  to  his  own,  and  fitted 
it  up  for  such  a  purpose.  He  issued  his  in- 
vitations to  a  Sunday  afternoon  meeting  for 
Bible  study.  The  result  was  many  calls  of 
courtesy,  inquiry,  and  grateful  acceptance. 
On  the  next  Sunday  nineteen  youths,  from 
fourteen  to  eighteen,  came,  and  that  Chris- 
tian gentleman,  a  man  high  in  the  scientific 
world,  is  now  at  the  head  of  an  institution 
of  influence  and  power,  originated  by  his 
resolution  to  dare  to  do  this  godly  work. 
Within  the  range  of  my  own  observation 
I  have  known  many  such  resolute  efforts, 
so  that  I  am  entitled,  when  any  one  chal- 
lenges my  recommendation,  and  says,  "Who 
dares?"  to  answer,  It  is  dared  and  done. 
Who  does  not  know  that  in  a  religious  com- 
munion, where  zeal  knows  no  obstructions 
or  hesitations,  ladies  of  all  ranks  and  men 
of  all  conditions  relinquish  every  thing  and 
become  "all  things"  to  accomplish  their 
special  object?  This  is  a  means  scarcely 
used  by  us,  and  a  potent  one  it  is. 


REED:  SUNDAY-SCHOOLS. 


401 


But  -who  is  to  create  this  enlarged  agen- 
cy ?  The  responsibility  must  rest  upon  the 
Church.  Yes,  henceforth  the  Church  must 
understand  that  the  Sunday-school  is  not  to 
be  left  to  chance ;  it  is  no  longer  to  have  a 
doubtful  position,  or  yield  a  hesitating  alle- 
giance. The  school  of  the  future  must  be 
an  institution  of  the  Church,  its  work  must 
be  recognized  as  part  of  the  church  work, 
and  it  must  be  felt  that  the  root  of  church 
life  lies  in  it.  Truly,  the  advancement  of 
religion  is  the  claim  of  the  times,  and  this 
claim  lies  now  before  the  Church  and  de- 
mands instant  recognition.  And  should  not 
the  school  be  acknowledged  ?  Whence  came 
the  Church  ?  Tracing  things  to  their  sources, 
in  multitudes  of  cases  it  will  be  found  that  a 
Sunday-school  was  the  nucleus ;  from  it  was 
formed  the  little  congregation,  and  in  their 
midst  a  little  company  of  believers  consti- 
tuted the  Church.  And  whence,  let  me  ask, 
come  our  pastors  and  teachers  ?  Have  not 
our  ministers  usually  been  trained  in  the 
Sunday-school,  and  there  first  put  forth  their 
teaching  power,  and  there  given  proof  of 
their  ministry  ?  Have  not  our  missionaries 
been  first  found  zealously  engaged  in  rescu- 
ing and  teaching  our  heathen  at  home,  visit- 
ing the  families  of  scholars,  and  "  preaching 
the  Gospel  to  every  creature  "  in  the  regions 
round  about,  "  beginning  at  Jerusalem  ?" 

Now,  as  a  matter  of  fact,  no  church  mem- 
ber can  be  indifferent  to  the  school,  for  as  a 
rule  the  members  of  our  churches  have  come 
from  it.  Dr.  Campbell  says,  "  An  immense 
majority  of  church  members  have  been  first 
impressed  not  from  the  pulpit,  but  in  the 
Sabbath  -  school."  And  when  it  is  alleged 
by  some  teachers  that  their  pastors  are  in- 
different, it  is  most  improbable ;  they  may 
bo  overcharged  with  duty,  but  they  are  not 
forgetful;  they  may  be  disinclined  to  dis- 
turb by  interference,  but  they  are  not  un- 
concerned. Still,  no  doubt,  an  impression 
exists  that  the  school  does  not  receive  the 
consideration  it  deserves.  If  there  is  ground 
for  this,  let  it  be  at  once  discovered,  or  let 
the  suspicion  be  forever  set  at  rest.  The 
words  of  Dr.  Humphreys  may  well  be  pon- 
dered by  those  to  whom  they  are  addressed : 
"  Ministers  of  Christ,  how  much  the  prosper- 
ity of  this  glorious  cause  depends  on  your 
faithfulness — upon  your  influence.  To  say 
that  it  can  not  go  on  unto  perfection  with- 
out you  is  almost  to  say  that,  if  it  fails  and 
languishes,  you  must  answer  for  it.  On  you 
it  devolves  to  teach  the  teachers,  to  counsel 
and  encourage  them  in  all  their  arduous  du- 
ties, to  persuade  all  the  people  in  your  con- 
gregation, if  possible,  to  send  every  child  to 
the  Sabbath-school.  The  teachers  expect, 
nsk,  nay,  implore  your  zealous  and  powerful 
co-operation.  Surely,  my  beloved  brethren, 
you  will  not  disappoint  them  ;  you  will  not 
stand  aloof  from  so  glorious  an  enterprise." 

These  are  earnest  words,  and  the  plea  is 
20 


cogent.  If  it  is  needed  in  these  States,  be- 
lieve me,  it  is  not  less  necessary  in  Britain, 
in  Germany,  and  in  France ;  and  it  were  well 
if  our  ministry  would  assume  their  rightful 
place  and  take  the  direction  of  their  schools. 
Dr.  Arnold  was  wise  when  he  said,  "At  last 
I  have  secured  my  long-coveted  control  of 
my  Sunday-school.  These  institutions  are  as 
necessary  to  the  minister  as  to  the  church ; 
they  occupy  a  position  midway  between  the 
fireside  and  the  pulpit.  The  teachers  arc 
his  assistants  in  the  work  of  God ;  their  aim 
is  the  same ;  they  are  pastors  in  miniature ; 
they  are  feeding  the  future  flock  in  embryo ; 
they  are  moulding  the  generation  ;  they  are 
the  clergyman's  right  arm." 

And  Todd  says,  "The  Sabbath  -  school 
takes  the  children,  as  it  were,  out  of  the  pas- 
tor's hand,  and  becomes  the  pastor  to  the  lit- 
tle flock,  but  it  does  not  and  it  can  not  re- 
lease him  from  the  responsibility  of  seeing 
that  the  word  is  rightly  divided."  The  figure 
is  a  beautiful  one — it  is  Scriptural.  The  pas- 
tor or  shepherd  leads  and  feeds  the  sheep; 
the  teacher  or  under-shepherd  feeds  aiid  tends 
the  lambs  of  the  fold.  The  food  of  the  one 
is  "  strong  meat ;' '  of  the  other, "  pure  milk." 
Barnabas  was  such  a  teacher  at  Antioch, 
before  he  was  separated  to  the  work  of  the 
ministry,  for  even  then,  as  now,  "  he  gave 
some  apostles,  some  prophets,  some  evan- 
gelists, some  pastors  and  teachers,  for  the 
perfecting  of  the  saints,  for  the  work  of  the 
ministry,  for  the  edifying  of  the  body  of 
Christ." 

The  children  of  the  Church,  that  is,  of  be- 
lievers, are  entitled  to  the  first  place  in  this 
school  of  the  Church.  From  infancy  they 
are  devoted,  if  not  by  baptism,  at  least  by 
dedication  to  the  Lord ;  they  are  the  chil- 
dren of  many  prayers,  and  brought  up  in  the 
nurture  and  admonition  of  the  Lord.  This 
question  is  often  misunderstood.  It  is  sup- 
posed that  parents  are  asked  to  renounce 
the  religions  education  of  their  children,  as 
though  religion  were  a  concern  for  the  Sab- 
bath, and  was  put  on  and  off  with  the  Sun- 
day. What  is  wanted  is  not  delegation, 
but  the  acceptance  of  co-operation ;  assist- 
ance by  instruction,  counsel,  influence,  and 
prayer.  In  sick  children  there  are  often 
hidden  desires  and  aspirations  undiscovered 
by  the  parental  eye,  yet  revealed  to  the  sym- 
pathetic friend.  "  We  speak  that  we  do 
know,  and  testify  that  wo  have  seen."  The 
conscious  life  of  such  children,  too,  often 
opens  with  a  sweet  graciousness  of  spirit, 
and  a  sweet  but  not  a  saving  faith.  Par- 
ents regard  this  as  "hopeful, "and  are  con- 
tent ;  but  contact  with  another  mind  would 
often  lead  to  the  discovery  of  inquiry,  if  not 
yearning,  after  "  a  sure  and  certain  hope," 
"the  salvation  that  is  in  Christ  Jesus  with 
eternal  glory." 

Parents  would  do  well  to  avail  themselves 
of  this  ontsidc  agency,  and  to  trust  their 


402 


CHRISTIAN  LIFE. 


children  to  pious  teachers,  such  as  the  pres- 
ence of  their  children  would  secure.  Their 
influence  differs  from  yours,  and  often  it  is 
even  stronger  and  more  constraining.  For, 
after  all,  this  is  a  vital  question  ;  yea,  it  is 
the  question  of  questions.  If  parents  and 
teachers  are  not  laboring  for  conversion, 
for  what  are  they  working  f  And  yet  the 
Church  herself  needs  converting  on  this 
point.  She  has  not  believed  in  early  decis- 
ion and  early  profession  of  faith  in  Christ. 
Now,  henceforth,  let  it  be  known  of  the 
school  that  the  aim  is  nothing  lower,  noth- 
ing short  of  this — "  to  win  souls."  Now  let 
us  be  faithful.  Early  piety  has  not  been 
looked  for ;  decision  has  been  discouraged ; 
church-membership  is  refused.  In  England, 
out  of  384  churches  with  40,000  members, 
379  have  no  members  under  14  years  of  age, 
and  in  199  no  members  tinder  the  age  of  18. 
It  is  whispered,  How  do  we  knoio  bow  long  it 
will  last  ?  But  between  7  and  13  years  of  age 
— ay,  younger — does  not  conscience  dawn  ? 
does  not  the  spirit  strive  ?  And  when  a  dear 
child  reads  her  Bible  as  one  who  loves  it, 
and  delights  iu  prayer,  when  evil  is  resisted, 
shunned,  and  hated,  when  there  is  a  cleaving 
to  that  which  is  good,  when  there  is  a  mani- 
fest turning  to  God,  who  shall  hinder  a  hum- 
ble approach  to  the  table  of  the  Lord  ?  "  Ye 
shall  judge  them  by  their  fruits."  Brethren, 
if  we  did  believe  in  early  piety,  we  should 
look  for  the  fruit,  and  mourn  with  anguish 
and  wailing  the  lack  of  it.  Yes,  we  do  pray 
that  all  may  be  saved,  from  the  "  least  unto 
the  greatest,"  but  we  should  start  Avith  sur- 
prise if  a  dozen  of  our  infant-class  children, 
next  Sabbath  morning,  declared  their  love  to 
the  Saviour.  Verily  it  is  unto  us  "  accord- 
ing to  our  faith." 

It  is  recorded  of  an  American  lady  that 
her  child  told  her,  on  her  thirteenth  birth- 
day, that  she  had  given  her  heart  to  Christ. 
"God  bless  thee,  ray  lamb,"  said  the  de- 
lighted mother,  "  it  is  in  answer  to  prayer. 
I  always  hoped  that  at  this  age  you  would 
be  a  child  of  Christ."  "  But,"  said  the  girl, 
"  I  often  felt  like  submitting  to  him  when  I 
was  quite  little."  "  Did  you,  my  dear,  but 
I  did  not  expect  it  before.  I  was  sowing 
the  seed  and  cultivating  your  heart,  looking 
to  this  time  for  your  decision."  How  true ! 
"  the  wind  bloweth  where  it  listeth,  and  thou 
hearest  the  sound  thereof,  but  canst  not 
tell  whence  it  cometh  or  whither  it  goeth." 
Do  not  the  lives  of  Joseph,  Josiah,  Samuel, 
and  Timothy  teach  us  ?  do  not  the  histories 
of  Zwingle,  Melanchthon,  and  Calvin  ad- 
monish us  ?  and  shall  we  not,  as  in  times  of 
old,  find  in  our  children  faith  as  great,  and 
simplicity  as  sweet,  and  are  not  the  pray- 
ers of  infancy  mighty  before  the  throne  of 
Heaven  ?  "  Oh,  sir,"  said  Melauchthon  to  the 
discouraged  Luther—"  oh,  sir,  let  us  not  be 
cast  down,  for  I  have  heard  our  noble  pro- 
tectors, the  little  children  of  our  parishion- 


ers, whose  earnest  prayers  I  have  just  wit- 
nessed— prayers  which  I  am  satisfied  God 
will  hear,  for  '  ont  of  the  mouth  of  babea 
and  sucklings  he  has  ordained  strength, 
that  he  might  still  the  enemy  and  the 
avenger.' " 

It  has  well  been  said,  "An  apathetic 
Church  can  not  long  prosper.  Forbear  to 
cherish  and  guide,  and  the  affections  of 
youth,  even  pions  youth,  are  wearied ;  they 
forsake  the  sanctuaries  of  their  fathers,  and 
seek  other  communions  and  sunnier  resting- 
places."  Apathy  on  the  part  of  a  church  in 
worse  than  opposition.  It  is  well  to  have 
sympathetic  talk ;  it  is  better  to  have  hearty 
and  earnest  co-operation ;  and  at  the  present 
moment  there  is  such  need  of  this,  that  the 
Church  must  lay  it  to  her  own  account  that 
the  failure  she  sometimes  complains  of  is 
due  to  her  rather  than  to  the  pulpit.  The 
Church  must  consider  the  needs  of  the  school, 
must  provide  the  agency  required  in  the 
school,  and  must  practically  sanction  and 
control  the  school.  What  is  demanded  is, 
not  any  one  for  a  teacher,  not  boys  and  girls, 
elder  scholars  and  monitors,  but  men  and 
women,  selected,  qualified  to  teach  and  to 
rule ;  experienced,  influential,  and  "  mighty 
in  the  Scriptures."  For  it  is  not  now  a 
wearisome  plodding,  with  hoe  and  spade, 
among  weeds  and  tares,  but  training,  water- 
ing, and  tending.  Where  is  this  agency  ?  It 
exists,  but  it  is  dormant,  and  it  lies  as  a  use- 
less power  in  our  midst.  Thence  will  arise, 
when  our  voice  is  heard,  and  when  the  claim 
is  felt,  our  spiritually-minded  teachers,  apt 
to  teach  not  the  religion  of  a  creed,  but  the 
religion  of  the  heart. 

This  true  teaching  is  needed  not  more  in 
the  school  than  in  public  worship.  I  IKTVO 
long  urged  the  adaptation  of  our  Sabbath 
worship  to  the  wants  of  little  children ;  and 
for  their  sake,  and  to  secure  an  intelligent 
appreciation  of  adult  worship  in  youth,  I 
have  pleaded,  and  with  some  success,  ii: 
England  for  separate  services  for  infants. 
There  is  natural  reluctance  on  the  part  of 
mothers  to  spare  them  from  the  pew,  and 
of  ministers  from  the  congregation,  and  thr» 
argument  applies  with  force  in  this  coun- 
try ;  while  in  England,  where  the  families  ot" 
our  poorest  classes  are  found  in  no  place  of 
worship,  the  attendance  of  such  little  ones  is 
not  only  no  loss,  but  a  clear  gain.  The  ear- 
liest children's  service  established  iu  London 
was  commenced  in  1840,  and  now  no  well-reg- 
ulated large  school  is  without  one.  No  ono 
will  venture  to  deny  that  going  to  the  house 
of  God  is  good  at  any  age,  and  that  it  begets 
a  certain  habit,  and  may  conduce  to  produce 
respect,  if  not  reverence ;  and  this  was  what 
a  minister  meant  who  said  to  me,  "  I  would 
have  them  there,  even  if  they  did  not  com- 
prehend a  word  of  what  I  said ;"  but  it  must 
be  remembered  that  worship  is  not  really  in- 
teresting to  a  child  unless  it  is  understood. 


REED:   SUNDAY-SCHOOLS. 


40?, 


That  want  of  understanding  begets  weari- 
ness, weariness  leads  to  dislike,  and  dislike 
often  ends  in  disgust.  Let  it,  then,  he  con- 
sidered that  this  is  a  proposal  to  adopt  a 
plan  proved  to  he  pleasant  and  profitable  to 
very  little  children,  many  of  them  so  utterly 
neglected  that  the  alternative  is  to  know  no 
worship  or  teaching  at  all.  Beyond  this  I  do 
not  go ;  hut  some  ministers  should  know  that 
on  Sabbath  mornings  there  are  elder  ones 
among  the  youth  in  those  upper  galleries 
whose  hearts  are  heavy  for  sin,  and  who,  Sun- 
day after  Sunday,  fail  to  lay  hold  of  the  hope 
set  before  them  for  want  of  greater  simplic- 
ity in  teaching  Gospel  truth.  "  Lift  up  thy 
hands  unto  Him  for  the  life  of  thy  young 
children,  that  faint  for  hunger  at  the  top  of 
every  street."  There  is  yet  another  reason 
why  the  Church  should  see  well  to  her  Sun- 
day-schools. In  the  present  undetermined 
state  of  the  common  school,  and  the  uncer- 
tainty as  to  the  place  religion  is  to  hold 
there — not  religious  teaching,  but  even  mor- 
al training,  based  upon  the  foundations  of 
Scriptural  authority — it  is  incumbent  on 
the  Church  to  fall  back  upon  her  religious 
schools.  Hitherto  day  schools  have  been 
conducted  by  religious  teachers,  in  a  relig- 
ious spirit,  and  the  Bible  held  an  honored 
place  as  the  source  of  all  morals  and  the  au- 
thority of  all  discipline.  Now  that  distinct- 
ive religious  teaching  must  be  dispensed 
with,  the  inculcation  of  that  practical  re- 
ligion Avhich,  being  common  to  us  all,  is 
most  appropriate  to  children  must  be  cher- 
ished— that  truth  that  teaches  to  fear  God 
and  keep  his  law ;  that  makes  man  love 
men,  and  all  men  reverence  God ;  that  truth 
which,  to  use  the  vvords  of  Washington,  "is 
proclaimed  by  the  voice  of  the  Bible,  which, 
as  the  only  true  basis  for  eternal,  must  be 
the  only  true  basis  for  temporal  education." 
It  is  evident  that,  to  hold  our  view,  to  say 
nothing  of  enlarging  the  scope  of  our  oper- 
ations, wo  must  make  our  Sunday-schools 
more  attractive  and  our  teaching  more  ef- 
fective ;  and  in  the  great  educational  race 
we  must  not  rest  content  till  wo  bring  up 
onr  teaching  power  to  the  highest  degree 
offeree  and  perfection. 

The  Sunday-school  has  a  strong  claim  on 
the  State,  and  by  this  I  mean  not  on  State 
support,  but  on  the  sympathy  of  all  good 
citizens.  In  the  presence  of  magistrates 
and  legislators.  I  feel  free  to  say  that  in 
England  it  is  held  to  have  been  among  the 
chief  forces  for  good  in  moulding  and  fash- 
ioning our  social  condition.  The  founders 
of  these  States  showed  great  foresight  in  lay- 
ing down  the  principles  upon  which  educa- 
tion should  be  secured,  and  the  exact  terms 
of  the  decree  of  the  General  Court  of  Massa- 
chusetts show  what,  in  1647,  was  their  ruling 
desire:  "It  being  one  chief  project  of  the 
old  delnder,  Satan,  to  keep  men  from  the 
knowledge  of  the  Scriptures,  as  in  former 


times,  by  keeping  them  in  an  unknown 
tongue,  so  in  these  latter  times,  by  persuad- 
ing them  from  the  use  of  tongues,  that  learn- 
ing may  not  be  buried  in  the  grave  of  our 
fathers  in  the  Church  and  Commonwealth, 
the  Lord  assisting  our  endeavors: — It  is 
therefore  ordered  that  every  township  in  this 
jurisdiction,  after  the  Lord  hath  increased 
them  to  the  number  of  fifty  householders, 
shall  then  forthwith  appoint  teachers,"  etc. 

What  has  wrought  the  great  social  changes 
in  nations  from  savage  to  civilized;  from  serfs 
to  freemen ;  from  slaves  to  citizens  ?  What 
has  transformed  grossness  and  sensuality  to 
purity  of  life.  What  can  diminish  crime, 
and  give  virtuous  direction  to  talent  and 
cleverness?  What  can  bend  the  danger- 
ous and  hurtful  to  subserve  the  best  inter- 
ests of  society?  While  the  world  is  im- 
pelled with  the  forces  of  violence  in  oppo- 
site directions — while  a  spirit  of  lawlessness 
and  revolt  is  abroad,  the  only  safety  and  se- 
curity is  the  inculcation,  in  the  mass  of  the 
people,  of  knowledge  and  probity  and  the 
fear  of  the  Lord.  In  the  neglect  of  these, 
knowledge,  however  polite  and  refined,  will 
be  weak  and  impotent  in  times  of  peril  and 
danger,  and  will  perish  like  a  garland  in  tlio 
grasp  of  popular  fury.  A  great  writer  says, 
"Wholesome  laws  and  severe  punishments 
are  but  slow  and  late  ways  of  reforming  the 
world.  The  timely  and  wise  way  of  doing 
this  is  by  early,  religious  education."  Hence 
the  best  means  of  promoting  the  ends  of  civil 
government  is  to  prevent  the  commission  of 
crime,  and  that  will  not  be  done  unless  the 
law  is  taught  with  such  authority  as  that, 
the  foundation  being  opened  up,  the  very 
child  shall  see  that  it  stands  firmly  on  the 
Divine  law;  The  fear  of  the  Lord  is  the  be- 
ginning of  wisdom.  May  such  wisdom  and 
such  fear  be  the  stability  of  our  times ! 

What  saved  England  when  the  cry  of  the 
people  for  cheap  bread  was  resisted  ?  when 
the  cotton  famine  was  sore  in  the  land,  and 
America  spared  not  her  hand  in  the  day  of 
our  adversity  ?  what,  when  infidelity  came 
in  like  a  flood  upon  us  ?  and  what  is  our  con- 
fidence now  in  the  midst  of  hard  social  prob- 
lemus  waiting  for  solution  ?  What  makes 
your  people  brave  in  disaster,  calm  in  crises 
of  national  alarm?  what  voice  among  you 
rebukes  corruption,  condemns  avarice,  de- 
clares against  intemperance,  and  denounces 
war?  The  voice  of  the  people,  the  common 
people  trained  in  our  schools,  where  the  heart 
is  taught ;  where  conscience  is  dealt  with ; 
where  character  is  moulded ;  where  man  is 
fashioned ;  where  generations  arc  trained, 
and  where  the  nation  is  controlled.  Yes, 
wherever  the  bulk  of  the  population  are  in 
the  Sunday -school,  the  honor,  the  virtue,  and 
the  truth  of  any  people  are  safe ;  and  so,  as 
education  is  the  chief  defense  of  nations, 
righteousness  will  exalt  any  people.  If  this 
consummation  is  desired,  no  other  agency 


404 


CHRISTIAN  LIFE. 


can  effect  it.  The  more  I  look  at  the  com- 
mon or  day  school  of  cither  country,  the 
more  convinced  I  am  that  little  more,  if 
any  more,  than  high  moral  training  can  be 
expected  there.  In  the  Sunday-school  we 
have  800,000  teachers  of  all  classes,  80  per 
cent,  of  them  being  old  scholars,  and  84  per 
cent,  at  least  being  church-members,  teach- 
ing gratuitously  millions  of  children  and 
adults,  the  bulk  of  whom  have  no  systematic 
religious  instruction  elsewhere.  And  taking 
yet  a  lower  view ;  an  honest  child  is  less 
trouble,  more  useful  and  more  valuable  (I 
mean  of  more  money  value),  and  will  do 
more  to  relieve  the  State  from  the  burden 
of  his  parents'  maintenance  in  later  years 
than  an  untaught  one.  A  vicious  child,  on 
the  contrary,  is  a  certain  cost  to  the  State, 
and  a  grievous  curse  to  the  commonwealth. 
Educate  him  in  every  way,  and  in  this  the 
best  way ;  and  recollect  that  "  the  more  re- 
fined the  secular  instruction,  the  more  need 
of  religion  to  prevent  degeneracy  as  one 
generation  succeeds  another." 

It  only  remains  now  to  glance  at  the  fu- 
ture of  this  mighty  agency.  Those  who  best 
know  its  constitution  know  most  accurately 


its  weak  points,  and  we  are  not  afraid  to  ac- 
knowledge them  ;*  but,  for  all  that,  we  are 
conscious  that  in  the  Sunday-school  lies  an 
unrevealed  power.  A  little  fire  and  a  lit- 
tle water  give  forth  the  stupendous  force 
of  steam,  and  from  these  humble  agents  of 
faith  and  love  shall  issue  a  power  for  the 
world's  regeneration  altogether  irresistible. 
The  common  school  contemplates  the  phys- 
ical, intellectual,  and  moral  being ;  the  Sun- 
day-school, the  religious,  the  spiritual.  The 
common  school  has  its  limits ;  the  Sunday- 
school  knows  none,  for  its  teaching  crowns 
and  glorifies  the  completely  educated  man. 

The  cry  of  all  enlightened  nations  is  "  Ed- 
ucate !  educate !"  Ignorance  is  a  common  foe 
— destroy  it,  and  a  tyrant  falls.  A  noble  coun- 
tryman of  yours  founded  his  splendid  gifts 
to  both  our  nations  upon  this  maxim :  "  Ed- 
ucation is  a  debt  due  by  each  generation  to 
the  next."  He  is  a  true  patriot — he  the  true 
friend  to  the  commonwealth,  who  educates 
the  people. 


*  "Onr  Weak  Points:"  an  address  delivered  before 
the  Sunday-school  Union  of  London,  by  Charles  Reed, 
M.P. 


IMPORTANCE  OF  THE  SUNDAY-SCHOOL  AGENCY. 


BY  THE  REV.  RICHARD  NEWTON,  D.D.,  PHILADELPHIA,  PA. 


THIS  is  a  great  theme  to  attempt  to  han- 
dle iu  the  brief  space  allowed  on  such  an 
occasion.  And  yet  no  single  topic  brought 
before  this  interesting  assembly — this  gath- 
ering together  of  the  representatives  of  the 
Church  of  Christ  from  all  lauds — can  be 
more  worthy  of  their  consideration,  or  more 
intimately  connected  with  the  glory  of  their 
common  Master,  or  the  welfare  of  his  blood- 
bought  Church.  To  discuss  this  subject  in 
all  its  bearings  would  require  a  volume. 
Some  one  general  aspect  of  the  great  theme 
is  all  that  can  be  attempted  here.  The  point 
to  which  I  would  confine  my  remarks  is, 

THE  IMPORTANCE  OP  THE  SUXDAY-SCHOOL 
AGENCY. 

I  would  argue  this  importance  on  the 
ground  of  five  pertinent,  practical  considera- 
tions. 

I.  This  agency  is  important,  in  the  first  place, 
in  order  to  realize  fully  the  will  of  God  in  ref- 
erence to  the  religious  instruction  of  the  young. 

We  have  a  clear  intimation  of  God's  will 
on  this  subject  in  the  instructions  given  to 
the  members  of  the  Jewish  Church  by  Mo- 
ses. In  Deut.  vi.,  6-10,  God  says,  with  sol- 
emn emphasis,  "And  these  words,  which  I 
command  thee  this  day,  shall  be  in  thine 
heart :  and  thou  shalt  teach  them  diligent- 
ly unto  thy  children,  and  shalt  talk  of  them 
when  thou  sittest  in  thine  house,  and  when 
thou  walkest  by  the  way,  and  when  thou 
liest  down,  and  when  thou  risest  up.  And 
thou  shalt  bind  them  for  a  sign  upon  thine 
hand,  and  they  shall  be  as  frontlets  between 
thine  eyes.  And  thou  shalt  write  them  upon 
the  posts  of  thy  house,  and  on  thy  gates." 
There  could  not  possibly  be  any  clearer  rev- 
elation of  God's  will  on  this  subject,  so  far 
as  the  duty  of  the  Church  is  concerned  to 
the  children  of  her  own  members. 

The  obligation  is  clear,  positive,  and  im- 
perative. This  point  is  settled.  There  is 
no  room  for  a  moment's  doubt  respecting  it. 
Here  it  is  proved,  with  absolute  certainty, 
that  God  desires  to  have  the  children  of  his 
people  taught  the  knowledge  of  his  truth, 
and  that  he  has  ordained  the  family  relation 
as  the  agency  for  carrying  into  effect  this 
manifestation  of  his  will. 

But,  after  all,  this  only  makes  provision 
for  the  children  of  the  Church.  Suppose, 
now,  that  the  members  of  the  Church  are  all 
faithful  to  their  duty  in  this  respect,  and 
that  all  the  children  of  the  Church  are  fully 


instructed  in  the  knowledge  of  God's  Word, 
as  he  designed  they  should  bo.  What  then  ? 
Why,  the  vast  multitudes  of  children  out- 
side of  the  Church  are  still  unprovided  for ; 
and  how  are  the  wants  of  this  mighty  con- 
course of  young  immortals  to  be  met  ?  The 
family  agency  can  not  meet  the  difficulty. 
However  efficient  it  may  bo  to  secure  in- 
struction for  the  children,  of  the  Church,  it 
can  not  provide  for  the  instruction  of  the 
young  beyond  the  actual  limits  of  the 
Church.  And  it  is  mainly  with  these  that 
the  Sunday-school  is  occupied.  Now  what 
is  the  will  of  God  respecting  this  large  class 
of  the  young  of  our  race  ?  And  how  may 
that  will  be  most  efficiently  carried  out  ? 

It  is  the  will  of  God  that  the  young  every- 
where should  be  taught  his  truth.  We  gather 
this  both  from  the  inferential  and  direct  teach- 
ing of  Scripture.  We  are  taught  this  infer- 
entially.  One  of  the  features  of  the  state 
of  final  glory  promised  to  the  Church  on 
earth  is  that  "all  her  children  shall  be 
taught  of  the  Lord."  And  whatever  God 
has  determined  shall  be  realized  in  perfection 
then,  we  may  well  infer  must  be  pleasing  to 
him  to  have  realized  in  measure  now.  But 
we  are  not  left  to  inference  on  this  point. 
We  have  direct  and  absolute  teachings  as  to 
God's  will  here.  We  are  told  most  positive- 
ly that  "  God  will  have  all  men  to  be  saved, 
and  come  to  the  knowledge  of  his  truth." 
And  that  his  will  in  this  matter  extends  to 
the  children  is  clear  when  we  hear  the 
prophet  asking,  "  Whom  shall  ho  teach 
knowledge?  and  whom  shall  he  cause  to 
understand  doctrine  ?  them  that  are  weaned 
from  the  milk,  and  drawn  from  the  breasts  " 
(Isa.  xxviii.,  9).  It  is,  then,  the  will  of  God, 
without  any  question,  that  all  the  young 
should  be  taught  his  truth.  But  how  shall 
this  will  be  carried  out  ?  To  do  this  with 
any  prospect  of  success,  vre  need  the  help  of 
just  such  an  instrumentality  as  the  Sunday- 
school  furnishes.  It  is  an  agency  admirably 
adapted  to  carry  on  and  complete  this  work. 
If  any  object  to  it  on  the  ground  that  it  is 
an  agency  not  distinctly  recognized  or  en- 
joined in  Scripture,  they  may  just  as  well, 
on  the  same  ground,  refuse  to  avail  them- 
selves of  the  aid  of  the  printing-press,  or 
the  steam-engiue,  or  the  electric  telegraph. 
These  various  instrumentalities  have  been 
discovered  and  brought  to  light,  in  the  good 
providence  of  God,  just  as  the  necessities  of 
the  world  and  the  Church  demanded  them. 


40G 


CHRISTIAN  LIFE. 


And  it  is  precisely  so  with  the  Sunday-school 
agency.  We  see  it  brought  into  play  at  the 
very  time  when  God  is  calling  all  the  mem- 
bers of  the  Church  to  go  forward  iu  the 
great  work  of  teaching  the  young  every- 
where the  knowledge  of  his  truth.  There 
is  no  way  in  which  this  work  can  be  done 
so  efficiently  and  so  practically  as  by  mak- 
ing use  of  the  Sunday-school  agency.  This 
is  an  important  agency  in  order  to  realize 
the  will  of  God  iu  reference  to  the  religious 
instruction  of  the  young. 

II.  It  is  important,  in  the  second  place,  as  af- 
fording an  opportunity  for  the  practical  expres- 
sion of  love  to  Jesus. 

When  we  really  love  a  person,  nothing  is 
pleasauter  than  to  do  what  we  know  is  grati- 
fying to  that  person.  But  Jesus  has  left 
us  in  no  doubt  as  to  the  Avay  in  which  he 
desires  his  people  to  show  their  love  to  him. 
He  made  known  his  will  on  this  point  very 
clearly,  in  that  memorable  scene  which  trans- 
pired on  the  shores  of  the  Sea  of  Galilee. 
Here  Jesus  reveals  himself  to  his  disciples. 
It  is  his  first  public  appearance  to  Peter  af- 
ter his  resurrection.  He  has  already  seen 
him  in  private,  and  assured  him  of  his  for- 
giveness and  continued  favor.  But  now  he 
meets  him  in  the  presence  of  the  other  dis- 
ciples; and  while  gently  chiding  him,  by 
raising  a  question  as  to  his  love,  he  points 
out  a  way  for  the  expression  of  that  love 
that  will  be  most  grateful  to  himself.  Three 
times  Peter  had  denied  his  Master ;  and 
three  times  that  Master  now  questions  his 
love,  and  then  directs  him  how  to  prove  it. 
"  Simon,  son  of  Jonas,  lorest  thou  mef  Feed 
my  lartibs."  This  is  very  touching.  But 
there  is  nothing  in  the  words  of  Jesus  here 
to  restrict  them  to  Peter.  What  applies 
here  to  him  as  one  of  the  chief  of  the  apos- 
tles applies  equally  well  to  every  true  fol- 
lower of  Jesus,  however  humble  his  position. 
We  are  feeding  the  lambs  of  Jesus  when  we 
are  teaching  the  young  the  truth  respecting 
his  character  and  work.  And  this  is  only 
what  every  true  Christian  should  bo  ready 
to  do.  If  Jesus  has  pardoned  our  sins,  and 
renewed  our  nature,  and  given  us  the  hope 
of  heaven,  then  certainly  we  ought  to  be 
willing  to  tell  of  what  he  has  done  for  us. 
Here  was  just  where  the  Psalmist  stood 
when  ho  said,  "  Come,  ye  children,  hearken 
unto  me,  and  I  will  tell  you  what  God  hatli 
done  for  my  soul"  (Psa.  Ixvi.,  16).  And  this 
is  clearly  what  God  expects  of  his  people 
when  he  says,  "Let  him  that  heareth  say, 
Come."  And  so  we  may  well  regard  our 
Saviour  as  addressing  to  every  member  of 
his  Church  the  appeal  that  he  made  to  Peter 
when  he  said,  "  Lovest  thou  me  ?  Feed  my 
lambs."  And  love  to  Jesus,  whenever  it  ex- 
ists, should  respond  to  this  appeal.  Every 
renewed  heart  should  warm  toward  this 
work.  Every  energy  that  grace  has  quick- 
ened and  sanctified  should  he  enlisted  in 


it,  in  one  form  or  other.  And  as  this  work 
stands  before  us,  and  wo  see  the  linger  of 
Jesus  pointing  to  it,  and  hear  the  voice  of 
Jesus  calling  attention  to  it,  and  feel  the  love 
of  Jesus  drawing  our  hearts  to  it,  who  will 
hold  back  from  it  ? 

Looked  at  from  this  point  of  view,  how 
deeply  interesting  the  Sunday-school  work 
appears !  It  is  an  agency  specially  occupied 
in  feeding  the  lambs  of  Christ.  And  when 
we  know  that  he  has  named  feeding  his 
lambs  as  the  most  acceptable  way  in  which 
those  who  love  him  may  show  that  love, 
how  important  a  part  of  the  Church's  work 
the  Sunday-school  agency  is  seen  to  be! 
And  how  earnest  the  interest  all  his  people 
should  feel  in  it !  I  often  wonder  how  any- 
one who  really  loves  Jesus  can  read  about 
this  scene  on  the  shore  of  the  Sea  of  Galilee, 
and  the  question  put  to  Peter  there,  and 
then  be  willing  to  remain  unconnected  with 
an  agency  like  this.  When  we  remember 
that  Jesus  points  this  out  as  a  way  in  which 
he  especially  desires  that  his  people  should 
show  their  love  to  him,  the  wonder  is  not 
that  so  many  are  found  willing  to  engage 
in  it,  but  that  any  who  claim  to  be  the 
friends  of  Jesus  should  be  willing  to  stand 
aloof  from  it. 

III.  The  Sunday-school  is  important,  in  the 
third  place,  because  of  the  opportunity  it  affords 
of  giving  employment  to  the  working  talent  of 
the  Church. 

The  Church  of  Christ  is  a  redeemed  Church. 
Every  energy  in  it  is  a  ransomed  energy.  It 
all  belongs  to  Jesus.  It  is  all  bought  with 
a  price,  and  brought  under  the  strongest  ob- 
ligation to  be  used  for  his  glory.  This  is  the 
Bible  view  of  what  the  state  of  things  in  th« 
Church  should  be.  It  is  the  normal  condi- 
tion— the  Master's  own  idea — of  what  the 
Church  should  be.  That  it  is  very  imperfect- 
ly realized  or  carried  out  docs  not  affect  at 
all  the  position  liere  assumed. 

The  whole  working  talent  of  the  Church 
— every  heart,  and  hand,  and  mind,  and  will 
— is  the  purchase  of  Christ's  precious  blood, 
and  should  be  employed  for  his  glory.  And 
there  is  no  field  of  labor  where  every  variety 
of  talent  can  be  utilized,  and  made  to  tell  for 
the  glory  of  our  Master,  as  in  the  Sunday- 
school  work.  Here  those  who  are  endowed 
with  the  richest  intellectual  gifts,  and  who 
have  cultivated  them  to  the  utmost,  may 
find  work  that  will  fully  task  their  noblest 
powers.  At  the  same  time,  those  whose 
mental  endowments  are  the  most  slender, 
and  who  have  had  the  scantiest  opportuni- 
ties of  improving  the  same,  may  still  find 
something  to  do.  The  servant  with  ten  tal- 
ents may  employ  them  all ;  the  servant  with 
one  talent  need  not  wrap  it  in  a  napkin. 
There  is  work  for  him  to  do,  even  with  that 
one  talent.  Those  who  have  the  gift  of 
teaching,  and  love  to  exercise  that  gift,  have 
before  them  here  the  grandest  field  that  can 


NEWTON:   IMPORTANCE  OF  THE  SUNDAY-SCHOOLS. 


407 


be  presented  in  which  to  employ  their  pow- 
ers. There  is  no  work  in  which  knowledge, 
however  vast  and  vsiried  its  attainments, 
may  be  turned  to  such  good  account  as  in 
that  which  occupies  the  teacher  in  the  Sun- 
day-school. All  the  treasures  of  history,  all 
the  developments  of  science,  all  the  opera- 
tions of  nature,  and  all  the  facts  and  inci- 
dents of  daily  life  will  come  into  play  in  the 
effort  to  illustrate  and  enforce  the  greattruths 
that  centre  in  redemption's  wondrous  plan. 

And  then  in  the  adjuncts  and  accessories 
of  the  Sunday-school,  apart  from  its  great 
central  work  of  teaching,  how  much  there  is 
to  be  done  that  gives  employment  to  energies 
and  capacities  of  a  different  class!  In  ar- 
ranging and  conducting  the  library,  in  pro- 
viding for  and  managing  the  musical  exer- 
cises of  the  school,  in  looking  up  scholars 
with  wThich  to  recruit  the  school,  in  provid- 
•ing  for  those  who  need  it  decent  clothing  in 
which  to  attend  the  exercises  of  the  school, 
and  in  spreading  around  it  an  atmosphere  of 
prayer  for  God's  blessing  on  the  work,  there 
is  a  broad  field  presented,  in  which  all  whose 
hearts  are  warmed  with  love  to  Jesus  may 
find  something  to  do  for  him. 

IV.  In  the  fourth  place,  the  Sunday-school 
agency  is  important  as  a  practical  aid  to  the 
diligent  and  systematic  study  of  the  Scriptures. 

It  is  in  the  clear  understanding  of  these 
Scriptures,  and  in  the  proper  application  of 
them  to  the  heart,  that  we  are  to  look  for  all 
growth  and  maturity  in  the  Christian  life. 
This  is  the  fountain  by  drinking  of  whose 
waters  we  are  to  seek  that  constantly  re- 
newed refreshment  that  we  need.  This  is 
the  bread  that  cometh  down  from  heaven, 
and  by  the  eating  and  digesting  of  which 
alone  we  can  hope  to  secure  those  supplies 
of  strength  that  will  fit  us  for  the  daily  du- 
ties of  our  spiritual  calling.  This  is  the  ex- 
haustless  mine  in  Avhich  lie  hid  all  the  treas- 
ures of  the  knowledge  of  divine  things ;  and 
only  by  patient  digging  and  delving  here 
can  our  souls  be  enriched  by  the  pure  gold 
and  silver  of  saving  truth.  This  is  God's 
armory ;  and  only  from  it  can  his  people  be 
furnished  with  the  weapons  that  they  need 
to  enable  them  to  contend  successfully  with 
the  hosts  of  deadly  errors  that  in  these  days 
come  swarming  around  us  everywhere  like 
legions  from  the  pit.  This  truth  is  so  glori- 
ous in  its  elements,  so  grand  in  its  propor- 
tions, and  so  vital  in  its  relations  to  us,  that 
the  desire  to  know  it  should  be  inducement 
enough  to  the  diligent  study  of  it.  This  is 
true.  But  in  the  imperfection  of  our  fallen 
state,  how  great  the  gulf  that  wo  often  find 
betAveen  what  ought  to  be  and  what  is!  And 
in  securing  an  cud  as  important  as  this,  we 
need  to  avail  ourselves  of  all  the  auxiliary 
motives  within  our  reach.  And  the  Sunday- 
school  agency  supplies  a  powerful  motive 
here.  If  I  have  to  meet  every  Sunday  a 
class  of  bright,  intelligent,  inquiring  young 


minds,  for  the  purpose  of  studying  with  them 
a  portion  of  Scripture,  then  in  the  desire  to 
meet  their  wants  and  do  them  good  I  have 
an  inducement  to  diligence  and  thorough- 
ness, in  studying  that  portion  of  the  Bible, 
that  will  lead  me  much  farther  than  I  should 
be  led  if  I  were  studying  that  same  passage 
of  Scripture  with  reference  only  to  my  per- 
sonal edification.  If  I  had  no  other  motive 
than  this  to  influence  me,  my  study  of  that 
passage  would  probably  be  much  less  care- 
ful and  exhaustive.  I  should  be  apt  to  rest 
satisfied  with  a  general  apprehension  of  the 
scope  and  meaning  of  the  passage.  But  I 
dare  not  venture  to  go  before  my  class  with 
such  a  preparation. 

If  I  hope  to  meet  their  requirements,  and 
maintain  my  influence  over  them,  I  must  be 
armed  at  every  point.  I  must  be  fully  post- 
ed on  the  history  and  the  geography  of  the 
passage.  I  must  know  all  about  the  habits 
and  customs  of  Oriental  people  to  which 
there  may  be  an  allusion  in  the  Lesson.  If 
controverted  points  of  doctrine  are  referred 
to,  I  must  be  able  to  give  some  account  of 
the  different  views  that  are  held  respecting 
them.  I  must  bring  to  bear  upon  the  sub- 
ject all  the  light  which  the  most  recent  in- 
vest igatiois  of  Bible  students  can  supply. 
And  in  occupying  a  position  where  I  am  re- 
quired to  study  the  Scriptures  in  such  a 
way  as  this,  I  feel  that  I  am  brought  under 
the  most  powerful  motive  to  be  doing  that 
which  is  most  beneficial  to  myself  individu- 
ally, and  at  the  same  time  most  conducive 
to  the  best  interests  of  those  about  me. 

And  the  influence  of  this  motive  was  nev- 
er so  powerful  as  it  is  now.  The  present 
system  of  uniform  or  international  lessons 
intensifies  the  power  of  this  motive  to  a  re- 
markable degree.  It  incrcasea  vastly  this 
stimulus  to  study.  There  never  was  a  time 
in  the  history  of  the  Church  when  so  many 
earnest  and  intelligent  men  and  women 
were  preparing  themselves  so  thoroughly  for 
the  work  of  teaching,  as  is  now  the  case  all 
through  this  land  and  in  Europe  also.  And 
as  this  system  of  lessons  becomes  more  gen- 
erally adopted,  till  the  great  body  of  Sun- 
day-school teachers  throughout  Christen- 
dom sit  down  on  the  same  Sabbath  to  teach 
the  same  lesson,  there  will  be  growing  pow- 
er in  this  motive.  The  carrying  out  of  this 
plan  of  lessons  places  at  the  control  of  every 
intelligent  teacher  an  amount  of  valuable 
aid  in  studying  the  Word  of  God  such  as 
never  was  brought  within  his  reach  before. 
At  a  trifling  cost,  a  teacher  can  provide  him- 
self with  two,  three,  or  half  a  dozen  differ- 
ent expositions  of  the  same  lesson.  He  can 
thus  avail  himself  of  the  calm  and  mature 
judgment  of  the  best  expositors  in  the  dif- 
ferent branches  of  the  Church.  He  can  gath- 
er up  the  rays  of  light  that  shiue  from  so 
many  different  sources,  and,  bringing  them 
to  a  focus,  can  throw  its  beaming  blaze  on 


4«H 


CHRISTIAN  LIFE. 


the  passage  be  is  studying.  Thus  he  can 
meet  his  class  as  "  a  workman  that  needeth 
not  to  be  ashamed,"  feeling  sure  of  giving 
them  all  the  aid  that  human  means  can  fur- 
nish iu  the  studying  of  God's  Word.  And 
an  agency  that  operates  in  this  way  is  im- 
portant iu  carrying  on  the  Church's  work  in 
the  earth.  And  if  it  is  helpful  to  such  an 
extent  in  giving  a  full,  clear  knowledge  of 
God's  Word,  then  it  is  impossible  to  do  any 
thing  that  bears  more  directly  on  the  best 
interests  of  the  Church  than  to  have  this 
instrumentality  more  widely  diffused,  and 
more  vigorously  supported. 

V.  Lastly,  the  Sunday-school  agency  is  im- 
portant as  aiding  to  develop  the  highest  type 
of  Christian  character  in  the  membership  of  the 
Church. 

We  are  reaching  the  last  days  of  the  dis- 
pensation under  which  we  live.  At  Wa- 
gram  and  at  Waterloo,  when  the  battle  was 
fur  advanced,  Napoleon  called  out  his  "  Old 
Guard,"  and  left  the  issues  of  the  day  -with 
the  last  charge  on  which  he  sent  them.  And 
the  great  conflict  which  has  been  waged  so 
long  with  the  powers  of  sin  is  now  drawing 
to  a  close.  In  deciding  this  conflict,  there 
is  a  last  charge  for  the  Church  to  make.  In 
making  this  charge,  the  Great  Captain  of 
our  salvation  will  order  out  not  the  "  Old 
Guard,"  but  the  Young  Guard.  It  will  be  a 
race  of  his  followers  in  whom  the  highest 
elements  of  Christian  character  have  been 
developed.  And  these  are  elements  which 
the  Sunday-school  agency  is  admirably 
adapted  to  call  into  play.  I  would  refer  to 
four  elements  of  character,  as  indispensable 
in  the  men  and  women  who  are  to  carry  on 
that  work  which  the  Church  of  Christ  must 
do  in  its  closing  conflict  with  the  powers 
of  darkness. 

The  first  of  these  elements  is  intelligence. 
I  use  this  word  here  in  its  reference  to  Scrip- 
ture knowledge.  This  is  the  highest  kind 
of  intelligence.  It  is  the  broadest,  the  deep- 
est, and  the  njost  practical.  Pope  said, "  The 
proper  study  of  mankind  is  man."  This  is 
only  true  in  a  qualified  sense.  To  say  that 
"  the  proper  study  of  mankind  is  God — God 
in  Christ,"  is  much  nearer  the  truth.  In  this 
study,  the  manhood  and  the  Godhead  blend, 
so  that  each  throws  light  on  the  other.  You 
enter  a  labyrinth  without  a  clue  in  attempt- 
ing to  study  humanity  apart  from  Christ. 
We  must  see  ourselves  in  God's  light,  if  we 
would  not  be  left  wholly  in  the  dark  here, 
and  we  need  a  race  of  Christians  now  thor- 
oughly furnished  with  this  intelligence. 
They  must  have  a  practical  knowledge  of 
the  truth  of  the  Gospel;  they  must  know 
the  "  exceeding  sinfulness  of  sin,"  and  the 
tremendous  ruin  it  has  wrought ;  they  must 
know  the  wondrous  remedy  devised  to  meet 
that  ruin;  they  must  know  "the  love  of 
Christ,  which  passeth  knowledge;"  they 
must  know  the  freencss  and  fullness  of  God's 


grace;  they  must  take  in  the  idea  that  the 
world  belongs  to  Jesus,  and  that  the  first 
great  duty  of  every  Christian  is  to  aid  in  se- 
curing it  to  him ;  they  must  know  something 
of"  the  powers  of  the  world  to  come,"  of  the 
grandeur  of  the  Christian's  portion  in  eter- 
nity, with  its  promised  crown  and  kingdom. 
The  glare  of  the  world  will  pale  before  thin 
knowledge ;  and  those  who  possess  it  will 
be  prepared  to  live,  in  some  measure,  as  Paul 
lived  after  he  had  made  his  visit  to  the  third 
heavens. 

It  is  the  Spirit's  work  to  give  such  views 
of  truth  as  we  have  referred  to.  And  it  is 
iu  connection  with  the  Sunday-school  agen- 
cy that  we  may  expect  to  find  the  Spirit  so 
working  as  to  prepare  a  generation  of  intel- 
ligent Christians  adapted  to  the  Church's 
work  in  the  present  day. 

Liberality  is  another  element  that  must 
mark  the  Christians  now  called  for.  Wo 
need  a  race  of  generous,  large-hearted  men 
and  women,  who  have  a  practical,  influential 
belief  in  the  truth  that  the  gold  and  the  sil- 
ver belong  to  God,  and  who  have  a  thorough 
conviction  that  there  is  something  better  to 
be  done  with  money  than  to  hoard  it.  We 
need  a  race  of  Christians  trained  to  the  hab- 
it of  giving,  who  will  write  "  '  Holiness  to  the 
Lord '  on  the  bells  of  their  horses,"  and  who 
"  will  consecrate  their  gain  unto  the  Lord, 
and  their  substance  unto  the  Lord  of  the 
whole  earth"  (Micah  iv.,  13).  I  know  that 
money  will  not  evangelize  the  world,  but  it 
will  go  far  to  supply  the  human  agencies 
needed  to  carry  on  this  work ;  and  until 
these  are  freely  supplied,  we  have  no  right 
to  expect  that  blessing  of  God  which  alone 
can  give  success.  There  is  plenty  of  money 
iu  the  Church  now  for  all  the  purposes  hero 
contemplated,  but  the  membersof  the  Church 
know  not  how  to  use  it.  They  need  to  bo 
trained  to  give,  they  must  be  made  to  under- 
stand the  Bible  principle  of  giving,  and  bo 
taught  to  carry  out  that  principle  in  the  use 
of  all  their  means.  And  the  Sunday-school, 
with  its  missionary  organization,  affords  an 
admirable  training-school  in  which  to  se- 
cure this  result.  It  familiarizes  the  minds 
of  the  young  with  the  world's  great  want, 
and  shows  them  how  they  may  aid  in  sup- 
plying this  want ;  and  so  accustoms  them  to 
the  habit  of  giving  freely  and  gladly  as  God 
gives  to  us. 

A  third  element  needed  in  the  type  of  char- 
acter demanded  by  the  exigencies  of  the  pres- 
ent day  is  consecration.  This  implies  a  practi- 
cal carrying  out  of  the  principle  that "  we  are 
not  our  own,  but  bought  with  a  price."  This 
is  a  principle  the  correctness  of  which  we  all 
admit,  and  yet  the  real  power  of  which  but 
few  exemplify.  Jesus  sets  himself  before 
us  as  the  pattern  of  consecration.  "For 
their  sakes,"  he  says,  in  his  great  interces- 
sory prayer  for  all  his  people — "for  their 
sakes  I  sanctify"  (or  consecrate)  "myself, 


NEWTON:  IMPORTANCE  OF  THE  SUNDAY-SCHOOLS. 


409 


that  they  also  may  be  sanctified  "  (or  conse- 
crated). How  thoroughly  Jesus  gave  him- 
self to  the  work  of  our  redemption!  His 
thoughts,  his  sympathies,  his  time,  his  ener- 
gies, all  the  powers  of  his  humanity,  and  all 
the  resources  of  his  divinity  were  laid  upon 
the  altar.  And  it  is  as  he  stands  by  this 
altar,  on  which  every  thing  is  laid,  that  we 
hear  him  saying,  "  For  their  sakes  I  conse- 
crate myself,  that  they  also  may  be  conse- 
crated." We  need  a  race  of  Christians 
trained  on  this  principle,  and  prepared  to 
tread  in  the  steps  of  that  consecration  which 
ran  through  the  whole  life  of  Jesus;  and 
the  Sunday-school  is  the  most  efficient  agen- 
cy we  can  employ  in  securing  this  result. 
Taking  Jesus  as  the  model  of  the  Christian 
life,  it  aims  to  imbue  the  young  with  his 
spirit,  and  to  reproduce  in  them  "  the  same 
mind  which  was  also  in  Christ  Jesus." 

The  last  element  needed  in  the  character 
of  those  who  would  properly  do  the  Master's 
work  in  these  days  is  catholicity. 

Intense  denominationalism  is  one  of  the 
growing  evils  of  the  present  day.  It  is 
threatening  to  narrow  down  our  sympa- 
thies and  contract  our  hearts,  and  make  us 
think  more  of  our  little  company  ensigns  or 
regimental  flags  than  of  the  broad  banner 
of  truth  under  which  the  great  Captain  of 
our  salvation  is  leading  on  his  sacramental 
host  to  victory.  This  spirit  must  be  watch- 
ed against  and  counteracted.  We  must  have 
a  generation  of  Christians  who  love  the  pre- 
cious kernel  of  saving  truth  better  than  the 
hard  shell  of  sectional  peculiarity  in  which 
they  receive  and  hold  that  truth ;  who  feel, 
admit,  and  act  upon  the  principle  that  the 
things  which  all  true  Christians  hold  in  com- 
mon, and  about  which  they  agree,  are  un- 
speakably more  important  than  the  things 
about  which  they  disagree,  and  out  of  which 
they  build  up  the  walls  of  denominational 
differences.  Denominationalism  is  not  in 
itself  an  evil ;  or,  if  it  be  so,  it  is  an  evil  un- 
avoidable in  the  present  state  of  things.  It 
is  one  of  the  marks  of  imperfection  insepa- 
rable from  a  militant  Church. 


But  there  are  higher  interests  and  nobler 
ends  to  be  regarded  than  the  building  up  of 
our  division  walls.  There  is  work  for  Christ 
and  for  the  world  to  be  done,  which  no  de- 
nominational agency  can  do.  We  have  a 
grand  illustration  of  this  remark  in  the  no- 
ble work  that  has  been  accomplished  in  this 
country  by  the  American  Sunday-school  Un- 
ion. It  has  entered  into  our  new  and  sparse- 
ly settled  Territories,  and  achieved  a  glorious 
work  for  the  country  and  for  Christ.  In  the 
half-centnry  of  its  existence  just  reached,  it 
has  established  more  than  fifty  thousand  Sun- 
day-schools— an  average  of  over  one  thou- 
sand every  year.  In  connection  with  these 
schools  it  has  enlisted  more  than  four  hun- 
dred thousand  teachers,  and  gathered  under 
their  influence  upward  of  two  and  a  half 
millions  of  scholars.  Out  of  these  schools 
more  than  three  thousand  churches  have 
been  founded. 

This  is  a  work  that  no  denomination 
could  have  undertaken.  And  there  is  simi- 
lar work  to  do  elsewhere,  Avhich  can  only 
be  done  by  the  cordial  and  united  eftbrts  of 
those  who  love  the  honor  of  Christ  and  the 
souls  for  whom  he  died  better  than  their  de- 
nominational interests.  And  to  secure  this 
result  we  must  have  a  race  of  intelligent, 
large-hearted,  consecrated,  catholic-spirited 
Christians.  Ephraim  must  be  taught  "no 
longer  to  envy  Judah,  nor  Judah  to  vex 
Ephraim."  As  members  of  Christ's  blood- 
bought  host,  we  must  forget  the  different 
tribes  to  which  we  belong,  and  march  on  to 
victory,  as  the  Israel  of  God,  whoso  highest 
aim  and  effort  is  to  help  on  the  coming  of 
that  blessed  time  in  which  we  shall  see 

"All  sects,  and  names,  and  parties  fall, 
And  Jesus  Christ  be  all  in  all .'" 

And  if  we  would  see  a  race  of  Christians 
raised  up  in  whose  characters  these  ele- 
ments are  largely  developed — intelligence,  lib- 
erality, consecration,  and  catholicity — there  is 
'no  better  way  in  which  we  can  secure  this 
end  than  by  the  general  adoption,  and  faith- 
ful use  of,  the  agency  of  Sunday-schools. 


SUNDAY-SCHOOLS  IN  FKANCE. 


BY  THE  REV.  NATHANAEL  WEISS,  OF  PARIS. 


LADIES,  G  ENTLEM  EN,  A  ND  HONORE  D  BRETH- 
REN IN  JESUS  CHRIST, — The  united  and  cor- 
dial salutations  of  numerous  Churches  have 
been  presented  to  you  in  a  spirit  of  fraternal 
greeting.  Some  of  these  Churches  are  im- 
portant, and  almost  triumphant,  when  com- 
pared with  others  of  more  modest  propor- 
tions, but  whose  trials  mark  a  period  more 
militant.  I  am  not  here  as  the  representa- 
tive of  any  ecclesiastical  body.  My  mission 
is  more  humble :  I  come  to  salute  you  sim- 
ply, but  very  affectionately,  ou  the  part  of 
forty  thousand  children,  of  different  Protest- 
ant Churches  in  France.  These  salutations, 
I  feel  sure,  will  touch  your  hearts,  notwith- 
standing their  modesty ;  for,  are  they  not 
in  themselves  a  beautiful  manifestation  of 
the  Evangelical  Alliance,  since  the  Sunday- 
school  Society  of  France,  which  has  sent  me, 
represents  the  youth  of  all  ecclesiastical  de- 
nominations of  French  Protestantism  ?  Have 
I  not  the  right,  then,  to  say  that,  far  from 
regretting  this  mission,  I  am  proud  of  it  ? — • 
for,  although  I  am  not  the  delegate  of  any 
particular  Church,  I  represent  the  firmest 
hopes  of  all  those  who,  in  my  country,  fight 
for  evangelical  truth. 

I.  History  of  Sunday-schools  in  France. — 
Every  one  knows  that  Sunday-schools  are 
of  quite  recent  institution,  as  we  do  not  find 
any  mention  of  them  in  the  time  of  the  Ref- 
ormation, either  in  the  writings  of  the  Re- 
formers or  in  the  organization  of  the  new 
Evangelical  Churches.  In  the  early  history 
of  the  Reformed  Churches  of  France,  there 
was  no  need  for  them.  In  the  sixteenth  cen- 
tury the  truth  was  accepted  everywhere 
over  the  country ;  we  find  that  the  youth  re- 
ceived their  religions  instruction  and  educa- 
tion in  the  family  circle.  Any  one  familiar 
with  our  history  knows  that  the  Huguenots 
were  celebrated  for  the  austerity  of  theirlives, 
and  I  believe  that  some  part  of  their  tra- 
ditions remain  in  some  American  families. 
Parents  considered  it  not  only  their  duty  to 
provide  for  the  earthly  wants  of  their  chil- 
dren, but  also  to  lead  them  to  Jesus,  and  to 
work  for  the  salvation  of  their  souls ;  they 
therefore  taught  them  the  Scriptures,  and 
inspired  them  with  a  faith  as  heroic  as  their 
own ;  and  with  such  an  education  we  are 
not  astonished  to  find  such  numerous  exam- 
ples of  individuals  giving  np  all — affection 
and  wealth— and  often  laying  down  their 
lives  for  Christ.  As  a  result  of  this  system, 


those  of  the  lower  classes,  who  had  no  other 
means  of  learning  than  this  home  education, 
were  able  to  hold  great  and  convincing  ar- 
guments with  priests  and  doctors  of  the  old 
religion. 

But,  owing  to  the  priests  and  doctors, 
those  prosperous  times  did  not  last  long. 
Persecutions  came,  and  I  do  not  believe  that 
in  any  country,  or  at  any  time,  they  were 
ever  carried  on  with  more  animosity  and 
persistency.  They  lasted  for  more  than  two 
hundred  years ;  the  churches  were  destroyed 
little  by  little ;  families  were  massacred,  im- 
prisoned, or  exiled.  The  few  who  succeed- 
ed in  serving  God  did  so  in  secret,  hiding 
in  desert  places,  and  firmly  maintaining  for 
their  children  the  religious  education,  which 
they  illustrated  in  their  daily  walk  and 
conversation. 

But  toward  the  end  of  these  dreadful  tri- 
als many  yielded,  and  pretended  to  be  con- 
verted to  the  religion  of  their  persecutors, 
while  trying  to  remain  faithful  to  the  truth. 
Owing  to  this  extorted  hypocrisy,  it  was 
thought  for  a  time  that  Protestantism  was 
dead  in  France.  But  from  time  to  time  a 
torture  or  an  execution  recalled  it  to  mind. 
Finally  the  day  came  when  the  Protestants 
were  allowed  to  profess  their  faith,  and  live 
in  their  own  country.  This  brings  us  to  the 
eighteenth  century;  and  our  Church  enters 
a  period  much  less  interesting  than  the  pre- 
ceding one.  But  the  few  who  formed  these 
churches  were  Huguenots  of  the  old  type, 
who  had  remained  faithful  to  the  Reforma- 
tion, through  all  storms  and  trials ;  and  a 
greater  number  of  the  new  converts,  who 
had  pretended  to  be  Romanists,  declared 
themselves  Protestants  as  soon  as  danger 
was  over.  To  these  were  added,  later,  exiles 
who  had  returned  to  their  country,  with  for- 
eigners (Swiss,  German,  Dutch,  English,  and 
Alsatian)  who  had  settled  in  France.  The 
fact,  that  the  largest  proportion  being  those 
who  had  returned  to  the  faith  once  denied 
against  their  will,  shows  ns  that  we  must 
not  depend  on  old  traditions  for  the  relig- 
ious education  of  our  youth  ;  other  circum- 
stances have  contributed  in  a  great  measure 
to  obliterate  almost  entirely  these  traditions. 

The  rationalistic  doctrines  of  Voltaire, 
Rousseau,  Diderot,  D'Alembert,  reigned  at 
that  time  in  France,  and  their  influence  ex- 
tended over  a  large  portion  of  the  begin- 
ning of  the  nineteenth  century,  and  affect- 


WEISS :  SUNDAY-SCHOOLS  IN  FRANCE. 


411 


cd  the  Protestaut  Church.  Faith  lost  its 
energy,  and  Christiau  life  its  austerity ;  it 
seemed  as  though,  after  so  many  conflicts, 
a  certain  apathy,  or  inviucible  languor,  had 
taken  hold  of  Christians.  Moreover,  it  was 
necessary  to  organize  the  Church,  and  much 
time  was  lost,  under  the  First  Empire,  by 
the  Churches,  who  sacrificed  a  large  portion 
of  the  liberty  they  had  so  dearly  bought. 
What  resulted  from  all  this  is  the  question 
which  interests"  us.  The  instruction  and 
religious  education  of  the  youth  were  al- 
most entirely  neglected.  Parents  scarcely 
troubled  themselves  about  it,  and  that  care 
wtis  left  in  the  hands  of  the  pastors,  who, 
faithful  to  the  ancient  custom  (excellent  for 
children  trained  and  educated  at  home),  lim- 
ited themselves  to  teaching  the  catechism, 
instead  of  bringing  the  children,  little  by 
little,  to  the  knowledge  of  the  Word  of  God, 
and  familiarizing  them  with  the  stories  of 
the  Bible,  and  thereby  gaining  their  hearts ; 
they  obliged  them  to  learn  abstract  formu- 
las, which  represented  Christianity  as  a  sys- 
tem ;  and  when  they  were  able  to  recite 
these  formulas,  they  declared  their  belief  in 
this  system,  of  which  they  very  often  had 
little  if  any  understanding ;  they  then  re- 
ceived their  first  communion,  and  were  de- 
clared Christians.  There  were  exceptions 
to  this  rule,  but  it  must  be  said  that  this 
method  was  generally  followed ;  and  we  see 
iu  it  some  of  the  causes  of  the  religious  in- 
difference, the  weakening  of  evangelical  be- 
lief, and  the  intestine  divisions  which  to-day 
characterize  portions  of  French  Protestant- 
ism. How  is  it  to  be  wondered  at  that,  iu  a 
country  where  the  adherents  of  the  Gospel 
are  surrounded  on  all  sides  by  their  enemies 
of  yesterday,  with  a  religious  education  so 
very  inefficient  (for  it  only  extends  over  the 
last  two  or  three  years  of  childhood,  proper- 
ly speaking),  so  superficial,  and  so  little  ap- 
propriated to  the  mind  and  heart  of  the 
child,  a  great  part  of  those  who  were  sub- 
jected to  it  suddenly  discovered  that  they 
had  completely  forgotten  their  faith,  or  that 
they  believed  in  nothing,  and  had  gradually 
lost  all  interest  in  the  religious  life  of  their 
Church? 

But  as  soon  almost  as  we  see  the  evil,  the 
remedy  appears.  In  1810,  scarcely  thirty 
years  after  Robert  Raikes  introduced  the 
Sunday-schools  in  England,  we  are  told  that 
in  France  a  young  minister,  supported  by 
English  funds,  commenced  the  first  Sun- 
day-school in  Bordeaux,  In  1814  M.  Le- 
vavasseur,  snrnamed  Durelle,  a  native  of 
Jersey,  who  had  studied  at  Gosport,  estab- 
lished- one  in  Luneray.  In  1820  he  founded 
another  in  Quie"ry,  to-day  one  of  the  strong- 
est churches  iu  the  North  of  France.  In 
1819  wo  find  one  also  at  Nomain ;  then,  iu 
1822,  Frederick  Monod  is  said  to  have  estab- 
lished the  first  one  in  Paris.  In  1826  one  was 
formed  in  Bertry  (D^partement  dn  Nord). 


In  1828  we  are  assured  that  there  were  twen- 
ty-eight Sunday-schools  in  France,  and  in 
1852  the  idea  of  religious  instruction  for 
children  under  the  care  of  the  laity  had  al- 
ready spread  to  such .  an  extent  that  about 
two  hundred  Sunday-schools  could  be  count- 
ed in  France.  It  was  at  this  time  (1851)  that 
the  Society  I  represent  iu  your  midst  was 
formed.  This  Society  proposed  to  spread 
this  idea  of  Sunday-schools ;  it  accepted  the 
English  and  American  methods  in  the  divis- 
ion of  the  schools  into  classes,  taught  by 
teachers,  and  in  the  preparation  of  the  les- 
sons at  a  previous  meeting,  thus  introducing 
a  division  of  labor  and  universal  priesthood; 
and  the  laity  found  in  this  new  method  of 
instructing  the  youth  the  means  to  supple- 
ment the  too  visible  deficiency  of  education 
in  the  family  and  Church,  the  glory  of  which, 
I  repeat,  belongs  to  England  and  America. 
A  Sunday-school  magazine  was  published, 
from  1851  to  1863,  by  this  Society  for  in- 
struction of  teachers.  But  it  must  be  grant- 
ed that,  while  the  right  of  lay  teaching  in 
religion  was  asserted,  and  to  some  extent 
acknowledged,  beyond  the  immediate  fami- 
ly of  the  pastor  it  had  little  or  no  practi- 
cal effect.  It  was  not  until  this  period  of 
1852  to  1856,  when  a  committee  was  formed, 
and  France  was  visited  by  your  very  well- 
known  A.  Woodruff,  that  the  universal  prin- 
ciple of  dividing  into  groups,  and  the  em- 
ployment of  all  competent  lay  members  to 
give  religious  instruction,  was  held  to  be 
an  obligation.  Immediately  following  this 
visit,  and  for  two  years,  Mr.  Paul  Cook,  sus- 
tained by  American  money,  and  who  is  well 
known  by  the  services  he  rendered  to  our 
work,  visited  nearly  every  department  in 
France;  and  at  the  close  of  his  labor  it  is 
believed  that  about  four  hundred  and  fifty 
Sunday-schools  existed  in  France. 

You  see,  gentlemen,  how  much  we  arc  in- 
debted to  England,  America,  and  more  es- 
pecially to  the  visit  of  our  great  American 
friend,  Mr.  A.  Woodruff,  who  has  done  so 
much  for  Sunday-schools  all  over  the  world. 
When  he  came  to  Paris,  iu  1856,  he  himself 
reorganized  several  schools ;  and  to  commem- 
orate this  period,  a  great  meeting  of  all  Sun- 
day-school children  and  teachers  of  Paris 
was  held,  where  the  singing  of  special  Sun- 
day-school hymns  gave  enthusiasm  to  the 
work. 

These  meetings  have  been  kept  up  since 
this  impulse  was  given,  and  almost  every 
year  the  vast  arena  of  the  Hippodrome  at 
Paris  is  filled  with  from  two  to  four  thou- 
sand children,  and  as  large  a  number  of 
grown  persons.  These  vast  assemblies  have 
done  much  toward  popularizing  our  work. 
The  Paris  teachers'  general  meetings  take 
place  every  three  months,  and  are  often 
largely  attended.  In  1857  the  Society,  fol- 
lowing Mr.  Woodruff's  suggestion,  consid- 
ering it  necessary  to  publish  interesting,  use- 


412 


CHRISTIAN  LIFE. 


ful,  and  religious  books,  founded  a  Sunday- 
school  library,  destined  to  become  a  popular 
Protestant  bookstore.  It  has  spent  200,000 
francs  for  the  printing  of  about  300,000  vol- 
umes, of  about  fifty  different  authors;  and 
twenty-one  of  these  works  are  out  of  print 
to-day.  In  1864  the  Rev.  M.  Paumier,  of 
Paris,  President  of  our  Society,  undertook 
the  publication  of  a  little  weekly  paper  for 
children,  entitled  " Le  Muste  des  Enfants" 
(Children's  Museum).  This  paper  became 
popular,  and  appeared  until  the  end  of  1868, 
when  the  publication  was  suspended.forwant 
of  means.  Finally  a  new  paper  for  teachers 
and  Bible  classes,  which  was  to  take  the 
place  of  the  magazine,  also  ceased  to  appear 
in  1870 ;  so  that  to-day  we  have  no  period- 
ical publication,  and  are  obliged  to  be  sat- 
isfied with  publishing  from  time  to  time  a 
new  volume,  when  our  resources  permit  us 
so  to  do. 

Notwithstanding  this,  and  thanks  to  the 
labors  of  the  missionary  agents,  supported 
at  first  partly  by  the  societies  of  America 
and  London,  and  now  especially  by  the 
London  Sunday-school  Union,  the  Sunday- 
schools  have  multiplied  in  France  to  such 
an  extent  that  we  can  count  about  960, 
showing  us  that  since  1851  about  760  have 
been  founded  (thirty-six  per  year).  We 
are  fast  approaching  the  time  when  each 
Protestant  Church  in  France  will  have  its 
Sunday-school,  and  we  hope,  with  the  help 
of  God,  to  make  new  and  more  rapid  strides 
toward  the  attainment  of  that  complete- 
ness of  organization  which  characterizes  this 
work  in  the  United  States  and  England. 

II.  Characteristics  of  Sunday  -  schools  in 
France. — It  is  time  now,  gentlemen,  that  I 
should  give  you  au  idea  of  the  conditions  of 
this  work  iu  France ;  its  character,  as  well 
as  the  hopes  we  have  a  right  to  cherish. 

1.  And,  first,  you  must  not  cease  to  remem- 
ber what  is  so  readily  forgotten :  that  not- 
withstanding constitutional  guaranties  we 
have  not  the  liberty  of  going  everywhere, 
of  visiting  parents  and  inviting  children  to 
the  Sunday-school.  The  agent  who  would 
do  that,  even  supposing  the  Catholic  fami- 
lies allowed  it,  would  immediately  be  col- 
lared by  a  policeman,  and.  the  Society  would 
have  to  spend  its  money  in  lawsuits  with 
the  Government.  We  may  only  go  to  the 
places  where  some  Protestants  have  the 
liberty  of  meeting  to  worship.  It  must  be 
known  that,  after  having  fought  so  long  for 
their  independence,  the  Protestants  of  France 
are  to-day  only  tolerated  on  condition  that 
they  shall  keep  quiet"  and  make  no  converts. 
And  when  Catholic  villages  or  cities  call  us, 
we  have  many  difficulties  to  overcome  before 
we  can  obtain  the  right  to  answer  these  calls. 
I  have  organized  Sunday-schools  in  two  or 
three  places  where  the  Gospel  has  recently 
penetrated  for  the  first  time,  and  where 
small  churches  have  been  formed.  I  have 


been  almost  compelled  to  hide  myself  to 
hold  meetings,  and  we  could  have  no  sing- 
ing, lest  we  attract  attention,  and  I  should 
be  called  to  appear  before  the  tribunals. 
Religious  liberty  does  not  exist  in  France, 
and  the  lack  of  it  is  a  great  drawback  to  the 
development  of  all  Protestant  work. 

2.  The  French  are  very  intelligent,  and 
very  impulsive.  They  seize  quickly  and 
discern  promptly  the  right  and  true  side  of 
all  new  ideas  and  of  all  improvements  that 
may  be  suggested  to  them ;  and  they  do  not 
withhold  their  applause  or  enthusiasm  when 
they  hear  strange  and  true  things ;  but,  on 
the  other  hand,  they  forget  readily,  and  fire 
often  superficial  and  very  conservative,  the 
very  slaves  of  tradition  and  custom.  This 
is  so  true  that  some  one  has  said  that  "  it 
is  only  necessary  for  a  thing  to  be  recog- 
nized as  true  in  France,  for  them  to  prac- 
tice the  contrary  of  that  to  which  they  were 
accustomed."  This  observation  is  true  also 
of  the  French  Protestants,  and  explains  a 
fact  which  has  often  happened  to  me.  In 
conversation  I  have  often  heard  it  said, "  The 
Sunday-school  is  an  excellent  thing,  and  I 
believe  it  very  necessary ;"  and  when  I  ask, 
"Have  you  a  Sunday -school,"  or  "Do  you 
work  in  one  ?"  "  No,  sir,"  would  be  the  reply. 
There  are  ministers  and  people  in  some  of 
our  French  churches  who  are  yet  opposed 
to  the  principle  of  Sunday-schools.  But 
they  are  decreasing  daily  in  numbers,  and  as 
a  general  thing  people  approve  of  this  new 
method  of  instruction ;  but  between  this  and 
practically  assisting  and  personally  helping 
there  is  a  vast  distance ;  for  instance :  One 
day  I  met  a  minister  who  told  me  he  saw  no 
salvation  for  the  Church  but  in  the  Sunday- 
school.  I  answered,  "You  have  some  in  your 
parish  ?"  "  Oh  no,  sir ;  I  had  some,  but  had 
to  give  them  up."  "  Suppose  we  endeavor 
to  rebuild  this  work  ?"  "  Oh,  you  can  form 
no  idea  of  the  great  difficulties  we  have  to 
contend  with ;  it  would  be  perfectly  useless 
to  try  it,  sir."  They  are  accustomed  to  cer- 
tain traditions,  and  have  a  terrible  idea  of 
the  obstacles  to  be  overcome  in  exchanging 
these  traditions  for  new  methods.  I  should 
not  be  just,  however,  if  I  did  not  state  that  we 
are  overcoming  this  spirit  of  conservatism. 
The  number  of  Sunday-schools  proves  this. 
But  once  the  first  step  taken  for  the  founda- 
tion of  the  school,  the  same  discussions  be- 
gin again  for  each  and  every  improvement — 
teachers'  meeting,  necessity  for  a  library,  etc. 
To-day,  wherever  it  is  possible,  our  Sunday- 
schools  are  divided  into  classes ;  and  of  those 
I  have  visited  more  than  a  fourth  have  pre- 
paratory teachers'  meetings. 

In  1871  a  Local  Union  was  formed,  by  the 
energy  of  Mr.Paul  Cook,  in  Nismes  (De"partc- 
ment  du  Gard).  Many  schools  of  this  de- 
partment are  visited,  and  every  six  months 
teachers'  and  numerous  other  meetings  are 
held,  where  questions  concerning  Sunday- 


WEISS:  SUNDAY-SCHOOLS  IN  FRANCE. 


413 


schools  are  studied  aud  discussed.  This  Un- 
ion also  supplies  the  schools  with  books  for 
their  libraries,  and  by  its  activity  is  a  great 
help  to  us  in  the  South  of  France. 

3.  A  third  observation  will  show  the  prin- 
cipal difference  between  our  Sunday-schools 
and  those  of  America.  With  us  the  Sunday- 
school,  except  in  one  or  two  cases,  is  depend- 
ent upon,  and  can  not  be  organized  outside 
of,  the  Church. 

In  the  United  States,  the  Sunday-school 
is,  in  principle,  independent  of  the  Church, 
and  we  would  often  be  tempted  to  say  that 
the  Church  depends  upon  the  Sabbath-school ; 
it  is  a  free  institution,  founded  and  directed 
by  spontaneous  and  voluntary  efforts,  while 
with  us  the  Sunday-school  becomes  an  eccle- 
siastical institution.  The  Church  to  which 
the  children  belong  directs  it,  and  has  the 
responsibility  of  it ;  aud  it  is  in  the  church, 
or  in  the  school-room  adjoining  it,  that  the 
Sunday-school  is  held. 

You  see  the  effects  of  this  system :  if  the 
Church  is  alive  and  active,  the  Sunday-school 
will  be  so  also.  If  it  is  indifferent,  or  its 
teachings  be  more  or  less  heterodox,  the  Sun- 
day-school will  feel  it.  This  is  so  true  that, 
in  some  towns  where  both  the  principal  tend- 
encies of  French  Protestantism  (that  is  to  say, 
the  Liberal  and  Orthodox)  are  represented 
in  the  same  Church,  the  children  are  divided 
between  them.  The  Orthodox  minister  gath- 
ers in  his  Sunday-school  the  boys,  and  the 
Liberal  minister  the  girls.  It  is  always  the 
Bible  that  is  taught,  but  commented  upon 
differently  according  to  the  views  of  the 
pastor. 

The  pastor  is  generally  the  superintend- 
ent. He  it  is  who  gives  the  general  lesson, 
chooses  the  teachers,  directs  them,  and  gives 
the  school  its  character  and  stamp. 

Our  Sunday-school  Society  is  an  associa- 
tion of  men  whose  object  is  the  development 
of  the  Sunday-school  work;  but  the  schools 
are  independent  of  the  society.  They  belong 
to  their  respective  churches,  who  can,  if  so 
disposed,  refuse  us  access  to  them. 

The  only  tie  between  the  Society  and 
the  Sunday-school  is  the  missionary  agent, 
whose  duty  it  is  to  visit  those  schools  al- 
ready established,  and  to  found  new  ones. 
When  he  arrives  at  any  place,  ho  must  first 
call  upon  the  pastor,  or  whoever  represents 
him  ;  obtain  permission  to  assemble  the  chil- 
dren, aud  call  a  special  meeting  of  his  peo- 
ple, from  among  whom  the  pastor  makes 
selections  of  suitable  teachers ;  aud,  finally, 
the  school  is  organized.  This  is  the  result 
of  the  agent's  visit,  if  successful ;  but  it  is 
never  accomplished  without  prolonged  dis- 
cussions with  the  pastor.  But  here  also  we 
are  in  progress.  Two  great  societies  exist 
in  France — the  SoctitJ  Centrale  Protestante 
and  the  Soeitie  iZvangellque — for  evangelistic 
work,  with  each  of  which  the  Paris  Sunday- 
school  Society  are  in  friendly  correspond- 


ence, and  have  their  promises  to  do  their 
utmost  to  establish  Sunday-schools  wherever 
they  open  a  regular  preaching  station. 

4.  Another  fact  which  must  not  be  forgot- 
ten is  that  in  France  the  Protestant  Churches 
are  very  much  scattered.  You  may  go  over 
the  entire  extent  of  some  departments,  and 
only  meet  with  a  single  group  of  Protestants. 
I  have  often  traveled  a  whole  day  before 
reaching  a  small  church  with  a  modest  Sim- 
day-school.  In  these  distant  localities,  lost 
in  the  midst  of  Catholicism,  and  where  a 
stranger  is  seldom  seen,  the  agent  is  always 
received  with  joy.  It  is  here  you  see  the 
delight  and  attention  manifested  by  the  chil- 
dren. What  pleasure  they  take  in  your  care 
for  them,  aud  in  the  little  books  you  bring 
them!  This  dispersion  of  our  Protestant 
population  over  the  French  soil  is  one  of 
the  great  arguments  in  favor  of  the  Sunday- 
schools;  for  were  Sunday -schools  formed 
wherever  there  are  (if  only  a  few)  Protest- 
ant children,  not  only  would  it  prevent 
these  scattered  groups  from  disappearing, 
but  form  the  nucleus  of  more  vigorous  flocks. 

Owing  to  these  various  circumstances,  our 
visits  take  too  much  time.  It  requires  from 
four  to  six  years  to  visit  all  the  Protestant 
churches  and  missions  of  France.  Thus  you 
can  readily  understand  how  the  influence  of 
the  agent  is  diminished  by  these  infrequent 
visits,  and  consequently  the  many  years  nec- 
essary to  introduce  the  new  ideas  and  meth- 
ods represented  by  him. 

We  must  now  say  a  few  words,  gentlemen, 
with  regard  to  the  future  of  this  our  Sun- 
day-school work  in  France.  First,  we  hope, 
if  our  means  increase,  to  be  able  to  supple- 
ment the  infrequency  of  the  agent's  visits, 
by  a  weekly  illustrated  paper  for  children. 

Second,  we  believe  it  will  be  possible 
soon  to  organize  other  Local  Unions  like 
that  of  Nismes.  If  we  succeed,  this  French 
Protestant  work  will  have  made  a  great 
step  toward  your  co-operative  system,  which 
I  may  almost  say  forms  the  basis  of  your 
social  organization. 

As  to  the  results  we  may  expect,  we  may 
say  that  the  future  of  the  Sunday-schools  in 
France  is  intimately  bound  up  in  the  future 
of  French  Protestantism. 

I  have  endeavored  to  give  you  a  summary 
of  the  principal  difficulties  of  our  particular 
work.  I  ought,  perhaps,  to  have  dwelt  more 
upon  the  facilities,  the  bright  sides,  for  there 
are  some;  and  the  reminiscences  of  the  agent 
are  not  always  darlr,  some  are  very  bright 
and  cheering.  In  many  localities  I  have 
met  with  such  deep  aud  joyful  religious  life 
as  to  surprise  me,  especially  in  the  North  of 
France.  But  I  did  not  come  here  to  say  that 
all  was  case  and  prosperity  with  our  Sun- 
day-schools. No,  for  the  difficulties  are  real , 
and  the  activity  of  Catholic  Ultramontanisni 
increasing  in  truly  frightful  proportions. 

Protestantism  gains  ground  in  cities,  more 


414 


CHRISTIAN  LIFE. 


especially  in  manufacturing  districts,  where 
it  makes  proselytes  among  the  working 
classes.  In  the  rural  districts,  on  the  con- 
trary, it  either  remains  stationary  or  de- 
creases. Yon  are  aware  that  in  France  the 
population  does  not  increase,  and  the  mixed 
marriages  often  carry  over  the  few  children 
there  are  to  Catholicism ;  so  that  it  may  be 
said,  as  far  as  numbers  are  concerned,  Prot- 
estantism loses  on  one  hand  what  it  gains 
on  the  other.  Its  influence,  however,  is 
greater  than  could  be  expected  from  its  nu- 
merical strength.  We  are  not  one  thirty- 
eighth  of  the  population,  and  in  the  Cham- 
ber of  Deputies  alone  one-tenth  of  the  mem- 
bers are  Protestants ;  and  certainly  Protest- 
antism has  overcome  many  prejudices,  and 
its  work  has  not  been  in  vain.  But  it  would 
do  more  were  it  united,  active,  and  animated 
with  a  more  powerful  spirit,  although  it  is 
not  uncommon  to  meet  with  some  energet- 
ic and  decided  characters.  For  instance,  I 
will  here  relate  the  case  of  a  Sunday-school 
scholar.  At  Saint  Audelain,  a  village  in  the 
Departement  of  La  Nievre,  where  many  con- 
verts have  been  made  from  Romanism,  some 


two  years  ago  a  Sunday-school  was  insti- 
tuted, and  now  numbers  ninety  children. 
At  the  recent  Government  census  the  moth- 
er of  one  of  the  scholars,  although  secretly 
Protestant,  described  herself  and  children  as 
Catholics,  from  fear  of  the  priests.  The  child, 
upon  hearing  the  same,  was  uneasy,  saying 
she  was  no  Catholic,  and  would  not  be  so  de- 
scribed, giving  her  mother  no  rest  until  the 
alteration  was  made.  Yes,  Popish  bondage, 
the  slavery  of  the  soul  and  body  of  the  na- 
tion to  the  Church  of  Rome,  this  is  the  great 
enemy  we  have  to  fight  against,  more  auda- 
cious than  ever;  and  we  know  that  it  does 
not  hesitate  to  use  the  most  extreme  meas- 
ures. We  must,  therefore,  endeavor  to  create, 
by  means  of  the  Protestant  Sunday-schools, 
a  new  generation,  more  vigorous,  more  Chris- 
tian, and  less  fearful. 

When  our  Saviour  wept  over  Jerusalem, 
he  knew  that  all  would  forsake  him,  never- 
theless he  hesitated  not  to  accomplish  his 
expiatory  sacrifice.  May  we  also  in  this 
great  work  never  falter  at  any  sacrifice; 
and  the  little  tree,  yet  small  and  weak,  will 
grow  up  to  a  larger  and  stronger  one. 


SUNDAY-SCHOOLS- THE  BIBLE  SERVICE. 


BY  THE  REV,  J.  H.  VINCENT,  D.D.,  NEW  YORK. 


I  PROPOSE  to  speak  of  a  comparatively 
modern  institution,  which,  although  still 
called  "  Sunday-school,"  is  quite  unlike  the 
most  excellent  enterprise  inaugurated  by 
Mr.  Robert  Raikes,  of  England,  a  century 
ago.  Of  his  work  and  its  later  modifica- 
tions too  much  in  the  way  of  praise  can 
not  be  written.  It  has  received  from  the 
churches  a  cordial  indorsement,  and  under 
the  Divine  blessing  has  been  of  untold  advan- 
tage to  our  race,  saving  its  tens  of  thousands 
from  ignorance  and  from  spiritual  death. 

"  The  Bible  Service  "  of  which  I  now  pro* 
pose  to  speak,  although  of  recent  origin — in 
some  sense,  indeed,  an  outgrowth  of  the  mod- 
ern Sunday-school  movement^is,  in  fact,  one 
of  the  oldest  and  most  fully  authorized  agen- 
cies of  the  Christian  Church,  meeting  the 
demand  which  was  in  other  ages  met  by  ec- 
clesiastical provisions  of  which  I  shall  here- 
after speak — provisions  justified  by  the  ne- 
cessities of  Christian  character  and  experi- 
ence, by  the  example  of  Christ  and  his  apos- 
tles, and  by  specific  commands  in  both  the 
Old  and  the  New  Testament. 

Believing  that  the  work  which  this  in- 
strumentality is  designed  to  accomplish  is 
hindered  by  indefinite  and  incorrect  theories, 
and  by  the  defective  methods  which  embar- 
rass the  Sunday-school,  it  is  my  purpose  in 
this  paper  to  show  the  distinction  between 
the  Robert  Raikes  "  Sunday-school "  and  the 
modern  "  Bible  Service,"  that  the  two  may 
be  no  longer  confounded,  but  that  both  may 
receive  recognition,  and  each  perform  the 
distinctive  work  to  which  in  the  providence 
of  God  it  is  called. 

I  respectfully  invite  your  attention  to  a 
few  well-considered  statements,  which  will 
lead  us  to  a  correct  understanding  of  the 
true  theory  and  work  of  the  great  institu- 
tion to  which  our  time  and  thought  are  now 
devoted. 

1.  The  work  of  the  Holy  Spirit  in  the 
processes  of  awakening,  regeneration,  and 
edification  is  performed  through  the  truth 
of  God  as  revealed  in  the  Holy  Scriptures. 
This  truth  "maketh  wise  unto  salvation," 
"converting  the  soul,"  and  promoting  in  all 
believers  Christian  growth,  strength,  purity, 
and  activity. 

2.  The  Church  is  "  the  pillar  and  ground 
of  the  truth,"  upholding,  announcing,  per- 
petuating, and  defending  it,  that  men  may 
bo  warned,  attracted,  persuaded,  sanctified, 
and  instructed  by  it. 


3.  The  most  efficient  agency  of  the  Chris- 
tian Church  is  the  CHRISTIAN  FAMILY.    Be- 
cause of  its  early  access  to  the  child,  its  right- 
ful authority,  the  susceptibility  of  its  sub- 
jects, its  opportunities  for  the  repeated  en- 
forcement and  illustration  of  truth,  it  tran- 
scends all  other  means  in  importance  and 
power.     There  is  no  place  like  home  for  re- 
ligious instruction.     Our  highest  thought  of 
God  is  as  "  Our  Father  5"  our  highest  ideal 
of  the  redeemed  Church  is  that  of  "the  whole 
family  in  heaven  and  in  earth  ;"  and  the  fair- 
est type  of  heaven  on  earth  is  the  family 
where  parental  authority  is  exercised  that 
it  may  be  a  shadow  of  the  Divine  authority ; 
where  the  details  of  daily  life  are  directed 
by  the  purpose  to  illustrate  the  grace  and 
power  of  the  religion  of  our  Lord  Jesua 
Christ. 

4.  The  Church,  in  obedience  to  her  Found- 
er's command,  provides  the  PREACHED  WORD. 
In  connection  with  it  are  services  of  prayer, 
praise,  and  Scripture  reading.     This  agency, 
never  more  effective  than  now,  can  never 
yield  its  pre-eminence.     For  a  little  child, 
though  he  understand  not  one  word  of  the 
sermon,  I  know  no  more  powerful  teacher  of 
religion  than  is  furnished  by  the  great  con- 
gregation, the  open  Book,  and  the   living 
preacher.     The  service  of  praise,  of  Bible 
reading  and  exposition,  of  prayer,  and  of 
preaching  puts  the  seal  of  heaven  upon  the 
Sabbath-day,  brings  into  public  notice  the 
divinely  appointed  and  endowed  ministry, 
and  suggests  by  its  great  assemblies  the  uni- 
ty of  the  race,  the  universal  need,  and  the 
universal  provisions  of  grace.    The  Church, 
through  the  family  and  the  pulpit,  is  to  teach 
the  truth  which  saves  the  soul. 

5.  At  this  point  let  me  ask,  What  shall  bo 
done  for  the  tens  of  thousands,  even  in  Chris- 
tian lands,  who  have  no  such  home  influence, 
and  who  are  never  brought  within  the  sound 
of  a  Gospel  sermon ,  who  in  ignorance,  deprav- 
ity, and  wretchedness  are  running  to  ruin, 
imperiling  at  the  same  time  the  nation  of 
which  they  form  a  part  f     ROBERT  RAIKES'S 
SUXDAY-SCHOOL  is  the  answer.     Its  efficien- 
cy can  not  bo  overstated.     (1.)  It  welcomes, 
clothes,  cares  for,  and  instructs  the  young. 
(2.)    It   supplies   voluntary,  Christ  -  loving 
teachers,  who  sacrifice  personal  ease  for  the 
sake  of  souls,  and  who  thus  become  to  these 
pupils  what  mother  and  father  and  pastor 
would  otherwise  have  been.     (3.)  It  renders 
religious  truth  and  religious  service  familiar 


416 


CHRISTIAN  LIFE. 


and  attractive  by  its  charms  of  song  and 
picture  and  of  skillful  teaching.  It  was  in 
Raikes's  day  a  substitute  for  secular  teach- 
ing ;  it  is  now  as  then  a  substitute  for  family 
religion,  a  substitute  for  pulpit  instruction, 
a  substitute  for  pastoral  care.  The  Robert 
Raikes  Sunday-school  is  a  missionary  insti- 
tution. 

6.  An  additional  word  or  two  concerning 
this   substitutionary   agency  —  the   Robert 
Raikes  Sunday-school — an  institution  dif- 
fering widely   from  the   "Bible   Service" 
which  I  here  discuss. 

(1.)  The  Robert  Raikes  Sunday-school 
loaves  its  best  work  undone  so  long  as  it 
neglects  the  HOMES  from  which  its  members 
come,  and  so  long  as  it  fails  to  bring  both 
parents  and  children  under  the  influence  of 
the  PREACHED  WORD  IN  THE  SANCTUARY. 
Mission  schools  are  intended  to  establish 
true  home  life,  and  to  bring  their  members 
under  the  full  influence  of  the  Church. 

(2.)  The  Robert  Raikes  School  can  not 
exist  within  the  bosom  of  the  Church  as  an 
accepted  substitute  for  home  and  the  pulpit 
without  detriment  to  the  institution  that 
fosters  it.  The  distinction  which  makes 
the  Sunday-school  the  "Church  for  the 
Children,"  excusing  them  in  view  of  its  pro- 
visions from  the  public  service  of  the  sanc- 
tuary, is  damaging  in  the  extreme  to  children 
and  parents,  and  to  the  Church  itself.  We 
want  no  substitutes  for  the  family  altar  and 
the  pulpit  in  our  modern  Church! 

7.  I  now  come  to  speak  of  another  agency 
in  operation  among  us,  usually  called  "  The 
Sunday-school,"  but  which,  as  I  have  al- 
ready said,  differs  materially  from  the  mis- 
sionary   appliance   just    described.      This 
agency  I  call  "  The  Bible  Service."     Of  it 
let  me  assert — 

(1.)  That  it  is  not  designed  especially  for 
the  members  of  irreligious  families.  It 
would  have  a  legitimate  and  important 
service  to  perform  even  if  all  families  rep- 
resented in  .  it  were  consistent,  studious, 
Christian  households.  The  mission  element 
will  be  represented  in  the  "  Bible  Service," 
but  its  distinctive  aim  and  character  are 
not  dependent  upon  that  element. 

(2.)  I  assert  that  it  is  not  designed  to  be 
a  substitute  for  the  pulpit;  for  where  the 
Word  is  preached  with  greatest  clearness 
and  vigor  the  "Bible  Service"  is  most  in 
demand. 

(3.)  I  assert,  again,  that  this  new  depart- 
ment is  not  designed  exclusively  for  chil- 
dren. These  will  always  be  present,  form- 
ing, indeed,  an  important  section  of  it ;  but 
the  juvenile  feature  will  not  be  emphasized. 
Its  songs  and  mottoes  and  programmes  will 
not  be  chosen  with  exclusive  reference  to 
the  needs  and  tastes  of  children,  but  rather 
with  an  eye  to  the  power  and  preciousness  of 
the  Word  of  God.  The  young  man  and  the 
maiden  will  be  there;  the  strong  man  in 


middle  life  and  the  mother  of  children  will 
be  there ;  the  venerable  sire,  who,  having 
long  tested  and  long  trusted  and  long  loved 
the  Scriptures,  will  be  a  patient,  teachable, 
and  delighted  member  of  the  "  Service." 

(4.)  It  will  no  longer  be  SUNDAY  school, 
as  though  the  larger  opportunities  of  that 
blessed  day  were  the  only  reason  for  main- 
taining it ;  and  the  idea  of  Seii'ice,  without 
entirely  displacing  that  of  School,  will  be  pre- 
dominant, for  the  closest  study  in  accordance 
with  the  most  approved  methods  of  the  sec- 
ular schools  will  become  a  beautiful  and 
spiritual  "  service  "  unto  the  Lord. 

(5.)  I  have  already  anticipated  in  part 
my  definition  of  the  "Bible  Service,"  which, 
more  fully  stated,  is  that  department  of  the 
Church  of  Christ  in  which  the  children, 
youth,  and  adults  of  the  Church  and  com- 
munity are  thoroughly  trained  in  Christian 
knowledge,  Christian  experience,  and  Chris- 
tian work.  It  co-operates  with  the  family 
and  the  pulpit.  As  much  as  they  do,  it  de- 
pends upon  the  Holy  Spirit.  It  has  one  text- 
book— the  Holy  Bible.  It  has  one  specific 
aim— spiritual  edification.  It  is  the  train- 
ing department  of  the  Church :  not  a  recruit- 
ing office,  but  rather  a  military  academy.  It 
is  not  for  children  merely,  but  for  Christians 
of  all  ages.  As  preaching  and  the  accom- 
panying services  of  the  sanctuary  are  for 
children  as  well  as  adults,  the  "  Bible  Serv- 
ice "  is  for  adults  as  well  as  children.  Here 
the  instructions  of  the  family,  the  secular 
school,  and  the  pulpit  are  supplemented  by 
class  recitation, discussion, and  conversation. 
Here  take  place  the  activity,  the  attrition 
of  brain  and  heart,  by  which  truth  is  made 
clearer  to  the  understanding  and  gains  a 
firmer  hold  upon  the  affections. 

1.  The  design  of  this  BIBLE  SERVICE  is 
in  harmony  with  the  teachings  of  the  Word 
concerning  the  value  and  power  of  the  Word 
as  a  means  of  grace.     "  The  law  of  the  Lord 
is  perfect,  converting  the  soul."    "  Thy  word 
have  I  hid  in  my  heart,  that  I  might  not  sin 
against  thee."      "I  write  unto  you,  young 
men,  because  ye  are  strong ;   the  wrord  of 
God  abideth  in  you."     "Let  the  word  of 
Christ  dwell  in  you  richly ;  in  all  wisdom 
teaching    and   admonishing   one    another." 
"All  scripture  is  given  by  inspiration  of 
God,  and  is  profitable  for  doctrine,  for  re- 
proof, for  correction,  for  instruction  in  right- 
eousness, that  the  man  of  God  may  be  per- 
fect, thoroughly   furnished  unto   all  good 
works." 

2.  The  BIBLE  SERVICE  meets  an  acknowl- 
edged demand  for  the  proper  study  of  the 
Word  of  God.     This  is  indispensable  to  spir- 
itual growth.     After  preaching  must  come 
teaching.     Preaching  of  a  certain  kind  is ' 
teaching ;  but  the  best  effect  of  a  sermon  or 
lecture  requires  a  supplemental  catechisa- 
tion,  in  which,  when  wisely  conducted,  lies 
the   very  essence   of  teaching.      Now   the 


VINCENT:  SUNDAY-SCHOOLS— THE  BIBLE  SERVICE. 


417 


profitable  knowledge  of  God's  Word  can 
not  be  attained  without  "conversation," 
"  discussion,"  "  disputation,"  "  interlocuto- 
ry discourse,"  or  by  whatsoever  name  you 
please  to  call  it.  Mind  must  come  in  con- 
tact with  mind.  We  must  have  study  as 
well  as  reading,  searching  as  well  as  hear- 
ing, teaching  as  well  as  preaching. 

In  the  Church  of  Christ  the  cultivated 
must  instruct  the  illiterate,  while  these,  in 
turn,  by  their  experience  in  the  sweet  and 
hidden  mysteries  of  grace,  may  be  able  to 
throw  light  upon  many  a  text  obscure 
enough  to  those  who  have  applied  only  hu- 
man learning  to  its  exposition.  So  shall 
God's  people  edify  each  other,  and  no  mem- 
ber shall  say  to  another, "  I  have  no  need  of 
Ihee." 

3.  The  BIBLE  SERVICE  is,  moreover,  a  per- 
petuation, or  rather  a  revival,  of  a  custom 
prevalent  in  the  days  of  Christ  and  of  his 
apostles,  and  to  be  found  in  the  Church 
whenever  she  has  most  largely  enjoyed  the 
presence  of  the  Master.  Teaching,  in  the 
sense  already  described,  is  an  important 
part  of  her  work.  Jesus  was  pre-eminent- 
ly "  the  Great  Teacher."  His  methods  were 
those  of  the  modern  school  rather  than  those 
of  the  modern  pulpit.  By  questions,  con- 
versations, and  illustrations  he  excited  the 
minds  of  his  hearers  to  self-activity.  His 
longest  addresses  were  usually  in  reply  to 
some  inquiry  which  his  own  teachings  had 
awakened.  And  even  after  his  public  ad- 
dresses or  sermons,  in  which  he  spake  the 
Word  to  the  people  "  as  they  were  able  to 
bear  it,"  when  they  were  alone  he  expounded 
all  things  to  his  disciples.  Familiar  with 
his  methods,  his  followers  went  forth  "to 
preach  and  to  teach  in  his  name."  Conver- 
sation, discussion,  catechisation,  were  ordina- 
ry methods  of  instruction  in  the  New  Testa- 
ment times.  In  those  days  the  Church  was 
a  school,  and  all  Christians  were  "  disciples." 
"  They  continued  steadfastly  in  the  apostles' 
doctrine,"  the  "  word  of  Christ  dwelt  in  them 
richly,"  and  "  in  all  wisdom  they  taught  and 
admonished  one  another."  Paul  was  a  con- 
stant teacher,  "  disputing  and  persuading,  at 
Ephesns  and  elsewhere,  the  things  concern- 
ing the  kingdom  of  God"  —  i.e.,  "holding 
conversations"  with  the  people  in  order  to 
persuade  them  of  the  truth  of  the  doctrine 
of  Christ. 

In  the  Apostolic  Church  "  teachers"  were 
appointed,  and  these  certainly  were  not  in 
all  cases  "ministers  of  the  Gospel."  The 
Jewish  "  assemblies "  for  the  careful  study 
of  the  Scriptures  and  of  the  Talmud  were 
familiar  to  the  early  Jewish  Christians.  In 
the  first  century,  Christian  schools  were  in- 
stituted. In  the  fourth  century,  we  find  a 
rigid  and  thorough  catechetical  system  in 
operation.  The  wise  leaders  of  the  Church 
in  all  ages  have  recognized  the  necessity  of 
this  training  process,  in  which,  by  way  of 
27 


preparation  for  the  pulpit,  or  in  order  to 
supplement  its  instructions,  the  plan  of  indi- 
vidual and  class  catechisation  was  adopted. 
Read  the  fervent  appeals  of  Baxter  in  thin 
behalf.  Read  Luther,  Trapp,  Bridges,  Henry, 
Usher,  and  a  score  of  other  devoted  men,  who 
long  ago  felt  the  need  of  a  service  such  as 
the  Church  now  craves,  and  is  about  to  find 
in  fullness  and  efficiency,  as  the  best  fruit  of 
the  modern  Sunday-school. 

4.  The  BIBLE  SERVICE,  by  embracing  the 
adults,  will  save  to  the  Church  the  youth 
who  are  now  held  in  the  Sunday-school  with 
so  much  difficulty.     It  will  no  longer  be  re- 
garded as  a  "  children's  affair."     By  making 
it   a  service  of  the  Church,  in  which  the 
piety  and  culture,  the  age  and  dignity  of  the 
Church  are  represented,  we  shall  correct  the 
false  and  perilous  theory  which  now  deters, 
especially  our  young  men,  from  a  cordial 
identification  with  it.     It  will  be  deemed 
as  "  manly  "  a  thing  to  attend  the  "  Bible 
Service"   as  it  uow   is  to  be   at  "public 
worship." 

I  am  not  an  alarmist,  and  yet  I  confess 
to  some  solicitude  when  I  see  our  children 
brought  up  to  neglect  preaching,  and  at  the 
same  time  taught  to  regard  the  Sunday- 
school  as  a  children's  institution.  In  early 
manhood  they  are,  by  their  theory,  gradu- 
ated from  the  school,  and,  not  having  been 
habituated  to  attend  preaching,  find  an  easy 
excuse  for  neglecting  all  public  worship. 
My  hope  is  in  the  "  Bible  Service,"  which 
shall  be  regarded  as  a  supplement  to  tho 
pulpit,  and  not  a  substitute  ;  a  department 
of  the  Church,  and  not  a  human  append- 
age ;  a  "  service "  for  all,  and  not  simply  a 
"  school"  for  the  young. 

5.  The  BIBLE  SERVICE  will  promote  that 
knowledge  of  the  Bible  which  is  tho  only 
sure  means  of  opposing  tho  skepticism  of 
our  day.     Error  must  be  met  by  truth.     It 
is  strong  faith  in  the  Word  of  God  that  over- 
comes the  world  in  whatever  form  its  an- 
tagonisms are  encountered.     Thus  the  Mas- 
ter conquered  in  the  wilderness  of  Judea. 
The  Sword  of  the  Spirit  is  the  Word  of  God. 
Many  of  the  charges  of  modern  infidelity 
are  based  upon  an  entire  misapprehension 
of  the  Word  of  God,  and  an  acquaintance 
with  tho  mind  of  the  Spirit  as  revealed  in 
the  Scriptures  will  enable  us  promptly  and 
triumphantly  to  refute  them. 

It  is  true  that  the  Christian's  power  in  an- 
tagonizing skepticism  is  found  in  the  strong 
undercurrent  of  internal  testimony  which 
tho  Word  of  God  contains,  but  into  which 
those  alone  can  come  who  patiently,  thor- 
oughly, and  devoutly  study  its  contents  and 
imbibe  its  spirit.  Again,  knowledge  of  the 
Word  quickens  zeal,  develops  spiritual  life 
and  activity,  and  imparts  that  moral  power 
which,  revealed  in  the  life,  is  the  most  ef- 
fective because  an  unanswerable  reply  to  all 
doubt. 


418 


CHRISTIAN  LIFE. 


C.  The  BIBLE  SERVICK  trains  n  baud  of  de- 
voted and  competent  teachers,  who  rightly 
estimate  the  power  of  truth  and  the  dignity 
of  the  teacher's  calling,  and  the  importance 
of  a  careful  preparation  for  so  high  and  holy 
an  office  in  the  Church  of  Christ. 

7.  The  BIBLE  SERVICE  is  the  most  valu- 
able auxiliary  of  the  pulpit,  because,  it  pre- 
pares the  people  to  desire  and  to  appreciate 
expository  preaching.  A  knowledge  of  the 
Bible,  and  the  custom  of  conversing  upon 
it  in  the  family,  the  classes  for  study,  and 
the  social  circle,  will  whet  the  appetite  of 
the  people  for  Biblical  and  evangelical  ser- 
mons. 

It  is  a  significant  and  gratifying  fact  that, 
with  the  new  awakening  of  the  Church  to 
the  importance  of  Bible  study,  and  while 
the  hearts  of  Christians  of  all  communions 
are  turning  toward  each  other  in  longing 
after  closer  fellowship  in  Christ  Jesus,  just 
at  this  juncture  the  great  international  les- 
son movement  should  have  been  inaugu- 
rated. The  same  Scripture  lesson  is  studied 
each  Lord's  day  by  five  millions  of  people 
—  Baptists,  Congregatioualists,  Lutherans, 
Methodist  Episcopalians,  Protestant  Episco- 
palians, Presbyterians,  Reformed.  The  Lon- 
don Sunday-school  Union  will  adopt  the 
same  lesson  in  1874.  Already  in  Sweden, 
Germany,  Switzerland,  Italy,  India,  the  les- 
sons for  1873,  from  the  books  of  Genesis  and 
Matthew,  have  been  translated  into  the  lan- 
guages of  those  countries.  The  prospect 
now  is  that  iu  all  the  tongues  of  evangelic- 
al Christendom,  the  Holy  Word  being  opened 
at  the  same  place,  the  same  lesson  will  be 
recited  by  old  and  young.  This  interna- 
tional movement  deserves  a  careful  consider- 
ation by  the  members  of  this  great  Ecumen- 
ical Council,  in  view  of  its  value  in  exalting 
the  Bible  above  all  creeds ;  in  increasing 
facilities  for  Bible  study,  commanding  the 
ablest  talent  and  the  entire  religious  press 
in  weekly  Scriptural  exposition.  It  pro- 
motes familiar  conversation  upon  the  Oracles 
of  God  among  business  men,  and  travelers 
who  casually  meet  iu  the  intercourse  of  sec- 
ular life.  Engaged  upon  the  same  subject, 
they  find  pleasure  and  profit  in  a  compari- 
son of  opinon.  It  facilitates  the  preparation 
of  the  lesson  by  teachers,  renders  teachers' 
meetings  more  practicable,  enables  persons 
iu  this  age  of  emigration  and  constant  trav- 


'  el  to  continue  the  same  course  of  Bible 
study  wherever  they  may  be.  The  interna- 
tional system  publishes  to  the  world  the  fact 
of  the  true  unity  of  God's  people,  as  it  is  an 
answer  to  the  Master's  prayer :  "  Sanctify 
them  through  thy  truth  .  .  .  that  they  may 
be  one." 

As  a  step  toward  popularizing  the  study 
of  the  Holy  Scriptures  by  increasing  the  ef- 
ficiency of  teachers,  the  great  Sunday-school 
Unions  of  this  country,  the  American,  Bap- 
tist, Presbyterian,  and  Methodist  Episcopal, 
have  agreed  upon  substantially  the  same 
course  of  normal  class  training  for  Sunday- 
school  teachers.  It  is  expected  that  this 
enterprise  will  elevate  the  standard,  com- 
mand the  confidence  and  respect  of  the 
Church,  and  train  our  senior  scholars  to  be- 
come competent  Bible  teachers.  This  will 
be  a  realization  on  a  broader  scale  than  he 
anticipated  of  Dr.  Moses  Stuart's  suggestion, 
made  in  1852,  in  an  article  on  "  Hebrew 
Criticism  "  contributed  to  the  Bibliotheca  Sa- 
cra, in  which  he  so  ably  pleads  for  "  a  sem- 
inary on  an  adequate  pecuniary  basis,  the 
sole  object  of  which  should  bo  to  teach,  to 
explain,  and  to  defend  the  Bible."  He  says, 
"An  appendage  of  this  critical  Bible  School 
(into  which  last  laymen,  if  they  desire  it,  as 
well  as  theological  students,  should  be  ad- 
mitted) should  be  smother  department,  with 
at  least  two  competent  teachers,  to  fit  youth, 
male  and  female,  for  the  great  business  of  Sab- 
bath -  schools.  A  residence  at  this  depart- 
ment should  be  at  the  election  of  the  pupil 
as  to  length  of  time,  beyond  a  half  year's 
course;  but  none  should  be  admitted  for  less 
than  six  months." 

I  am  happy  to  report  that  many  churches 
in  this  country  have  organized  these  normal 
classes,  and  that  in  New  England  many  have 
given  to  the  "Bible  Service"  one-half  of  the 
Holy  Sabbath,  providing  in  their  programme 
for  each  Lord's  day,  1st,  a  sermon ;  2d,  a 
Bible  service  of  careful  investigation  and 
class  teaching;  and  3d,  a  public  devotional 
nnd  conference  meeting,  iu  which  the  fruits 
of  the  sermon  and  the  Bible  Service  are  dili- 
gently, devoutly,  and  confidently  sought. 

And  now  to  the  Eternal  Word,  who  hath 
revealed  unto  ns  the  wisdom  and  glory  and 
grace  of  our  Heavenly  Father,  bo  honor  and 
praise  forever.  Amen. 


FIFTH  SECTION -CHRISTIAN  ASSOCIATIONS. 


YOUNG  MEN'S  CHRISTIAN  ASSOCIATIONS. 

BY  CEPHAS  BRAINERD,  ESQ.,  OF  NEW  YORK.* 


No  association  of , young  men  for  a  com- 
mon purpose  can  be  otherwise  than  inter- 
esting to  a  student  of  the  times  or  a  lover 
of  his  race.  And  as  the  purpose  in  which 
they  make  common  cause  increases  in  dig- 
nity, so  must  the  interest  with  which  these 
men  are  viewed  intensify.  When  their 
avowed  purpose  is  the  grandest  possible, 
when  the  number  united  to  forward  it  is 
large  and  constantly  increasing,  when  the 
tie  which  connects  the  individuals  grows 
stronger  with  passing  years  and  increasing 
numbers,  it  is  fit  that  a  place  should  be  ac- 
corded to  the  movement  in  the  discussions 
of  a  Council  as  august  and  important  as  this. 

Young  Men's  Christian  Associations  had 
their  origin  in  a  desire  to  reach  and  save 
unconverted  young  men  through  the  agen- 
cy of  converted  men  of  the  same  age  and 
class.  This  was  the  thought  in  the  mind 
of  George  Williams  when,  in  1844,  in  the 
city  of  London,  ho  organized  the  first  Asso- 
ciation. 

That  thought  was  carried  across  the  At- 
lantic in  a  letter  of  a  young  sophomore  of 
Harvard  College,  now  a  director  of  the  As- 
sociation in  this  city,  containing  a  vivid  de- 
scription of  the  Society  in  London.  This 
letter  was  published  in  a  Boston  religious 
paper,  and  suggested  the  organization  in 
that  city,  though  independently  the  Asso- 
ciation in  Montreal  had  been  previously 
formed.  Since  then  the  societies  have  rap- 
idly multiplied,  except  during  the  late  war, 
and  have  grown  in  power  and  usefulness. 

The  large  cities  and  towns  are  not  ex- 
clusively their  fields  of  service.  In  small 
towns  and  remote  villages  they  do  a  noble 
work.  In  one  county,  not  the  largest  or 
most  populous  in  the  Dominion  of  Canada, 
are  some  twenty-seven  in  active  operation, 
and  even  there  the  call  is  for  more. 

Let  me  present,  briefly,  a  few  figures 
touching  the  present  condition  of  the  Amer- 


*  [On  the  programme,  this  paper  was  assigned  to  the 
day  devoted  to  "Christian  Life,"  where  it  now  ap- 
pears ;  but  the  delivery  of  it  was  postponed  to  the 
evening  of  October  11  for  a  special  meeting  in  behalf 
of  Y.  M.  C.  Associations,  at  which  a  number  of  ex- 
tempore addresses  were  also  delivered  by  foreign  and 
American  delegates.—  Ed.] 


ican  Associations  (i.  e.,  those  in  the  United 
States  and  the  Dominion  of  Canada),  for  I 
gladly  confine  myself  to  these,  not  only  be- 
cause of  the  necessary  limits  prescribed  by 
you,  but  because,  as  I  understand,  several 
members  of  this  Conference  from  abroad 
will  address  you  concerning  the  societies  in 
Europe,  with  which  we  are  fully  in  accord. 

Thirty-seven  buildings  have  been  dedi- 
cated to  the  uses  of  our  work  since  1867, 
varying  in  value  from  $400  to  $500,000,  and 
aggregating  $1,914,450,  each  in  a  good  meas- 
ure corresponding  in  its  proportions  to  the 
field  which  the  Society  occupies,  and  many 
of  them  of  rare  architectural  beauty.  For- 
ty-three have  building  funds,  aggregating 
$447,967 ;  while  in  the  important  cities  of 
Baltimore,  Montreal,  and  Halifax,  Nova  Sco- 
tia, buildings  are  now  in  process  of  erection 
which  will  be  completed  within  the  current 
year.  There  are  now  sixty -three  general 
secretaries,  or  agents,  steadily  employed  by 
these  Societies  in  the  prosecution  of  their 
work,  some  of  whom  are  clergymen,  but  the 
greater  proportion  laymen,  wrho  have  dedi- 
cated themselves  to  the  cause  "  of  Christ 
among  and  for  young  men."  Other  Socie- 
ties are  now  perfecting  plans  for  the  employ- 
ment of  such  officers.  Their  duties  are  the 
general  supervision  of  our  work.  In  select- 
ing them  we  seek  those  who  can  and  will 
engage  young  men  in  this  service  for  their 
fellows,  and  who  will  give  such  ideas  of  its 
character,  and  so  present  its  duties  and  sub- 
stantial joys,  as  to  retain  them  as  systematic 
and  constant  workers. 

We  now  report  nine  hundred  and  twenty- 
four  existing  organizations,  some  in  full  ac- 
tivity, with  a  constantly  extending  sphere 
of  labor  and  influence ;  others  with  but  lit- 
tle more  than  a  name  to  live.  Of  these  one- 
half  forwarded  reports  of  their  work,  con- 
siderably in  detail,  to  our  recent  General 
Convention,  and  three  hundred  and  eighty- 
one  reported  a  membership  of  63,700.  It 
is  just  to  state  our  actual  membership  at 
100,000.  I  do  not  doubt  that  it  is  more. 
The  annual  current  expenses  of  the  two 
hundred  and  seventy-two  who  report  that 
item  is  $272,654.  During  the  last  year,  there 
was  a  net  increase  of  eighty  societies. 


420 


CHRISTIAN  LIFE. 


So  everywhere  there  is  progress.  States 
and  sections  on  which  for  some  years  the  ( 
General  Committee  has  expended  much 
thought  and  labor  are  now  showing  evi- 
dence that  the  seed  has  been  well  sown,  and 
those  who  witnessed  the  planting  of  twen- 
ty years  ago,  and  have  watched  the  early 
growth,  are  now  glad  of  heart,  and  more 
willing  than  ever  to  give  and  to  serve  in 
that  cause  aptly  described  in  some  of  our 
formal  papers  as  "  labor  iu  Christ's  name  by 
and  for  young  men." 

These  societies  had  their  origin  in  an  ob- 
vious necessity.  The  cities  were  full  of 
young  men  whom  the  churches  did  not  in- 
fluence, or  even  reach.  These  were  appar- 
ently unaffected  by  any  existing  agency, 
and  so  the  idea  was  evolved  of  organiza- 
tions which  should  employ  converted  young 
men  to  reach  the  unconverted  of  the  corre- 
sponding class.  The  society  has  been  char- 
acterized by  two  distinctive  features : 

1.  It  has  been  wholly  undenominational, 
and  based  upon  the  belief  that  the  average 
American  young  mau,  outside  of  church  in- 
fluence, was  more  open  to  the  approaches 
of  such  an  agency ;  and, 

2.  Work    has    been    performed    almost 
wholly  by  Christian  laymen,  because  these 
were  best  fitted  to  carry  it  on ;  and,  also, 
because  the  ministry  could  not,  under  the 
limitations  of  human  strength,  as  well  as 
denominational  exigencies,  perform  it. 

It  was  not  in  the  beginning  supposed 
that  there  was  a  field  for  the  society  else- 
where than  in  the  larger  cities :  but  as  the 
contention  with  the  evil  influences  which 
debauch  our  young  men  continued,  it  be- 
came apparent  that  there  was  a  place  for 
our  work  in  every  town,  where  the  existing 
denominational  agencies  failed  to  affect  the 
young  men  as  a  class ;  that  the  town  which 
could  support  a  saloon  where  liquor  was 
sold  to  young  men,  and  Avhere  they  could 
gather  nightly,  and  find  the  gaming  table, 
low  papers,  and  vile  companions,  also  de- 
manded a  counteracting  agency,  and  hence 
the  Associations  of  the  smaller  towns,  with 
their  modest  reading-rooms,  their  annual 
courses  of  lectures,  their  receptions,  their 
sermons,  their  cottage  prayer-meetings  and 
Bible  classes,  and,  in  the  appropriate  sea- 
sou,  their  open-air  services.  Even  in  com- 
munities where  this  specific  effort  for  young 
men  has  not  been  made,  Christian  young 
men,  associated  undenominationally,  have 
found  fields  for  work  which  they  could  cul- 
tivate to  better  advantage  than  the  indi- 
vidual churches. 

We  have  definite  purposes,  definitely 
stated. 

In  1855  our  Conference  at  Paris  an- 
nounced, in  concise  formula,  that  Young 
Men's  Christian  Associations  were  "  societies 
•which  have  for  their  object  the  formation 
and  development  in  young  men  of  Christian 


character  and  Christian  activity.  They  seek 
to  unite  those  young  men  who,  regarding 
Jesus  Christ  as  their  God  and  Saviour,  ac- 
cording to  the  Holy  Scriptures,  desire  to  be 
his  disciples  in  their  doctrine  and  in  their 
life,  and  to  associate  their  efforts  for  the  ex- 
tension of  his  kingdom  among  young  men." 

And  this  declaration  has  been  reiterated 
over  and  over  again  in  our  Conferences,  on 
both  sides  of  the  Atlantic ;  and  from  it  there 
is  no  dissent.  Such  is  our  object,  formally, 
officially  declared. 

What  is  the  Christian  profession  and  char- 
acter demanded  of  those  who  participate 
actively  in  our  work  ?  Let  the  Associations 
speak  for  themselves.  . 

At  our  General  Convention  in  1869,  one 
of  the  largest  ever  assembled,  consisting  of 
more  than  650  accredited  delegates,  theso 
declarations  were  adopted  without  dissent : 

"Resolved,  That,  as  these  organizations  bear  the 
name  of  Christian,  and  profess  to  be  engaged  direct- 
ly in  the  Saviour's  service,  so  it  is  clearly  their  duty 
to  maintain  the  control  and  management  of  all  their 
affairs  in  the  hands  of  those  who  profess  to  love  and 
publicly  avow  their  faith  in  Jesns,  the  Redeemer,  as 
Divine,  and  who  testify  their  faith  by  becoming  and 
remaining  members  of  churches  held  to  be  evangelic- 
al. And  we  hold  those  churches  to  be  evangelical, 
which,  maintaining  the  Holy  Scriptures  to  be  the  only 
infallible  rule  of  faith  and  practice,  do  believe  in  the 
Lord  Jesus  Christ  (the  Only  Begotten  of  the  Father, 
King  of  kings  and  Lord  of  lords,  in  whom  dwelleth 
the  fullness  of  the  Godhead  bodily,  and  who  was  made 
sin  for  us,  though  knowing  no  sin,  bearing  our  sins 
in  his  own  body  on  the  tree),  as  the  only  name  under 
heaven  given  among  men  whereby  we  must  be  saved 
from  everlasting  punishment. 

"Resolved,  That  the  associations  organized  after 
this  date  shall  be  entitled  to  representation  in  future 
conferences  of  the  associated  Young  Men's  Christian 
Associations  of  North  America,  upon  conditions  that 
they  be  severally  composed  of  young  men  in  commun- 
ion with  evangelical  churches  (provided  that,  in  places 
where  associations  are  formed  by  a  single  denomina- 
tion, members  of  other  denominations  are  not  ex- 
cluded therefrom),  and  active  membership  and  the 
right  to  hold  office  be  conferred  only  upon  young  men 
who  are  members  in  good  standing  in  evangelical 
churches." 

This  action  gave  universal  satisfaction. 
I  have  no  recollection  of  criticism  from  any 
quarter  where  sympathy  with  an  evangelic- 
al work  is  expected,  nor  have  we  swerved 
from  the  principles  thus  laid  •down. 

Watchful,  too,  have  we  ever  been  lest  somo 
should  claim  an  assertion  on  our  part  of 
equality  with  the  Church. 

On  this  point  the  declarations  of  our  Con- 
ventions are  explicit : 

"Resolved,  That  we  consider  it  the  bonndeu  duty  of 
the  members  of  all  Young  Men's  Christian  Associa- 
tions, calling  themselves  Christians,  to  hold  their  du- 
ties and  obligations  to  their  respective  churches,  and 
to  services  of  the  same,  as  having  a  prior  claim  upon 
their  sympathy  and  efforts. 

"Resolved,  That,  in  the  prosecution  of  the  work  for 
the  Saviour  among  young  men  which  they  have  as- 
sumed, they  should  heartily  and  zealously  co-operate 
with  the  divinely  appointed  ministry,  and  with  all 
evangelical  bodies  of  Christians." 

Iu  the  progress  of  the  American  societies, 


BRAINERD :   YOUNG  MEN'S  CHRISTIAN  ASSOCIATIONS. 


421 


the  General  Conventions  (of  which  eighteen 
have  been  held — whose  international  char- 
acter you  will  not  fail  to  notice)  have  per- 
formed a  most  important  and  controlling 
part.  At  the  outset  there  was  no  thought 
of  intercourse  or  union.  Their  annual  meet- 
ings were  held,  as  this  conference  is  held, 
simply  for  prayer,  comparison  of  views,  and 
free  discussion.  Then,  a  general  committee 
was  appointed  for  one  year.  Then,  declara- 
tions of  principles,  definitions  of  the  work  to 
be  performed,  and  of  its  methods  and  agen- 
cies, until  now  we  have  reached  a  complete 
representative  organization,  with  accredited 
delegates  proportioned  upon  the  member- 
ship in  such  societies  as  have  incorporated 
into  their  constitutions  the  principles  of  the 
resolutions  which  have  just  been  read.  Here, 
more  than  "  the  comparison  of  views  and  free 
discussion"  are  contemplated.  We  have  re- 
ports of  work  performed.  We  recommend, 
and  intend  to  commit  the  societies  to,  definite 
courses  of  action  ;  we  insist  upon  our  evan- 
gelical test,  and  seek  to  give  it  potential 
force  and  aggressive  power  in  the  work  that 
is  prosecuted  by  every  one  of  the  associa- 
tions, and  in  the  individual  life  and  service 
of  every  one  of  their  members.  While  act- 
ually pronouncing  upon  practical  topics,  and 
discussing  them  with  warmth  and  earnest- 
ness, as  matters  of  business,  these  conven- 
tions have  never  lacked  special  evidences  of 
God's  presence  and  blessing.  They  have  uni- 
formly been  seasons  of  deep  spiritual  refresh- 
ment, both  to  the  delegates  and  to  the  peo- 
ple of  the  community  in  the  midst  of  which 
they  have  met ;  for  the  sessions  are  invaria- 
bly attended — as  are  the  sessions  of  this  Con- 
ference— by  all  the  people  whom  the  place 
of  meeting  can  contain  ;  and  often  this  sweet 
influence  has  extended  beyond  those  who 
profess  a  love  for  Jesus,  to  those  who  were 
indifferent  and  careless,  and  has  tarried  after 
the  departure  of  delegates,  a  reviving  and 
transforming  power. 

To  secure  permanently  these  results,  and 
to  guarantee  uniformity  in  effort,  the  con- 
vention is  now  represented  by  a  committee, 
appointed  for  three  years,  which  employs  as 
many  agents- as  the  funds  placed  at  its  dis- 
posal will  allow.  It  has  at  present  two  who 
are  constantly  engaged  in  attending  local 
conventions,  in  visiting  the  associations,  in 
organizing  new  ones,  and  in  extensive  cor- 
respondence with  the  leading  members  of 
the  societies  in  all  parts  of  the  continent; 
while  acting  in  concert  with  the  committee 
are  a  large  number  of  business  men  who  de- 
vote more  or  less  time,  as  their  employment 
permits,  to  the  same  work  of  visitation. 

As  the  societies  multiplied,  the  General 
Convention  failed  to  meet  all  the  require- 
ments for  conference  and  intercourse.  All 
the  societies  could  not  be  represented,  and 
conventions  of  Associations  in  nearer  neigh- 
borhood to  one  another  became  necessarv. 


Such  State  and  Provincial  conventions,  to 
the  number  of  one  hundred,  have  been  held 
the  past  seven  years  in  twenty  States  and 
five  Provinces.  They  resemble  closely  the 
General  Convention,  having  for  their  chief 
object  the  promotion  of  a  better  knowledge 
of  one  another's  work  through  oral  and  writ- 
ten reports,  and  also  suggestion  and  instruc- 
tion in  regard  to  the  methods  and  agencies 
by  which  the  work  can  be  best  carried  on. 

One  familiar  with  these  conventions  is 
impressed  at  once  with  the  striking  resem- 
blance between  them  and  this  imposing  con- 
ference of  world-wide  influence,  composed 
of  men  of  world-wide  fame.  We  meet  upon 
the  same  platform  of  Evangelical  Christian 
unity ;  the  same  spirit  of  devotion  breathes 
in  both ;  a  kindred  popular  interest  gathers 
about  the  sessions  of  each ;  we  seek  alike 
a  comparison  of  views  and  free  discussion ; 
we  aim  to  cultivate  and  extend  the  senti- 
ment of  Christian  unity.  But  there  exists 
also  a  single  striking  difference.  We  aim  to 
go  further  and  practically  utilize  this  sen- 
timent of  Christian  unity  by  associating 
Christians — especially  laymen — of  the  va- 
rious denominations  in  the  work  of  leading 
individual  men  to  Christ  as  the  Saviour 
from  sin.  Nor  is  our  work  considered  fin- 
ished while  the  young  man  who  has  been 
led  to  Christ  through  the  agency  of  the  As- 
sociations is  unconnected  with  a  church  of 
his  own  selection.  His  duty  in  this  regard 
is  always  strongly  urged  upon  him. 

Some  particulars  in  which  the  General 
Conventions  have  been  most  useful  may 
properly  be  enumerated. 

1.  In  the  beginning  they  insisted  that  the 
Societies  should  bo  more  than  merely  union 
prayer-meetings  of  Christian  young  men. 

2.  Then  they  restricted  the  action  of  the 
Associations  to  the  field  of  service  as  al- 
ready defined. 

3.  Then  they  insisted  upon  vital  piety  in 
the  members,  and  upon  labor  for  the  salva- 
tion of  young  men,  as  the  primary  object. 

4.  Then  they  emphasized  the  importance 
of  lay  preaching,  "  not  " — to  use  the  words 
of  our  Convention  —  "because  the  laymen 
are  better  preachers  than  the  clergymen,  but 
because  the  preaching  of  the  Gospel  to  the 
whole  world  is  too  large  a  work  for  the 
ministry  alone  to  do,  and  too  important  to 
be  left  undone." 

5.  Without  the  fostering  care  and  encour- 
agement of  the  successive  conventions,  the 
work  of  building  Association  homes  would 
have  made  but  little  progress. 

6.  The  Evangelical  Church  test,  now  un  i- 
versally  adopted,  to  which  reference  has  been 
made,  we  owe  to  the  Conventions. 

7.  Year  by  year  in  these  conventions  has 
the  importance,  yea,  the  indispensable  ne- 
cessity of  Bible  study  been  so  urged  upon 
the  Associations,  that  the  result  is  now  ap- 
parent in  the  multiplication  of  Bible  classes, 


422 


CHRISTIAN  LIFE. 


and  in  an  increased  love  for  and  study  of 
God's  Word  by  individual  members. 

8.  All  along  the  line  of  these  eighteen  con- 
ventions, recommendations  have  been  made 
relating  to  all  the  details  of  work  in  the  in- 
dividual societies,  by  \vhich  their  policy  has 
been  settled,  and  their  work  adjusted,  thus 
insuring  a  shapely  and  harmonious  growth. 

9.  Above  all,  we  thank  God  for  these  con- 
ventions, because  in  them  leading  Christian 
young  men  from  all  parts  of  this  mighty 
continent,  and  from  all  the  churches,  have 
been  brought  together  for  the  consideration 
of  a  common  and  majestic  -work ;  and  by 
the  outpouring  of  God's  Spirit,  their  hearts 
have  been  so  fused  into  one  that  no  tie  of 
organization  or  form  of  union  is  needed  to 
secure  their  united  action  in  any  great  work 
for  the  Master's  honor.     They  can  not  be 
separated ;  but  as  individuals  and  societies, 
they  stand  together  as  sharers  in  a  common 
work,  in  like  trials,  and  the  same  glory. 

One  word  as  to  the  individual  Associa- 
tions. They  have  adopted  substantially  the 
same  constitution,  and  the  work  has  been 
performed  in  all  of  them  under  the  super- 
vision of  committees  of  Christian  young 
men,  each  having  a  prescribed  field ;  our 
purpose  being  to  employ  as  large  a  number 
of  persons  as  possible. 

I.  We  have  the  secular  agencies : 

1.  An  open  and  pleasant  social  resort  for 
young  men ;  for  we  hold  that  any  place  that 
is  large  enough  to  support  saloons,  where 
young  men  are  ruined,  is  large  enough  to 
justify  the  opening,  by  its  Christian  young 
men,  of  some  place  of  resort  for  innocent 
recreation.     The  reading-room  has  been  the 
chief,  too  often  the  sole  reliance  of  the  Asso- 
ciation in  this  part  of  the  work.    But  some- 
thing more  than  this  has  been  found  nec- 
essary.   A  cozy,  pleasant  parlor  or  sitting- 
room,  somebody  to    welcome    strangers,  a 
musical  instrument,  a  library,  an  occasional 
social  meeting,  with  singing,  readings,  or 
other  agreeable  entertainment,  lectures,  the 
gymnasium — some  or  all  of  these  tend  to 
create  about  the  well-located  rooms  that  so- 
cial stir  and  interest  which  adds  greatly  to 
their  usefulness. 

2.  At  the  social  meeting,  simple  refresh- 
ments have  often  promoted  the  object  in 
view. 

3.  Much  emphasis  has  been  laid  on  the 
importance  of  music  as  a  means  of  attract- 
ive entertainment. 

4.  Familiar  lectures,  or  talks  to  young 
men  on  the  laws  of  health,  by  the  best 
Christian  physicians  in  the  place,  have  also 
been  of  service  in  the  work  of  the  Associa- 
tion. 

5.  The  gymnasium,  the  library,  education- 
al classes  in  the  evening  for  young  men,  the 
Employment  Bureau,  securing  situations  for 
those  in  need  of  them,  and  a  hall  for  its  own 
and  other  public  meetings. 


II.  Prominent  among  the  religious  agen- 
cies at  the  rooms  are — 

1.  The  Prayer-meetings.  .The  well-known 
daily  union  meeting  has  been  a  blessing  in 
many  of  our  cities  and  towns. 

2.  The  Bible  Class  is  most  faithfully  sus- 
tained by  our  societies  in  the  British  Prov- 
inces.    One  in  every  two  of  these  Associa- 
tions maintains  such  a  class,  while  only  ouo 
in  every  five  of  the  societies  in  the  United 
States   are   active   in  this  branch  of  the 
work. 

3.  The  Service  of  Song  is  au  interesting 
and  popular  feature  of  the  religious  work  in 
some  of  our  Associations. 

4.  The  personal  activity  of  the  individual 
members  is  the  mainspring  of  all  religious 
work,  and  is  always  indispensable,  and  al- 
ways insisted  on. 

5.  In  order  to  carry  on  the  work  thus 
very  briefly  outlined,  it  has  been  found  nec- 
essary, particularly  in  our  larger  towns  and 
cities,  to  secure  a  competent  officer  to  de- 
vote his  whole  time  to  the  supervision  and 
care  of  the  Association.    The  General  Sec- 
retary, when  most  efficient  and  useful,  is 
ex  officio  a  member  of  the  Board  of  Directors, 
and  also  of  every  working  committee  of  the 
Association. 

6.  A  building  or  home  of  its  own  seems  to 
be  as  necessary  to  the  highest  usefulness  of 
an  Association,  as  it  certainly  is  to  that  of 
a  church. 

7.  Christian  Boarding-houses  for  young 
men  have  been  successfully  maintained  in 
connection  with  a  few  Associations.     Ear- 
nest efforts  to  direct  young  men  to  good 
boarding  places  has  been,  for  many  years, 
an  acknowledged  part  of  the  work.     But 
the  experience  of  the  past  loudly  calls  for 
the  maintenance,  in  our  larger  cities,  of 
boarding-houses  for  young  men  like  those 
above  mentioned ;  buildings  constructed  ex- 
pressly for  the  purpose,  with  small  but  cheer- 
ful and  cleanly  kept  rooms,  and  where  whole- 
some and  well-cooked  meals  will  be  served 
in  an  orderly  way,  and  at  a  price  within  the 
reach  of  those  who  are  making  an  attempt 
of  the  first  one  or  two  years  of  business  life 
in  the  city. 

III.  The  activity  of  Christian  laymen,  to 
which  the  society  owes  its  working  force, 
has  often  found,  in  various  quarters,  a  field 
for  useful  effort,  wherever  Christian  work 
can,  for  local  reasons,  be  better  performed 
undenominationally  than  in  the  name  of 
any  particular  church. 

1.  The  tenement-house  in  our  cities  con- 
tains such  a  community,  and  the  tenement- 
house  prayer-meeting  has  often  been  a  fruit- 
ful branch  of  the  work. 

2.  The  immense  boarding-houses,  which, 
in  some  manufacturing  cities,  accommodate 
large  numbers  of  the  operatives,  are  always 
open  to  us. 

3.  Country   neighborhoods,  destitute   of 


BRAINERD :  YOUNG  MEN'S  CHRISTIAN  ASSOCIATIONS. 


423 


stated  religious  services,  have  been   often 
found  ripe  for  a  similar  good  work. 

4.  The  Cottage  Meeting  is  more  restricted 
in  its  influence,  reaching  only  a  few  families. 

5.  The  Open-air  Service  calls  together  an 
audience  which  seeins  to  be  best  appealed 
to  by  those  who  come  to  it  in  the  name  of 
an  undenominational  society. 

The  associations  and  their  work  have  been 
described.  Let  me  call  your  attention  to 
three  striking  and  peculiar  features  espe- 
cially pertinent  to  the  discussions  of  this 
Conference : 

1.  The  training  received  in  these  societies 
has  increased  greatly  the  working  force  of  the 
Church.      They  have  helped,  they  are  help- 
ing, to  solve  the  great  problem  of  lay  labor, 
which  President  Hopkins  has  justly  termed 
"  THE  problem  now  before  the  Church." 

2.  The  young  men  engaged  in  them  all  over 
the  continent  are  from  all  the  churches.    In 
this  common  service  they  leave  behind  them 
denominational  peculiarities,  they  meet  on 
a  common  platform,  and  learn  to  love  its 
simple  propositions,  an:l  to  love  each  other. 
They  love  not  the  Church  home  less,  but  the 
Church  universal  more ;  they  see  eye  to  eye, 
and  their  chief  glory  is  that  souls  are  saved, 
and  the  Master  honored ;  and, 

3.  The  men  thus  bound  together  advance 
in  years;  and  one  by  one  they  come  to  the 
front  in  all  the  relations  and  activities  of 
life.     Thev  take  in  their  turn  the  lead  in 


the  enterprises  of  Christian  benevolence  and 
philanthropy;  they,  too,  become  statesmen, 
legislators,  and  administrators.  They  are  to 
stand  with  the  foremost  in  church  councils. 
Will  they  love  each  other  less  then  ?  Will 
they  shake  off  the  effects  of  their  early 
training  ?  Shall  they  be  less  in  harmony  ? 
Shall  "  height  or  depth,  or  any  other  crea- 
ture, be  able  to  separate  them  ?"  Will  they 
not  practically  exemplify  and  illustrate,  in 
every  walk  and  relation  of  life,  in  adminis- 
tration both  of  Church  and  State,  the  essen- 
tial unity  and  oneness  of  all  the  disciples  of 
Christ — not  in  word  merely,  but  in  work  as 
well ?  Yea,  they  will!  The  union  in  which 
they  are  now  held  shall  grow  stronger  and 
closer  with  advancing  years,  and  the  lesson 
taught  by  this  great  Conference  confirms  the 
answer. 

Already  something  has  been  done.  Of  all 
things  capital  is  most  sensitive.  Yet  this 
Conference  meets  in  one  of  the  few  build- 
ings in  the  wide  world  capable  of  accommo- 
dating it,  which  is  dedicated  to  the  work  of 
the  one  Saviour,  in  a  service  in  which  the 
clerical  representatives  of  every  Evangelical 
denomination  bore  a  conspicuous  part.  But 
this  building  is  a  gift  of  the  capital  of  the 
Christian  men  of  New  York  to  a  Young  Men's 
Christian- Association,  and  their  unquestion- 
able testimony  to  the  value  of  its  past  serv- 
ices, and  to  their  confidence  in  its  promise 
for  the  future.  But  this  is  one  only  out  of 
eight  hundred  in  the  brotherhood. 


V. 

ROMANISM  AND  PROTESTANTISM. 

Wednesday,  October  8th,  1873. 


DIVISION  V,— CONTENTS, 


FIEST  SECTION  — MODERN  EOMANISM  AND  PROT- 
ESTANTISM. 

PACK 

J .  DORXER  :   The  Infattibilism  of  the  Vatican  Council,  and  Nominal 

Protestantism 427 

2.  HITCHCOCK  :   Romanism  in  •  the  light  of  History 436 

3.  FISCH  :    The  Present  State  of  Popery  in  France 438 

4.  WITTE:    Ultramontanism  and  the  Four  Prussian.  Church  Laws..   443 

5.  DOBNER  (AUGUST)  :  Reaction  in  Germany  against  Ultramontanism  440 

6.  STOERS:    The  Appeal  of  Romanism  to  Educated  Protestants 449 

7.  FISHER:   Protestantism,  Romanism,  and  Modern  Civilization 461 

8.  CUMMINS:    Roman  and  Reformed  Doctrines  of  Justification 467 

9.  COULIX:   Protestant  Ministers  and  the  Demands  of  the  Age 475 

10.  HOYEY :    Christian  Liberty 481 

SECOND  SECTION— THE  OLD  CATHOLICS. 

1.  OLD  CATHOLIC  CONGRESS:   Letter,  with  Introduction  by  Schaff....  485 

2.  HYACIXTIIE  LOYSOX  :   Letter 490 

3.  KRAFFT:    Vatican  Council  and  Old  Catholic  Movement 491 

4.  PROXIER  :   Roman  Catholicism  in  Switzerland. 498 

THIRD  SECTION  — EVANGELIZATION  OF  ROMAN  CATHOLIC 

COUNTRIES. 

1.  BERKELEY  :    Evangelization  in  Ireland 508 

2.  LORRIAUX  :    The  Evangelization  of  France 517 


FIRST  SECTION -MODERN  ROMANISM  AND  PROTESTANTISM, 


THE    INFALLIBILISM    OF   THE   VATICAN   COUNCIL, 
AND    NOMINAL    PKOTESTANTISM. 

BY  THE  REV.  I.  A.  DORNER,  D.D., 

Professor  of  Theology  in  the  University  of  Berlin. 


IT  is  a  righteous  iudignation  which  is  felt 
against  the  Council  of  the  Vatican  that  it 
should  sanction  a  dogma  of  such  fearful  and 
far-reachiug  importance  as  the  Infallihility 
of  the  Pope ;  and  it  is  the  duty  of  pure  and 
evangelical  Christianity  to  contend  against 
it  in  doctrine  and  life.  But,  in  order  to  con- 
tend successfully,  we  must  understand  our 
adversaries,  must  discern  the  roots  of  the  er- 
rors, which  are  powerful  only  in  that  they 
are  connected  with  great  truths.  And,  again, 
in  order  to  contend  as  Christians,  we  must 
strive  with  sorrow  and  sympathy,  with  that 
love  which  would  have  our  brethren  likewise 
in  possession  of  the  truth,  and  which  does 
not  proudly  exalt  itself  above  other  commu- 
nions, but  is  mindful  of  the  infirmities  of  our 
own.  Sin,  manifold  and  contradictory  as  it 
appears,  is  yet  fundamentally  one  ;  and  it  is 
just  so  with  error. 

In  this  spirit  I  would  treat  both  parts  of 
my  theme,  iu  order  that  we  may  strengthen 
one  another  iu  the  common  joy  of  the  pure 
Gospel,  whose  light  has  been  restored  to  us 
by  the  Reformation,  fruitful  iu  blessings,  as 
the  mother  of  us  all. 

I.  The  Fatican  Dogma  of  the  Infallibility  of 
the  Pope.— I  shall  not  deny  but  that  pride 
and  thirst  for  power  suggested  to  many  of 
the  Popes  the  idea  of  the  infallibility  of  the 
pretended  successor  of  St.  Peter.  But  it  does 
not  suffice  to  say  that  all  the  Vatican  Coun- 
cil were  moved  by  pride  and  lust  for  power, 
to  do  the  will  of  the  Pope,  to  sanction  this 
dogma.  For  the  bishops  have  rather  exhib- 
ited servility  than  pride  ;  they  have  thereby 
sealed  their  own  submission  under  the  Pope ; 
they  have  solemnly  and  formally  divested 
themselves  of  their  official  equality  with  him 
in  apostolic  origin  and  dignity.  It  is  true, 
moreover,  that  the  Romish  Church  has  there- 
by been  thrown  back  into  a  gross  and  deep 
error,  from  which  it  can  hardly  arise  again 
without  a  great  internal  revolution  ;  for  the 


whole  structure  of  the  hierarchy,  the  pillar  of 
the  truth,  would  thereby  totter  and  become 
suspected.  It  is  true  also  that  now  the  ut- 
terances of  the  Pope  are  like  the  canon  law, 
and  must  be  esteemed  as  inspired ;  yea,  that 
the  Pope,  as  the  authentic  interpreter  of  the 
sacred  Scriptures,  is  above  the  canon  of  the 
apostles  and  prophets.  But,  nevertheless, 
we  can  not  justly  understand  this  power- 
ful error  without  seeing  its  connection  with 
great  Christian  truths,  whose  caricature  it 
is.  We  can  not  master  it  entirely  until  we 
clearly  and  purely  apprehend  the  evangelical 
truth  of  which  it  is  a  counterfeit.  The  in- 
fallibility of  the  Pope  would  not  have  become 
a  dogma  without  the  consent  of  the  bishops. 
Why  did  they  yield,  not  only  those  who  for 
a  long  time  had  acted  as  mere  servants  and 
menials  of  the  Pope,  not  only  those  accus- 
tomed to  regard  religion  as  a  mere  mechan- 
ical, ceremonial  service,  who  without  aston- 
ishment added  this  dogma  to  other  dogmas — 
yea,  merely  wondered  why  others  regarded 
the  matter  as  so  serious — but  other  bishops 
likewise  of  more  earnest  spirit  and  deeper 
religious  interest?  Why  did,  particularly, 
the  German  bishops  submit  themselves,  who 
at  first  had  bravely  resisted  ?  At  the  begin- 
ning of  the  struggle  they,  not  less  than  the 
"  Old  Catholics,"  drew  back  with  horror  from 
this  dogma  as  a  mystery  of  error,  or  lies.  But 
their  opposition  became  weaker  and  more 
lukewarm, until  at  last  they  capitulated  with 
resignation. 

I  shall  not  acquit  them  of  cowardice  and 
fear  of  man  ;  but  the  human  heart  is  a  deep 
thing,  and  strong  in  self-deceptions  and  ar- 
tifices. The  entire  episcopal  order  would  not 
have  submitted  themselves  with  so  much 
unanimity,  had  they  not  supposed  that  only 
in  this  way  they  could  preserve  great  Chris- 
tian possessions.  The  error  of  papal  infalli- 
bility was  designed  to  subserve  tiro  great  pos- 
sessions,\iz.,t\\Q  preservation  of  the  Unity  of 


ROMANISM  AND  PROTESTANTISM. 


428 

the  Church  ami  of  Christianity,  ami  the  secur- 
ing of  awuraace  or  certainty  respecting  gen- 
uine Christianity,  the  latter  through  the  for- 
mer. The  unity  of  the  Church  was  for  them, 
as  it  ever  is  for  the  Catholics,  more  important 
than  assurance;  for  they  believe  that  all  as- 
surance would  be  lost  forever  by  a  dissolution 
of  that  unity,  and  that  if  we  know  where  the 
Church  of  the  Lord  is,  the  pillar  and  ground 
of  the  truth,  we  know  likewise  where  his 
truth  is.  For  they  say,  How  shall  the  head 
lose  its  body  f  How  shall  the  Lord  ever  give 
over  his  entire  Church  to  error?  But  if  the 
Church  be  split  asunder,  wo  no  longer  know 
where  the  true  Church  is.  Therefore  unity 
must  be  maintained  at  all  hazards :  for  by 
the  Church  preserving  its  unity,  even  God 
may  be  compelled,  as  it  were,  to  be  with  it ; 
and  his  Spirit  may  be  unable  to  leave  it 
without  rendering  the  entire  divine  work  of 
redemption  null  and  void. 

This  unity  of  the  Church  has  been  found 
for  a  long  time  in  the  hierarchy,  which  is  con- 
stituted by  the  perpetual  apostolic  succession 
of  bishops,  the  only  legitimate  descent  from 
the  apostles ;  and  the  unity  of  this  hierarchy, 
culminating  iu  the  Pope  of  Rome,  is  and 
must  be  watched  over  by  God  and  secured 
from  error.  But  in  the  fifteenth  century,  and 
at  the  reforming  councils,  the  hierarchy  could 
no  longer  preserve  the  unity  of  the  Church.  The 
councils  were  against  the  Pope,  and  the  Pope 
against  the  councils;  each  mutually  shook 
the  faith  in  the  other,  and  thereby  the  Ref- 
ormation became  necessary  and  possible.  Aft- 
er the  Reformation  had  been  accomplished, 
and  had  torn  away  from  Rome  a  great  part 
of  the  most  energetic  and  promising  nations, 
a  more  anxious  and  vehement  effort  was  man- 
ifested to  bring  the  faithful  remnant  com- 
pactly together  under  a  monarchical  head. 
A  prelude  was  prepared  to  that  system  of 
absolute  monarchy  which  in  our  day  has 
stepped  forth  openly  on  the  stage  of  history, 
chiefly  through  that  order  which  is  no  less 
the  vindicator  of  the  theory  of  the  worst  ab- 
solutism of  the  Pope  and  his  perpetual  dicta 
torship  as  of  his  infallibility,  than  it  is  the 
bitter  enemy,  yea,  the  deadly  foe  of  Protes- 
tantism. 

But  other  influences  also  were  at  work  for 
the  same  result.  The  States  developed  them- 
selves after  the  American  and  French  revo- 
lutions more  and  more  independently.  They 
withdrew  themselves  from  ecclesiastical 
guardianship,  and,  in  consciousness  of  their 
divine  right,  established  the  boundaries  of 
civil  and  ecclesiastical  power,  freedom  of 
religion,  worship,  and  conscience,  and  the 
equality  of  citizens  of  different  confessions. 
The  entire  modern  political  life  called  all  the 
faculties  of  the  citizens  into  activity  as 
never  before,  and,  accustomed  to  their  partic- 
ipation in  public  affairs,  threatened  from 
thence  a  reaction  npon  the  Catholic  Church. 

Moreover,  the  most  eminent  spirits  ainon 


the  Catholics,  at  least  in  Germany,  were  car- 
ried on  with  the  advance  of  learning  among 
the  Protestants.  Common  training-schools, 
common  public  employments,  mixed  mar- 
riages, common  literature  more  and  more 
modified  Catholicism,  yea,  often  evangelized 
it.  The  internal  unity  and  uniformity  of  the 
Catholic  faith  were  furthermore  threatened, 
if  not  dissolved. 

Then  Romanism  saw  that  the  time  had 
come  either  to  go  down  to  ruin,  or,  by  a  gi- 
gantic effort,  a  life  and  death  struggle,  to 
overthrow  the  new  civilization,  which  is  so 
repugnant  and  foreign  to  its  very  soul,  and 
to  undertake  the  great  restoration  of  the  Ro- 
man Catholic  system  against  liberty,  civil 
and  religious.  For  this  nothing  seemed  to 
avail  but  the  establishment  of  the  most  ex- 
tended dictatorship,  the  endowment  of  the 
Pope,  as  the  centre  of  unity,  by  consent  of  1hc 
Church,Mviih  a  power  that  placed  at  his  dis- 
position the  entire  energies  of  the  Roman 
Catholic  nations,  individually  and  collect- 
ively. 

This  was  and  is  the  bold,  grand  plan  of 
the  Ultramoutanes.  They  were  successful 
in  holding  the  Vatican  Council  almost  un- 
disturbed, and  in  fulfilling  their  purpose. 
The  council  accomplished  the  abdication  of 
the  ancient  power  of  the  episcopacy  in  favor 
of  Roman  absolutism ;  and  even  better  spir- 
ited and  reluctant  bishops  yielded  in  order 
to  preserve  and  to  secure  for  future  time  the 
unity  on  which  for  them  all  the  possessions 
of  the  Church  depend,  even  the  greatest  one 
of  assurance  of  the  truth. 

Since,  now,  the  entire  episcopal  order  has 
submitted  itself  to  the  absolute  sovereignty 
of  the  Pope,  the  octogenarian  shows  him- 
self inspired  with  fresh  energy,  hopes,  and 
claims.  Iu  a  brief  of  this  year,  6th  of  March, 
he  literally  teaches  the  Catholics:  "It  is  a 
religious  duty  and  the  will  of  God  that  they 
should  devote  themselves  necessarily  and 
absolutely  to  the  wishes  and  admonitions  of 
the  holy  throne,  and  that  all  wisdom  for  be- 
lievers consists  in  absolute  obedience,  and 
ready,  constant  dependence  upon  the  throne 
of  St.  Peter."  Thus  the  Pope  is  now  virtu- 
ally the  Church,  its  soul,  the  pillar  and  ground 
of  truth  and  tradition ;  for  he  decides  re- 
specting the  true  tradition  of  the  past;  or, 
in  other  words,  the  entire  Catholic  world  is 
his  body,  which  he  rules  as  the  ever-living 
Peter — yes,  the  representative  of  God.  All 
dualism  and  strife  between  Pope  and  bish- 
ops, Curialisin  and  Episcopalism,  seem  to  be 
ended,  and  unity  secured  forever. 

The  summit  has  been  reached ;  but  what 
effect  has  it  npon  the  possessions  of  unity 
and  assurance  ?  I  answer,  this  craftily  de- 
vised work  of  man  can  not  do  what  was  ex- 
pected of  it,  neither  for  the  unity  of  the 
Church  nor  for  the  assurance  and  certainty 
of  Christian  truth  ;  but  will  work  what  was 
not  expected.  Let  us  consider  both  points : 


CORNER :  THE  INFALLIBILISM  OF  THE  VATICAN  COUNCIL,  ETC.         420 


first,  tb:it  papal  infallibility  docs  not  further, 
lut  deeply  disturbs  the  unity  of  the  Church. 

Once  it  was  not  necessary  for  salvation  to 
believe  this  infallibility,  as  can  not  be  denied 
by  the  most  rigid  infallibilist ;  yes,  still  ear- 
lier it  was  forbidden  by  an  ecumenical  coun- 
cil of  Constance.  Now  to  believe  it  is  con- 
sidered tbe  sign  of  highest  piety ;  now  it  is 
necessary  for  salvation,  and  to  deny  it  has 
become  a  damnable  sin.  The  successors  of 
Pope  Honorius  were  obliged  to  curse  him  as 
a  heretic;  now  we  are  to  believe  that  the 
Pope,  as  such,  is  infallible,  and  that  he  who 
believes  what  the  Pope  believes  is  orthodox. 

In  view  of  such  facts,  what  is  to  be  said 
of  the  unity  of  the  liomish  Church  with  itself  f 
Papal  infallibility  separates  present  Catholi- 
cism from  its  own  past;  shows  the  changea- 
bleness  of  the  apparently  unchangeable  uni- 
formity of  the  Catholic  faith  and  Church, 
which  is  still  the  fascinating  magic  word 
that  draws  many  millions  in  triumphant 
procession  in  its  train. 

Again :  the  Council  of  Trent  still  recog- 
nized as  a  fence  and  restraint  against  arbi- 
trary innovations  the  principle  that  every 
dogma  must  rest  upon  historical  tradition,  and 
that  the  Church  can  be  bound  only  by  that 
which  is  supported  by  Christian  antiquity, 
or  is  not  in  any  way  in  contradiction  to  it. 
All  this  was  already  changed  by  the  new 
dogma  of  the  immaculate  conception;  still 
more  is  it  the  case  now.  Constitutive  tradi- 
tion, with  the  right  of  inventing  new  dog- 
mas, has  been  established  in  place  of  histor- 
ical tradition,  and  by  that  an  objective  per- 
fectibility of  Christianity  is  taught,  formerly 
condemned  in  the  Montanists  or  Tertulliau. 
The  infallible  Pope  is  granted  the  right  of 
giving  forth  from  the  shrine  of  his  heart,  like 
Pandora  from  her  box,  new  dogmas  at  his 
pleasure ;  yes,  likewise  the  right  of  deciding 
by  his  authority  respecting  tradition ;  the 
power  of  declaring  that  that  has  not  been 
done  which  has  been  done,  and  that  that  has 
been  done  which  has  not  been  done — for  in- 
stance, the  harmony  of  the  ancient  Church 
with  modern  Romanism.  The  sovereign  lord 
of  the  Church,  the  Pope,  has  now  been  eman- 
cipated from  the  previous  bonds  of  historical 
tradition ;  the  Church  has  been  given  over 
unreservedly  to  the  unlimited  subjectivism  of 
a  single  man. 

But  what  is  this  unity  in  itself  of  which  the 
Romish  Church  is  so  proud,  and  by  which 
even  the  opponents  of  the  new  dogma  at 
last  became  misled  ?  They  would  rather  be 
united  in  error  than  expose  the  Church  to 
the  danger  of  a  schism  by  resisting  the  error 
which  had  become  strong  and  obstinate,  and 
thus  by  their  agreement  the  error  was  made 
incurable  so  far  as  man  can  see.  But  is  unity 
of  absolute  value  in  itself,  without  regard  to 
its  substance,  without  regard  to  truth  f  The 
unity  of  the  Church  can  not  be  artificially 
made  by  man  ;  it  is  an  interior  invisible  life, 


created  by  God.  Unity  is  of  absolute  value 
when  it  is  unity  in  truth  and  in  the  Holy 
Spirit.  But  when  the  Holy  Spirit  is  grieved 
by  the  recognition  and  furtherance  of  the 
universal  sovereignty  of  error,  where  is  any 
value  left  ?  If  truth  has  disappeared  from 
the  Church,  it  has  lost  its  characteristic 
mark,  and  is  a  corpse,  however  beautifully 
attired.  Such  .unity  is  an  empty  shell,  and 
there  is  imminent  danger  that  the  Church 
may  in  this  way  become  like  the  Temple  in 
Jerusalem,  wheu  our  Lord,  departing  from 
it,  said, "  Behold,  your  house  is  left  unto  you 
desolate." 

The  new  dogma  creates  a  unity  which  is  a 
disunion  with  that  apostolical  and  primitive  • 
Christian  truth  whose  possession  is  the  life 
of  the  Church.  The  stronghold  and  power 
of  the  Church  are  no  longer  to  be  seen  in  the 
truth,  but  in  the  carrying  out  of  the  hier- 
archy to  its  highest  point. 

Still  further,  the  infallibility  of  the  Pope 
deepens  the  contrast  between  the  members  of  the 
Church,  bet  ween  the  clergy  and  the  laity;  dam- 
ages the  equality  of  all  Christians  before  God  ; 
yea,  places  all  Christians  in  blind  servitude 
to  one  mortal  and  sinful  man  as  their  ruler 
and  Lord.  That  again  is  destructive  of  true 
Christian  unity.  It  likewise  threatens  more 
than  ever  the  peace  with  the  different  Christian 
denominations.  Christian  unity  and  brother- 
hood, for  which  our  Lord  prayed  in  his  high- 
priestly  prayer,  becomes  a  communion  under 
servitude,  a  nonage  under  an  infallible  Pope. 
But  the  saddest  feature  of  the  new  dogma 
is  that,  even  in  its  highest  reference,  unity 
is  destroyed  iu  the  name  of  unity,  through 
the  insertion  of  this  human  mediator.  For 
still  more  important  than  this  disturbance 
of  the  internal  unity  of  the  Church  is  the 
disturbance  of  the  union  and  immediate 
communion  of  the  individual  person  with 
God  which  this  now  dogma  sanctions  as 
valid,  since  that  now  the  Pope  alone  enjoys 
and  concentrates  in  himself  the  influences, 
the  direct  communications  of  the  Holy  Spir- 
it. The  now  dogma  will  no  longer  have  the 
Holy  Spirit  to  dwell  independently  in  the 
believers ;  henceforth  they  are  to  bo  mere- 
ly passive  channels  for  the  water  which  is 
to  flow  from  the  Tiber  at  Rome.  But  not 
even  the  Pope  himself  has  this  immediate 
communion  with  God  for  his  entire  person, 
for  justification,  sanctification,  and  eternal 
life.  For  the  new  dogma  involves  likewise  a 
separation  of  the  intellectual  life  from  the  moral 
and  religious,  since  papal  inspiration  is  inde- 
pendent of  the  degree  of  personal  morality. 
Moral  reprobates  have  disgraced  and  may 
disgrace  the  Roman  throne ;  notwithstand- 
ing, according  to  the  new  dogma,  the  Spirit 
of  God  is  bound  to  those  who  have  ascended 
this  throne  by  human,  changeable  modes  of 
election.  But  it  is  essential  to  the  nature  of 
Christianity  that  light  and  life,  enlightening 
and  sanctification,  should  be  insepamble. 


430 


ROMANISM  AND  PROTESTANTISM. 


What  has  been  said  may  bo  enough  to 
show  with  what  result  the  unity  of  the 
Church  lias  been  provided  for  by  the  new 
dogma.  Let  ««  now  sec  what  it  has  done  for  the 
assurance  of  the  truth,  or  for  certainty.  This 
dogma,  we  must  say,  as  it  is  destructive  of 
true  unity,  likewise  poorly  provides  for  as- 
surance of  the  truth;  not  only  because  the 
unity  of  the  Church,  that  is  said  to  answer 
for  assurance,  is  not  established  by  this  dog- 
ma, but  weakened ;  but  also  because  it  is  not 
yet  quite  clear  and  certain  what,"J0gui  e  ca- 
thedra," infallibility  of  the  Pope,  per  sese,  pre- 
cisely mean.  Moreover,  since  the  principle 
of  subjectivism  is  let  loose  in  the  Pope,  ac- 
cording to  modern  Roman  Catholic  doctrine, 
it  is  not  certain  what  on  the  morrow  may 
be  sure  and  necessary  for  salvation.  Again, 
since  all  depends,  not  upon  the  fixed  sub- 
stance of  the  Biblical  truth,  but  upon  its 
agreement  with  the  Pope's  formal  authority 
aud  teaching,  this  system  of  formalism  ren- 
ders the  whole  substance  of  Christianity  en- 
tirely indifferent,  provided  that  the  formal 
authority  of  the  Pope  is  recognized.  This 
formalism  not  only  implants  indifference  con- 
cerning the  substance  or  content  of  truth, 
but  likewise  involves  skepticism  :  for  the  in- 
fallibilist  cau  only  accept  each  doctrine  hy- 
pothetically,  so  long  as  the  Pope,  the  master 
and  ruler  even  of  tradition,  will  allow  it; 
and  the  new  dogma  implies  the  denial  that 
truth  in  itself  cau  be  known,  and  that  it  has 
the  power  and  the  tendency  of  making  it- 
self known  and  proving  itself,  and  that. the 
believer  can  get  a  firm  persuasion  or  inter- 
nal conviction  of  Christian  truth  independ- 
ently of  changeable  external  authority. 

Therefore  we  conclude  that  the  modern 
Romish  system  does  not  create  true  unity  iu 
the  Church,  or  certainty  or  assurance  iu  the 
soul ;  but  it  combines  Antinomianism,  or  the 
absolute  autonomy  of  the  one  individual,  the 
Pope,  with  Legalism  and  the  servility  of  the 
people  in  ignorance  and  uncertainty  of  truth 
itself;  a  kind  of  Caesarism  claiming  to  be 
spiritual,  with  arbitrariness,  indifference,  and 
changeableness.  This  system  can  only  ac- 
complish a  kingdom  of  external  obedience,  a 
kind  of  State,  which  has  merely  incidentally 
to  do  with  religion,  that  is  to  say,  with  God, 
and  affords  only  a  relation  of  man  with  men. 

Such  a  system  must  come  into  collision 
with  every  self-conscious  State. 

The  empire  of  the  Pope  would  be  a  spir- 
itual empire  above  all  States,  endowed  with 
almost  all  the  attributes  of  the  State,  even 
the  power  of  coercion.  Pervading  Christen- 
dom and  all  its  States,  as  a  second  State  in 
every  State,  it  must  sooner  or  later  offend 
every  State  that  is  conscious  of  its  office,  and 
endeavors  to  realize  its  own  idea,  and  does 
not  submit  itself. 

It  is  a  great  error,  as  we  have  seen  in  Ger- 
many, to  suppose  that  the  State  can  avoid 
this  conflict  by  not  troubling  itself  about 


this  Church.  If  the  State  does  not  trouble 
itself  about  this  Church,  the  Church  will 
trouble  itself  about  the  State,  and  appropri- 
ate more  and  more  the  State's  prerogatives. 

If  the  State  applies  itself  to  its  duty  of 
caring  for  national  education  and  training,  it 
will  have  to  contend  with  this  Church,  which 
would  alone  conduct  all  training  and  in- 
struction. If  the  State  would  inspect  the 
Catholic  institutions  for  the  training  of  the 
young  and  the  education  of  the  clergy,  in 
order  to  see  whether  they  are  abused  to  cor- 
rupt the  national  spirit,  fill  the  youth  with 
sectarian  hatred,  conspire  against  the  inde- 
pendent rights  of  the  State,  implant  servile 
doctrines  respecting  the  superiority  of  a  for- 
eign sovereign,  the  Pope,  over  the  State,  and 
inculcate  disobedience  to  the  State  when  re- 
quired by  the  Church — then  there  must  be  a 
conflict  with  this  Church.  If  the  State,  as 
in  duty  bound,  protects  from  violence  the 
freedom  of  those  of  its  citizens  who  have  as- 
sumed vows  of  celibacy  or  the  cloister,  and 
have  given  to  the  Catholic  Church  the  right 
of  punishing  them  in  body,  estate,  and  honor 
should  they  break  these  TOWS;  who,  how- 
ever, have  subsequently  seen  that  these  vows 
are  sinful,  and  that  it  would  be  fresh  sin  to 
keep  them — then  the  Romish  Church  com- 
plains that  its  freedom  has  been  violated, 
and  there  is  conflict.  Or  if  the  Romish 
Church  misuses  its  excommunication  aud 
the  threat  of  the  ban,  for  the  purpose  of  pre- 
venting Catholic  judges  and  magistrates 
from  the  fulfillment  of  their  duty,  even  when 
against  the  interests  of  the  Romish  Church, 
or  for  the  purpose  of  gaining  political  tri- 
umphs at  the  polls — the  State  has  simply 
the  alternative,  either  to  repress  such  abuse 
of  spiritual  authority,  or  to  be  recreant  to 
duty  and  honor. 

The  modern  spiritual  State  of  the  infalli- 
bilists,  governed  by  the  Jesuits,  would  mass 
the  Catholics  compactly  together  as  a  par- 
ticular nation  in  every  State  where  Chris- 
tians of  different  confessions  are  mingled; 
and  thus  divide  the  State  within  itself  into 
hostile  camps,  which  could  not  but  finally 
lead  to  a  life  aud  death  struggle.  Therefore 
the  principle  applies  with  reference  to  the 
infallibilists :  "  Videant  consults  ne  quid  res- 
puWica  detrimenti  capiat."  This  hostile  po- 
sition of  the  Catholicism  of  the  iufallibilists 
toward  the  modern  State  is  for  t us  a  still 
further  proof  that  the  unity  of  the  Church 
offered  by  the  Vatican  is  a  false  unity,  be- 
cause it  is  hostile  to  good  and  divine  insti- 
tutions ;  yes,  it  is  a  calamity.  If  the  State 
does  its  duty  with  reference  to  this  evil,  it 
will  thereby  further  the  cause  of  the  pure 
Gospel.  The  State  may  not  and  must  not  inter- 
fere with  the  internal  affairs  of  the  con- 
science and  the  Church ;  it  must  not  itself 
originate  or  rule  any  one  Church  or  all  of 
them.  But  its  office  is  to  protect  the  free- 
dom of  the  citizens,  that  the  system  of  sup- 


DORNER :  THE  INFALLIBILISM  OF  THE  VATICAN  COUNCIL,  ETC.         431 


pressing  the  freedom  of  the  person  in  relig- 
ious things,  or  the  poisoning  of  the  nar 
tional  spirit  by  servile  views,  may  not  lie  al- 
lowed ;  that  still  more  evjery  one  may  have 
the  opportunity  of  seeking  the  truth  in  re- 
ligious things,  and  of  living  in  accordance 
with  the  measure  of  the  knowledge  he  has 
attained.  This  protection  will  he  of  ad  van- 
tage to  the  sounder  elements  that  may  still 
remain  in  the  Catholic  Church,  and  for  the 
so-called  Old  Catholics.  Nevertheless,  true 
help  .can  not  come  to  Catholic  people  from 
the  State,  but  ouly  from  the  Gospel,  which 
makes  free  in  God  and  binds  to  God ;  which 
gives  a  firm  and  assured  heart  through  the 
truth,  and  forms  the  right  foundation  of  the 
true  unity  of  the  Church,  notwithstanding 
the  differences  of  denominations. 

II.  Nominal  Protestantism. — We  have  thus 
been  brought  to  the  consideration  of  evan- 
gelical Christianity.  And  that  we  may  not 
give  ourselves  over  to  ecclesiastical  pride,  we 
must  now  consider  the  evils  of  nominal  Prot- 
estantism existing  among  us  against  which 
we  have  to  contend. 

Evangelical  Christianity  is  the  free-born 
daughter  of  the  Reformation.  It  has  recon- 
ciled the  principles  of  authority  and  freedom 
in  the  moral  and  religious  sphere,  For  the 
Gospel  proves  itself  to  evangelical  faith  as  a 
power  of  God.  The  believer  is  overcome  in 
his  intelligence,  will,  and  feelings  by  the 
spiritual  power  of  redeeming  truth  in  Christ ; 
and  thus  has  first  of  all  an  assurance  of  per- 
sonal salvation  in  Christ,  a  subjective  knowl- 
edge of  himself  as  redeemed,  and  then,  at 
the  same  time,  an  objective  knowledge  of 
the  Redeemer  —  of  his  divine  power  and 
grace.  This  victory  of  truth,  as  light  and 
life,  is  at  the  same  time  a  victory  over  doubt, 
skepticism,  disunion,  and  enmity  with  God. 
In  one  word,  man,  by  faith,  is  restored  to 
unity  with  himself  and  God — to  unity  of 
Christian  character,  and  that  is  the  founda- 
tion of  all  true  unity  of  men  in  the  Church. 
For  how  could  there  bo  a  unity  of  the 
Church  if  its  members  have  chaotic  and 
internally  discordant  elements  within  their 
own  persons  ?  And,  on  the  other  hand, 
how  can  those  who  are  born  of  God  refrain 
from  loving  their  kindred  of  the  divine 
seed? 

But  this  possession  of  evangelical  assurance 
and  unity  in  the  truth  is  to  be  gained  only  by 
ever  Avrestling  for  it  anew,  and  this  ou  ac- 
count of  natural  indolence.  Moreover,  the 
generations  change ;  and  every  new  member 
attaching  himself  to  evangelical  Christian- 
ity must  begin  anew,  although  supported  by 
the  faithfulness  and  earnest  example  of  the 
more  matured.  We  have  the  treasure  of  the 
Gospel,  but  only  in  constant  reproduction. 
Now  the  process  of  this  reproduction  may  bo 
disturbed  and  interrupted ;  and  where  its  nor- 
mal course  is  stayed,  the  unity  gained  in  the 
faith  of  the  Gospel  again  begins  to  dissolve. 


The  different  elements  which  had  hitherto 
been  united  #gain  separate,  and  there  ap- 
pears once  more,  on  the  one  hand,  a  mere  ob- 
jective authority  or  law — a  legalism  without 
union  with  freedom ;  on  the  other  hand,  a 
freedom  which  is  rather  arbitrariness — dog- 
matical or  ethical  Antinoinianism ;  and  the 
substance  of  the  Gospel  is  soon  altered  by 
both,  on  the  one  side  in  new  forms  of  super- 
stition, based,  however,  upon  indolence  of 
faith,  or  unbelief,  which  creates  for  itself,  in- 
stead of  the  riches  of  spiritual  experience, 
substitutes  of  a  sensuous  nature ;  on  the  oth- 
er side  in  the  form  of  an  unbelief,  based,  how- 
ever, upon  superstition,  which  trusts  in  the 
self-sufficiency  and  independent  authority  of 
the  natural  man.  In  the  one  case  there  is  a 
4eification  of  the  object,  in  some  form  of  the 
creature ;  in  the  other  case,  a  deification  of 
the  subject. 

Both  of  these  contrasts,  which  existed  be- 
fore the  Reformation — even  before  Christian- 
ity— are  again,  as  a  matter  of  fact,  disclosed 
iu  our  times  in  Protestant  Christendom ; 
and  this  is,  indeed,  the  chief  conflict  of  the 
Church  of  our  day. 

1.  Alarmed  by  the  abuse  of  freedom  on  the 
one  side,  many  flee  from  freedom  altogether. 
Lest  they  should  open  the  door  to  disorgan- 
izing arbitrariness,  they  iniprisou  Christian- 
ity itself;  lest  they  should  give  room  for  sub- 
jfctmsm,  they  lead  the  way  to  an  objectivism, 
which  is  human  bondage.  Church  authority 
is  made  the  basis  of  faith  ;  the  symbols  of 
the  Church  and  their  formula  are  placed 
above  the  pible ;  and  Church  tradition  is 
most  scrupulously  guarded,  not  because  it  is 
the  truth,  but  because  it  is  tradition ;  and 
thus  there  is  a  zeal  for  unevangelical  doc- 
trines \vhich  are  based  merely  on  tradition. 
Many  who  are  especially  anxious  for  the  cred- 
it of  orthodoxy  subordinate  the  study  of  the 
Scriptures  to  the  symbolical  books  and  tho 
ancient  dogmatical  writers.  They  are  amazed 
when  the  believer  in  the  study  of  the  Script- 
ures shows  the  necessity  of  harmonizing 
more  completely  Church  doctrine  with  the 
Bible.  They  are  sluggish  in  the  fulfillment 
of  the  duty  of  the  true  scribe,  in  bringing 
out  of  the  treasure  of  the  heart  things  new 
and  old  (Matt,  xiii.,  52).  There  is  a  tendency, 
still  more  extended,  to  substitute  for  the  an- 
cient, conscious,  personal  form  of  piety,  an 
impersonal  form,  which  lives  in  shadowy  and 
aesthetic  feelings  of  an  indefinite  kind.  This 
they  accomplish  by  means  of  gorgeous  cere- 
monial and  manifold  symbolism ;  by  subor- 
dinating tho  preaching  of  the  word  to  the 
liturgy  and  the  sacrament ;  by  the  propaga- 
tion of  Christianity  rather  by  cramming  the 
mind  with  Christian  material  than  by  lead- 
ing to  Christian  knowledge  and  the  personal 
appropriation  of  the  truths  of  salvation ;  by 
sensuous  forms  and  ceremonies,  to  which  spir- 
itual indolence  ascribes  the  power  of  per- 
vading the  entire  man,  as  a  fluid,  with  mag- 


432 


ROMANISM  AND  PROTESTANTISM. 


ical  influence.  Ami  connected  with  tins  there 
is  likewise  an  uncvangelical  emphasis  of  the 
power  of  the  keys,  and  a  Romanizing  distinc- 
tion between  the  clergy  and  laity,  which  is 
rooted  in  the  nuevaugelical  doctrine  of  sac- 
ramental ordination.  This  method,  which  is 
a  reaction  from  evangelical  Christianity,  is 
unfruitful  in  religion,  is  unsuited  to  the  needs 
of  the  present  age,  and  to  the  ever  youthful 
Gospel,  and  to  its  regenerative  power.  It  is 
related  to  the  present  as  a  peevish  old  man 
who  would  carefully  guard  a  rich  inherit- 
ance, yet  allows  it  to  rust  and  spoil,  because 
he  does  not  increase  it  by  use,  and  does  not 
continually  coin  and  distribute  the  noble 
inetal  of  the  Gospel.  The  Church  will  never 
in  this  way  prevail  over  the  masses  of  the 
people  who  are  estranged  from  it.  Rather  this 
leaven  of  Romanism  which  has  again  been 
brought  in  leads  back  behind  the  Reforma- 
tion, of  which  it  speaks  with  unhappy  retrac- 
tions and  regrets,  while  it  takes  away  or 
shakes  the  evangelical  assurance  of  faith,  de- 
stroys the  present  evangelical  unity,  and 
misleads,  if  not  to  apostasy  to  Rome,  yet  to 
weak  efforts  to  establish  on  evangelical  soil 
a  kind  of  duodecimo  popedora  in  every  con- 
gregation. But  we  can  not  linger  by  this 
foul  stream,  which  now  flows  through  the 
evangelical  Church  of  more  than  one  land. 
It  has  already  been  condemned  by  what  has 
been  said  with  reference  to  the  modern  Rom- 
ish Church,  of  which  it  is  but  a  dwarfish,  in- 
consistent copy. 

2.  We  must,  however,  dwell  for  a  while 
upon  that  other  contrasted  form  of  nominal 
Protestantism,  that  would  be  called  Liberal 
Protestantism.  In  appearance  it  is  entirely 
different  from  Roman  Catholicism,  and  that 
tendency  of  Protestantism  just  described ; 
and  this  is,  indeed,  its  wish  and  opinion  re- 
specting itself.  Yet  the  inconsistency  is  that, 
unconsciously,  it  is  essentially  the  same.  Lu- 
ther once  used  this  appropriate  language : 
"  Papismus  est  merus  enthusiasmus"  (we 
would  now  say :  "  IdealismUs"  or  "  subjectivis- 
mus").  Tradition,  apart  from  the  Holy  Script- 
ures, is,  indeed,  a  product  of  human  ratio, 
and  supposes  a  justitia  such  as  is  pleasing  to 
the  natural  reason.  We  may  likewise  ap- 
ply these  words  inversely.  The  nominal 
Protestantism  of  which  we  are  speaking 
shows  itself  to  be  the  twin,  of  Romanism 
when  we  look  deeper  into  its  principles. 

a.  It  is  true  that  this  nominal  Protestantism 
would  by  all  means  have  the  freedom  of  the 
person  and  free  investigation  vindicated ; 
but  it  is  simply  because  it  ascribes  to  every 
individual  the  same  subjective  autonomy  and 
independence  of  the  truth  that  Romanism 
concentrates  in  one  person,  the  Pope. 

b.  It  is  true,  moreover,  that  the  liberals  in- 
sist upon  the  individual's  own  subjective  as- 
surance; they  would  not  have  assurance  from 
the  objective  power  of  the  truth,  but  from  the 
subjective  decision  respecting  it;  they  would 


know  nothing  of  an  objective  authority. 
They  therefore  reject  tradition,  and  oppose 
every  kind  of  obligation  to  the  symbols  of 
the  Church.  And  so  in  recent  times  they 
have,  in  the  different  countries  of  Europe,  n* 
if  with  oue  watch-word,  concentrated  their 
attacks  especially  against  the  Apostles'Creed. 
They  regard  the  symbols  of  the  Church  a.s 
merely  dead  forms  and  heavy  ballast — op- 
pressive to  the  spirit.  They  are  conscious 
of  a  freedom  from  all  external  authority,  so 
that  they  claim  the  right  of  every  individual 
to  teach  in  his  own  Church  whatever  his  free 
investigation  has  found ;  yes,  likewise,  the 
sacred  Scriptures  are  of  authority  to  them 
only  with  such  reservations  as  render  them 
all  illusory.  If  any  thing  displeases  them, 
they  say  the  sacred  writers  have  not  report- 
ed faithfully,  or  have  mingled  Jewish  and 
Alexandrine  theology  with  it.  Yea,  so  far 
have  some  of  them  already  gone  that  they 
suppose  they  can  reject  even  words  of  Christ 
with  which  they  do  not  agree ;  for  even  the 
mind  of  Christ,  they  say,  was  tinged  with  er- 
roneous Jewish  ideas.  Some  still  recognize 
Jesus  as  the  sinless  Sou  of  man,  or  ideal  man, 
whose  origin,  however,  was  not  supernatural, 
for  every  man  may  be  morally  perfect  and 
blameless  by  the  use  of  his  freedom.  How- 
ever, Jesus  was  to  them  the  first  to  experi- 
ence and  reveal  the  great  truth  that  God  is 
not  a  God  of  wrath,  but  of  love.  Others  of 
the  same  party  go  so  far  as  to  urge  us  to 
carefully  distinguish  the  ideal  from  the  his- 
torical Christ.  All  the  lofty  predicates  that 
the  Church,  in  accordance  with  the  Script- 
ures, ascribes  to  the  historical  God-man  in 
his  unity,  they  heap  upon  the  ideal  Christ, 
who,  again,  is  identified  with  the  Spirit  of 
God,  or  God  himself;  while  the  historical 
Christ,  Jesus  of  Nazareth,  is  at  the  most  a 
symbol  of  this  ideal  Christ,  audit  is  indiffer- 
ent how  far  Jesus  may  correspond  with  him. 
Jesus  is  to  them  a  mere  man,  howbeit  his  re- 
ligion is  genial;  God  and  man  are  persons 
external  to  one  another  even  in  Christ,  so 
that  after  Jesus  departed  from  the  earth  he 
has  at  the  utmost  the  significance  of  an  ex- 
ample, and  the  merit  of  having  been  the  first 
to  speak  the  great  truth  of  the  Fatherhood 
of  God,  although  not  always  consistently. 
This  truth,  say  they,  can  now  perpetuate  it- 
self without  his  assistance  or  co-operation ; 
and  there  is  no  more  need  of  his  mediation 
with  the  Father,  for  all  men  are  children  of 
God,  and  are  to  be  brought  to  acceptance  and 
blessedness,  although  by  many  ways,  through 
virtue  and  morality.  The  natural  conscience, 
with  its  power  and  clearness  of  perception, 
they  assert,  is  sufficient  to  guide  all  men  into 
all  truth ;  for  man  is  empowered  by  his  con- 
science to  sit  in  judgment  over  all  dogmas. 
Thus  this  form  of  Protestantism,  in  the  name 
of  science,  loosens  all  the  historical  founda- 
tions of  Christianity  and  evaporates  its  doc- 
trines. Like  the  Romish  Church,  it  dissolve:* 


DOKNER:  THE  INFALLIBILISM  OF  THE  VATICAN  COUNCIL,  ETC.        433 


the  unity  of  God  an4  man,  and  thinks  that  it 
has  reserved  for  Christ  a  resurrection  in  the 
spirit ;  while  it  denies  him  or  buries  him,  as 
the  Reformers  charged  against  Rome. 

o.  The  Church  of  the  Infallibilists  has  pre- 
served a  series  of  genuine  Christian  truths 
as  a  traditional  possession ;  but  these  are 
buried  under  the  rubbish  of  modern  errors, 
and  the  weight  of  the  monstrous  and  diver- 
sified apparatus  of  Romish  ecclesiasticisra, 
and  have  thus  become  deaf  and  dumb  salt ; 
and  hence  are  hardly  to  be  taken  into  con- 
sideration as  a  ground  of  difference.  The 
only  difference  between  the  two  errors  that  can 
be  found  is  this  :  modern  Catholicism  limits 
the  unrestricted  arbitrariness  or  subjectivism 
to  one  point,  in  order  that  all  the  rest  may  be 
placed  in  blind  dependence  on  it ;  while  this 
modern,  degenerated  Protestantism  demands 
autonomy  and  self-sufficiency  for  all.  The  re- 
sults, however,  with  reference  to  the  assur- 
ance of  salvation  and  of  Christian  truth,  are  es- 
sentially the  same,  and  it  is  even  so  with  the 
unity  which  they  leave  us.  In  order  to  give 
assurance  and  certainty  of  the  truth  of  the 
Church,  Infallibilisin  sets  up  as  the  funda- 
mental dogma  that  the  subjective  mil  of  the 
person  sitting  upon  the  throne  of  Rome  is  to 
decide  with  divine  authority  respecting  truth 
and  error ;  while  that  nominal  Protestantism, 
in  the  interests  of  assurance  of  the  truth,  en- 
dows the  subjective  will  of  every  person  with 
the  authority  of  deciding  what  is  to  be  bind- 
ing upon  him.  Both  alike  regard  the  object- 
ive divine  truth,  given  in  the  personal  ap- 
pearance of  Christ,  as  not  endowed  with  the 
power  of  testifying  to  its  own  truthfulness, 
attesting  itself,  and  making  evident,  and  di- 
vinely assured.  Arbitrary  subjectivism  as- 
cribes the  power  of  deciding  what  is  to  be 
obligatory  truth,  to  the  creature,  without 
God :  on  the  one  side  to  one  person,  the  Pope ; 
on  the  other  to  the  multitude  of  co-ordinate 
persons,  in  their  natural  condition. 

d.  The  same  similarity  of  principles  appears, 
moreover,  especially  with  reference  to  tJie  recon- 
ciliation of  man  with  God.  The  Catholic  doc- 
trine is  here  a  combination  of  Pelagian  and 
magical  elements.  On  the  one  side,  merito- 
rious works,  propitiating  man,  are  required ; 
on  the  other,  indulgence  is  dispensed.  It  is 
very  much  the  same  with  the  so-called  lib- 
eral theology,  which  bases  the  reconciliation 
and  justification  of  man,  on  the  one  side,  on 
moral  intentions  and  works  (religion  being 
subordinated  to  morality) ;  on  the  other  side 
they  believe  that  men  are  entitled  to  forgive 
themselves  their  own  sins,  or  to  regard  their 
sins  as  forgiven  by  God,  basing  themselves 
upon  that  idea  of  God  which  regards  Father- 
hood as  knowing  no  wjath ;  alas !  also,  no 
justice.  As  they  do  not  go  back  to  the  me- 
diatorship.  of  Christ,  what  is  it  but,  on  the 
one  side,  self-absolution,  without  cost  to  self; 
on  the  other,  a  delusion  of  possible  self-atouc- 

H)HJ ;  ? 

28 


e.  Now  this  is  simply  to  fall  back  into  the 
errors  of  Romanism  through  a  form  of  Prot- 
estant nominal  subjectivism,  errors  which 
penetrate  even  to  the  idea  of  God.  Instead 
of  holy  justice,  arbitrariness  appears  in  both 
conceptions,  and  is  called  goodness.  In- 
stead of  free  grace  for  Christ's  sake,  without 
which  no  one  can  stand  before  God,  there 
appears  in  both  views  the  law,  demanding,  but 
not  giving,  moral  purity  and  change  of  the 
inmost  heart,  which  no  one  can  accomplish 
of  himself. 

/.  Again,  on  the  one  side  we  have  the  super- 
stitious self-deification  of  the  Church ;  on 
the  other,  the  no  less  superstitious  self-deifi- 
cation of  the  personal  subject.  In  both  con- 
ceptions the  man  who  makes  the  creature 
the  centre,  excludes  himself  from  the  divine 
centre,  and  on  the  very  basis  of  the  deifica- 
tion of  the  creature  there  is  left  a  mere  deist- 
ical  view  of  the  world  separating  it  from 
God. 

g.  Again,  this  resemblance  of  the  principles 
of  the  so-called  liberal  theology  with  modern 
Catholicism  may  be  shown  from  other  points 
of  view.  The  Church  of  the  Infallibilists,  as 
we  have  seen,  establishes  a  formal  unity  and 
authority  over  the  substance  of  the  truth 
and  its  value,  but  thereby  falls  into  an  tndif- 
ferentism  with  reference  to  the  truth  itself. 
They  study  merely  the  preservation  of  unity 
and  uniformity,  indifferent  as  to  what  the 
substance  of  the  bond  of  union  and  Chris- 
tianity may  be.  At  the  same  time,  we  have 
seen  that  the  background  of  this  formal  /«- 
falUbilism  is  a  skepticism  which  doubts  wheth- 
er the  truth  itself  can  be  universally  known. 
The  same  indifferentisni — yes,  skepticism — is 
manifest  likewise  in  this  nominal  Protestant- 
ism, so  soon  as  it  forms  associations,  or  seeks  a 
communion,  as  it  has  recently  endeavored  to 
accomplish  in  various  ways.  It  is  true  they 
talk  of  assurance  and  knowledge ;  but,  inas- 
much as  they  confer  upon  all  men  the  prin- 
ciple of  unlimited  autouomy,  it  can  not  but 
be  that  the  most  contrasted  elements  come 
together  in  these  associations,  and  that  a 
uniou  through  the  same  principles  and  their 
authority  becomes  impossible.  How  can  per- 
sons of  such  opposite  views  bind  themselves 
together  in  unity  T  •  There  is  but  one  way, 
that  no  one  should  value  his  view  as  true 
and  certain.  Should  any  one  earnestly  claim 
his  view  to  be  the  true  one,  the  union  would 
be  at  once  loosened  or  dissolved.  Hence 
the  continuance  of  such  a  union  is  possible 
merely  as  a  school  which  is  seeking  the  truth, 
but  is  not  in  possession  of  it ;  but  not  as  a 
religious  communion  rejoicing  and  living  in 
its  faith.  And  yet  this  is  the  more  favorable 
aspect.  For  if  we  are  ever  to  be  seeking 
and  never  attaining  to  the  knowledge  of  the 
truth  ;  if  we  refuse  the  truth  when  present 
to  us,  and  obliging  us  to  accept  and  advocate 
it,  we  fall  into  a  skepticism  which  despairs 
of  the  possibility  of  knowing  the  truth  as 


434 


ROMANISM  AND  PROTESTANTISM. 


an  objective  and  universal  entity,  or  else  it 
seems  indifferent  whether  we  arc  in  posses- 
sion of  the  truth  or  not.  I  know  that  these 
are  severe  words.  There  are,  it  is  true,  in 
such  associations  men  who  are  in  possession 
of  the  Christian  truth,  but  who  by  their  mem- 
bership hope  to  regain  others  who  have  been 
estranged  from  the  Church,  thinking  of  that 
comprehensive  word  of  Christ,  "  He  that  is 
not  against  us  is  for  us."  But,  if  they  would 
remain  sound  in  faith  and  love,  they  should 
think  likewise  of  that  other  word  that  re- 
minds us  of  the  decision  which  every  one 
must  make :  "  He  that  is  not  with  me,  is 
against  me ;  and  he  that  gathercth  not  with 
ino,  scatteroth  abroad." 

h.  So  long  as  the  bond  of  unity  for  such  an 
association  is  not  found  in  definite,  positive 
Christian  truth,  nothing  remains  but  to  seek 
unity,  partly  in  opposition  and  polemics 
against  others,  partly  in  certain  external 
forms  and  organizations.  This  is  the  reason 
of  the  great  controversial  character  and  war- 
like spirit  as  well  of  the  Catholic  Church  as 
of  this  so-called  liberal  Protestantism.  The 
organization  sought  from  this  stand -point 
involves  the  idea  of  finding  a  form  of  com- 
munion in  which  every  one  may  continue  in 
absolute  autonomy  and  religious  sovereign- 
ty, and  at  the  same  time  not  be  deprived  of 
the  blessings  and  enjoyments  of  communion, 
and  the  permanent  right  to  the  same.  But 
what  are  they  to  love  and  cherish  in  com- 
mon, if  there  is  nothing  positive  that  is  held 
in  common?  That  which  excludes  nothing 
includes  nothing,  but  remains  hollow  and 
empty.  So  far,  then,  as  acting  in  company 
is  concerned,  they  lay  great  stress  upon  free 
election.  The  members  ascribe  to  themselves 
the  power  to  vote  by  the  majority  respect- 
ing all  things,  even  respecting  the  doctrines 
that  are  to  be  allowed  or  held  in  common. 
Thus  they  fall  into  the  same  error  which 
sound  judgment  blames  in  the  councils,  that 
they  established  a  mechanical  method  of  de- 
ciding respecting  what  is  true  and  well  pleas- 
ing to  God,  which  method  is  inadequate  to 
the  truth  and  its  laws.  Nominal  Protestant- 
ism and  the  Romish  Church  both  alike  are 
destitute  of  any  clear,  firm  norm  of  decision. 
The  former,  because  they  would  build  upon 
the  variously  constituted  reason  of  the  auto- 
nomic  subject,  and  by  the  various  methods 
and  results  of  their  historical  —  even  dog- 
matical— criticism  of  the  sacred  Scriptures 
render  every  proposed  norm  again  illusory. 
The  latter,  because  they  establish,  though 
unconsciously,  through  historical  or  consti- 
tutive tradition,  changeable  human  ideas  in 
place  of  the  rock  of  evangelical  truth ;  which 
ideas,  when  in  contradiction  with  the  Holy 
Scriptures,  are,  as  the  Reformers  justly  said, 
merely  products  of  the  naturdlis  ratio  humana. 
Both,  consciously  or  unconsciously,  must  ar- 
rive at  the  same  end,  and  accept  an  ob- 
jective perfectibility  of  Christianity.  Both 


finally  labor  for  the  unnatural  separation 
of  the  intellectual  side  of  man  from  the  mor- 
al and  religious.  The  Romish  Church  claims 
for  the  Pope  an  enlightenment  through  the 
Holy  Spirit  independent  of  his  moral  and  re- 
ligious condition.  But  the  work  of  the  Holy 
Spirit  is  of  one  piece,  light  and  life  go  togeth- 
er. The  modern  so-called  liberal  Protestant- 
ism, again,  in  spite  of  Schleiermacher,  ia  in- 
tellectualistic  and  rationalistic.  They  would 
base  religion  upon  knowledge,  less  now  of  a 
philosophical  than  of  a  historico- critical 
character.  But  they  show  by  the  very  fact 
of  their  undertaking  that  they  do  not  under- 
stand religion,  and  its  true  independent  char- 
acter which  Schleiermacher  so  classically  vin- 
dicated. They  put  their  own  opinions  re- 
specting God  in  place  of  religion,  while  they 
can  only  ascribe  to  them  some  probability, 
and  can  not  regard  the  views  opposite  to, 
their  own  as  impossible. 

Upon  this  subject  allow  me  to  dwell  for  a 
moment. 

Historical  investigation  and  criticism  are 
certainly  authorized.  In  this  way  the  Ref- 
ormation began,  going  back  to  the  sources ; 
and  never  will  Germany,  the  hearthstone  of 
the  Reformation,  allow  herself  to  be  deprived 
of  the  right  of  free  investigation,  which  has 
made  her  theology  so  rich  and  strong.  But 
not  every  investigation  rewards  the  investi- 
gator. We  see  in  Germany  that  the  object 
of  investigation  dissolves  under  the  hands 
of  many.  The  anatomical  knife  of  their  crit- 
icism can  not  find  the  spirit,  which  veils  it- 
self from  them,  so  that  while  they  retain  the 
body,  the  mere  external  material,  the  soul 
has  flown  away.  The  only  cure  for  these 
errors  and  defects,  as  well  as  for  the  errors 
of  infallibilism  and  false  objectivism,  lies  in 
the  truth  of  the  Reformation;  for  why  is 
it  that  nominal  Protestantism  can  no  more 
than  Romanism  attain  a  firm  position,  a  truo 
knowledge  of  the  Gospel?  /  think  there  itt 
one  common  fault.  They  do  not  understand 
what  religion  is.  They  do  not  know  that 
religion,  by  its  very  idea,  can  not  be  made 
by  men,  but  by  God,  his  preveuient  grace  ; 
since  religion  is  not  thinking,  or  acting,  but 
mutual,  harmonious  communion  between  the 
giving  God  and  the  receiving  man.  Again, 
they  do  not  truly  know  their  need  of  redemp- 
tion. Pascal  says, "  Unless  a  man  knows  that 
he  is  no  longer  what  he  should  be,  he  lacks 
the  first  condition  of  self-knowledge."  The 
first  assurance  is,  that  we  are  sinners,  laden 
with  guilt.  This  is  the  fundamental  cer- 
tainty or  assurance  which  leads  the  sincere 
inquirer  further  on.  This  is  likewise  the 
beginning  of  true  fellowship,  of  true  spirit- 
ual union— that  we»know  our  race  to  be  one 
in  guilt  and  need  of  a  Redeemer. 

Where  there  is  this  vital  knowledge,  and 
a  longing  for  peace  with  God  and  with  our- 
selves, history  is  examined,  in  order  to  see 
whether  it  any  where  shows  the  form  or  ap- 


DORNER :  THE  INFALLIBIL1SM  OF  THE  VATICAN  COUNCIL,  ETC.       435 


pearauce  of  the  Redeemer.  He  who  thus, 
with  the  glance  of  longing  for  a  Redeemer, 
•will  remain  standing  before  the  form  of 
Christ  in  Holy  Scripture,  is  susceptible  of 
all  the  divine  features  or  radiating  influ- 
ences of  his  appearance.  They  seem  to  the 
alien  and  the  profane  contradictory  in  their 
divine  paradoxy ;  the  groveling  intellect 
gropes  externally  round  about  the  holy  ob- 
ject, or  picks  it  to  pieces  like  a  flower.  But 
the  susceptible  soul  is  met  by  an  unexpected 
divine  harmony  shining  forth  to  greet  him. 
Christ  would  be  the  Redeemer  and  Fulfiller 
of  mankind,  nothing  less ;  therefore  where 
that  sensorium  for  a  Redeemer,  the  true  re- 
ligious and  theological  organ,  is  lacking,  the 
whole  person  and  work  of  the  God-man  falls 
to  pieces.  But  the  sinner  longing  for  re- 
demption has  a  burning-glass  within  him, 
which,  gathering  the  beams  in  one  point, 
concentrates  them  to  inflame  his  heart,  and  to 
give  light,  and  warmth,  and  life ;  so  that  in 
the  believing  look  upon  Christ  the  old  man 
is  consumed,  and  the  new  man  arises  in  the 
creative  glow  of  the  love  of  God  revealed  in 
Christ.  He  is  thus  assured  of  his  cause,  and 
stands  firm  as  a  rock  amid  the  fluctuation 
of  human  opinions ;  assured  first  of  his  sal- 
vation in  Christ ;  assured  no  less  of  his  di- 
vine Saviour;  free  through  him  not  only 
from  doubt  and  uncertainty,  but  likewise 
from  seductive  and  changeable  human  au- 
thority. 

Again,  in  close  connection  with  true  assur- 
ance is  the  true  principle  of  unity,  as  love  with 
faith.  This  is  the  doctrine  of  the  Reforma- 
tion— yea,  still  more,  this  is  the  pure  Gospel. 

We  have  looked  at  the  errors  to  the  right 
and  the  left :  superstition  based  upon  unbe- 
lief, unbelief  the  fruit  of  a  superstition  which 
deifies  itself.  May  we  thereby  learn  to  love 
and  value  afresh  the  evangelical  truth  which 
our  forefathers  won  by  their  own  blood. 
May  this  joy  in  the  kernel  of  the  Gospel,  in 
Christ  and  his  free  grace,  likewise  unite  all 
evangelical  Protestants  more  and  more  close- 
ly together. 

Indeed,  it  becomes  us  to  cultivate  unity 
more  than  in  the  first  three  centuries  of 


Protestantism.  It  becomes  us  for  our  own 
sake,  since  we  are  going  into  a  conflict  of  in- 
creasing earnestness.  It  becomes  us  for  the 
sake  of  our  opponents  to  the  right  and  the 
left,  to  whom  we  have  not  to  darken,  but  to 
recommend,  by  concord  and  love,  that  which 
alone  can  make  them  free  and  happy ;  "  for 
by  this  shall  the  world  know  that  we  are  7ii* 
disciples,  if  we  have  love  one  to  another." 
It  becomes  us  for  the  honor  of  Christ,  under 
whose  banner  we  stand.  Since  the  Refor- 
mation wo  have  scattered  in  a  hundred  ves- 
sels upon  the  great  ocean  of  nations ;  it  is 
time,  to  use  the  language  of  Homer's  Odyssey, 
that  wo  should  think  again  of  the  voorot; 
(the  return  home) — that  is,  the  unity  of  the 
sons  of  the  Reformation.  As  evangelical 
Christianity  has  almost  become  an  image  of 
the  dispersion  of  the  nations,  as  we  have  al- 
most lost  and  in  many  ways  misunderstood 
one  another,  it  is  time  that  we  should  again 
show  ourselves  to  be  children  of  Pentecost, 
which  united  the  dispersed  nations  and 
tongues  by  the  power  of  the  Spirit,  who  com- 
bined an  infinite  variety  in  unity.  We  have 
fled  from  Romish  sa?nenes«,that  leads  to  mere 
mechanical  principles  and  death.  But  dif- 
ferences likewise,  when  they  alone  prevail, 
bring  poverty,  bitterness,  and  destitution  of 
the  Holy  Spirit. 

Let  us  labor,  then,  that  the  differences  ex- 
isting among  us,  which  are  all  before  the  eye 
of  God,  may  straightway  become,  instead  of 
means  of  estrangement,  rather  a  bond  of 
unity,  in  giving  arid  receiving  as  it  is  the 
will  of  the  Holy  Spirit. 

This  is  furthered  in  an  especial  manner  by 
tho  idea  of  our  Conference,  which  unites  the 
parts  of  the  globe  together  in  an  unprece- 
dented manner ;  those  two  especially  in 
which  Christianity  has  thus  far  become  the 
prevailing  power  on  earth.  May  this  Confer- 
ence be  productive  of  the  increase,  not  ouly 
of  the  spirit  of  peace  among  us,  but  also  of 
mutual  appreciation  and  co-operation  in  the 
gifts  which  the  nations  represented  here 
have  received  from  God's  hand  for  the  great 
task  of  civilizing,  Christianizing,  and  evan- 
gelizing the  human  race. 


ROMANISM  IN  THE  LIGHT  OF  HISTORY. 


Bv  THE  REV.  ROSWELL  D.  HITCHCOCK,  D.D.,  LL.D., 

Professor  in  Union  Theological  Seminary,  New  York. 


WE  have  listened  with  great  satisfaction 
to  the  admirable  paper  with  has  just  been 
read.  I  have  in  mind  only  one  living  theo- 
logian who  might  think  to  better  it;  and 
that  is  Dr.  Dorner  himself.  The  fault  must 
be  our  own  if  we  are  not  now  firmly  rooted 
in  the  conviction  that,  in  adding  to  its  creed 
this  new  dogma  of  Papal  Infallibility,  the 
Roman  Catholic  Church  has  both  erred  and 
blundered. 

But  why,  on  a  Protestant  platform,  this 
elaborate  criticism  ?  Why  this  concern  of 
ours^ibont  the  doings  of  the  Vatican  Coun- 
cil f  Why  so  much  of  our  programme  given 
up  to  the  Roman  Catholic  question  ?  Part- 
ly, no  doubt,  because  we  feel  that  our  evan- 
gelical Protestantism  is  newly  and  doubly 
menaced.  Infidel  bugles  are  sounding  in  front 
of  ns,  Papal  bugles  are  sounding  behind  us. 
And  evangelical  Protestants  are  not  stand- 
ing shoulder  to  shoulder.  It  would  be  idle 
to  say  that  we  are  not  alarmed.  But  this 
is  not  the  whole  of  it.  Not  Protestantism 
only  is  menaced ;  Christianity  itself  is  men- 
aced. With  the  battle  on  both  sides  of  us, 
before  and  behind,  we  must  be  careful  how 
we  handle  our  weapons. 

We  assert  the  unity  of  Protestantism,  in 
spite  of  its  manifold  diversities  and  divisions. 
We  must  not  forget  the  unity  of  Christen- 
dom. More  than  eighteen  centuries  have 
passed  since  the  miracle  of  Pentecost ;  and 
infidels  are  saying  that  these  Christian  cen- 
turies have  not,  on  the  whole,  been  credita- 
ble to  Christianity. 

Of  the  thirteen  or  fourteen  hundred  mill- 
ions of  men  now  peopling  the  globe,  three 
hundred  and  seventy  millions,  we  are  told, 
call  themselves  Christians,  but  can  hardly 
be  persuaded  to  call  each  other  Christians. 
Protestantism,  say  the  Romanists,  is  infi- 
delity. Romanism,  say  the  Protestants,  is 
the  masterpiece  of  Satan.  And  the  Seven 
Churches  of  the  Orient  are  equally  disowned 
of  both. 

We  need,  all  of  us,  a  larger  charity.  Our 
Protestant  fathers  of  three  hundred  years 
ago  had  to  fight  their  way  into  history,  and 
we  can  not  wonder  that  the  Magdeburg  Cen- 
turiators  wrote  history  as  they  did.  But 
now  the  time  has  come  to  hang  that  trump- 
et in  the  hall.  When  we  look  into  our  own 
hearts,  the  best  of  us,  the  real  wonder  is  that 
there  should  have  been  any  Christians  at 


all.  Human  depravity  has  awful  depths  and 
an  awful  power.  Grace  enters  for  conflict. 
Life  is  a  battle,  ending  only  with  life.  And 
we  go  in  at  last  through  the  gates  of  pearl, 
not  with  our  shields,  but  on  them. 

As  wo  are  not  ashamed  of  our  Bible,  so 
are  we  not  ashamed  of  our  Christian  histo- 
ry. Miracles  of  grace  adorn  it  from  first  to 
last.  The  Churches  of  the  Orient,  so  fearful- 
ly scourged  through  all  these  Moslem  centu- 
ries, are  Churches  still.  It  was  their  con- 
demnation that  they  had  ceased  to  grow, 
and  then,  like  the  Cologne  Cathedral,  it  was 
their  doom  to  decay,  fragment  and  ruin 
both  in  one.  The  Roman  Catholic  Church 
of  to-day  is  simply  the  Latin  Church  of  the 
Middle  Ages,  which  has  kept  on  growing 
till  now.  Anselm,  Bernard,  Aquinas,  Tau- 
ler,  Luther,  Melauchthon,  Pascal,  and  Fe"ne- 
lon  have  all  belonged  to  it.  Protestantism 
is  its  child.  If  asked,  as  Luther  was, "  Where 
was  your  Church  before  the  Protest?"  we 
may  answer,  as  Luther  did, "  Where  was  your 
face  before  you  washed  it  in  the  morning?" 

Christianity  is  not  to  be  confounded  with 
Christendom.  They  are  not  at  one ;  and 
never  have  been,  not  even  while  St.  John 
sat  writing  his  gospel  at  Ephesus.  But  nei- 
ther are  they  to  be  torn  asunder.  Our  Chris- 
tian history — ancient,  mediaeval,  modern — is 
both  trinal  and  a  unit :  three  in  one,  and 
one  in  three.  And  so  is  Christendom  to- 
day, both  three  and  one.  The  Ancient  Age 
still  keeps  on  in  the  Orient ;  the  Middle  Age, 
in  Central  and  Southern  Europe;  only  in 
Northern  Europe  and  America  is  there,  as 
yet,  any  nineteenth  century.  But  the  stars 
still  hold  to  their  courses,  and  human  histo- 
ry, with  God  in  it,  can  afford  to  wait. 

What  shall  come  next,  and  next  after, 
none  of  us  may  presume  to  say ;  but  we 
risk  nothing  in  speaking  well  of  what  has 
been  permitted  in  the  past.  And  so  we 
thank  God  to-day  for  Pope  Pius  IX.,  and  his 
Vatican  Council,  and  his  now  dogma,  which 
began  to  be  quarried  so  long  ago.  The 
massive  block  is  lifted  at  last  to  its  place. 
The  edifice  is  crowned.  Will  it  be  crushed 
as  well  ?  Let  us  not  feel  too  sure  of  that. 
Shorn  of  its  temporal  power,  the  papacy 
may  at  once  put  on  new  spiritual  power. 
And  nations  which,  like  France,  have  swung 
off  into  infidelity,  may  be  expected  to  swing 
back  into  superstition. 


HITCHCOCK:  ROMANISM  IN  THE  LIGHT  OF  HISTORY. 


437 


But  Christian  history  is  not  to  end  in  that 
way.  Christiani  ty  would  have  perished  long 
ago  had  there  been  any  sentence  of  death  in 
it.  God  destroys  his  enemies ;  but  his  friends 
and  children  he  merely  chastens.  His  an- 
cient people  are  scattered  to  the  four  winds, 
but  are  still  a  unit,  and  still  number  as  many 
millions  as  in  the  golden  age  of  David  and 
Solomon.  The  Eastern  Church  lies  with  torn 
bosom,  trodden  beneath  cruel  feet.  But  the 
heart  still  beats,  and  the  pale  lips  still  cry, 
"  How  long,  O  Lord,  how  long  ?"  The  Church 
of  Rome  has  denied  her  Lord,  not  so  much 
for  want  of  courage  as  for  want  of  wisdom. 
By-and-by  she  will  repent,  and  her  last  days 
will  be  her  best  days.  As  for  Protestants, 
three  hundred  years  are  no  long  time,  and 
we  are  wiser  than  we  were. 

We  set  forth  Christian  unity  as  the  goal 
toward  which  not  merely  all  Protestants, 
but  all  Christiaus,  are  tending.  Let  us  un- 
derstand that  real  unity  has  never  been 
wholly  wanting.  Our  Lord's  prayer  that 
his  followers  might  all  be  one  can  not  have 
gone  unanswered.  But  neither  has  that 
unity  been  perfect.  And  to-day  it  is  pre- 
cisely the  most  vital  part  of  Christendom 
which  feels  this  imperfection  most  keenly. 
But  what  is  the  unity  of  which  we  dream  ? 
Certainly  not  uniformity  in  external  organ- 
ization, some  one  of  the  historic  polities, 
the  Congregational,  the  Presbyterian,  or  the 
Prelatical,  finally  supplanting  its  rivals.  It 
is  against  the  whole  genius  of  Christianity 
that  polity  should  be  of  much  account. 
That  which  can  be  shown  to  have  under- 
gone so  great  a  change  so  early  in  the  sec- 
ond century,  and  so  many  changes  since, 
can  not  be  a  matter  of  any  vital  moment. 
Historic  criticism  is  hardly  yet  out  of  its 
cradle.  When  fully  matured,  every  jure 
divino  theory  of  church  government  will  be 
driven  by  it  to  the  wall.  Nor  should  we  be 
looking  for  uniformity  in  ritual.  Orient  and 
Occident,  racial  and  other  diversities,  di- 


versities in  temperament,  taste,  culture,  are 
likely  to  be  factors  in  the  problem  to  the 
end  of  time.  Nor  may  we  hope  for  agree- 
ment in  all  the  minor  particulars  of  Chris- 
tian doctrine.  The  three  essential  and  dis- 
tinctive doctrines  of  Christianity  are  incar- 
nation, atonement,  and  regeneration.  If 
these  are  clearly  affirmed,  we  can  well  af- 
ford the  allowance  of  the  largest  liberty  in 
regard  to  all  the  rest. 

And  now  what  shall  we  do  ?  Just  noth- 
ing at  all  but  keep  on  growing.  Each  sect 
has  its  own  errand.  The  doctrines  are  not 
yet  all  settled.  Theology,  Christology,  An- 
thropology, Soteriology,  have  all  had  their 
turn ;  but  Ecclesiology  and  Eschatclogy  are 
yet  to  come.  We  have,  strictly  speaking, 
no  ecumenical  creed ;  not  even  the  Apostles' 
Creed,  for  each  one  of  us  interprets  it  for 
himself,  making  it  mean  more  or  less.  But 
from  the  rising  to  the  setting  sun  there  is 
not  a  Christian  man,  or  Christian  woman, 
or  Christian  child,  whose  eyes  would  not 
moisten  as  he  sang, "  My  faith  looks  up  to 
Thee." 

Controversy  must  still  go  on.  But  we  arc 
very  foolish  to  have  it  so  bitter.  Commun- 
ion is  one  thing ;  intercommunion  is  anoth- 
er :  just  as  national  law  is  one  thing,  and  in- 
ternational law  another.  Into  the  family 
of  nations  the  door  is  wide,  admitting  some 
nations  that  none  of  us  would  like  to  be- 
long to.  But  any  thing  that  governs  at  all 
is  better  than  anarchy.  In  Palestine,  be- 
yond the  Jordan,  among  wild  Bedouin,  even 
Turkish  troops  are  welcome  to  the  traveler. 
So  in  the  Church.  Coptic  Christians  in 
Egypt  may  be  far  enough  beneath  our  ideal, 
but  after  all  the  Cross  is  over  them,  and  not 
the  Crescent.  For  myself,  of  course,  I  prefer 
my  own  communion,  or  I  would  leave  it  for 
another.  But  God  forgive  me  if  I  ever  look- 
ed or  shall  ever  look  into  any  Christian  face 
without  finding  in  it  something  of  the  old 
family  likeness. 


THE  PRESENT  STATE  OF  POPERY  IN  FRANCE. 

BY  THE  REV.  GEORGE  FISCH,  D.D.,  OF  PARIS,  FRANCE. 


WE  live  at  a  time  of  a  great  and  general 
struggle.  Popery  starts  for  a  new  battle. 
It  has  conquered  at  last  its  unity  by  the 
dogma  of  the  Pope's  personal  infallibility, 
and  has  now  in  the  Syllabus,  its  new  Bi- 
ble, something  like  the  declaration  of  rights 
upon  which  the  first  French  Revolution 
was  based,  only  it  is  the  declaration  of 
rights  of  the  Pope  alone,  and  annihilates 
all  the  rights  of  man.  Every  nation  feels 
that  it  will,  sooner  or  later,  have  hard  work 
with  Popery.  But  hitherto  all  the  powers 
in  the  two  worlds  have  resisted  its  encroach- 
ments. There  is  only  one  country  in  which 
the  Pope  has  succeeded  in  taking  the  reins  of 
the  government,  and  it  is  France.  It  is  that 
nation  which  was  called  formerly  the  eld- 
est daughter  of  the  Church ;  that  nation 
which  sends  missionaries  to  every  corner 
of  the  globe  to  counteract  our  Protestant 
missions.  It  is  that  nation  which  sends 
you,  by  each  transatlantic  steamer,  so  many 
priests,  monks,  and  nuns,  all  so  winning 
and  so  charming  that  they  soon  take  hold 
of  your  confidence.  It  is  that  nation  which 
provides  the  United  States  with  so  many 
refined  ladies  of  the  Sacred  Heart,  who 
are  all  deemed  to  be  countesses ;  and  many 
blinded  Protestants  send  their  daughters  to 
them  for  education,  not  minding  that  they 
will  soon  be  enticed  by  the  snares  of  that 
elegant  worldly  atmosphere,  and  become  Pa- 
pists. France  was  seized  upon  by  Popery. 
The  Jesuits  seek  to  make  it  an  impregnable 
fortress  from  which  they  may  direct  their 
attacks  upon  every  country  on  the  globe. 
She  will  be  the  battle-field  where  the  great 
action  is  to  be  fought.  How  important  it 
is,  therefore,  to  inquire  what  is  the  present 
state  of  Popery  in  France ! 

At  the  first  sight  it  appears  that  indeed 
my  country  has  become  the  most  Popish  in 
the  world.  We  Frenchmen  do  not  know 
whether  we  dream  or  not.  What !  the  peo- 
ple of  Voltaire,  so  skeptical  and  so  jeering, 
are  now  governed  as  a  convent !  The  Pope, 
whose  orders  are  a  mere  cipher  in  his  own 
country,  is  the  real  sovereign  in  France — a 
sovereign  both  earthly  and  celestial.  We 
are  overrun  with  superstitions  which  go  far 
beyond  those  of  the  Middle  Ages.  The  pre- 
fects are  placed  under  the  orders  of  the  bish- 
ops. Full  room  is  given  to  the  tens  of  thou- 
sands of  pilgrims  who  throng  and  obstruct 
the  streets  of  our  cities,  while  three  of  our 
Protestant  pastors  connected  with  the  Evan- 


gelical Society  have  been  lately  condemned 
to  a  fine,  and  would  have  to  suffer  impris- 
onment for  a  relapse ;  and  their  crime  had 
been  to  preach  without  permission  to  a  few 
inquirers  after  divine  truth.  The  Romish 
clergy,  from  fifty  thousand  pulpits  and  by 
innumerable  journals,  pour  every  day  the 
grossest  outrage  upon  modern  society  and 
all  our  liberties,  while  the  newspapers  in 
the  provinces  which  attempted  to  resist 
them  are  persecuted  and  suppressed. 
But  let  us  look  beneath  the  surface. 

1.  This  movement  has  nothing  spontane- 
ous.    It  does  not  proceed  from  the  people 
themselves.    Spontaneity  is  the  black  sheep 
for  Popery.     It  fears,  first  of  all,  any  kind 
of  liberty,  any  individual  move.    It  remoulds 
the  human  soul  by  a  merely  mechanical 
process.     It  takes  the  man  at  the  cradle  in 
order  to  undo  and  deform  him.     With  its 
fifty  thousand  priests  in  France  and  its  in- 
numerable monks  and  nuns,  it  works  like 
the  invisible  animals  which  build  up  the 
coral  cliffs.     They  are  mere  atoms,  but  they 
are  able  to  create  those  huge  mountains 
which  emerge  from  the  depths  of  the  sea  to 
a  gigantic  height. 

2.  This  movement  has  nothing  of  that 
which  we  call  a  revival.     What  is  a  reviv- 
al for  us  Protestants  ?     It  is  an  awakening 
of  the  consciences  by  the  Holy  Ghost.     It 
brings  the  souls  to  Christ  by  the  conviction 
of  sin.     Now  conscience  is  very  much  oblit- 
erated in  Popery.     The  truth  which  is  the 
most  impressive  for  it  is  done  away  by  the 
Roman  dogma.     When  a  Protestant  is  op- 
pressed by  the  burden  of  his  sins,  he  is  con- 
scious of  that  awful  fact  that  we  are  a  fall- 
en race,  estranged  from  God,  and  subjected 
to  an  everlasting  condemnation.     But  Pop- 
ery so  interprets  the  atonement  as  to  get 
rid  of  that  agonizing  feeling  which  would 
lead  the  souls  to  Christ  instead  of  the  priest. 
According  to  its  creed,  the  Lord  Jesus  Christ 
redeemed  us  from  original  sin,  and  infant 
baptism  purges  it  away ;  therefore  we  have 
not  any  more  to  deal  with  it ;  we  have  only 
to  cope  with  our  actual  sins,  and  to  save 
ourselves  by  our  obedience  to  the  commands 
both  of  God  and  of  the  Church.    Here,  again, 
the  notion  of  sin  gets  confused.     Rome  puts 
on  the  same  level  disobedience  against  God's 
laws  and  against  ecclesiastic  laws.     Now,  if 
eating  a  morsel  of  chicken  on  Friday  is  a 
sin  of  equal  weight  as  speaking  evil  of  our 
neighbor,  how  is  it  possible  that  a  Roman 


FISCH :  THE  PRESENT  STATE  OF  POPERY  IN  FRANCE. 


439 


Catholic  may  realize  the  unutterable  gulf  of 
misery  and  guilt  expressed  by  the  word  sin  f 
Moreover,  while  among  Protestants,  who 
know  that  they  are  saved  by  faith  in  divine 
truth,  lying  is  peculiarly  hated  as  being  the 
root  of  evil,  that  very  sin  is  one  of  those 
which  Popery  opposes  the  least,  as  its  whole 
system  is  based  upon  forgery.  Even  among 
the  upright  Roman  Catholics  who  are  not 
conscious  of  that  fact,  there  is  a  general  cur- 
rent of  falsehood  and  deceit,  which  permeates 
the  whole  of  the  Popish  nations,  and  demor- 
alizes even  the  best  of  their  members.  Is 
not  Jesuitism,  which  makes  lying  for  the 
Church  a  virtue,  the  very  flower  of  Popery  ? 
No  conscience  has  first  to  be  re-educated  in 
our  country ;  therefore  there  is  nothing  in 
the  present  movement  which  may  resemble 
an  awakening  of  conscience. 

3.  It  is  not  more  a  religious  movement, 
in  the  highest  sense  of  that  word.  If  relig- 
ion is  a  satisfaction  afforded  to  the  deepest 
wants  of  the  human  soul,  it  is  entirely  want- 
ing in  this  so-called  revival.  There  Avas  a 
time  when  Popery  had  retained  a  sufficient 
part  of  Christian  truth  to  feed  the  souls 
who  did  not  move  in  the  still  loftier  sphere 
of  free  grace  and  inward  freedom  imparted 
by  the  Holy  Spirit.  But  now,  under  Ul- 
tramontane impulses,  Popery  is  more  and 
more  deprived  of  its  spiritual  marrow.  The 
Jesuits  have  always  worked  hard  in  order 
to  make  it  deviate  from  its  Christian  basis, 
and  to  lay  its  foundation  upon  the  most 
worldly  tendencies  of  human  nature.  They 
have  at  last  succeeded  to  make  it  a  complete 
idolatry,  having  a  goddess  in  heaven — the 
Immaculate  Virgin ;  and  a  god  on  earth — 
the  infallible  Pope. 

This  movement  is,  therefore,  nothing  but 
a  great  effort  of  the  Jesuits  in  order  to  re- 
store the  temporal  power  of  the  Pope.  They 
try  to  make  France  an  instrument  to  recon- 
quer all  the  ground  which  they  have  lost. 
They  are  endowed  with  an  amazing  firm- 
ness of  purpose.  If  we  only  served  our 
Heavenly  Master  as  they  serve  him  whom 
they  consider  as  his  incarnation  on  earth! 
As  they  believe  firmly  in  the  promise  made 
to  Peter,  and  which  they  apply  to  the  Pope, 
they  are  never  shaken  nor  discouraged. 
When  they  have  failed,  they  resume  their 
work  at  the  very  stage  at  which  it  was  inter- 
rupted. They  use  the  defeats  as  means  for 
a  further  success.  When  they  saw  France 
crushed  and  lying  in  her  blood,  they  rushed 
upon  her  from  every  quarter.  And,  indeed, 
at  first  they  were  admirably  helped  by  the 
circumstances,  which  appeared  to  them  as 
most  providential  tokens  of  the  Divine  bless- 
ing. 

1.  When  Germany  gave  us  only  ten  days 
to  elect  representatives  who  were  to  decide 
the  question  of  peace  or  war,  and  Avhen  each 
department  had  to  vote  at  once  a,  whole  list 
of  members,  nobody  was  ready  for  it.  The 


Republican  party  wished  to  continue  the 
war.  It  was  not  possible  to  have  an  elec- 
tioneering agitation,  to  discuss  names,  to 
have  preparatory  meetings.  The  German 
armies  occupied  one-third  of  our  soiL  Our 
railway  communication  was  cut.  But  the 
bishops  had  been  on  the  lookout.  They  had 
framed  lists  of  men  pledged  both  to  make 
peace  and  to  obey  the  orders  from  Rome. 
In  order  to  make  them  acceptable,  they  had 
interspersed  them  with  a  few  Liberals.  They 
had  sent  these  lists  to  every  parish  priest 
of  their  department,  and,  as  there  were  none 
but  these  to  present  to  the  people,  they  were 
voted.  And  so  it  happened  that  the  Jesu- 
its became  the  real  government  of  France. 
Our  nation  now  is  like  a  charger — allow  me 
to  add,  a  fine  one — on  the  back  of  which  a 
cunning  horseman  jumped.  The  charger 
would  be  led  onward  to  the  battle  of  liber- 
ty, and  the  horseman  is  decided  to  force  it 
backward  to  the  Middle  Age.  The  charger 
kicks  and  kicks  again,  but  the  horseman 
holds  fast  and  uses  curb  and  spurs.  We  feel 
these  spurs  now  very  painfully.  Let  us  hope 
that  a  tremendous  move  of  public  opinion 
may  at  least  succeed  to  kick  off  the  horse- 
man and  cast  him  to  the  ground. 

2.  The  Jesuits  had  a  powerful  auxiliary 
in  the  Commune.    The  Commune  was  a  com- 
bination of  Socialist  influences  and  of  the 
hatred  which  the  Parisian  people  feel  against 
the  priesthood.    There  were  only  sixty  thou- 
sand Socialists  in  Paris.     How  is  it  that  the 
majority  of  the  inhabitants  supported  the 
Commune  ?    Only  because  they  thought  that 
the  National  Assembly  would  bring  back  a 
clerical  royalty,  and  therefore  they  opposed 
the  national  troops,  which  they  called  by 
the  name  of  Chouans,  which  was  given  to 
the  legitimists  of  the  Venddan  war  at  the 
time  of  our  first  revolution.     Those  atheists 
of  the  Commune  who  excited  so  much  hor- 
ror by  their  crimes  had  been  all  trained  up 
in  the  schools  of  the  friars,  and  felt  an  in- 
tense aversion  to  the  form  of  religion  in  which 
they  were  educated.     But,  whatever  may 
be  our  judgment  of  the  Commune,  the  fact 
remains.     The  foundations  of  society  were 
shaken.     An  abyss  was  opened  under  our 
feet.      The    nation    shuddered    before    the 
consequences    of  irreligion.      Capital  and 
wealth  were  affrightened,  and  came  to  shel- 
ter themselves  under  the  wings  of  the  priest- 
hood.    The  higher  and  middle  classes  made 

'  Popery  their  great  insurance  company. 

3.  The  old  nobility  has  been,  since  the 
French  Revolution  of  1789,  the  most  inti- 
mate ally  of  the  Popish  clergy.     These  two 
classes  of  men  had  lost  their  privileges  in 
the  same  hurricane.     The  clergy  had  led 
the  noblemen  to  emigration.    After  the  Res- 
toration of  1815,  they  both  tried  to  get  back 
their  former  position  in  society.     The  sons 
of  these  dukes  and  marquises  are  educated 
by  the  Jesuits,  who  take  great  care  to  pre- 


440 


ROMANISM  AND  PROTESTANTISM. 


servo  them  from  any  influx  of  modern  aspi- 
rations and  modern  liberties.  Men  of  this 
class  live  still  in  the  fourteenth  century. 
For  their  schools  and  colleges  a  compound 
of  history  was  prepared  by  Father  Loriquet, 
which  taught  that  there  was  no  Emperor  Na- 
poleon the  First,  but  a  Marquis  de  Bonaparte, 
who  had  been  for  fifteen  years  the  command- 
er of  the  armies  of  King  Louis  XVIII.  Of 
course,  under  the  Second  Empire  they  were 
obliged  to  make  therein  some  slight  altera- 
tion ;  but  the  fact  remains,  that  all  the  teach- 
ing imparted  to  these  noblemen  is  falsified. 
They  do  not  understand  their  times  better 
than  we  should  understand  the  Chinese  lan- 
guage if  we  were  transported  suddenly  into 
the  Celestial  Empire.  The  priests  persuade 
them  that,  if  they  can  only  bring  their  pupil, 
Comte  de  Chambord,  upon  the  throue,  they 
would  be  restored  to  all  their  former  rights. 

4.  But  they  have  a  still  more  powerful 
ally.    Generally,  in  France,  in  the  higher  and 
middle  classes,  the  women  who  were  edu- 
cated in  convents  are  bigoted ;  the  men  who 
were  educated  in  the  public  schools  are  free 
thinkers.    The  men  remain,  however,  in  the 
Church,  which  they  disregard  and  despise, 
for  they  will  not  displease  their  mother  and 
sisters,  their  bride  or  their  wife.    Now  the 
heart  of  the  Roman  Catholic  women  in  the 
upper  classes  has  been  fired  by  their  confess- 
ors.   They  form  an  army  moving  and  fight- 
ing as  one  man — an  army  of  which  the  weap- 
ons are  seldom  to  be  resisted  too,  for  they  are 
charm  smiles,  tears,  and  nervous  fits.    I  pity, 
indeed,  the  Roman  Catholic  members  of  our 
legislature  who  wish  to  oppose  the  return 
of  Henry  V.,  and  consider  it  as  the  doom  of 
their  country.     They  must  have,  indeed,  a 
miserable  life,  without  rest  for  a  single  hour. 

5.  lu  the  clergy  itself  the  Jesuits  succeeded 
in  suppressing  all  resistance.     The  French 
priesthood  was  placed  by  Napoleon  the  First, 
more  than  the  clergy  of  any  nation,  in  the 
hands  and  at  the  mercy  of  the  bishops.    The 
great  despot  thought  that  it  was  more  easy 
for  him  to  control  the  dignitaries  of  the 
Church  whom  he  had  richly  endowed  and 
promoted  to  their  high  office,  and  that,  if 
the  simple  parish  priest  was  nothing  but 
an  obedient  slave  of  the  bishop,  all  would 
play  smoothly  in  his  hand.     Therefore  the 
French  clergy  is,  more  than  any  other  in 
Europe,  deprived  of  any  will  of  its  own.     A 
priest  who  resists  or  even  displeases  his 
bishop  is  interdicted,  without  a  higher  court 
to  appeal  to.     The  bishop  has  no  motive  to 
express,  no  reason  to  allege.    And  the  inter- 
dicted priest  is  an  outcast  in  society.     He 
was  trained  in  such  a  way  that  he  is  fit  only 
for  saying  the  mass.    He  is  utterly  ignorant 
— too  ignorant  to  become  a  school-teacher — 
and,  moreover,  nobody  trusts  him.     As  the 
causes  of  his  interdiction  are  not  made  pub- 
lic, every  one  supposes  the  worst.     The  best 
he  can  do  is  to  become  a  cab  driver.     I  was 


told  a  few  years  ago  that  there  were  six  hun- 
dred men  of  that  sort  in  Paris  alone.  Now 
imagine  such  a  full  for  him  who  was  a  me- 
diator between  God  and  man,  and  even  the 
creator  of  his  own  Creator — to  have  to  whip 
on  a  miserable  jade  through  the  streets  of 
our  capital.  Very  few  priests  have  courage 
enough  to  face  such  u  punishment.  This 
accounts  for  the  general  acceptance  of  the 
dogma  of  the  infallibility  among  the  French 
clergy. 

6.  The  Jesuits  silenced  that  portion  of  the 
former  Liberals  who  had  attempted  to  carry 
on  an  impossible  task — the  reconciliation 
of  Popery  and  of  liberty.     They  were  head- 
ed by  the  Comte  de  Moutalembert,  and  af- 
ter his  death  by  the  Due  de  Broglie.    These 
very  men  who  had  devoted  their  life  to  prove 
that   Roman  Catholicism  was   compatible 
with  liberty  were  obliged  to  accept  the  Syl- 
labus, and,  indeed,  that  document  had  been 
first  of  all  directed  against  them.   God  speak- 
ing on  earth  cursed  every  thing  that  was 
dear  to  them.     They  bowed  down  in  hu- 
mility.    However,  I  think  that,  in  the  in- 
nermost part  of  their  soul,  they  did  like  Gal- 
ileo, who,  after  he  had  been  compelled  to  say, 
while  kneeling,  "The  earth  does  not  turn 
round,"  added,  when  he  rose,  "  Nevertheless, 
it  moves !" 

7.  But  the  Jesuits  wanted  to  recruit  an 
army  ready  for  any  enterprise.    They  want- 
ed, moreover,  to  show  that  France  had  gono 
backward  enough  to  justify  the  return  of  a 
mediaeval  king.      Indeed,  Comte  de  Cham- 
bord, their  pupil,  whom  they  infused  entirely 
with  their  own  spirit,  would  be  nothing  but 
a  crowned  monk.     He  is  said  to  have  built 
on  his  property  at  Frohsdorf  a  large  house, 
where  he  feeds  two  hundred  Jesuits.    In  or- 
der to  smooth  down  the  way  before  him  the 
pilgrimages  were  invented.     Two  memora- 
ble apparitions  of  the  Virgin  had  taken  place- 
in  these  latter  years — at  La  Sallette,  in  the 
Dauphin6,  and  at  Lourdes,  in  the  Pyrenees. 
The  first  pilgrimages  were  directed  to  these 
places.   The  sites  had  been  admirably  chosen. 
La  Sallette  is  surrounded  with  the  grandest 
scenery  of  the  gigantic  Alps.     Lourdes  is  at 
the  foot  of  the  most  picturesque  rocks  of  the 
Pyrenees.    It  was  a  great  attraction.    As  we 
rejoice  to  go  next  week  to  Washington  or 
Niagara  Falls,  and  as  we  shall  visit  those 
places  without  any  expense  on  account  of 
the  liberality  of  our  American  friends,  French 
people  think  it  very  pleasant  also  to  see  ad- 
mirable sites  without  any  charge,  and  even 
to  do  by  it  a  meritorious  act  and  to  win  » 
reward  for  eternity.     But  the  great  success 
of  these  two  pilgrimages  encouraged  the  cler- 
gy to  get  up  in  almost  every  diocese  appa- 
ritions of  the  Virgin,  miraculous  images,  or 
miraculous  wells.  In  that  way  they  told  pow- 
erfully upon  the  imagination  of  the  crowds. 
When  false  miracles  were  performed  by  scores 
at  each  pilgrimage,  the  people  were  deeply 


FISCH :  THE  PRESENT  STATE  OF  POPERY  IN  FRANCE. 


441 


impressed  by  God  departing  in  their  own 
sight  from  the  natural  laws.  They  would 
not  believe,  indeed,  that  these  healings  were 
a  mere  trick  of  their  spiritual  leaders. 

And,  nevertheless,  that  present  campaign 
which  was  to  the  Jesuits  of  so  solemn  an 
issue  will  prove  a  failure.  The  great  battle 
into  which  they  marched  all  their  forces  will 
be  lost. 

The  Jesuits,  who  succeeded  in  every  thing 
in  the  sixteenth  and  seventeenth  centuries, 
are  nowadays  like  that  Sisyphus  of  old  who 
in  the  ancient  hell  was  said  to  be  rolling  a 
heavy  stone  up  hill,  which  continually  fell 
back  upon  him,  and  never  reached  the  sum- 
mit. What  their  cunning  has  half  brought 
to  success  fails  by  their  ignorance  of  the 
time  in  which  they  live.  They  strain  ev- 
ery nerve  to  bring  back  an  irretrievable 
past ;  but  they  aim  at  an  impossibility. 
They  must  now  give  room  to  the  Gospel 
which  is  suited  for  all  times.  They  suc- 
ceeded in  bringing  our  French  armies  to 
Mexico,  and  with  them  an  Austrian  emper- 
or ;  but  they  only  prepared  the  way  for  the 
Gospel.  The  Bible  was  carried  into  that 
country  by  the  Protestant  chaplain  of  our 
forces.  They  succeeded  in  bringing  France 
into  a  war  with  Germany — they  were  there- 
by instrumental  in  the  downfall  of  Napoleon 
III.,  who  alone  kept  the  Pope  in  the  pos- 
session of  his  temporal  power,  and  in  open- 
ing the  city  of  Rome  to  the  Italians,  to  the 
Bible,  and  to  Protestant  churches.  Now 
they  try  again  to  get  a  king  of  France, 
who,  like  a  Messiah,  will  not  only  restore 
the  Pope  to  his  throne,  but  redeem  the  Pa- 
pal Israel  from  all  bondage  in  the  whole 
world.  I  met  a  few  days  ago  at  Niagara 
Falls  a  Roman  Catholic  Irishman,  who  told 
me  that  all  his  wishes  were  centred  upon 
the  restoration  of  Henry  V.  to  France,  for  he 
hopes  that  the  king  will  rescue  Ireland  from 
the  jaws  of  England. 

But  in  order  to  reach  their  aim  they  took 
the  wrong  way. 

1.  They  counteracted  all  the  instincts  and 
aspirations  of  our  country.    After  our  disas- 
ters the  watch- word  of  the  whole  nation  was, 
"Let  us  raise  up  France  again,  by  liberty, 
by  education,  by  light  in  every  form."     My 
countrymen  rose,  all  with  one  mind  craving 
for  compulsory  education,  which  had  made 
Prussia  so  strong  against  us.     But,  as  the 
ideal  of  the  Jesuits  was  backward,  they  op- 
posed it.     They  made  a  crusade  in  favor  of 
the  holy  ignorance.     They  had  memorials 
signed  by  the  children  of  their  own  schools. 
Of  course,  these  children,  who  dislike  very 
much  the  discipline  of  the  friars,  signed  en- 
thusiastically these  petitions.     It  was  the 
first  mistake  of  the  clergy. 

2.  They  missed  the  opportunity  for  getting 
hold  of  the  hearts  which  seemed  prepared 
for  the  first  one  who  would  come  to  them, 
bringing  comfort  for  the  afflicted,  and  balm 


for  the  national  wounds.  The  souls  had 
been  prepared  by  unheard-of  humiliations, 
by  unwonted  sufferings,  by  the  bitter  fruits 
which  atheism  brought  forth  in  the  days  of 
the  Commune.  But  the  Jesuits  liked  bet- 
ter to  offer  to  the  nation  the  most  degrad- 
ing superstitions.  Instead  of  answering  the 
higher  wants  of  the  nation,  they  made  ap- 
peal only  to  ignorance  and  credulity.  They 
carried  it  too  far  for  their  own  purpose. 
They  led  multitudes  to  implore  black  wood- 
en statues  of  the  Virgin  which  were  sup- 
posed to  act  by  themselves.  And  when  the 
remark  was  made  to  them  that  they  had  en- 
tirely forgotten  the  Virgin's  Son,  they  met. 
that  complaint  by  the  worship  of  the  Sacred 
Heart  of  Jesus.  What  is  that  sacred  heart  ? 
Not  the  soul  of  Christ,  both  divine  and  hu- 
man, sympathizing  with  us  and  full  of  mer- 
cy to  the  sinner,  but  his  bodily  heart,  which 
is  said  to  have  appeared  to  Mary  Alacoque. 
Now  I  think  that  it  is  going  yet  further 
down  than  the  worship  of  the  Virgin,  for 
Mary  at  least  is  a  person,  while  the  sacred 
heart  is  nothing  but  a  muscle  of  flesh. 

And  how  unwise  it  was  to  have  selected 
La  Sallette  as  their  foremost  place  of  pil- 
grimage! When  these  good  legitimist  no- 
blemen went  there  so  cheerfully  to  that 
high  Alpine  valley,  they  did  not  know  that 
the  Virgin  who  had  appeared  there  to  two 
little  shepherds  was  an  old  maid  from  the 
city  of  Valence,  Mademoiselle  Lameiliere. 
They  did  not  know  that,  as  most  of  our 
French  ladies  are  (I  will  not  speak  of  other 
nations),  she  had  been  too  talkative,  had 
avowed  to  a  priest  at  Grenoble  that  she  was 
the  Holy  Virgin,  that  she  had  showed  the 
dress  in  which  she  was  to  appear  to  the 
conductor  of  the  coach  which  had  brought 
her  to  La  Sallette.  They  did  not  know  that 
she  had  cursed  the  potatoes — it  was  a  part 
of  the  message  which  she  had  brought  from 
heaven — and  the  potato  crop  had  not  failed. 
They  were  ignorant  of  her  having  prophesied 
that  the  Prussians  would  conquer  France  in 
1856,  and  that  the  silly  little  shepherd  whom 
she  had  addressed  was  to  become  king  of 
France.  The  secular  newspapers  tell  now 
that  whole  history,  which  was  unfurled  at 
the  time  before  the  court  of  Grenoble.  That 
whole  campaign  will  have  in  the  end  no  oth- 
er result  but  to  subject  Popery  to  a  greater 
amount  of  ridicule  and  disgust. 

3.  The  way  in  which  they  govern  France 
increases  the  hatred  which  the  great  major- 
ity of  the  people  feel  for  the  Popish  clergy. 
They  trample  upon  every  liberty ;  they  vio- 
late every  protecting  law.  They  made  the 
whole  nation  burn  with  indignation  when 
they  threw  aside  our  greatest  citizen,  the 
liberator  of  our  territory,  M.  Thiers,  and 
abuse  him  in  the  extreme  in  each  number 
of  their  newspapers.  They  call  themselves7 
however,  the  men  of  moral  order,  but  people 
consider  that  name  as  the  bitterest  irony. 


442 


ROMANISM  AND  PROTESTANTISM. 


In  the  bauds  of  God  this  passing  reign  of 
the  .It-suits  will  have  loosened  France  more 
completely  from  the  bondage  of  Popery. 

4.  While  they  cover  France  with  pilgrim- 
ages, we  cover  her  with  Bibles.     The  Bible 
societies  have  sold  four  millions  of  copies  of 
the  Holy  Scriptures  among  our  people.    Our 
schools  in  Paris  are  overfilled  with  children 
of  Roman  Catholic  parents,  and  in  one  of 
them  ninety  thousand  francs  of  school  fees 
have  been  contributed  in  one  year  by  very 
poor  workmen.    We  preach  the  Gospel  from 
place  to  place,  and,  as  in  the  Roman  Cath- 
olic villages  there  is  no  place  for  meeting 
except  the  dancing-hall,  we  preach  there  the 
good  tidings  of  salvation  before  crowded  au- 
diences, which  come  week  after  week  to  hear 
of  God's  love  and  of  a  free  pardon.  The  Evan- 
gelical Society  of  France  last  winter  had,  in 
one  department  alone,  nine  thousand  Roman 
Catholics  in  several  places  attending  upon 
the  Protestant  worship.    By  a  marvelous  di- 
rection of  God,  our  army,  recruited  from  ev- 
ery part  of  the  country,  was  for  thirty  years 
taught  to  read  in  the  Gospel  of  John  by  one 
of  the  elders  of  my  own  Church,  who,  by  the 
order  of  Marshal  Soult,  in  1840,  had  intro- 
duced that  method  in  every  regiment  of 
French  soldiers,  and  was  the  general  super- 
intendent  of  these  reading  schools.      By 
another  direction  of  God,  the  eighty-four 
thousand  men  of  Bourbaki's  army,  who  had 
been  thrown  upon  Switzerland,  brought  back 
from  that  country  the  sacred  volume  and  an 
unbounded  admiration  for  the  Protestant 
fuith. 

5.  Religious  liberty  is  just  at  this  time 
very  much  imperiled,  but  we  shall  have  it 
ere  long.     Dr.  De  Pressense",  who  occupies 
such  an  important  position  in  our  national 
legislature,  made  the  proposal  to  do  away 
with  all  the  former  laws  obstructing  relig- 
ious liberty,  and  to  make  the  worship  as  free 
as  it  is  in  the  United  States.    That  proposal, 
before  being  submitted  to  the  House,  was  to 


be  examined  by  a  select  committee  of  the 
House.  The  majority  had  chosen  its  mem- 
bers with  much  care,  and  made  it  to  be  com- 
posed of  thirteen  clericals  and  only  two  Lib- 
erals. However,  after  a  thorough  examina- 
tion, that  committee  decided  unanimously 
to  bring  that  proposal  before  the  Assembly. 
And  if  it  is  carried,  oh  then  what  an  admira- 
ble field  of  labor  France  will  afford !  After 
such  a  preparation,  with  that  longing  for  a 
renovation,  with  that  more  thorough  repu- 
diation of  a  religion  which  resisted  all  its 
wants,  what  may  wo  not  expect  from  our  na- 
tion !  And  then  you,  dear  American  friends, 
will  stand  side  by  side  with  us.  France  is 
lying  before  you  as  the  wounded  man  on  the 
road,  and  you,  like  the  good  Samaritan,  will 
have  compassion  upon  us,  and  pour  oil  and 
wine  into  our  wounds.  And  let  no  one  say 
that  our  progress  in  France  is  too  slow  to 
repay  the  efforts  made  in  that  direction.  He 
who  would  say  so  is  certainly  not  an  Anglo- 
Saxon,  and  he  is,  moreover,  in  my  opinion, 
a  poor  Christian.  For,  indeed,  what  distin- 
guishes the  Anglo-Saxon  race?  Is  it  not 
that  persevering  energy  which  never  yields 
to  difficulties, but  goes  ahead  and  overcomes 
them  one  after  another?  We  have  already 
succeeded  in  an  amazing  measure  if  we  take 
into  account  the  obstacles  which  were  in  our 
way.  Thousands  and  thousands  of  precious 
souls  have  been  brought  from  Popery  to  the 
true  knowledge  of  the  Saviour.  But  we  are 
still  a  feeble  baud  of  laborers.  We  strug- 
gle hard.  We  are  just  now  the  only  Chris- 
tian community  in  any  nation  which  has  to 
endure  persecution.  We  are  not  in  the  least 
discouraged.  It  took  more  than  a  century 
for  the  Jews  who  had  come  back  from  Baby- 
lon to  rebuild  their  Temple,  but  they  suc- 
ceeded at  last,  and  the  glory  of  that  temple 
was  greater  than  that  of  the  first  had  been. 
Our  work  is  now  obstructed  in  many  ways, 
but  it  is  God's  work.  We  know  it,  and  wo 
also  shall  succeed  in  the  end. 


ULTRAMONTANISM  AND  THE  FOUR  PRUSSIAN 
CHURCH  LAWS. 

BY  THE  REV.  LEOPOLD  WITTE,  OF  COETHEX,  PRUSSIA. 


THE  four  laws  lately  enacted  by  the  Prus- 
sian Government,  in  its  struggle  with  Rome, 
have  an  interest  far  beyond  the  limits  of  the 
German  empire.  They  were  provoked  by 
infallible  Rome,  and  infallible  Rome  is  an 
enemy  of  every  Protestant  country — of  free 
America  as  well  as  of  free  Germany.  The 
old  Roman  proverb  may  be  justly  quoted 
here :  "  Non  tua  res  agitur,  paries  si  proximi 
ardes" — "  Thy  own  house  is  in  danger  when 
thy  neighbor's  is  in  flame."  So  let  me  an- 
ticipate your  interest  in  the  subject  of  my 
treatise. 

I  will,  in  the  first  place,  briefly  state  the 
contents  of  the  said  laws.  They  are  four 
in  number.  The  first  asserts  the  right  of 
the  State  to  exercise  a  supreme  control  over 
the  education  of  the  clergy ;  the  second  es- 
tablishes the  right  of  the  State  to  superin- 
tend the  discipline  exercised  by  the  Church 
over  clergymen ;  the  third  defines  the  lim- 
its of  the  ecclesiastical  power  to  exercise 
church  discipline  against  laymen ;  the  fourth 
gives  some  regulations  for  those  who  are 
going  to  leave  the  Church. 

Even  this  simple  general  statement  must, 
I  am  aware,  strike  you,  my  American  friends, 
very  strangely.  You  live  in  a  country  where 
the  churches  are  entirely  independent  of  the 
State.  You  will  therefore  naturally  think 
that  the  State  has  nothing  whatever  to  do 
with  affairs  of  the  Church.  But  the  stran- 
ger these  laws  appear  to  yon  at  the  first 
glance,  the  more  perhaps  you  may  feel  a  de- 
sire to  have  them  explained  by  a  citizen  of 
that  country  in  which  they  were  enacted,  by 
a  pastor  of  a  church  which  is  itself  placed 
under  them. 

But  what  will  you  expect  me  to  do  ?  Do 
you  think  that  I  have  come  hero  as  a  dele- 
gate of  the  Prussian  Government  or  of  Bis- 
marck, in  order  to  persuade  you  to  fall  in 
love  with  these  four  children  of  the  Prus- 
sian legislature,  who  are  stigmatized  by  the 
hirelings  of  Rome  as  children  of  Satan  ?  I 
am  not  hero  in  such  a  capacity.  Or  do  you 
think  that  I,  rejecting  with  the  pride  of  a 
Christian  the  infallible  Pope,  am,  worship- 
ing an  infallible  State,  and  will,  therefore, 
sanction  every  thing  which  is  issued  in  the 
form  of  laws  by  the  Government  ?  I  am  a 
Christian,  and  believe  only  in  one  infallible 
Head  and  King  of  churches  and  states,  Je- 
sus Christ,  and  claim  the  right  to  criticise 


freely  the  words  of  men,  even  if  they  are 
high  in  authority.  Besides  this,  my  friends, 
let  me  tell  you,  if  you  boast  justly  of  the 
freedom  of  your  Church,  of  the  independ- 
ence of  its  doings  and  institutions,  this  very 
freedom  of  the  Church  of  Christ  is  dear  to 
me  also,  and  is  dear  to  every  evangelical 
minister  and  layman  in  Germany  who  loves 
the  Kingdom  of  God.  I  do  not  in  the  least 
think  that  the  State  churches  in  Europe,  as 
they  have  grown  in  history,  represent  that 
condition  of  the  bride  of  Christ  which  is 
desirable  for  her,  if  she  expects  to  unfold 
the  full  riches  of  her  beauty.  But  we  have 
to  deal  here  not  with  a  state  of  things  which 
ought  to  be,  but  with  a  state  of  things  as  it 
is  in  Germany. 

In  your  own  country  the  principle  of  re- 
ligious and  ecclesiastical  independence  has 
been  established  only  gradually  in  the  course 
of  the  last  and  in  the  beginning  of  the  pres- 
ent century.  The  Middle  Ages  did  not  know 
any  thing  of  religious  freedom,  and  even  the 
principles  of  the  Reformation  were  in  the 
beginning  not  strong  enough  to  prevent  in- 
tolerance and  narrow-mindedness.  "Cnjus 
regio,  illius  religio  " — "  Where  I  live  I  must 
accept  the  religion  of  the  land."  This  was 
for  a  long  time  the  ruling  principle  in  Euro- 
pean Church  history.  It  is  well  known  that 
the  family  of  the  Hoheuzollern  of  Branden- 
burg were  in  this  respect  more  enlightened 
than  most  of  their  contemporaneous  princes. 
They  granted  a  refuge  within  their  realm  to 
any  denomination  and  sect  that  was  perse- 
cuted abroad,  although  they  did  not  yet  en- 
dow all  these  different  churches  with  the 
same  rights  and  privileges  as  their  own 
Evangelical  Church  enjoyed  in  their  conn- 
try.  Nevertheless,  the  Roman  Catholics 
could  not  have  any  imaginable  reason  to 
complain  of  pressure  and  want  of  freedom 
in  Prussia.  The  Brandenburg  electors  and 
Prussian  kings  have  always  been  very  care- 
ful not  to  give  the  least  offense  to  the  bish- 
ops of  Rome  5  nay,  have  often  treated  the 
popish  Church  like  a  petted  child  in  their 
household.  The  popes  themselves  have  re- 
peatedly and  most  gratefully  acknowledged 
this  fact.  It  is  to  be  presumed  that,  if  the 
character  of  the  Romish  Church  had  not 
been  altered,  she  would  still  have  enjoyed 
these  ancient  privileges,  and  her  peace  could 
not  have  been  disturbed. 


444 


ROMANISM  AND  PROTESTANTISM. 


But  nil  of  you  know,  nud  thousands  of  Old 
Catholics  themselves  proclaim  it  before  the 
whole  world,  that  the  Catholic  Church  of  to- 
day is  not  any  more  what  it  used  to  be  ten 
years  ago.  While  Rome  was  living  in  full 
peace  with  the  State,  and  no  clouds  threat- 
ening, a  storm  could  be  seen  on  the  horizon 
of  Germany.  All  at  once,  like  lightning  out 
of  the  clear  sky,  the  Syllabus  was  thrown 
by  the  Pope,  ex  cathedra,  into  the  Christian 
world;  and  a  few  years  after  the  Vatican 
Council  declared  all  definitions  of  the  Pope 
concerning  faith  and  morals  to  be  infallible. 
Yea,  this  council  overthrew  the  constitution 
of  the  Catholic  Church  by  proclaiming  the 
Pope  the  universal  and  infallible  bishop 
of  the  whole  Catholic  world,  and  of  every 
Catholic  community  in  it. 

Prince  Hoheulohe,  who  was  at  that  time 
prime  minister  of  Bavaria,  a  Catholic  him- 
self, justly  understood  that  these  astonish- 
ing assumptions  were  as  full  of  dangers  for 
the  State  governments  as  the  Greek  horse 
was  for  the  inhabitants  of  Troy.  He  tried, 
therefore,  to  issue  a  common  protest  of  all 
the  States  against  these  aggressions.  But 
his  efforts  proved  to  be  in  vain.  Ou  the 
18th  of  July,  1870,  the  fatal  dogma  was  pro- 
claimed. What  was  then  the  duty  of  such 
governments  as  had  granted  to  the  Roman 
Catholic  Church  of  old  times  a  privileged 
position  within  their  boundaries  ?  No  oth- 
er, as  it  seems  to  me,  than  to  tell  the  Pope 
and  his  satellites,  "  You  have  broken  our 
ancient  treaties,  and  forfeited  therefore  the 
privileges  granted  to  you  by  them.  You 
have  established  a  new  .Church,  to  which 
we  have  not  as  yet  accommodated  ourselves. 
Let  us  regulate,  therefore,  the  relations  of 
this  new  Church  to  the  State,  in  order  to 
live  in  peace  with  each  other.  But  do  not 
expect  us  to  deal  with  you  as  we  did  before 
— to  support  your  ministers,  to  grant  the  old 
privileges  to  your  ecclesiastical  and  pastoral 
buildings,  and  to  bestow  on  you  rights  which 
other  religious  denominations  do  not  have." 

The  favorable  moment  to  make  such  a  dec- 
laration passed  by.  The  war  with  France, 
which  had  broken  ont,  absorbed,  as  yon  may 
imagine,  all  other  interests,  and  threw  aside 
all  church  matters,  even  in  a  time  when  a 
struggle,  fraught  with  fatal  consequences 
had  been  inaugurated  by  Rome.  Prince 
Bismarck  has  himself  avowed,  in  one  of  his 
celebrated  speeches  in  the  House  of  Lords, 
that  the  political  platform  of  the  new  Church 
party  had  not  sufficiently  terrified  him  at 
that  time;  but,  by  neglecting  the  golden 
opportunity,  the  Government  of  Prussia  it- 
self had  almost  obstructed  the  way  of  a  suit- 
able adjustment  of  the  Church  affairs.  Af- 
ter having  silently  acknowledged  the  new 
state  of  things  for  two  years,.it  was  at  least 
somewhat  preposterous  to  declare  all  at  once, 
"  We  have  come  to  the  conclusion  that  the 
ancient  Catholic  Church,  with  which  we 


have  made  our  treaties,  is  not  any  more  in 
existence." 

But,  at  all  events,  an  answer  was  to  be 
given  to  the  Romish  aggressions.  And  this 
answer  is  contained  in  the  four  laws  of  which 
I  am  speaking. 

Whatever  we  may  think  of  some  of  the  reg- 
ulations of  these  laws,  it  can  not  be  doubted 
that  they  are  an  act  of  self-defense  on  tne 
part  of  the  State  against  the  Romish  at- 
tacks. The  right  of  this  self-defense  can 
not  be  denied.  It  is  founded  in  the  duty  of 
self-preservation.  As  an  individual  has  the 
right  and  the  duty  to  defend  his  own  life 
when  attacked  by  the  blow  of  an  assassin, 
so  the  State  has  both  the  right  and  the  duty 
to  protect  its  own  life  and  the  welfare  of  its 
citizens  against  the  aggressions  of  a  power 
which  claims  the  supreme  control  over  the 
hearts,  and  minds,  and  consciences  of  its 
members.  And  here  it  is  an  old  trick  of  the 
Roman  Catholics,  by  which  they  try  to  con- 
found the  question,  when  they  proclaim  in 
this  connection  the  word  of  Peter,  "We  must 
hearken  unto  God  more  than  nnto  man." 
For,  in  reality,  the  authorities  in  question 
are  not  God  on  one  hand  and  man  on  the 
other,  but  rather  the  Pope,  who  claims  to  be 
infallible,  and  to  rule  the  conscience  of  man- 
kind, and  the  State  government  of  Prussia, 
whose  sacred  duty  it  is  to  guard  the  free- 
dom of  its  subjects.  The  question  could 
even  be  raised,  whether  the  Pope,  attempting 
to  destroy  personal  freedom  of  conscience, 
or  the  Emperor  of  Germany  endeavoring  to 
protect  this  very  freedom,  better  under- 
stands and  promotes  the  will  of  God. 

If  now  the  Government  has  the  duty  of 
protecting  the  sacred  freedom  of  the  citi- 
zens, this  duty,  as  it  seems  to  me,  involves 
the  unquestionable  right  to  keep  an  open 
eye  on  the  movements  of  the  Churches.  Sup- 
pose the  Pope  would  send  word  to  the  Cath- 
olics of  this  country  to  inaugurate  another 
night  of  St.  Bartholomew  among  the  Prot- 
estants, would  your  Government,  my  Amer- 
ican brethren,  granting  as  it  does  the  great- 
est freedom  of  religion  to  all  sects  and  de- 
nominations, for  one  moment  suffer  such 
an  attempt  to  be  made  ?  Well,  I  am  free  to 
think  General  Grant  would  rather  bring  on 
an  army  from  Washington  to  stop  the  Pope 
on  his  way.  Even  in  these  United  States, 
as  far  as  I  can  see,  the  principle  is  asserted 
that  the  Government  can  not  tolerate  prac- 
tices or  movements  in  any  religious  commu- 
nity by  which  the  moral  character  of  human 
society  is  undermined.  You  Americans  are 
practically  exercising  this  right  iir  the  case 
of  Mormonism.  It  may  be  questioned,  how- 
ever, whether  Mormonism  or  infallible  Ro- 
manism threatens  human  society  with  the 
greater  evils. 

Having  thus  established  these  general 
principles,  let  us  now,  by  this  rule,  briefly 
examine  the  laws  themselves.  By  one  of 


WITTE:  ULTRAMONTANISM  AND  THE  FOUR  PRUSSIAN  CHURCH  LAWS.  445 


them  the  Prussian  Government  claims  the 
right  to  protect  its  Catholic  citizens  against 
the  abuse  of  the  power  of  Romish  priests. 
Now  can  you  deny  that  this  claim  is  a  just 
one  ?  Has  not  the  Government  the  sacred 
duty  to  slielter  the  life  .and  the  property  of 
its  citizens  ?  Suppose  Roman  priests  were 
endeavoring  to  destroy,  by  their  church  dis- 
cipline, the  civil  honor  and  good  reputation 
of  individuals,  that  is,  to  undermine  the 
foundation  of  their  lives,  is  not  the  Govern- 
ment compelled  to  interfere  in  their  behalf? 
Nay,  in  case  that  the  priests  themselves  are 
citizens  of  the  State,  and  fully  entitled  to 
its  protection,  is  not  the  Government,  as  it 
claims  in  another  of  these  laws,  called  upon 
to  defend  them  when  their  personal  rights, 
their  freedom,  and  civil  honor  are  assailed 
by  a  foreign  power,  claiming  control  over 
their  bodies  and  souls,  their  lives  and  prop- 
erty? Suppose  they  would  be  disciplined 
by  order  of  the  Pope,  as  has  been  done,  by 
being  thrown  into  the  dungeon  of  a  convent, 
by  being  whipped  and  tormented,  Avould  it 
not  be  the  duty  of  the  Government  to  pro- 
tect them  from  such  disgrace  ? 

More  offense  than  by  any  other  law  has 
been  given  by  that  in  which  the  Govern- 
ment asserts  the  right  of  superintending 
the  schools  and  seminaries  in  which  the  Ro- 
man clergy  are  educated.  At  a  first  glance 
you  may  feel  inclined  to  shrink  from  such  a 
law.  But,  in  fact,  suppose  that  in  these  sem- 
inaries a  bitter  hatred  against  the  earthly 
power  be  planted  into  the  young  hearts, 
suppose  that  the  students  be  taught  to  re- 
gard Protestantism  as  an  abomination  and 
to  consider  the  killing  of  a  Protestant  as  a 
work  acceptable  in  the  sight  of  God,  could 
the  Government  of  the  State  silently  and 
smilingly  stand  by  and  look  upon  such  pro- 
ceedings ?  It  is  a  fact  that  the  Jesuits  have 
taught  such  a  kind  of  doctrine.  Do  they  not 
deserve,  then,  to  be  expelled,  and  kept  from 
poisoning  a  nation  ?  Let  us  not  forget, 
brethren,  we  write  to-day,  1873.  In  1773, 
Clemens  XIV.,  Ganganelli,  an  infallible  pope, 
declared  this  very  order  to  be  ruinous  to  the 
welfare  of  human  society,  and  abolished  the 
order  for  ever  and  ever ;  and  Catholic  pow- 
ers had  urged  him  to  do  it.  Is,  then,  Prus- 


sia to  be  blamed  when  she  acts  on  the  same 
conviction  of  the  poisonous  influence  of  the 
Jesuits,  and  sends  them  out  of  her  domin- 
ion? 

True,  I  can  not  agree  with  every  thing 
contained  in  these  laws.  To  define,  for  in- 
stance, the  limits  of  clerical  learning,  the 
measure  of  knowledge  in  literature  and  phi- 
losophy which  the  priests  have  to  acquire, 
all  this  ought  to  be  left  to  the  decision  of  the 
religious  denominations  themselves.  But, 
on  the  whole,  there  was  an  urgent  necessity 
for  these  or  similar  laws. 

One  thing,  however,  the  State  should  nev- 
er forget :  spiritual  powers  can  not  be  final- 
ly vanquished  by  external  means  and  regu- 
lations. It  wants  religious  truth  to  break 
down  religious  falsehood.  May  Prussia  sup- 
port and  strengthen  the  bearers  of  such 
truth,  and  she  will  come  out  of  the  struggle 
victorious.  Let  the  German  Government, 
as  it  has  begun  to  do  in  the  case  of  Bishop 
Reinkens,  support  and  strengthen  the  Old 
Catholic  movement ;  let  it  support  the  ef- 
forts of  the  Evangelical  Church  to  establish 
human  society  on  the  eternal  principles  of 
the  Word  of  God ;  let  the  State  proclaim  the 
freedom  and  independence  of  the  Evangelical 
Church,  and  surrender  to  the  same  its  prop- 
erty ;  let  the  whole  nation  breathe  the  air 
of  religious  freedom,  and  the  dangers  by 
which  the  State  is  threatened  at  present 
will  disappear,  as  the  mist  before  the  sun. 
The  State  alone  can  hardly  hope  finally  and 
successfully  to  resist  the  overwhelming  pow- 
er and  influence  of  Romish  priests.  But 
'  there  is  one  power  mightier  than  Rome  and 
all  the  states  of  the  world ;  and  whosoever 
is  in  close  alliance  with  it  may  be  sure  to  be 
crowned  with  victory. 

"  Fragst  du,  wer  der  1st, 
Er  heisst  Jesus  Christ, 
Dcr  Herr  Zebaoth ; 
Und  1st  kein  and'rer  Gott, 
Das  Feld  muss  er  behalteu." 

Faithful  to  Him,  and  free  from  the  pressure 
of  the  State,  the  Church  of  the  Gospel  will 
be  victorious  against  the  church  of  spiritual 
bondage.  And  the  State  enjoying  the  bless- 
ings of  such  a  Church  will  flourish  and  pros- 
per to  do  God's  will. 


THE  REACTION  OF  THE  GERMAN  NATIONAL  SPIRIT 
AGAINST  ULTRAMONTANISM. 

BY  THE  REV.  AUGUST  DOKNER,  Pn.D. 

Bepetent  in  the  University  of  GGttingen. 


IT  is  not  the  object  of  these  few  lines  to 
examine  this  important  theme  on  all  sides ; 
for  the  reaction  of  the  State  against  Ultra- 
montauism  has  been  considered  by  another 
member  of  the  Alliance.  Nor  will  I  speak 
of  the  reaction  -which  is  to  be  hoped  from  a 
deeper  and  more  comprehensive  education 
of  the  clergy,  and  the  laity  as  -well.  I  will 
confine  myself  to  the  religious  reaction 
against  Ultramontanism.  It  is  a  religious 
power ;  and  although  it  exerts  such  a  great 
influence  in  other  departments,  yet  the  most 
lasting  reaction  against  it  can  only  come 
from  a  counter  religious  power.  The  count- 
er movement  within  the  Catholic  Church  is 
Old  Catholicism,  an  account  of  which  has 
likewise  been  given  by  another  at  this  meet- 
ing. I  will,  therefore,  only  make  a  few  ob- 
servations. 

Since  the  Reformation,  the  one-sided  prin- 
ciple of  authority  in  the  Roman  Church  has 
been  obliged,  by  its  conflict  with  Protestant- 
ism, to  develop  more  and  more.  The  history 
of  Jansenism  in  France  shows  how  hard  it 
has  been  to  persevere  in  a  milder  direction 
within  the  Romish  Church.  The  Jesuits  won 
the  victory  over  the  Janseuists,  not  merely 
because  the  State  was  unfavorable  to  the 
latter,  but  because  Jansenism  could  not  rise 
above  the  infallibility  of  the  visible  Church, 
as  claimed  to  be  represented  in  the  councils. 
In  order  to  gain  a  permanent  triumph  over 
Ultramontanism,  something  more  is  needed 
than  merely  to  resist  the  infallibility  of  the 
Pope.  For  so  soon  as  it  has  been  proclaimed 
by  a  council,  the  decision  of  the  council  must 
be  accepted  by  those  likewise  who  recognize 
the  infallibility  of  the  bishops  assembled  in 
council.  For  should  the  Episcopalists  refuse 
to  recognize  a  council  merely  on  account  of  the 
contents  of  its  decision,  when  the  council  has 
been  called  in  the  right  form,  and  has  trans- 
acted its  business  with  freedom,  they  would 
thereby  overthrow  their  own  principle,  that 
a  council  called  together  in  the  right  form 
is  infallible.  Thus  they  can  only  attack  the 
form  of  the  call,  the  composition  of  the  as- 
sembly, and  the  manner  of  their  delibera- 
tions. But  such  an  attack  may  easily  be 
extended  to  all  the  councils — at  all  events, 
to  the  Council  of  Trent ;  and  the  discussion 
would  be  endless,  because  at  no  council  are 
the  Church  criteria  necessary  to  its  validity 


fully  present.  Thus  the  Old  Catholics,  so 
long  as  they  maintain  the  infallibility  of 
the  councils,  must  be  in  a  precarious  situa- 
tion. But  we  may  hope  that  their  opposi- 
tion, as  it  is  a  matter  of  the  conscience,  will 
not  remain  satisfied  with  this  stand-point, 
since  it  can  never  be  shown  with  reference 
to  any  early  council  that  it  has  the  qualifi- 
cations necessary  to  infallibility.  We  greet 
the  Old  Catholics  with  the  more  joy  that 
they  confess  their  more  ecumenical  direc- 
tion, by  a  friendly  position  toward  Protest- 
antism which  we  can  not  say  to  the  credit 
of  Jansenism.  It  is  likewise  not  to  be  de- 
nied that  the  Old  Catholics,  if  they  gain 
ground,  will  to  the  same  extent  be  a  sup- 
port of  the  German  empire  against  Roman- 
ism ;  as  they  recognize  the  right  of  the  na- 
tional life  of  the  State,  which  Rome  de- 
nies. 

But  in  order  to  conquer  Romanism  in 
principles,  it  is  necessary  that  there  should 
be  a  revival  of  the  spirit  inspired  by  the 
Reformation ;  that  there  should  be  a  deep 
love  of  the  truth,  a  striving  for  personal  as- 
surance and  persuasion  in  religious  things. 
The  counter  power  to  Romanism  is  given  in 
Protestantism,  because  it  represents  a  high- 
er stage  of  religious  life.  The  Reformation 
vindicated  the  right  of  a  free  personality, 
the  right  and  the  duty  of  every  one  to  be 
personally  convinced  by  the  truth.  The 
Reformers,  above  all  Luther,  not  only  em- 
phasized original  sin,  evil  and  its  penalty, 
but  they  regarded  the  consciousness  of  sin 
and  guilt,  which  is  the  most  personal  thing 
in  sin,  as  the  greatest  hinderance  to  success- 
ful human  development;  and  this  is  the 
more  significant  when  we  consider  that  the 
most  of  the  Reformers,  even  Luther,  taught 
the  doctrine  of  human  freedom  in  a  deter- 
ministic form.  They  laid  equal  stress  upon 
the  assurance  of  salvation,  which  is  nothing 
else  than  that  every  one  should  experience 
the  divine  love  immediately  in  his  own 
soul.  But  we  can  not  be  convinced  in  our 
own  souls  merely  by  submitting  ourselves 
at  once  to  an  external  authority,  or,  after 
a  sort  of  conscientious  examination,  uniting 
ourselves  to  an  authority  before  which  all 
further  investigation  is  renounced.  The  law 
holds  good,  not  only  for  different  generations, 
but  for  the  different  years  of  the  same  man's 


DORNER :  THE  REACTION  OF  THE  GERMAN  NATIONAL  SPIRIT. 


447 


life,  that  -what  is  not  constantly  won  anew,  | 
and  thereby  strengthened,  no  longer  remains 
as  a  spiritual  possession.  The  difference  be-  j 
tween  Protestantism  and  Romanism  is  not 
merely  that  the  Romanists  recognize  the  in- ! 
fallibility  of  the  Pope,  while  the  Protestants 
recognize  the  infallibility  of  the  Scriptures. 
But  still  more  in  the  fact,  that  the  Scrip- 
tures are,  according  to  the  Protestant  view, 
intended  for  the  use  of  every  person,  in  or- 
der that  he  may  gain  immediate  communion 
with  God  in  Christ,  who  can  and  will  bear 
witness  to  himself  in  the  heart.  And  this 
experience  must  be  again  and  agaiu  renew- 
ed, if  it  would  not  be  lost,  for  religion  is  life. 
Catholicism  remains  standing  upon  a  stage 
of  development  which  may  not  be  unsuited 
to  a  certain  point  in  the  history  of  nations, 
but  since  it  claims  absolute  sovereignty,  it 
becomes  an  error.  Romanism  is  satisfied 
with  the  assurance  that  the  Church  gives, 
so  that  the  Church  is  the  absolute  authori- 
ty for  the  individual  person.  Thus  the 
Church  as  a  whole  takes  the  place  of  the 
individual  member.  In  the  period  before 
Christ,  the  worth  of  the  individual  person 
was  still  unknown.  Christianity  first  taught 
the  worth  of  the  individual  person,  because 
first  in  Christ  is  the  value  of  the  human  per- 
son completely  revealed ;  first  in  his  person 
does  the  destiny  of  man  for  union  with  God 
realize  itself.  But  it  was  not  enough  that 
the  individual  should  enjoy  communion  with 
God  in  Christ  as  an  immediate  religious  ex- 
perience. This  the  individual  has  had  in  all 
ages  of  the  Church.  It  was,  still  more,  nec- 
essary that  the  thought  tli&t  the  individual  is 
destined  to  immediate  communion  with  God 
should  work  itself  out  to  clearness  of  view 
and  universality  of  conviction.  For  this  a 
long  history  was  necessary.  There  is  a  condi- 
tion in  the  development  of  the  individual  and 
the  nations  as  well,  in  which  they  are  still 
in  religious  minority,  needing  external  au- 
thority. Regard  for  individual  personality 
was  not  a  matter  of  general  understanding, 
when  the  prejudices  of  the  ancient  nations 
which  had  received  Christianity  were  not 
yet  overcome;  and  the  German  tribes  had 
still  to  be  trained  as  babes  in  religiou.  lu 
this  condition  external  authority  was  need- 
ed. But  the  Romish  Church  would  still 
maintain  that  stand-point,  while  that  which 
is  justified  as  a  stage  of  transition  is  from 
that  very  fact  to  be  rejected.  Protestant- 
ism represents  a  higher  stage,  because  it 
makes  men  of  babes. 

But,  furthermore,  individuality  and  per- 
sonality are  in  the  closest  connection.  The 
individual  has  a  special  value  in  himself 
only  when  he  occupies  a  special  position  in 
the  whole  body  of  the  human  race,  when  he 
can  give  something  that  others  can  not  ren- 
der. The  value  of  the  individual  person 
has  not  been  fully  recognized  till  the  indi- 
vidual possession  can  be  regarded  as  some- 


thing permanent  given  him  by  God ;  for  the 
individual  would  otherwise  become  again  a 
mere  example  of  his  class.  Protestantism 
lias  from  the  beginning  developed  in  many 
forms  of  individuality,  although  at  first  in 
a  one-sided  intellectual  and  scholastic  form. 
Roman  Catholicism  reproaches  us  for  our 
divisions ;  yet  we  should  greatly  err  if  we 
supposed  that  Romanism  on  the  one  side  sub- 
jects the  individual  to  the  whole  body,  while 
Protestantism  neglects  the  whole  body  for 
the  individual  person  and  the  individual  life 
and  knowledge.  Protestantism  represents 
here  likewise  a  higher  stage  of  development. 
The  knowledge  of  individuality  which 
Schleiermacher  opened  up  must  be  deep- 
ened. It  is  an  important  problem  of  Prot- 
estantism at  the  present  time  to  show  that 
it  can  reconcile  the  right  of  the  individual 
with  the  right  of  the  whole  body  to  the  in- 
dividual. In  this  direction  are  the  efforts 
of  "  The  Union  "  which  would  not  have  uni- 
formity, but  rather  tolerates,  yes,  desires  dif- 
ferences, in  order  that  there  may  be  on  this 
basis  a  rich  and  prosperous  development  of 
Protestantism  in  life  and  doctrine,  provided 
only  the  fundamental  principle  of  reconcilia- 
tion with  God  in  Christ  be  maintained.  In 
the  same  direction  are  the  efforts  to  secure 
a  church  constitution  in  accordance  with 
Protestantism,  which  aims  to  secure  that  the 
individual  should  be  not  merely  a  passive  but 
an  active  member  of  his  communion,  and  that 
every  individual  may  enrich  the  congrega- 
tion with  his  gifts.  It  is  the  same  with  the 
controversies  respecting  the  limits  of  free- 
dom in  the  pulpit,  in  which  the  question  is 
how  far  the  right  of  the  individual  is  to  be 
limited  or  extended  over  against  the  convic- 
tions of  the  whole  body.  We  do  not  pretend 
to  decide  these  questions  in  this  short  sketch. 
We  would  merely  call  attention  to  the  fact 
that  in  all  these  questions  the  relation  of 
the  individual  to  the  whole  body  comes  into 
consideration,  and  that  the  problem  of  sci- 
ence is  to  devote  more  thorough  investiga- 
tions to  these  questions. 

The  lack  of  unity  among  Protestants  is  a 
great  stumbling-block.  The  German  nation 
will  overcome  the  dangers  of  Romanism  if 
it  can  deepen  the  Protestantism,  Avhich  has 
its  home  in  Germany,  as  a  living  inherit- 
ance from  our  fathers ;  if  it  can  show  more 
particularly  that  it  can  likewise  accommo- 
date itself  to  the  proper  strivings  for  church 
unity  ;  yes,  that  it  represents  a  higher  state 
of  unity  than  the  Romish  Church.  He  who 
has  experienced  the  love  of  God  in  Christ 
can  have  no  pleasure  in  strife,  but  strives 
himself  for  unity,  and  mutual  recognition  in 
mutual  giving  and  receiving.  The  Protest- 
ant Church  of  Germany  will  represent  a 
higher  stage  of  unity  if,  on  the  basis  of  a 
common  experience  of  the  love  of  God  in 
Christ,  it  can  so  bring  the  Protestant  part 
of  the  nation  together  that  the  differences 


448 


ROMANISM  AND  PROTESTANTISM. 


of  Church  custom  and  doctrine  may  not  pro- 
duce divisions,  but  rather  union ;  for  only 
thus  can  the  different  members  supplement 
one  another,  and  a  higher  unity  be  formed — 
a  uuity  richer  than  the  uniform  structure  of 
the  Romish  Church,  and  freer  than  that  uni- 
ty which  is  found  iu  external  authority  and 
external  institutions,  because  every  individ- 
ual is  confirmed  iu  his  own  individuality, 
and  unites  himself  in  the  freedom  of  love  to 
the  whole  body.  The  German  national  spir- 
it is  hindered  when  the  individual  emanci- 
pates himself  from  the  whole  body,  as  well 
;is  when  the  individual  is  again  reduced  to 
nonage  under  the  Church.  May  the  Ger- 
man Church  be  enabled  to  realize  the  idea 
of  unity  in  her  external  body ! 

Finally,  there  is  an  important  thought  with 
reference  to  the  reaction  of  the  German  na- 
tional spirit,  so  far  as  it  proceeds  from  Prot- 
estants against  Romanism,  which  has  fre- 
quently been  mentioned,  yet  is  the  more 
worthy  of  remark  here  that  the  Alliance  be- 
gins to  realize  it.  The  Romish  Church  calls 
itself  the  Catholic,  the  Universal  Church, 
spreading  itself  over  the  world.  Christian- 
ity would  conquer  the  human  race,  because 
it  claims  to  be  the  absolute  religion.  The 
Romish  Church  attempts  to  carry  out  the 
idea  without  regard  to  the  peculiarities  of 
nations.  Protestants  may  here  likewise 
represent  a  higher  stage  of  development. 
No  one  is  a  man  in  abstracto,  no  one  is  a 
Christian.  in  dbstracto.  The  universal  char- 
acter of  Christianity  is  not  abstract  cos- 
mopolitanism. The  nations  are  not  to  be 
Christian  after  a  •uniform  type,  but  each 
one  has  to  fulfill  its  own  tasks.  The  true 
Catholic  disposition  unites  the  right  of  the 
individual  nations  with  the  duty  of  uni- 
versal love  of  man,  and  the  recognition  of 
unity  in  one  and  the  same  Church  among 
all  nations.  Every  nation  has  its  gifts,  and 
every  one  its  special  methods  of  manifest- 
ing the  Christian  spirit  in  knowledge  and 
life.  They  supplement  one  another,  and  ev- 
ery one  is  bound  to  assert  itself  over  against 
the  others,  }n  every  mutual  giving  and  re- 
ceiving, yes,  for  the  very  sake  of  this  inter- 
change of  gifts.  The  more  now  the  Protest- 
ant German  theology  becomes  internation- 
al, the  more  will  it  be  enriched,  in  order  to 


be  truly  national ;  and  the  more  our  clergy 
learn  to  know  the  Protestant  life  of  other 
nations,  the  more  will  they  be  able  to  serve 
their  own  Church.  There  is  strength  for 
the  combat  with  Romanism  in  the  joy  of 
communion  with  other  Protestants.  But 
yet  the  combat  with  Rome  is  at  the  same 
time  a  national  combat  against  a  falsely 
understood  unity  of  the  nations.  The  re- 
action of  the  German  national  spirit  against 
Romanism  is  a  reaction  of  the  national  life 
against  a  false  cosmopolitanism.  The  true 
cosmopolitanism  can  only  succeed  by  pre- 
serving and  enlarging  the  bonds  of  broth- 
erly communion,  which  are  to  embrace  all 
nations  without  swallowing  them  up.  For 
the  surest  sign  that  the  individuality  of  the 
nation  as  well  as  the  individual  is  the  will 
of  God  is  the  fact  that  the  more  the  indi- 
vidual appropriates  and  the  more  he  accom- 
plishes, the  more  his  peculiarities  of  nature, 
instead  of  being  effaced,  increase  and  prosper. 
We  have  confined  ourselves  to  the  coun- 
ter-movement to  Ultramontanism  in  the 
sphere  of  religion.  As  a  matter  of  course, 
Protestantism  does  not  prevent  the  State 
in  the  protection  of  its  rights  against  the 
assaults  of  the  Romish  Church.  For  as 
Protestantism  is  favorable  to  the  national 
life,  it  recognizes  that  the  State  is  independ- 
ent of  the  Church.  For  the  Giate  represents 
Justice,  and  justice  is  a  divine  idea.  It  is 
not  based  merely  upon  a  voluntary  compact 
of  individuals,  as  the  individual  can  not 
exist  for  himself  alone,  but  is  born  into  the 
whole  body.  No  more  would  a  revival  of 
the  Protestant  spirit  be  prejudicial  to  the 
development  of  science  or  the  efforts  for  the 
extension  of  culture.  For  Christianity  is  not 
hostile  to  human  culture.  It  would  rather 
make  men  as  cultivated  as  possible.  If  Chris- 
tianity is  hostile  to  that  which  is  truly  hu- 
man culture,  if  it  can  not  endure  the  de- 
velopment of  the  human  spirit,  it  must  per- 
ish. But  this  is  not  the  case.  What  would 
Christianity  do  but  order  the  relation  of 
man  to  God ;  bring  love  into  man's  heart — 
divine  love,  which  the  human  heart  needs  ? 
And  what- is  the  task  of  science  but  to  con- 
sider divine  thoughts  ?  But  here  we  must 
stop,  confining  ourselves  to  the  reaction  of 
the  religious  life  sigainst  Romanism. 


THE  APPEAL  OF  EOMANISM  TO  EDUCATED  PROT- 
ESTANTS. 

BY  THE  REV.  R.  S.  STORRS,  D.D.,  BROOKLYN,  N.Y. 


IT  is  always  easy,  though  always  unsafe, 
to  underestimate  the  attractive  force  of  a 
system  of  belief  adverse  to  our  own.  Stand- 
ing on  the  outside  of  it,  we  see  only  its  ex- 
ternal proportions.  The  inner  chambers, 
filled  with  whatever  precious  and  pleasant 
riches,  are  hidden  from  us;  and  one  must  be 
of  a  remarkably  sympathetic  and  compre- 
hensive mind  to  be  able  to  enter  into  them, 
and  to  see  the  whole  structure  as  its  iuhab- 
itants  do. 

It  is  especially  difficult  for  us  as  Prot- 
estants to  understand  the  attractive  power 
of  Romanism.  Jealousy  of  it,  as  of  a  stealthy 
and  dangerous  system,  careless  of  virtue, 
eager  for  power,  exquisitely  adjusted  to  win 
mankind  by  condoning  their  vices  and  con- 
secrating their  pride — this  is  an  inheritance 
to  which  sve  are  born.  And  such  hereditary 
impressions  ripen  with  most  of  us  into  per- 
sonal conviction.  Not  only  does  it  seem  to 
us  hostile  to  liberty,  and  to  rational  progress, 
incompatible  with  a  liberal  and  fruitful  civ- 
ilization; it  seems  so  distinctly  to  antago- 
nize the  Gospel,  so  positively  to  contradict 
the  fundamental  ideas  of  the  Diviue  Gov- 
ernment— dissociating  religion  from  morali- 
ty, and  destiny  from  character — its  descrip- 
tion and  its  doom  seem  so  luridly  and  in- 
delibly written  in  history,  that  wre  can  not, 
without  a  distinct  and  strenuous  effort,  un- 
derstand how  any  should  accept  it. 

We  have,  therefore,  been  wont  to  regard 
the  Roman  Church  as  the  Church  of  the 
ignorant  and  the  superstitious  alone ;  to  ex- 
pect that  those  born  and  trained  within  it 
will  come  out  from  it,  with  intelligent  pro- 
test or  with  passionate  revolt,  when  they 
shall  have  reached  a  higher  level  of  educa- 
tion and  moral  force;  and  it  has  seemed 
well-nigh  incredible  that  any  one  educated 
under  Protestant  influences  should  be  al- 
lured into  its  fold. 

When  such  a  one  has  gone  to  its  commun- 
ion, we  have  been  apt  to  feel  that  he  must 
have  been  moved  either  by  a  desire  for  po- 
litical preferment,  and  the  aid  of  the  priest- 
hood in  his  personal  schemes;  or  by  the 
wish  for  terms  of  salvation  which  would 
leave  his  lusts  free,  and  yet  quiet  his  fears  ; 
or  by  regard  for  particular  teachers,  as  New- 
man or  Faber  in  England,  Brownson,  Heck- 
er,  or  Hewit,  in  this  country ;  or  that  he  was 
attracted  by  the  tone  of  authority,  and  the 
29 


splendid  pomp  of  the  outward  spectacle ; 
or  that  he  was  moved  by  a  general  uncer- 
tain eccentricity  of  mind,  which  might  have 
made  him  a  Shaker  or  a  Mormon, but  which, 
by  chance,  did  make  him  a  Papist ;  or,  final- 
ly, that  it  has  been  with  him  a  blind  leap 
after  belief,  in  a  desperate  reaction  from  the 
lonely  gloom  of  infidelity. 

In  one  or  other  of  these  ways  we  almost 
always  account  for  the  transfer  to  Roman- 
ism of  one  who  has  been  educated  outside 
its  influences;  while  at  last  we  are  often 
constrained  to  leave  it,  as  a  strange  phe- 
nomenon, not  wholly  explained  by  any 
thing  which  the  man  himself  has  said,  or 
any  thing  which  our  thoughts  can  suggest. 

For  some  have  gone  who  have  certainly 
not  been  thus  impelled ;  of  whose  change  no 
one  of  the  motives  which  I  have  mentioned 
gives  any  more  account  than  it  does  of  the 
origin  of  the  Paradise  Lost.  They  are  seri- 
ous, devout,  conscientious  persons,  intent  on 
learning,  and  then  on  doing,  the  will  of  the 
Almighty ;  of  no  peculiar  turn  of  mind,  with 
no  marked  predominance  of  imagination  or 
emotional  sensibility ;  many  of  them  edu- 
cated in  the  best  and  most  liberal  Protestant 
schools ;  some  of  them  among  the  noblest  of 
their  time,  whom  it  is  a  serious  loss  to  us  to 
lose. 

And  it  is  to  bo  distinctly  observed  that 
these  men  accept  the  system  of  Romanism 
with  no  languor  or  reserve,  with  no  esoter- 
ic and  half-Protestant  interpretation  of  it, 
with  no  thought  at  all  of  modifying  its  dog- 
mas for  their  personal  use  by  the  exercise 
of  a  private  judgment  upon  them.  They 
take  the  system  as  it  stands.  They  take  it 
altogether.  They  look  with  pity,  not  un- 
mixed with  contempt,  on  those  who  are  ea- 
ger to  adopt  its  phraseology  and  to  mimic 
its  ceremonies,  while  declining  to  submit 
their  minds  to  its  mandates ;  and  for  them- 
selves they  confess  doctrines  which  seem  to 
us  incredible,  and  conform  themselves  to 
practices  which  look  to  us  like  idolatrous 
mummery,  with  gladness  and  pride. 

Now,  what  moves  these  men?  What  is 
the  attraction  which  the  system  presents 
to  such  as  these,  in  Germany,  England,  this 
country?  —  an  attraction  which  is  strong 
enough  to  wholly  detach  them  from  their 
early  associations,  and  to  make  them  devo- 
tees of  a  spiritual  power  which  from  child- 


450 


ROMANISM  A>7D  PROTESTANTISM. 


hood  they  were  taught  to  dread  and  to  de- 
test f 

It  is  this  question  to  which  I  am  asked  to 
give  a  partial  and  rapid  answer.  Of  course 
it  must  bo  an  imperfect  answer,  since  I  am 
not  a  Romanist,  in  any  sense  or  any  meas- 
ure. Ou  the  other  hand,  I  am  a  Congrega- 
tibnalist,  in  tiie  broadest  significance ;  be- 
lieving for  myself,  without  the  -wish  to  im- 
pose the  belief  on  any  body  else,  that  each 
society  of  believers,  permanently  associated 
for  the  worship  of  God,  and  for  the  cele- 
bration of  Christian  ordinances,  is  a  proper 
and  complete  chnrch;  competent  to  elect 
and  ordain  its  officers,  to  administer  the 
sacraments,  and  to  fashion  its  rules  and  its 
ritual,  under  Christ,  while  bound  to  main- 
tain and  teach  his  truth,  to  honor  the  law  of 
Christian  purity,  and  to  live  in  unity  of  spir- 
it, and  in  fellowship  of  good  works,  with  all 
similar  societies.  So  far,  therefore,  as  the 
Roman  organization  is  concerned,  I  stand  at 
almost  the  furthest  remove  from  it ;  with  no- 
body beyond  me,  so  far  as  I  know,  unless  it 
be  the  Society  of  Friends. 

And  concerning  the  whole  immense  sys- 
tem which  that  organization  represents  and 
subserves,  I  confess  my  sympathy  with  the 
most  radical  of  the  Reformers.  I  believe 
that  the  Fathers  were  thoroughly  right  in 
revolting  against  Rome;  that  we  are  under 
the  highest  obligations  to  maintain  that  re- 
volt ;  and  that  Christian  civilization  would 
perish  from  the  earth,  if  the  Papal  suprema- 
cy should  become  universal. 

So  it  can  not  be  that  I  should  understand 
the  system,  or  feel  its  attractions,  as  those 
do  who  live  in  it ;  and  if  they  were  here  to 
speak  for  themselves,  they  might  well  de- 
cline to  have  me  represent  them.  But  I  can 
see  some  of  the  fascinating  features  which 
Romanism  offers  to  its  disciples,  and  can 
understand,  in  a  measure  at  least  —  as  it 
has  been  part  of  my  business  to  understand 
— the  appeal  which  it  makes  to  educated 
Protestants.  And  from  among  its  attract- 
ive forces,  selecting  them  for  their  promi- 
nence and  as  easy  to  be  exhibited,  I  will 
specify  eight. 

1.  The  prime  secret  of  its  attractiveness 
for  such  minds  is,  I  think,  that  it  claims  to 
offer  them  in  the  Roman  Church  a  present, 
living,  authoritative  Teacher;  which  has 
the  mind  of  God  immanent  in  it ;  which  is 
the  witness  and  the  interpreter  of  Revela- 
tion, and  is  itself  the  living  medium  of  such 
Revelation;  which  has  thus  authority  to 
decide  on  all  questions  of  religious  doctrine 
and  duty,  and  whose  decisions,  when  an- 
nounced, are  infallibly  correct,  and  unspeak- 
ably important.  This  is  its  first  claim ;  im- 
perative in  tone,  stupendous  in  substance, 
unique  in  its  kind,  and  very  effective. 

According  to  it,  as  you  are  aware,  the 
bishops  in  communion  with  the  See  of  Pe- 
ter are  the  Ecclesia  docens;  the  divinely  con- 


stituted, perpetual,  iuerrant  coq>oration,  in 
which  Christ,  by  the  Holy  Ghost,  is  always 
present ;  which  is  filled,  in  its  totality,  with 
his  inspiration,  and  which  thus  utters,  in  its 
decrees,  his  voice  to  the  world.  It  does  not 
merely  articulate  the  general  Christian  con- 
sciousness of  truth  or  of  duty ;  it  speaks 
Christ's  mind,  as  the  apostles  did  in  their 
day,  with  a  superior  fitness  to  modern  needs, 
and  with  an  equivalent,  ail  identical  author- 
ity. 

Debate  is,  therefore,  always  in  order  till 
the  Church  has  spoken.  But  after  that, 
doubt  is  a  deadly  sin.  For  it  is  not  a  mere 
perilous  dissent  from  the  majority.  It  is, 
in  its  essence,  infidelity  to  Christ.  And,  on 
the  other  hand,  the  belief  of  the  faithful  in 
a  dogma  properly  formulated  and  declared 
needs  no  argument,  allows  no  hesitation,  and 
asks  for  no  support  of  reason.  It  is  imme- 
diate and  final;  since  it  rests  solidly  on  the 
utterance  of  the  Church,  which  is  to  it  the 
testimony  of  God. 

This  may  seem  to  us  immensely  absurd, 
looked  at  in  the  light  of  "history.  It  may 
seem  prodigiously  to  transcend  all  the  pre- 
rogatives promised  by  the  Lord  to  the  Church 
to  which  his  truth  was  given.  We  may 
hold  ourselves  able  to  count  the  rings  by 
which  the  successive  increments  of  influence 
gathering  to  that  Church  hardened  at  last 
into  the  tough  and  oaken  fibre  of  this  un- 
yielding and  gigantic  claim.  It  may  seem 
to  us  to  put  dishonor  on  the  Bible.  And  we 
may  feel  that  it  reproduces,  with  strange  ex- 
actness, with  an  almost  fearful  fidelity,  the 
prediction  of  Paul  concerning  that  Son  of 
Perdition  of  whom  he  forewarned  the  Thes- 
salonian  disciples,  "  that  he,  as  God,  sitteth 
in  the  temple  of  God,  showing  himself  that 
he  is  God."  But  the  claim  thus  outlined 
has  certainly  a  subtle  and  grand  attraction 
for  many  minds.  They  do  not  feel  limited, 
harassed,  or  forcibly  overborne  by  this  Di- 
vine authority  in  the  Chnrch.  On  the  con- 
trary, they  feel  invigorated  and  elevated  by 
it,  because  holding  themselves  assured  of  the 
truth,  by  the  very  voice  of  God,  speaking  now 
as  at  the  beginning,  only  speaking  now,  in 
tenderness  to  them,  not  through  trumpet  or 
tempest,  in  articulate  thunders  or  earthquake 
throes,  but  through  the  consenting  votes  and 
voices  of  consecrated  men. 

It  seems  to  them  the  grand  privilege  of 
their  minds  to  have  such  a  Church ;  the  con- 
temporary of  the  apostles ;  full  now,  as  at 
Pentecost,  of  the  Holy  Ghost ;  a  majestic, 
abiding,  undeceivable  power,  the  very  body 
of  Christ,  through  Avhich  the  present  benig- 
nant Lord,  always  in  the  world,  declares  with 
perfect  clearness  and  certainty  what  is  to 
be  believed  and  what  to  be  done.  All  their 
expectations  of  progress  and  success  in  the 
attainment  of  divine  knowledge  rest  on  this ; 
and  their  minds  are  profoundly  animated  by 
it.  A  present  revelation,  not  one  in  the  past 


STORKS:  THE  APPEAL  OF  ROMANISM  TO  EDUCATED  PROTESTANTS.    451 


— a  revelation  through  men,  not  through  a 
book — is  that  which,  according  to  their  con- 
ception, now  brings  to  them  the  thoughts  of 
the  Eternal. 

Especially  in  times  like  ours,  when  relig- 
ious doubt  is  passionate  and  ubiquitous, 
.when  a  whirling  and  vehement  skepticism 
darkens  and  hurtles  in  all  the  air,  they  greet 
with  peculiar  desire  and  welcome  such  a  ba- 
sis of  certainty,  such  a  guaranty  of  the  truth, 
such  a  centre  of  enlightening  and  unifying 
authority.  Amidst  the  many  divisions  of 
Christendom  they  long  for  this  the  more. 
And  the  Bible,  interpreted  by  each  for  him- 
self, seems  in  no  degree  to  meet  their  want ; 
while  neither  of  the  most  cultured  Protest- 
ant churches  offers  it  satisfaction. 

Most  of  all,  if  they  have  themselves  been 
assailed  by  the  skeptical  spirit,  and  have 
wavered  and  wandered  in  restless  inquiry 
on  the  great  themes  of  the  soul's  well-being, 
they  feel  attracted  to  such  a  Church,  claim- 
ing such  a  prerogative,  and  offering  such 
relief  and  assurance;  as  Dollinger  says  of 
Christina  of  Sweden,  that  she  "  took  refuge 
in  the  ship  of  ecclesiastical  authority  from 
the  ocean  of  philosophical  doubt." 

And  every  mind  must  admit,  I  think,  that 
there  is  a  certain  inspiring  grandeur,  august 
yet  winning,  in  such  a  conception  of  God's 
enduring  and  holy  Church ;  that  however 
far  the  ambitious  corporation  whose  heart 
is  Jesuitism,  and  whose  head  is  the  Pope, 
may  fail  of  realizing  it,  the  ideal  itself  is 
lofty  and  seductive;  and  that  our  timid 
and  limited  human  nature,  surrounded  by 
so  many  puzzles,  and  faced  by  such  tremen- 
dous problems,  may  well  at  times  admit  the 
wish  that  such  a  conception  had  been  per- 
mitted of  God  to  be  realized,  and  had  not 
been  left,  as  we  assuredly  hold  it  to  have 
been,  a  delusive  dream. 

This  is  the  first  of  the  attractions  of  Ro- 
manism, to  an  educated  mind.  Another  is — 

2.  That  it  claims  to  offer  to  such  a  mind 
a  body  of  doctrine,  mysterious,  no  doubt,  in 
some  of  its  parts,  but  on  the  whole  solid,  con- 
sistent, consecutive,  complete ;  containing 
what  they  accept  as  a  sufficient  and  satisfy- 
ing answer  to  the  questions  of  the  soul,  the 
antithesis  to  infidelity  in  all  its  forms,  and 
the  consummation  of  what  is  true  in  other 
systems.  It  boasts  that  in  this  not  only  the 
Scripture  is  fulfilled,  but  philosophy  is  illu- 
mined, man's  history  is  interpreted,  God's 
ways  to  man  are  clearly  vindicated ;  and  the 
appeal  which  it  makes,  through  this  doctri- 
nal scheme,  is  of  immense  persuasive  force. 

The  scheme,  of  course,  starts,  as  every  or- 
ganized theology  must,  with  the  doctrine  of 
Original  Sin. 

Sociniauism  affirms  that  man's  nature  and 
spirit  are  right  at  birth  ;  that  they  involve, 
at  any  rate,  no  innate  and  governing  pro- 
pensities to  sin,  and  only  need  education, 
with  favorable  circumstances,  to  develop  all 


forms  of  goodness  and  virtue.  So  it  holds 
Jesus  a  created  teacher,  the  Holy  Ghost  an 
impersonal  influence,  and  regeneration  a 
monkish  myth. 

The  Evangelical  doctrine  affirms  that  man, 
as  originally  created,  was  like  God  in  nature, 
and  like  him  also  in  moral  perfection ;  hav- 
ing the  true  knowledge  of  him,  and  standing 
in  intimate  communion  with  him  through 
the  sympathy  of  supreme  and  holy  love;  that 
no  one  of  his  constitutional  powers  -was  lost 
in  the  fall,  though  their  activity  was  per- 
verted, and  their  development  hindered; 
but  that  the  change  which  then  took  place 
was  in  the  essential  temper  of  his  heart — 
selfish  idolatry  and  sinful  passion  supplant- 
ing the  Divine  love  which  had  preceded,  and 
the  inmost  dispositions  and  tendencies  of 
the  soul  being  thereafter  averted  from  God, 
and  directed  to  selfish  pleasure  and  gain. 

The  change  now  needed,  therefore,  is  in 
this  dominant  spirit  of  the  heart ;  to  alter 
the  dispositions,  to  fix  the  supreme  affection 
upon  God,  and  to  restore  the  spiritual  dis- 
cernment which  was  possessed,  but  has  been 
lost.  And  this  is  effected  by  the  Divine  Spir- 
it, through  the  truth  as  his  instrument,  and 
especially  through  the  revelation  of  God's 
love,  as  declared,  with  transcendent  fullness 
and  tenderness,  in  his  Sou.  When  this  is 
accomplished,  no  direct  addition  is  implied 
to  the  inherent  properties  of  the  soul,  but  a 
change  is  realized  in  its  temper,  tastes,  and 
spiritual  activities,  in  its  relations  to  God, 
and  its  personal  destiny ;  a  change  so  rad- 
ical, vital,  complete,  and  so  enduring  in  con- 
sequences, as  to  constitute  a  true  regenera- 
tion. Conversion,  to  the  loving  obedience 
of  Christ,  is  its  sign  and  fruit.  The  beauty 
of  holiness  flows  from  it  into  life.  It  is  com- 
pleted in  sanctificatiou.  And,  on  the  ground 
of  Christ's  atonement,  he  who  has  not  yet 
reached  that  sanctity,  but  in  whom  its  prin- 
ciple has  been  implanted,  is  reconciled  to 
God,  and  is  treated  as  if  he  had  been  right- 
eous ;  is,  in  other  words,  justified. 

Preaching  the  Gospel  is  therefore  here  the 
means  of  regeneration.  To  lead  men  to  af- 
fectionate faith  in  God,  as  made  manifest  in 
his  Son,  is  the  office  of  the  ministry.  He 
who  has  most  of  this  faith  in  his  heart,  oth- 
er things  being  equal,  is  best  adapted  to  ex- 
cite it  in  others.  The  Church  and  its  sacra- 
ments are  the  instruments  of  God  for  propa- 
gating in  the  world  the  truth  concerning 
him,  as  revealed  in  his  Word,  and  for  main- 
taining in  renovated  men  the  faith  and  love 
which  by  his  Spirit  have  been  inspired. 
His  wisdom  and  grace  are  illustriously  ex- 
hibited in  this  plan  of  redemption ;  the  an- 
gels take  new  conceptions  of  him  from  it ; 
and  man  is  brought  back  to  a  holy  love 
which  commemorates  Paradise,  and  which 
prophesies  heaven ;  which,  being  made  com- 
plete and  immortal,  must  make  a  heaven, 
though  every  gate  of  pearl  should  vanish. 


452 


ROMANISM  AND  PROTESTANTISM. 


This  is  the  Evangelical  doctrine.  The 
Romanist  system  differs  from  it  in  essential 
particulars.  It  also  holds  that  man  is  fall- 
en, and  inwardly  depraved,  but  in  this  dis- 
tinct sense: — By  the  image  of  God,  in  which 
he  was  created,  it  understands  his  rational 
and  voluntary  nature  alone,  by  no  exercise 
of  which  could  he  attain  true  inward  right- 
eousness, the  knowledge  of  God,  or  the  bea- 
tific vision.  This  nature  being  left  to  itself, 
the  flesh  must  fight  against  the  spirit,  con- 
cupiscence gain  the  mastery,  disorder  and 
corruption  follow.  To  prevent  this  result 
were  therefore  superadded  in  Adam,  by  the 
grace  of  God,  the  supernatural  gifts  of  Di- 
vine knowledge  and  righteousness,  through 
which  the  spirit,  re-enforced  from  its  Mak- 
er, was  enabled  to  rule  and  restrain  the 
flesh  "as  with  a  golden  curb,"  and  to  rise 
to  communion  with  the  Almighty. 

It  was  these  Divine  supernatural  gifts 
which  Adam  forfeited  in  the  fall,  sacri- 
ficing them  for  his  posterity  as  well  as  for 
himself,  so  that  all  men  now  are  born  with- 
out them ;  are  born  in  the  state  in  which 
Adam  was  before  he  possessed  them.  And 
through  this  loss  comes  again  the  victory 
of  concupiscence,  the  flesh  everywhere  con- 
quering and  debasing  the  undefended  spirit. 
There  is,  therefore,  nothing  to  be  effectually 
done  for  the  soul  of  man,  for  its  holiness  and 
its  peace,  until  these  gifts  have  been  restored 
to  it.  Without  them,  whatever  teaching  it 
may  have,  and  whatever  high  influence 
through  that  teaching,  it  is  naturally  in- 
capable of  aspiring  to  share  the  wisdom, 
the  holiness,  and  the  blessedness  of  God,  as 
the  flower  is  of  flight,  or  the  bird  of  solving 
a  question  in  morals;  and,  without  them, 
its  course  is  continually  downward,  toward 
darker  depths  of  ignorance  and  of  sin. 

It  is  to  supply  this  need  of  men,  then,  that 
the  incarnation  of  God  in  Jesus  is  divine- 
ly ordained  and  divinely  accomplished ;  to 
make  up  to  the  soul,  which  has  suffered  a  loss 
so  essential  and  extreme,  for  this  tremen- 
dous transmitted  deprivation.  By  that  in- 
carnation the  supernatural  gift  which  Adam 
forfeited  is  introduced  anew  into  the  world ; 
and  it  thenceforth  is  distributed, by  the  Holy 
Ghost,  through  the  priesthood  of  the  Church, 
and  on  its  sacraments.  It  is  properly  given 
at  the  beginning  of  life,  before  activity  has 
commenced,  at  the  outset  of  consciousness. 

It  is  communicated  in  Baptism ;  in  which 
is  effected  an  instant,  essential,  complete  re- 
generation— the  infusion  of  a  supernatural 
life,  the  removal  of  all  corruption  of  sin,  the 
immediate  and  full  introduction  of  the  soul 
into  the  spiritual  household  of  God.  All 
the  saving  benefits  of  Christ's  redemption 
are  thus  and  there  conveyed  to  the  soul, 
as  it  enters  upon  life,  and  begins  the  career 
which  can  never  close. 

The  grace  thus  imparted  is  afterward  con- 
fumed  in  Confirmation. 


It  is  nourished  and  renewed  in  the  sacra- 
ment of  the  Eucharist. 

It  is  restored,  if  lost,  in  the  sacrament  of 
Penance. 

It  is  replenished  and  re-enforced  in  the  sac- 
rament of  Marriage,  by  which  human  love  is 
exalted  and  transformed  into  holy  affection. 

It  is  renewed,  for  those  who  receive  this, 
in  the  sacrament  of  Orders. 

It  is  finally  sealed,  and  divinely  com- 
pleted, in  the  Extreme  Unction ;  after  which 
the  soul,  pursued  and  attended  with  gifts 
of  grace  from  birth  to  death,  goes  forth  to 
meet  the  grand  assize. 

Regeneration  and  Sanctification  are,  of 
course,  synonymous  with  Justification,  on 
this  system. 

The  sacraments  are  efficacious  means  of 
grace ;  having  power  to  convey  grace,  by 
the  Divine  appointment,  as  material  food 
has  to  nourish  the  body,  or  cold  to  congeal, 
or  fire  to  burn. 

Transubstantiation  is  a  necessity  to  the 
system,  the  means  of  realizing  continually 
on  earth  the  gift  which  came  with  Incarna- 
tion. 

The  succession  of  the  priesthood  is  an  in- 
evitable part  of  it ;  as  much  so  as  is  the  suc- 
cession of  generations  to  a  continued  human 
history.  The  lines  of  transmission  must  be 
uninterrupted ;  but  personal  purity  in  the 
priest  is  nowise  essential  to  the  virtue  of 
his  sacraments. 

True  spiritual  life  is  a  thing  impossible 
outside  the  Church,  and  miracles  are  stijl  to 
be  expected  within  it.  For  it  is  the  super- 
natural Saviour,  constantly  present  in  the 
supernatural  Church,  who  gives  authority 
to  every  priest,  and  gives  its  efficacy  to  ev- 
ery sacrament ;  and,  if  he  shall  will  it,  the 
lame  may  now  leap,  the  canvas  become  di- 
vinely luminous,  the  solid  marble  tremble 
into  speech. 

The  visible  Church  is  the  permanent  Di- 
vine kingdom  in  the  world,  whose  numeric- 
al limits  are  exactly  defined ;  and  the  state 
of  each  soul  after  death  is  absolutely  deter- 
mined by  the  relation  it  has  held  to  that 
Church  and  its  sacraments. 

This  is,  in  brief,  the  substance  of  the  doc- 
trine. Of  course  it  seems  to  us  in  sharp 
contrast  with  the  Sermon  on  the  Mount ; 
with  the  teachings  and  the  letters  of  Paul 
and  his  associates ;  with  the  very  frame  and 
aim  of  the  Gospel ;  with  consciousness  itself, 
and  the  self-revealing  facts  of  Christian  ex- 
perience. The  vices  which  have  risen,  and 
rankly  flourished,  in  the  Roman  communion 
— its  own  historians  being  the  witnesses — 
are  testimony  against  it.  The  spiritual  at- 
tainments of  persons  aud  of  peoples  under 
Protestant  influences  become  inexplicable, 
if  it  be  true ;  they  explicitly  contradict  it. 

The  answer  is  immediate,  and  is  to  us 
overwhelming.  But  the  system  is  logical, 
consistent,  very  commanding,  and  to  many 


STORES :  THE  APPEAL  OF  ROMANISM  TO  EDUCATED  PROTESTANTS.  453 


thoughtful  and  questioning  minds  very  at- 
tractive. 

Whatever  there  is  of  mystery,  height,  in- 
spiring power,  in  our  doctrine  of  the  Incar- 
nation or  of  the  Trinity,  is  here  as  well ; 
•whatever  of  solemn  motive  and  warning 
in  the  doctrine  of  the  Fall,  and  of  Human 
Depravity,  and  of  the  Judgment  for  which 
we  wait.  And  the  advocates  of  this  system 
hold  it  complete,  while  ours  is  partial ;  theirs 
finished,  and  ours  fragmentary. 

They  do  not  in.  the  least  regard  this  sys- 
tem as  tending  to  subvert  a  sound  morality, 
sincere  and  spiritual  piety,  belief  in  Christ 
as  the  author  of  grace  and  justification,  but 
as  simply  essential  to  all  these.  And  while 
they  recognize  Evangelical  Protestantism  as 
containing  still  some  elements  of  the  truth, 
they  look  upon  these  as  scattered  timbers, 
not  built  into  a  house,  aud  not  sufficient  to. 
make  one ;  as  plates  of  iron,  worthless  sep- 
arately, and  not  capable  of  being  framed 
together,  except  upon  the  Roman  plan,  into 
the  vast  and  symmetrical  fabric  which  is  to 
bear  up,  over  whelming  waves,  the  heart 
and  hope  and  faith  of  the  world. 

By  its  claim  of  authority,  and  by  this  ar- 
ticulated body  of  doctrine,  Romanism  has  a 
continual  attractiveness  for  many  fine  minds. 

3.  There  is,  too,  a  vast  and  subtile  power 
in  the  representations  which  it  presents  of 
the  invisible  and  spiritual  world,  and  the 
intimate  relations  which  it  declares  as  al- 
ways subsisting  between  that  world  aud 
this. 

The  human  spirit,  conscious  of  affections, 
and  haunted  by  premonitions,  that  overpass 
death,  is  always  reaching  out,  with  eager 
desire  or  with  forecasting  fear,  after  knowl- 
edge of  the  world  which  lies  beyond  its 
sense  or  science;  a  knowledge  more  exact 
and  complete  than  God  in  his  wisdom  has 
seen  fit  to  bestow.  So  necromancy  is  never 
dead;  and  so  Spiritism  comes,  in  our  own 
time,  to  tip  its  tables  and  rap  its  floors,  in 
a  juggling  offer  to  disclose  the  Unseen.  Its 
incitement  is  in  the  hunger  of  the  soul  for 
some  apprehension  of  the  realms  whose 
bounds,  of  beauty  or  fire,  it  has  not  reached. 

And  now  Protestantism,  which  limits  it- 
self to  what  has  been  clearly  expressed  in 
the  Bible,  and  which  deals  timidly  eveu  with 
that,  seems  vague,  undefined,  and  essential- 
ly unsatisfying,  in  its  treatment  of  all  that 
mystic  domain  which  lies  before  us,  in  com- 
parison with  the  exact  descriptions  which 
Romanism  presents. 

This  affirms  that  those  who  die  after  bap- 
tism— really  regenerate,  and  having  com- 
mitted no  unforgiven  and  mortal  sin,  yet 
confessedly  imperfect  in  action  and  in  vir- 
tue— are  to  undergo,  in  the  future  state, 
certain  temporal  pains,  by  which  they  are  to 
be  purified,  and  satisfaction  to  bo  rendered 
to  the  Divine  Justice ;  that  these  pains  may 
be  abridged  by  the  offering  of  prayers,  pen- 


ances, and  alms,  and  of  the  unbloody  sacri- 
fice, on  the  part  of  those  who  tarry  behind ; 
and  that  the  limiting  or  remitting  of  the 
pains  is  within  the  prerogative  of  the  au- 
thorities of  the  Church. 

So  friends  who  linger,  with  aching  hearts, 
on  this  side  of  the  grave,  have  power  still  to 
bless  their  dead.  Across  the  far  untrodden 
spaces  they  can  send  reliefs,  and  tidings  of 
joy,  to  those  who  have  vanished  from  their 
sight.  And,  in  return,  they  may  receive  real 
aids  and  blessings  from  the  dead.  Those 
now  sainted  and  beatified  can  intercede 
with  God  for  us,  and  will  do  this  if  we  in- 
voke them.  They  are  living,  conscious,  in 
the  presence  of  God,  in  enjoyment  of  the  be- 
atific vision,  yet  informed  of  what  we  need 
and  desire — perhaps  by  the  mind  of  God 
himself — and  are  fraternally  sympathetic 
with  us.  We  may  pay  them  homage:  not 
the  Latreia,  due  to  God  only,  or  the  Uper- 
douleia,  due  to  the  Virgin  Mother,  but  the 
Douleia,  proper  to  saints.  And  \ve  may  im- 
plore with  joyful  freedom  their  ready  as- 
sistance as  intercessors  for  us  with  the  Al- 
mighty. 

Angels,  too,  in  their  power  and  splendor, 
and  their  relative  sovereignty  over  nature 
and  life,  are  still  the  guardian  spirits  of 
men — of  the  least  aud  humblest,  to  whom 
has  come  God's  gift  through  Christ. 

Especially  the  Virgin  Mother  of  Christ 
may  be  asked  to  aid  us,  with  her  tender 
sympathy,  and  her  unbounded  power  with 
her  Son.  The  growth  of  reverence  for  her 
in  the  Roman  Church  shows  how  dear  and 
alluring  the  thought  of  her  is  to  tbe  minds 
of  mankind.  The  vision  of  her  seems  to  flash 
a  certain  tender  light  over  realms  that  were 
otherwise  so  high  as  to  be  dreadful.  First, 
her  perpetual  virginity  is  declared.  Then, 
she  is  formally  styled  aud  proclaimed  the 
Mother  of  God.  Then  temples  are  built,  aud 
prayers  are  arranged  to  be  offered  to  her, 
as  Queen  of  Heaven.  Then  her  immaculate 
conception,  without  stain  of  original  sin,  is 
declared  to  be  a  dogma  of  faith.  Now,  she 
is  undoubtedly  more  frequently  implored  in 
the  Roman  Communion  than  God  or  Christ. 

Women  and  children  are  especially  at- 
tracted— but  not  they  only,  the  strongest 
and  most  philosophic  are  attracted — by  the 
thought  of  a  Woman,  at  once  maiden  and 
mother,  the  spotless  and  illustrious  head  of 
her  sex,  so  near  the  eternal  throne  of  the 
universe,  while  full  of  gentlest  memories  and 
love. 

And  so  the  whole  mysterious  realm  be- 
yond the  grave — from  which  no  traveler 
returns  to  us,  the  gloom  and  glory  of  whoso 
shadows  and  lights  have  been  reflected  on 
thoughtful  minds  from  the  outset  of  histo- 
ry, but  the  vision  of  which  only  death  re- 
veals— seems  brought  nearer  the  earth,  and 
made  palpable  by  Romanism;  its  inhabit- 
ants to  be  declared;  their  relations  to  us 


454 


ROMANISM  AND  PROTESTANTISM. 


to  bo  revealed  as  mutual  ami  sympathet- 
ic ;  our  offices  for  them  and  theirs  for  us  to 
he  shown  surviving  the  dread  separation, 
aud  still  to  be  accomplished  across  the  vast 
and  dim  abysses.  And  however  we  may  dis- 
miss the  whole,  as  unauthorized  by  the  Lord 
aud  unwarranted  by  Scripture,  the  simple 
creation  of  man's  imagination,  as  -wholly 
ideal  as  a  fancy  concerning  the  civil  con- 
stitution of  republics  in  Sirius,  we  must  not 
forget  that  there  is  prodigious  attraction  in 
it  for  many  longing  and  sensitive  souls.  It 
seems  to  them  too  beautiful  in  itself,  aud  too 
congruous  with  their  wishes,  not  to  be  true. 

4.  Then,  further,  Romanism  claims  to  of- 
fer a  greater  security  of  salvation  than  oth- 
er systems  afford;  and  to  those  accustom- 
ed critically  and  conscientiously  to  examine 
their  inward  processes  of  feeling,  their  suc- 
cessive vanishing  states  of  mind,  and  who 
thus  come  to  suspect  the  reality  of  their  own 
virtue,  this  is  immediately  and  immensely 
attractive. 

For  feeling  seems  to  fly,  as  we  touch  it 
with  our  analysis,  almost  as  life  flits  and 
fleets  beneath  the  destructive  dissecting 
edge.  Spiritual  states  inevitably  disappear 
when  we  look  away  from  that  which  in- 
spires them,  and  search,  with  an  introverted 
scrutiny,  after  themselves.  Many  a  person 
of  a  sincere  piety  questions,  therefore,  if  he 
may  not  have  been  deceiving  himself  as  to 
the  realness  of  his  faith  and  repentance ;  if 
what  seemed  contrition  may  not  have  been 
an  unloving  fear  of  the  consequences  of  sin ; 
if  what  had  been  taken  for  Christian  faith 
may  not  have  been  an  assent  of  the  under- 
standing, with  no  affectionate  devoutness  of 
spirit  to  make  it  ATital. 

He  questions  this  all  the  more  as  his  rev- 
erence for  God  becomes  more  supreme,  and 
his  personal  humility  becomes  more  com- 
plete. He  questions  it  most  of  all  when  he 
fronts,  face  to  face,  the  tremendous  facts  of 
Death,  Judgment,  and  the  long  Hereafter. 
Becauee  a  mistake  must  have  such  conse- 
quences, he  is  tremulously  ready  to  suspect 
its  existence.  The  fact  that  he  suspects  it 
seems  to  furnish  fresh  evidence  that  he  has 
made  it;  and  the  passage  is  no  long  one 
from  such  a  doubt  to  remorseful  despond- 
ency. 

Now,  iu  such  a  mood  of  apprehensive  self- 
questioning,  Romanism  appeals  to  him  with 
a  prodigious  force  of  invitation.  For,  what- 
ever the  fact  may  prove  to  be  when  its  of- 
fers are  analyzed,  it  seems  to  propose  certain 
definite  and  practicable  conditions  of  salva- 
tion, which  appear  as  unmistakable  as  the 
ladder  against  a  burning  house,  or  the  life- 
boat at  sea. 

Baptism,  confirmation,  the  eucharist,  con- 
fession, penance,  obedience  to  the  Church, 
absolution  by  the  priest,  in  whom  authority 
to  pronounce  it  has  been  vested  by  God,  and 
whose  declaration  is  ratified  in  heaven,  the 


final  anointing,  and  then,  if  any  thing  still 
remain  of  unfulfilled  obligation,  a  full  and 
eternal  satisfaction  to  God  by  temporary 
pains  beyond  this  life  —  this  is  the  plan 
which  it  proposes,  and  on  which  it  otters 
the  assurance  of  heaven. 

It  will  certainly  turn  out  that  all  this 
presupposes  certain  spiritual  states  iu  him 
who  adopts  it,  without  which  it  becomes 
confessedly  ineffectual,  and  that  the  same 
doubts  which  perplexed  him  before  may, 
therefore,  here  as  easily  arise ;  and  it  also 
will  appear  that  an  intention  of  the  priest 
is  needful  to  the  efficacy  of  every  sacra- 
ment, of  which  intention  the  man  who  re- 
ceives this  can  never  have  certain  and  in- 
fallible proof;  while  it  seems  to  us  as  plain 
as  the  stars  that  the  whole  scheme  is  want- 
ing in  Scriptural  authority ;  that  it  is  not 
implied  in  the  words  of  the  Master,  nor  in 
any  teaching  of  his  apostles ;  that  it  tends 
to  give  men  a  false  security,  aud  to  substi- 
tute an  exact  ecclesiastical  obedience  for 
the  faith  and  love  which  alone  can  spirit- 
ually unite  men  to  God.  But,  after  all,  it  is 
very  alluring,  especially,  as  I  said,  to  a  mind 
introspective,  self -distrustful,  conscious  of 
sin,  and  feeling  the  doom  of  immortality 
upon  it. 

When  such  a  one  draws  near  the  point  of 
final  passage  to  realms  unchanging  and  eter- 
nal ;  when  he  thinks  of  the  Eye  which  search- 
es every  thought  and  wish,  and  traces  the 
secret  windings  of  desire ;  when  he  feels  on 
his  prophetic  soul  the  heat  and  splendor  of 
the  great  White  Throne — to  hear  God's  voice, 
through  human  lips,  giving  him  quittance 
and  final  absolution,  as  Jesus  to  the  loving 
woman,  it  is  a  thing  which  any  one  might 
desire  if  he  could  persuade  himself  that  God 
had  committed  an  authority  so  awful,  an  of- 
fice so  sovereign,  to  human  hands ! 

5.  And  still  further,  Romanism  seems  to 
many  to  offer  them  a  higher  sanctity  of  spir- 
it and  life  than  Protestantism  does;  a  sanc- 
tity, indeed,  which  is  wholly  peculiar  to  it, 
and  for  which  Protestantism,  under  what- 
ever name  or  form,  presents  no  equivalent. 
So  it  attracts  some  whom  it  is  a  grief  to  us 
to  lose. 

They  want  a  life  set  apart  from  earthly 
care  and  labor,  from  desire  and  pleasure, 
from  all  the  fascinations  and  entanglements 
of  the  world;  a  life  devoted  to  religious 
meditation,  and  to  works  of  constant  benef- 
icence and  piety ;  a  life  in  sympathy  with 
that  of  ancient  martyrs  and  confessors,  of 
Agnes  and  Perpetua,  of  Basil  and  Benedict, 
and  Francis  of  Assisi,  and  of  princes  who 
left  their  crowns  for  Christ ;  a  life  that  is 
hid  with  Christ  in  God. 

They  long  for  this.  Because  the  spiritual 
nature  in  them  is  tender  and  deep,  and  has 
been  moved  by  a  mighty  impulse,  it  yearns 
with  inexpressible  desire  for  fellowship  with 
the  Lord,  and  for  the  utmost  possible  attain- 


STORES:  THE  APPEAL  OF  ROMANISM  TO  EDUCATED  PROTESTANTS.   455 


ment  in  the  Divine  virtue.  This  is,  as  it 
ought  to  be,  the  supreme  and  inspiring  pas- 
sion of  their  souls,  for  which  they  are  ready 
to  sacrifice  all. 

All  the  more  they  desire  it  as  life  around 
them  is  hurried  and  hot,  full  of  ambition, 
lust,  and  greed.  Amidst  the  rush  and  glare 
of  pleasure,  amidst  the  incessant  roar  of 
trade,  this  desire,  in  finer  minds,  becomes 
only  the  more  intense  and  imperative.  It 
has  the  energy  of  a  recoil  from  that  which 
offends,  as  well  as  the  strength  of  a  personal 
aspiration.  It  operates  at  length  like  a  law 
of  their  being ;  no  more  to  be  resisted  than 
that  which  quickens  the  mother's  love,  or 
makes  self -accusation  follow  a  conscious 
and  deliberate  sin.  "My  soul  be  with  the 
saints,"  they  say.  The  inmost,  incessant 
thirst  of  their  hearts  is  for  a  celestial  life  on 
earth. 

And  Romanism  seems  to  offer  them  sat- 
isfaction. The  sacraments  are  declared  to 
communicate,  and  continually  afterward  to 
renew  in  the  heart,  this  inner  sanctity. 
They  invest  the  whole  progress  of  life  on 
earth,  and  meet  and  sanctify  all  its  changes. 

Manuals  of  devotion,  wonderfully  rich, 
tender,  and  varied,  are  offered  to  the  disci- 
ple, to  assist  him  to  gain,  and  then  to  main- 
tain, the  white  chastity  and  the  radiant 
charity  of  this  divine  life. 

The  confessional  offers  its  ear,  never  shut, 
into  which  the  story  of  every  impulse  of 
doubt  or  passion  may  be  instantly  breathed, 
and  behind  which  is  a  mind  declared  to  bo 
instructed  of  God  to  clear  the  doubt  and 
quench  the  passion. 

Calvaries  are  constructed  in  Roman  Cath- 
olic countries,  with  successive  stations  rep- 
resenting the  stages  of  the  way  to  the  cross, 
at  each  of  which  men  may  bow  and  pray,  as 
with  tender  love  and  shuddering  awe  they 
climb  toward  the  crucifix.  And  convents 
and  monasteries  open  to  men  and  women 
alike  their  hospitable  doors,  outside  which 
all  cares  and  possessions  may  bo  left,  where 
homes  for  life  are  furnished  to  the  devout, 
and  within  which  the  world's  clamor  and 
glitter  are  unheard  and  unseen. 

To  the  active  and  energetic,  for  whom  rest 
would  be  weariness,  the  most  arduous  and 
dangerous  missions  are  assigned ;  to  pierce 
the  forest  and  the  jungle,  and  spend  their 
years  among  savage  tribes ;  to  face  the  bit- 
ing arctic  cold,  and  the  blazing  fierceness  of 
tropic  heat ;  to  front  the  pestilence,  shadow- 
ing at  once  the  city  and  the  sea  with  its 
dark  wings. 

Now  I  need  not  tell  yon  how  fascinating 
is  all  this — to  women  of  line  and  sensitive 
natures,  to  whom  the  common  life  of  society 
seems  demoralized  drudgery ;  to  men  of  the 
heroic  mould,  to  whom  a  supremo  self-sacri- 
fice is  attractive,  and  who  count  a  life-long 
service  to  God  the  only  royal  good  on  earth. 
Protestantism  seems  to  them,  in  comparison 


with  this,  gross,  secular,  essentially  earthly, 
in  its  spirit  and  aims.  When  it  bids  them 
consecrate  their  business  to  God,  and  doing 
it  in  his  fear,  to  do  it  all  to  his  glory,  it  seems 
to  them  illicitly  trying  to  unite  God  and 
Mammon.  When  it  insists  on  the  household 
life  as  the  purest  and  noblest  for  both  men 
and  women,  it  seems  to  them  Epicurean  in 
spirit,  hazarding  the  attempt  to  find  a  flow- 
ery path  to  the  paradise  which  can  only  be 
reached  over  thorny  roughnesses,  and  entered 
through  sorest  wrestle  and  pain. 

Protestant  missions  are  to  them  too  luxu- 
rious ;  our  labors  for  the  poor  appear  dainty 
and  haughty.  And  when  an  order  of  Prot- 
estant devotees  is  anywhere  established,  they 
feel  instinctively  that  that  is  play,  while 
they  are  in  earnest;  that  only  an  absolute 
self-abnegation,  guarded  by  irreversible 
vows,  can  match  the  height  of  their  desire. 
So  they  welcome  the  severer  tasks,  the  strict- 
er limitations,  the  more  austere  and  exact- 
ing discipline  which  Romanism  offers,  and 
seek  in  its  services  the  life  of  God. 

They  may  be  disappointed,  with  a  blast- 
ing surprise  that  shall  blacken  and  wreck 
their  whole  subsequent  life. 

One  of  the  most  impressive  pictures  which 
the  recent  traveler  sees  in  Europe  is  by  the 
fertile  French  Dore",  exhibited  last  year  in 
London,  representing  a  young  monk,  who 
has  just  learned  how  greedy  and  gross  his 
associates  are,  and  on  whose  sad  and  sensi- 
tive face,  as  his  missal  drops  in  his  languid 
hands,  is  breaking  forth  the  passionate  sense 
of  disappointment,  detestation,  of  inner  re- 
pugnance, and  an  utter  despair.  The  power 
of  the  picture  is  in  its  reflection  of  an  ex- 
perience not  unfamiliar. 

Blanco  White,  who  knew  intimately  the 
convents  of  Spain,  and  whose  veracity  has 
never  been  questioned,  speaks  of  those  con- 
vents in  one  of  his  letters  as  "  those  Europe- 
an jungles,  where  lurks  every  thing  that  is 
hideous  and  venomous."  And  the  key  to 
his  final  entire  skepticism,  who  began  public 
life  as  a  devout  priest,  is  found  by  those 
who  know  most  of  his  career  in  that  fierce 
sentence. 

But  whatever  the  final  experience  may 
be,  the  offer  which  Romanism  makes  to  these 
men  is  great  and  shining ;  and  it  need  ex- 
cite no  wonder  in  us  that  they  should  find 
it  grandly  attractive. 

6.  Then,  with  all  these  forces  of  attrac- 
tion, the  Roman  Catholic  Church  is  a  vast, 
venerable,  historic  organization,  of  une- 
qualed  age,  of  immense  extent,  whose  his- 
tory has,  in  some  of  its  aspects,  been  a  grand 
one ;  whose  history  appears  to  those  whom 
it  attracts  the  one  sublimest  thing  on  earth 
— inexplicable,  except  upon  the  hypothesis 
of  its  Divine  origin. 

It  is  to  them  the  Church  of  the  Apostles ; 
which  saw  the  splendor  of  the  Ascension, 
which  heard  Peter  and  John  at  Jerusalem, 


456 


ROMANISM  AND  PROTESTANTISM. 


Paul  afterward  at  Corinth  and  at  Rome, 
and  which  directly  conveys  to  us  the  dcpoai- 
ttim  of  faith  received  from  them. 

It  is  to  them  the  Church  of  the  Cata- 
combs; where  the  new  Christian  kingdom 
was  working  underground,  in  garments  of 
sackcloth,  along  galleries  of  rock,  to  over- 
throw and  replace  the  armed  empire  above. 

It  is  the  Church  of  the  Fathers,  and  the 
canonized  Doctors,  to  whose  learning  and 
eloquence,  and  spiritual  insight,  the  world 
is  debtor ;  of  Clement  and  Polycarp,  of  Jus- 
tin Martyr  and  Hippolytus,  of  Ambrose, 
Athanasius,  and  him  of  the  flaming  Nuuiidi- 
an  heart. 

It  is  the  Church  of  the  great  Councils ; 
before  which  were  lowered  imperial  stand- 
ards, to  whose  decisions  faction  bowed,  and 
whose  creeds  and  decrees  have  governed 
and  assimilated  the  mind  of  Christendom. 

It  is  the  Church  of  the  Middle  Ages ;  of 
Anselm,  Bernard,  and  Peter  the  Hermit ;  the 
Church  which  civilized  barbarians,  liberated 
slaves,  organized  crusades,  built  cathedrals, 
established  libraries,  founded  universities ; 
which  preserved  learning,  laws,  and  arts, 
amidst  the  shock  of  terrific  forces,  iu.  what 
an  ancient  Gallican  sacramentary  hardly 
exaggerated  when  it  called  it  "  the  crash  of 
a  falling  world ;"  the  Church  which  taught 
the  emerging  peoples  subjection  to  authori- 
ty, while  it  set  sharp  bounds  to  the  rapaci- 
ty of  barons,  and  admonished  and  ruled  the 
haughtiest  kings ;  the  Church  which  has 
since  sent  forth  its  heroic  and  conquering 
teachers  to  the  ends  of  the  earth,  "Ad  majo- 
rem  Dei  gloriam." 

And,  ancient  as  it  is,  this  powerful  Church 
appears  to  them  to-day  the  only  power  which 
nothing  in  fact  centrally  disturbs ;  the  only 
one  which  can  defy  infidelity,  rule  the  licen- 
tious wills  of  men,  subdue  aud  inspire  the 
daring  and  refractory  human  intellect,  en- 
noble and  rectify  human  society;  the  only 
one  which  science  can  not  shake,  nor  revo- 
lution dethrone,  nor  the  fiercest  antagonism 
of  secular  interests  override  and  destroy. 

The  supremacy  of  the  spiritual  order  in 
the  world  appears  to  them  guaranteed  by  it, 
and  by  it  alone.  Secure  itself,  from  all  as- 
sault, it  judges  the  world. 

To  us,  who  look  on  the  same  long  records 
from  a  wholly  different  point  of  view,  it 
seems  as  certain  as  any  thing  in  experience 
that  much  of  this  is  unhistorical,  is  purely 
fanciful ;  that  it  has  been  the  Gospel,  as  a 
spiritual  force,  working  apart  from  and  oft- 
en directly  against  the  Hierarchy,  which 
has  done  the  best  part  of  this  ;  that  whoso- 
ever now  preaches  that  Gospel,  with  fervent 
faith,  is  the  true  successor  of  all  the  saints  ; 
and  that  the  history  of  the  Roman  corpora- 
tion, which  only  came  to  its  full  develop- 
ment under  Leo  and  the  Gregories,  has  been 
crowded  with  bigotry,  pride,  persecution ; 
with  prelatical  tyranny,  priestly  license,  and 


'  popular  degradation  ;  with  carnivals  of  fol- 
ly, aud  carnivals  of  crime ;  has  been  black- 
ened with  the  names  of  inquisitors  like  Tor- 
quemada ;  has  been  stained,  so  that  hyssop 
can  not  purge  it,  by  prelates  and  pontiffs 
like  the  Borgias  and  the  Medicis. 

This  is  our  conception  of  it.  But  to  those 
minds  whose  different  attitude  toward  it  I 
am  trying  to  present,  the  opposite  aspect  is 
the  one  which  it  offers ;  aud  ofteu  they  are 
profoundly  impressed  by  it.  They  seem  to 
themselves  ennobled  by  partaking  in  a  his- 
tory which  looks  so  sacred  and  august.  They 
feel  themselves  confederate  with  the  men, 
God's  champions  in  the  world,  whose  ma- 
jestic achievements  amaze  and  delight  them. 
They  are  strengthened  for  swifter  aud  grand- 
er work  by  all  the  heroic  wisdom  and  devo- 
tion to  which  the  Church  appears  to  them 
heir.  A  baptism  of  power  falls  on  them 
from  the  past,  which  is  animating  and  pre- 
cious beyond  all  words.  And  this  is  an  ap- 
peal which  we  must  not  overlook,  if  we  would 
master  the  secret  of  their  zeal. 

7.  Still  further,  too,  we  must  not  forget 
that  Romanism  powerfully  appeals  to  these 
men  by  its  cordial  relations  with  all  the 
fine  arts ;  with  music,  painting,  sculpture, 
architecture  ;  with  whatever  impresses  and 
most  delights  the  senses  and  the  taste. 

Its  cathedrals  are  the  wonders  of  the 
world :  mountains  of  rock-work  set  to  mu- 
sic. 

Its  elaborate,  opulent,  mighty  masses 
make  the  common  hymn-tunes  of  Protest- 
antism sound  almost  like  the  twitter  of 
sparrows,  amidst  the  alternate  triumph  and 
wail  of  commingling  winds. 

'  Its  ritual  is  splendid,  scenic,  impressive, 
to  the  ultimate  degree ;  and  all  is  exquisite- 
ly pervaded  and  modulated  by  the  doctrine 
which  underlies  it,  every  gesture,  every  pos- 
ture, of  the  officiating  priest,  aud  every  vest- 
ment which  he  wears,  being  full  of  signifi- 
cance. 

Its  liturgical  forms  have  not  merely  been 
arranged  by  studious  men,  with  apt  and 
practiced  gifts  for  the  office.  They  have 
some  of  them  been  born  of  those  immense 
crises  in  personal  or  in  public  experience 
when  intensity  of  feeling,  surpassing  all  po- 
etic impulse,  infused  spiritual  fire  into  the 
sentences.  Not  only  reminiscences  are  in 
them,  therefore,  of  perils  passed  and  victo- 
ries achieved;  their  present  utterance  is 
that  of  the  faith  which  soared  upward  from 
the  flame,  or  looked  from  the  damp  darkness 
of  dungeons  and  beheld  above  the  heavens 
opened.  Aud  architecture  can  not  be  too 
majestic  to  echo  such  voices.  The  tone- 
speech  of  music,  in  its  most  tender  or  jubi- 
lant strains,  becomes  their  meek  and  glad 
!  handmaid. 

Nothing,  therefore,  is  too  ornate  or  mag- 
nificent to  be  incorporated  in  the  superb 
ceremonial  of  this  immense  organism.  It 


STOERS :  THE  APPEAL  OF  ROMANISM  TO  EDUCATED  PROTESTANTS.   457 


marches,  as  it  fights,  an  army  with  baimers. 
It  would  copy,  if  it  could,  the  very  ceremo- 
nial of  the  Temple  above.  The  king's  daugh- 
ter is  all  glorious  within,  and  her  raiment 
must  be  of  wrought  gold. 

To  one  who  wants  his  whole  aesthetic  na- 
ture gratified  and  educated  in  his  worship, 
while  it  shall  be  also  and  always  subordi- 
nated to  spiritual  attainment — who  accepts 
this  nature  as  from  God,  and  feels  its  thrill- 
ing and  sweet  impulsions  demanding  a  law- 
ful and  large  domain — there  is  here  a  con- 
stant and  vast  attraction.  Other,  more  strict- 
ly intellectual  services,  appear  to  him  barren 
and  frigid  in  comparison.  He  seems  to  him- 
self to  be  honoring  God  with  a  worthier  wor- 
ship, while  gaining  for  himself  a  peculiar 
delight,  by  making  the  sanctuary  a  poem  in 
stone,  and  then  bringing  into  it  the  purple 
and  the  gold,  the  veils  of  silk,  and  fragrant 
incense,  by  hanging  it  with  pictures,  and 
paneling  its  walls  with  significant  marbles. 
It  is  not  the  understanding  alone,  or  the 
moral  nature,  which  that  worship  is  de- 
signed to  enlist.  The  imagination  is  to  be 
reached  by  it,  and  profoundly  stimulated. 
The  most  secret  sources  of  feeling  are  to 
be  searched ;  the  most  delicate  and  retiring 
sympathies.  The  whole  soul  is  to  be  suf- 
fused with  its  subtile  influence,  as  the  atmos- 
phere of  the  church  is  struck  through  with 
golden  or  crimson  lights,  till  holy  memories 
arise  within  one ;  till  he  is  wrapped  in  sweet 
ecstasy  of  reveries ;  till  he  is  conscious  of 
undefined  and  transporting  expectations,  and 
almost  waits  to  hear  around,  upon  the  charm- 
ed and  perfumed  air,  the  rustle  of  angelic 
plumes. 

The  apostles  worshiped  well  and  truly, 
not  at  all  in  this  way.  The  Saviour  made 
no  suggestion  of  this  to  the  woman  of  Sa- 
maria, when  he  taught  her  how  to  offer 
her  devotions.  Our  fathers  found  delight 
in  praise,  and  were  heard  in  their  prayer, 
though  offering  it  in  rudest  forms,  under 
bleakest  skies,  because  incense  stifled  them, 
and  the  gorgeous  vestments  seemed  to  them 
dipped  in  the  blood  of  the  saints.  We  do 
not  maintain  the  passion  of  their  reaction  ; 
but  we,  too,  are  afraid  of  that  sensuous  pleas- 
ure which  may  be  easily  confounded  with 
worship,  while  wholly  dissimilar ;  which 
may  leave  the  soul  intoxicate  with  joy, 
while  utterly  wanting  in  the  devout  love 
which  links  to  God,  and  in  the  faith  which 
conquers  death. 

But  the  convert  to  Romanism  delights 
himself  in  this  service,  so  rich  and  tender, 
so  various  and  so  ancient,  with  a  passionate 
fondness ;  while  the  occasional  attempts  of 
ambitious  High-churchmen  to  emulate  that 
which  the  blending  genius  of  many  centu- 
ries and  lands  has  produced  are  to  him  sim- 
ply ludicrous;  like  building  another  equal 
St.  Peter's  of  scantling  and  boards,  or  repro- 
ducing Warwick  Castle  in  cake  anil  sugar. 


8.  And,  finally,  let  us  not  forget  that  Ro- 
manism offers  to  these  men  what  they  ac- 
cept as  the  Church  of  the  Future ;  through 
which,  continuing  to  the  end  of  time,  and 
only  growing  mightier  with  age,  the  per- 
fect society  shall  be  realized  on  earth.  We 
have  not  reached  the  hiding  of  its  power  till 
we  recognize  this. 

It  presents  itself  as  ancient,  but  as  still 
in  the  fullness  of  unworn  strength ;  as  hav- 
ing the  compactness,  the  hardihood,  the  con- 
fidence, which  come  with  a  long  and  vast  ex- 
perience, but  as  combining  with  this  the  ar- 
dor of  its  most  fervent  and  hopeful  youth. 

It  seems  conservative,  beyond  all  other 
human  societies;  since  its  government  is, 
and  must  always  continue,  in  the  hands  of 
a  trained  and  practiced  class,  shrewd,  vig- 
ilant, closely  combined,  everywhere  repre- 
sented. It  seems  communistic,  beyond  the 
dream  of  any  Socialist;  since  all  baptized 
persons  are  made  equally  its  members,  and 
if  continuing  subject  to  the  Church  are  one, 
eternally,  in  Christ  Jesus. 

It  claims  to  be  eminently  the  Church  for 
the  rich;  whose  utmost  treasures  can  not 
rival  its  revenues,  whose  titles  and  pedi- 
grees it  immensely  surpasses,  and  whose 
palaces  dwindle  before  its  cathedrals. 

It  claims,  more  emphatically,  to  be  the 
Church  for  the  poor;  for  whom  its  build- 
ings and  many  services  are  always  open,  on 
whose  behalf  it  builds  great  hospitals,  to 
whom  it  preaches  in  historic  cathedrals,  like 
Notre  Dame  in  Paris  or  the  Duomo  at  Milan, 
as  well  as  in  the  humblest  chapels,  and  be- 
fore whom  it  displays  the  most  exquisite 
splendors  of  its  magnificent  ritual. 

Compare  its  churches  with  ours,  open  only 
on  Sunday,  and  then  occupied  chiefly  by  the 
cultured  and  the  prosperous,  and  ours  look 
partial,  exclusive,  in  the  contrast ;  careless 
of  those  for  whom  the  Lord  died,  and  in 
whom  he  now  presents  himself  to  us. 

It  is  limited  to  no  nation,  this  ever-ex- 
pandiug,  exploring  Church ;  but  is  equally 
at  home  011  every  coast,  and  under  every 
form  of  government.  It  grasps  the  most 
barbarous,  while  it  trains  the  most  civil- 
ized. It  has  an  office  for  every  power,  and 
has  a  lure  for  every  desire.  Its  plans  ex- 
tend to  all  the  lands,  and  anticipate  in  their 
reach  the  coming  generations.  And  that 
perennial  energy  of  it  which  is  shown  on 
the  one  hand  in  its  doctrinal  progress  from 
dogma  to  dogma,  till  now  it  has  concentrated 
such  transcendent  authority  in  the  person 
of  the  Popo,  on  the  other  hand  is  shown  in 
the  missionary  work  Avhich,  radiating  from 
Some,  is  ever  proceeding,  with  uncounted 
expenditure  of  money  and  of  life,  with  un- 
wearied patience,  aud  an  unsurpassed  skill, 
on  every  shore  where  life  is  found. 

If  any  institution  seems  likely  to  endure, 
then,  by  vejason  of  its  inherent  strength,  and 
in  the  absence  of  Divine  interventions,  this 


458 


ROMANISM  AND  PROTESTANTISM. 


is  the  one.  To  those  who  see  in  it  the  king- 
dom of  God,  made  visible  in  the  world,  and 
filled  with  his  eternal  force,  nothing  else 
which  is  future  secins  as  certain  as  this.  It 
saw  the  downfall  of  the  empire  of  Rome. 
Unchanged  itself,  it  has  watched  the  change, 
and  seen  the  end,  of  kingdoms  and  thrones 
from  that  day  to  this.  They  expect  it  to 
see  the  end  of  those  which  now  look  stately 
and  strong  on  earth,  and  to  have  the  per- 
petuity which  can  belong  to  nothing  else 
upon  this  whirling,  inconstant  planet. 

It  is  to  them  still  in  the  beginning  of  its 
years.  They  anticipate  the  time  when  it 
shall  have  reconquered  Germany  and  En- 
gland, shall  have  conquered  this  country, 
shall  have  reconciled  to  itself  the  severed 
and  feebler  Eastern  Churches,  shall  have  set 
the  cross  above  the  crescent,  shall  have  bap- 
tized Buddhist  and  Brahmin  in  its  faith, 
shall  have  come  to  the  full  inheritance  of 
the  earth.  And  then  they  expect  the  per- 
fect society,  through  the  wisdom,  justice,  and 
spiritual  sanctity,  which  it  will  everywhere 
propagate  and  maintain. 

They  glory  in  being  permitted  to  reach 
forward,  through  this  expanding,  eliduring 
organization,  to  mould  the  distant  future 
of  the  world;  not  limiting  themselves  to  a 
fugitive  influence,  which  shall  have  passed 
when  they  are  buried,  but  projecting  their 
influence  directly  and  sensibly  into  the  fu- 
ture, and  with  the  mightiest  instrument  of 
time  working  for  the  good  of  the  latest  gen- 
erations. 

In  the  ultimate  triumph  of  this  Church  of 
their  devotion  they  expect  the  Millennium ; 
and  in  the  peaceful  glories  of  that  they  look, 
each  one,  to  have  some  share.  It  is  a  great 
anticipation.  We  must  not  wonder  if  it 
grapples  their  hearts  as  with  hooks  of  steel. 

So  it  is,  then,  Fathers  and  Brethren,  as  I 
conceive  it,  and  so  far  as  the  time  allows  me 
to  state  it,  that  Romanism  appeals  to  edu- 
cated Protestants ;  as  offering  them  an  au- 
thoritative teacher,  always  present,  in  which 
it  claims  that  the  mind  of  God  resides  and 
is  revealed ;  as  presenting  what  it  affirms  to 
be  a  solid,  consistent,  and  satisfying  theolo- 
gy; as  claiming  to  bring  the  spiritual  world 
more  clearly  aud  closely  to  their  minds,  and 
to  show  their  relations  to  it  more  intimate ; 
as  professing  to  give  them  a  security  of  sal- 
vation unattainable  elsewhere;  as  offering 
them  what  it  declares  the  only  true  sancti- 
ty of  spirit  and  life ;  as  showing  a  long  and 
venerable  history ;  as  welcoming  and  cher- 
ishing all  the  fine  arts,  and  making  these  its 
constant  helpers;  as  promising  to  rebuild 
and  purify  society,  and  at  last  to  possess 
and  regenerate  the  earth. 

To  those  who  are  attracted  by  it,  it  seems 
to  have  all  which  other  systems  possess  or 
claim,  and  to  add  vital  elements  which  oth- 
ers lack,  supplying  their  imperfections,  sur- 


passing their  power,  and  meeting  wants 
which  they  can  neither  interpret  nor  an- 
swer. 

It  influences  men  by  its  immense  mass, 
without  their  conscious  discrimination  of  its 
separate  attractions.  Its  bulk  is  so  gigantic, 
its  energy  so  incessant,  that  it  seems  to  them 
to  verify  its  claims  without  other  argument, 
and  to  make  a  private  judgment  against  it 
the  most  rash  and  reckless  of  spiritual  acts. 
So  it  draws  them  to  it  with  a  moral  momen- 
tum Avhich  increases  as  they  approach;  with 
a  force  almost  like  that  of  the  physical  suc- 
tion of  a  current  or  a  whirlpool.  Once  start- 
ed on  their  course  to  it,  opposing  argument 
becomes  nearly  powerless.  The  pull  of  this 
immense  and  consummate  system  is  so  stren- 
uous aud  enveloping  that  theological,  philo- 
sophical, historical  objections  are  evaded  or 
overleaped  by  the  yielding  mind,  as  are  rocks 
in  a  rapid  by  rushing  timbers. 

Where  it  has  once  become  firmly  estab- 
lished it  impregnates  every  thing  with  its 
mysterious  and  penetrant  influence.  It  be- 
comes a  pervading  spiritual  presence;  which 
has  its  voices  not  only  in  the  pulpit  or  in 
books  of  devotion,  but  in  homes,  and  schools, 
and  all  places  of  concourse ;  which  touches 
life  at  every  point  where  that  is  sensitive 
and  responsive;  which  is  associated  with 
ancestral  memories  and  renown,  and  more 
vitally  associated  with  the  hopes  of  the  fu- 
ture. It  gives  stability  to  rank,  yet  makes 
the  humblest  at  home  amidst  its  more  than 
royal  pageants.  It  invites  the  scholar  to  a 
happy  seclusion,  yet  smites  the  most  labori- 
ous life  with  a  gleam  from  the  supernatural. 
It  paints  the  story  of  Christ  on  windows, 
and  carves  it  in  lordly  and  delicate  marbles, 
for  the  eager  and  wondering  eyes  of  child- 
hood, and  for  the  fading  sight  of  age.  It 
occupies  itself  with  imperial  cares,  yet  con- 
nects itself  intimately  with  the  deepest  as- 
pirations which  move  the  soul,  and  with  its 
longing  love  for  the  dead.  It  is  like  dis- 
placing the  atmosphere  to  remove  it.  Re- 
bellion against  it  seems  to  dislocate  the 
frame  of  society  itself.  Only  a  tremendous 
moral  reaction,  inspired  and  sustained  by 
forces  which  are  in  their  nature  incompress- 
ible, and  which  have  been  gathering  through 
successive  generations,  can  break  its  hold  on 
a  nation  which  once  it  has  firmly  grasped. 

It  is  still  too  recent  and  too  limited  with 
us  to  have  such  a  general  sweep  of  power. 
But  it  is  working,  with  unwearied  resolu- 
tion, to  make  itself  supreme  among  us.  Its 
very  strangeness  gives  it  prominence  in  our 
American  or  English  society ;  as  a  palm-tree 
attracts  more  attention  than  an  oak.  It 
brings  forces  that  have  been  disciplined  for 
a  thousand  years  to  act  on  our  plastic  mod- 
ern life;  and  converts  to  it  may  be  expected 
from  many  quarters. 

Some  have  held  its  doctrine  before,  in  the 
feebler,  more  fanciful,  and  more  fragmentary 


STORES :  THE  APPEAL  OF  ROMANISM  TO  EDUCATED  PROTESTANTS.   459 


form  in  which  that  is  avowed  by  a  section, 
for  example,  of  the  Augelican  communion, 
in  England  and  here.  Their  logical  sense 
must  carry  them  to  its  conclusions,  if  log- 
ical sense  has  been  able  to  maintain  itself 
through  the  enfeebling  prettiness  of  their 
previous  career. 

Some,  holding  the  evangelical  doctrine 
of  the  Divinity  of  our  Lord,  and  the  pres- 
ent operation  of  the  Holy  Ghost,  find  here 
what  seems  to  them  the  necessary  comple- 
ment, and  the  justifying  reason,  of  these 
transcendent  disclosures ;  the  only  exact 
and  final  antithesis  to  Sociniauism,  or  even 
to  atheism.  Some  are  drawn  to  it  by  the 
fervor  of  feeling,  the  energy  of  pathetic  and 
admonishing  eloquence,  which  mark  the  ser- 
mons of  the  Paulists,  and  of  others  who,  like 
them,  appear  from  their  retreats  to  stir  men's 
hearts  as  messengers  from  God.  Some  sim- 
ply and  gladly  react  into  it  from  a  rest- 
less, sad,  and  weary  skepticism.  But  all  are 
greatly  in  earnest  when  they  go.  They 
are  true  devotees,  and  they  rarely  return. 
They  are  usually  Ultramontanists  afterward. 
There  is  nothing  languid,  moderate,  tepid, 
in  their  conviction  or  their  feeling.  They 
are  resolute,  enthusiastic,  \vith  a  fire  of  zeal 
which  works  alike  in  brain  and  heart.  And 
they  have  a  tone  of  assurance  in  their  words, 
and  of  certainty  of  victory.  Bellarmine  is 
their  favorite  theologian.  De  Maistre  is 
widely  popular  with  them.  Hyacinthe  and 
Dolliuger  are  "  fallen  angels." 

They  had  no  trouble  with  the  dogma  of 
Papal  Infallibility.  It  was  desired  and  wel- 
comed by  them,  as  articulating  what  had 
been  latent  for  centuries  in  the  unvoiced 
consciousness  of  the  Church,  and  as  bring- 
ing the  whole  system  to  its  legitimate  and 
prophesied  climax.  That  Pope  Honorius 
had  been  formally  condemned  by  the  Sixth 
Council,  his  dogmatic  writings  burned  as 
heretical,  and  his  name  anathematized  and 
stricken  from  the  liturgy,  was  not  even  a 
hindrance  to  the  eagerness  of  their  faith. 

They  make  great  sacrifices  for  their  con- 
victions, and  do  it  joyfully.  Indeed,  the 
sacrifice. becomes  to  them  a  fresh  motive,  an 
argument  for  the  system  which  demands  it. 
For,  according  to  the  cross  shall  bo  the 
crown,  and  they  who  have  come  out  of  great 
tribulation  shall  find  their  robes  of  a  more 
lustrous  white.  Before  the  intensity  of  their 
aspiration  the  ties  of  friendship,  the  strong- 
est bonds  of  earthly  relationship,  if  tending 
to  withhold  them  from  the  Church  of  their 
desire,  yield  and  are  severed  as  flaxen  fibres 
in  the  flame.  For  they  regard  the  system 
which  they  accept,  not  only  as  essential  to 
the  future  of  mankind,  to  the  well-being  of 
persons,  to  the  safety  and  glory  of  peoples 
and  states;  they  regard  it  as  alone  Divine 
in  its  nature,  overwhelming  in  its  authori- 
ty, whose  touch  should  properly  shatter  and 
consume  whatever  opposes  it.  Even  the 


temporary  toleration  of  a  different  faith  is 
to  them  an  unwelcome  necessity.  A  system 
of  popular  education  not  pervaded  by  Ro- 
man Catholic  influences,  is  ensnaring  and 
dangerous.  They  have  the  courage  of  their 
convictions ;  and  they  use  without  stint  the 
instruments  of  Protestantism  to  further  their 
system  and  to  make  it  universal. 

Even  present  failure  does  not  dishearten 
them.  That  they  expect;  and  they  can 
wait,  for  the  Church  lives  on.  The  ages 
are  hers ;  and  to  her  supreme  incorporeal 
life,  which  time  does  not  waste  nor  change 
impair,  the  final  victory  always  is  sure ! 

If  we  are  to  resist  the  vast  eifort  of  these 
men,  and  to  make  the  liberties  which  our 
fathers  bequeathed  to  us,  and  the  Gospel  in 
which  they  surely  trusted,  supreme  in  the 
laud,  we  must  at  least  know  more  than  we 
have  known  of  the  seductive  and  stimula- 
ting forces  which  operate  against  us,  and 
which  we  are  to  encounter.  To  treat  the 
cases  of  those  who  have  gone  from  us  to 
Rome  as  merely  sporadic — the  effect  of  acci- 
dental causes,  or  of  personal  eccentricity — 
one  might  as  well  treat  thus  the  power 
which  drives  the  Gulf  Stream  northward, 
or  which  hurls  the  monsoons  of  the  In- 
dian Ocean  back  and  forth  across  the  equa- 
tor. 

The  one  tremendous  fact  against  them  is 
that  they  can  not  alter,  and  can  not  obliter- 
ate, the  record  of  the  past.  Their  system 
has  been  abundantly  tried ;  and,  fascinating 
as  it  looks,  its  prodigal  promises  have  been 
proved  as  unreal  as  the  stately  pleasure- 
dome  of  Kubla  Khan  seen  by  Coleridge  in 
his  dream.  The  scheme  which  looks  so  se- 
ductive and  magnificent,  when  searched  by 
the  passionless  logic  of  events,  when  tested 
in  the  slow  and  solemn  ordeal  of  succeeding 
centuries,  in  Italy,  Spain,  Mexico,  the  West 
Indies,  turns  out  as  unreal  in  what  it  claims 
and  in  what  it  proposes,  as  the  island  of  No- 
where in  the  famous  romance  of  Sir  Thomas 
More. 

Good  men  have  lived  under  it,  multitudes 
of  them ;  saintly  women,  as  pure  and  devout 
as  ever  brightened  the  earth  with  their  pres- 
ence ;  and  such  live  in  it  now.  But  their 
goodness  is  wholly  and  constantly  parallel- 
ed outside  their  communion,  because  it  has 
come,  not  from  what  is  peculiar  to  that,  but 
from  the  quickening  light  of  God's  Word, 
and  the  transforming  energy  of  his  Spirit, 
which  we  as  freely  and  consciously  partake. 
In  that  which  is  peculiar  to  it  —  its  hie- 
rarchy, its  ritual,  its  efficacious  sacraments, 
its  indulgences  to  the  sinner,  its  vast  and 
complex  organization,  the  concentration  of 
all  authority  in  its  "Vice-God"  at  Rome — 
wherever  the  system  has  had  its  way  it  ha.s 
wrought  such  mischiefs  that  the  pen  hesi- 
tates to  recount  them. 

It  has  been  powerful  to  depress  peoples, 


460 


ROMANISM  AND  PROTESTANTISM. 


ineffectual  to  uplift  them.  It  has,  with  sure 
instinct,  discouraged  and  diminished  secular 
enterprise.  It  has  linked  itself  most  natu- 
rally with  the  harshest  and  most  tyrannous 
civil  institutions.  It  has  made  religion  a 
matter  of  rites,  and  a  matter  of  locality;  till 
the  same  man  became  a  devotee  in  the  chap- 
el, and  a  bandit  in  the  field.  It  has  accepted 
a  passionate  zeal  for  the  Church  in  place  of 
the  humility,  the  purity  and  charity,  which 
Christ  demanded ;  till  the  fierce  Dominic  be- 
comes one  of  its  saints ;  till  forged  decretals 
were  made  for  centuries  to  bulwark  its  pow- 
er; till  its  hottest  anathemas  have  been 
launched  at  those  who  complained  of  its 
abuses;  till  all  restraints  of  humanity  or 
morality  have  been  overleaped  in  many  ex- 
cesses to  which  its  adherents  have  been 
prompted  from  the  altar.  Its  most  devoted 
and  wide-spread  order,  the  Society  of  Jesus, 
in  spite  of  its  invincible  heroism  and  its  uu- 
equaled  services  to  the  popes,  by  the  mon- 
strous maxims  which  Pascal  exposed,  and 
the  practices  which  expressed  them,  so  kin- 
dled against  it  the  indignation  of  Christen- 
dom that  Clement  XIV.  was  compelled  to 
suppress  it  in  all  Christian  states. 

The  rage  of  this  system  against  whatever 
would  hinder  its  march — against  its  own  sub- 
jects when  they  have  conscientiously  paused 
in  their  submission  —  has  had  something 
transcendent  in  its  pitiless  malignity.  The 
fierceness  of  its  persecutions  has  been  pre- 
cisely proportioned  to  its  power.  The  hand 
which  looks  so  full  of  blessing  has  opened 
the  deep  of  oubliettes,  has  added  tortures  to 
the  rack,  has  framed  the  frightful  Iron  Maid- 
en, has  set  the  torch  to  martyr  fires.  The 
breath  which  should  have  filled  the  air  with 
sweeter  than  Sabaean  odors  has  blighted 
the  bloom  of  many  lives,  and  floated  curses 
over  the  nations  so  frequent  and  so  awful 
that  life  itself  was  \vithered  before  them,  till 
their  very  extravagance  made  them  harm- 
less. 

Instead  of  true  wisdom,  where  this  sys- 
tem has  prevailed  with  an  unquestioned 
supremacy,  it  has  fostered  and  maintained 
wide  popular  ignorance.  Instead  of  true 
sanctity,  its  fruit  has  been  shown  in  peasant- 
ries debased,  aristocracies  corrupted,  an  ar- 
rogant and  a  profligate  priesthood.  It  has 
honored  the  vilest  who  would  servo  it,  and 
crushed  the  purest  who  would  not.  It  sent 
gifts  and  applause,  and  sang  its  most  exult- 
ing Te  Deum,  for  Philip  the  Second ;  while 
its  poisoned  bullet  killed  William  of  Orange. 
The  medal  which  it  .struck  in  joyful  com- 
memoration of  the  bloody  diabolism  of  St. 
Bartholomew's  is  one  of  its  records.  Its 
highest  officials  have  sometimes  lived  lives 
which  its  own  annalists  have  hated  to  touch. 
Alexander  VI.,  cruel,  crafty,  avaricious,  li- 
centious, Avhom  it  were  flattery  to  call  a  Ti- 
berius in  pontificals— who  bribed  his  way 
to  the  highest  dignity,  who  burned  Savona- 


rola, the  traditional  portrait  of  whose  favor- 
ite mistress,  profanely  painted  as  the  Moth- 
er of  God,  hangs  yet  in  the  Vatican,  who 
probably  died  by  the  poisoned  wine  which 
he  had  had  prepared  for  his  cardinals,  and 
whose  evil  renown  is  scarcely  matched  by 
that  of  Caesar  Borgia  his  sou — stands  as  one 
of  its  infallible  popes,  holding  the  keys  of 
heaven  for  men. 

If  any  system  is  doomed  by  its  history, 
this  is  the  one.  Protestantism  has  now  so 
checked  it,  the  advancing  moral  develop- 
ment of  mankind  has  set  such  limits  to  its 
power,  that  these  are  largely  facts  of  the 
past.  The  Vatican  Court  is  now  free  from 
scandal.  The  Church  at  present  seeks 
strength  through  beneficence,  not  through 
control  of  the  secular  arm ;  by  its  helps  to 
piety,  not  through  appeals  to  physical  fear. 
But  its  more  spontaneous  and  self-revealing 
development  has  been  in  this  more  friendly 
Past.  Therefore  the  nations  whom  once  it 
has  ruled,  when  they  finally  break  from  it, 
hate  it  with  an  intensity  proportioned  to  the 
promises  it  has  failed  to  fulfill,  and  the  bit- 
ter degradations  it  has  made  them  undergo. 
Atheism  itself — that  moral  suicide — seems 
better  to  them  than  to  be  again  subjected 
to  Rome. 

This  is  the  system  as  realized  in  history, 
and  there  forever  adjudged  and  sentenced. 
Of  course  this  gives  immense  advantage  to 
those  who  now  resist  its  progress.  It  can 
not  fascinate  the  nations  again  till  the  long 
experience  is  forgotten.  But  such  is  not 
at  all  its  appearance  as  presented  to  those 
whom  it  wins  to  its  fold.  And  we  must 
look  at  it,  in  a  measure  at  least,  as  those 
who  honor  and  love  it  look,  if  we  would  un- 
derstand its  power,  if  Ave  would  know  how 
it  is  that  it  hopes  a  second  time  to  conquer 
the  world. 

Travelers  have  often  and  glowingly  de- 
scribed the  silver  and  golden  illuminations 
of  St.  Peter's,  as  seen  from  the  Pincian  Hill 
at  Rome,  on  the  great  Easter  festival.  Won- 
derful, ethereal,  almost  celestial,  appears  the 
majestic  Basilica,  with  its  dome,  when  sud- 
denly over  all  its  lines  flashes  that  startling, 
unearthly  radiance. 

It  has  never  been  noticed,  so  far  as  I  have 
observed,  that  the  illumination  is  wholly  con- 
fined to  that  half  of  the  dome  which  fronts  the 
city.  The  other  remains  frowning  and  stern, 
while  this  is  glowing  through  the  darkness 
like  a  golden  temple  let  down  by  God  from 
heaven  to  earth. 

We  must  not  look  only,  as  often  we  do, 
on  the  sombre  and  sterile  side  of  Romanism, 
if  we  would  comprehend  its  attraction.  We 
must  know,  and  feel,  that  there  are  aspects 
of  it  in  which,  to  those  who  look  with  admir- 
ing eyes  on  its  immense  illuminated  front,  it 
appears  more  beautiful  and  serene  than  any 
vision  of  poets,  while  as  solid  and  command- 
ing as  the  very,  and  only,  Temple  of  God. 


PROTESTANTISM,  ROMANISM,  AND  MODERN  CIVIL- 

IZATION. 

BY  THE  REV.  GEORGE  P.  FISHER,  D.D., 

Professor  in  Yale  College,  New  Haven,  Conn. 


IN  this  discussion  I  shall  take  "  Civilizn- 
tion  "  in  the  broad  sense,  and  include  under 
the  term  all  that  enters  into  the  improve- 
ment of  the  individual  and  of  society — all 
the  elements  that  unite  to  constitute  an  ad- 
vanced stage  of  human  progress.  When- 
ever we  contemplate  the  growth  of  civiliza- 
tion, we  should  not  confine  our  attention  to 
the  organized  institutions,  political  or  eccle- 
siastical, which  minister  to  the  welfare  of 
mankind,  but  should  take  iuto  view,  also, 
whatever  influences  spring  from  the  indi- 
vidual and  contribute  to  his  well-being.  In 
other  words,  the  term  "civilization"  includes 
culture.  The  inventions  and  discoveries  that 
lighten  the  burden  of  labor  and  conduce  to 
material  comfort,  the  safeguards  of  law,  re- 
fined sentiments,  literature,  art,  and  science, 
the  amenities  of  social  intercourse — all  that 
raises  man  above  the  rude  and  narrow  life 
of  the  barbarian  is  embraced  in  this  com- 
prehensive term.  In  defining  civilization, 
however,  it  has  been  justly  said  that  no  na- 
tion can  be  considered  highly  civilized  in 
Avhich  a  small  class  is  possessed  of  the  bene- 
fits of  scholarship,  the  charm  of  polished 
manners,  and  the  conveniences  and  luxuries 
derived  from  wealth,  at  the  same  time  that 
the  bulk  of  the  population  are  sunk  in  pov- 
erty and  ignorance,  perhaps  degraded  to  a 
condition  of  serfdom.  Nor  can  that  nation 
be  deemed  civilized,  in  the  full  idea  of  the 
word,  where  the  fine  arts  flourish  while  ag- 
riculture and  the  mechanic  arts  are  in  a  low 
state.  Civilization  should  involve  some- 
thing like  an  impartial  or  proportionate  de- 
velopment of  the  capacities  of  man  and  a 
fair  distribution  of  social  advantages.  It 
should  likewise  carry  within  it  the  germ  of 
further  and  indefinite  progress. 

We  are  absolved  from  inquiring,  in  this 
place,  what  sort  of  a  civilization  could  ex- 
ist, and  how  long  it  were  possible  for  civili- 
zation to  continue,  without  any  aid  from  re- 
ligion. Whoever  believes  in  the  teachings 
of  Christ  needs  no  argument  to  convince 
him  that  Christianity  is  essential  to  the  en- 
during life  of  all  that  is  excellent  and  noble 
in  the  products  of  human  activity.  "Ye 
are  the  salt  of  the  earth."  It  is  clear  that 
Christianity,  from  the  moment  when  it  first 
gained  a  foothold  in  the  Roman  Empire 


down  to  the  present  time,  has  never  ceased 
to  exert  a  profound  influence  upon  society. 
Of  the  several  agencies  which  have  chiefly 
conspired  to  determine  the  course  and  the 
character  of  modern  history,  Christianity 
and  the  Church  are  first  in  importance.  At- 
tribute whatever  weight  we  may  to  the  leg- 
acy that  was  transmitted  from  the  nations 
of  antiquity,  or  to  the  peculiar  genius  of 
their  barbarian  conquerors,  every  discerning 
student  must  allow  to  Christianity  the  pre- 
dominant part  in  moulding  the  history  of 
the  European  communities  now  on  the  stage 
of  action. 

No  enlightened  Protestant,  in  our  day, 
will  be  inclined  to  disparage  the  wholesome 
influence  which  the  Roman  Catholic  Church 
may  still  exert  in  certain  places  and  over 
certain  classes  of  people.  We  are  not  dis- 
posed to  undervalue  the  benefits  which  that 
Church,  in  the  Middle  Ages,  when  it  was  the 
only  organized  form  of  Christianity  in  West- 
ern Europe,  conferred  on  society.  We  are 
even  quite  willing  to  concede  that  the  Pa- 
pacy itself,  the  centralized  system  of  rule, 
which  has  been  the  fountain  of  incalculable 
evils,  was  providentially  made  productive 
of  important  advantages  during  the  period 
when  ignorance  and  brute  force  prevailed, 
and  when  anarchy  and  violence  constituted 
the  main  peril  to  Avhich  civilization  was  ex- 
posed. Let  us  thankfully  acknowledge  the 
debt  that  is  due  to  the  mediaeval  Church 
for  preserving  from  utter  destruction  the  re- 
mains of  ancient  literature  and  art,  for  train- 
ing the  minds  of  undisciplined  men,  and  im- 
parting to  them  what  knowledge  had  out- 
lived the  wreck  of  ancient  power  and  cul- 
ture, and  for  curbing  the  passions  and  soft- 
ening the  manners  of  rude  peoples.  Chris- 
tianity in  the  mediieval  Church  existed  in  a 
corrupt  form,  but  its  life  was  not  extinct, 
and  it  operated  as  a  leaven,  according  to  the 

!  promise  of  its  author.  Our  attention  is  to 
be  directed  to  more  recent  times.  Wo  have 
to  compare  the  influence  of  Romanism  with 

i  that  of  Protestantism,  as  that  influence  is 
seen  in  the  course  of  the  last  three  centu- 
ries, and  as  it  is  deducible  from  the  nature 
of  the  respective  systems. 

There  is  one  point  of  contrast  between  the 
two  systems  which  deserves  to  be  placed  in 


462 

the  foreground  of  onr  inquiry.  The  Roman 
Catholic  system  is  the  rule  of  society  by 
a  sacerdotal  class.  This  is  a  fundamental 
characteristic  of  that  system.  The  guid- 
ance of  the  conscience  of  individuals,  and 
of  the  policy  of  nations,  so  far  as  their  poli- 
cy may  be  thought  to  touch  the  province  of 
morals  and  religion,  is  relegated  to  a  body 
of  priests,  or,  according  to  the  recent  Vatican 
Council,  to  their  head.  The  authority  to  de- 
cide upon  the  questions  of  highest  moment 
resides  in  this  body  of  ecclesiastics.  It  is 
not,  indeed,  like  those  hereditary  priesthoods 
which  are  separated  by  an  impassable  bar- 
rier from  other  orders" of  men,  and  which  are 
found,  as  an  established  aristocracy,  in  cer- 
tain Oriental  religions.  Nevertheless,  it  is 
a  limited  class,  admitting  to  its  ranks  none 
•whom  it  chooses  to  exclude,  and  assuming 
the  exalted  prerogative  of  pronouncing  in- 
fallibly upon  questions  of  truth  and  duty, 
and  of  conveying  or  •withholding  the  bless- 
ings of  salvation.  Protestantism  denied 
this  prerogative.  It  broke  down  the  wall 
of  separation  between  priest  and  layman. 
It  accorded  to  the  laity  the  full  right  to 
determine  for  themselves  those  questions 
over  which  the  clergy  had  claimed  an  ex- 
clusive jurisdiction.  It  declared  that  the 
heavenly  good  offered  in  the  Gospel  is  acces- 
sible to  the  humblest  soul,  without  the  in- 
tervention of  a  mediatorial  priesthood.  The 
emancipation  of  the  laity  from  clerical  rule 
is  one  of  the  prime  characteristics  of  the 
Reformation. 

1.  Protestantism,  as  compared  with  the  op- 
posite system,  sets  free  and  stimulates  the  en- 
ergy, intellectual  and  moral,  of  the  individ- 
ual, and  thus  augments  the  forces  of  which 
civilization  is  the  product.  The  progress 
of  civilization,  in  the  long  course  of  history, 
is  marked  by  the  growing  respect  paid  to 
the  rights  of  the  individual,  and  the  ampler 
room  afforded  for  the  unfolding  of  his  pow- 
ers, and  for  the  realizing  of  his  aspirations. 
There  was  something  imposing  in  those  huge 
despotisms  —  Egypt,  Assyria,  Babylon,  Per- 
sia— in  which  a  multitude  of  human  beings 
were  welded  together  under  an  absolute 
master.  Such  empires  were  an  advance 
upon  a  primitive  state  of  things,  where  ev- 
ery man's  hand  was  against  his  neighbor. 
Yet  they  were  a  crude  form  of  crystalli- 
zation ;  and  they  were  intrinsically  weak. 
The  little  cities  of  Greece,  with  their  freer 
political  life,  and  the  larger  scope  which  they 
allowed  for  the  activity  and  the  culture  of 
the  individual — communities  of  citizens — 
proved  more  than  a  match  for  the  colossal 
might  of  the  East.  Among  the  Greeks  and 
Romans,  however,  although  governments  of 
law  had  supplanted  naked  force,  the  State 
was  supreme,  and  to  the  State  the  individ- 
ual must  yield  an  exclusive  allegiance.  It 
waa  a  great  gain  when  the  Christian  Church 
arose,  and  when  the  individual  became  con- 


ROMANISM  AND  PROTESTANTISM. 


scions  of  an  allegiance  of  the  soul  to  a  higher 
kingdom — an  allegiance  which  did  not  su- 
persede his  loyalty  to  the  civil  authority, 
but  limited  while  it  sanctioned  this  obliga- 
tion. But  the  Church  itself  at  length  erect- 
ed a  supremacy  over  the  individual  incon- 
sistent with  the  free  action  of  reason  and 
conscience,  and  even  stretched  that  suprem- 
acy so  far  as  to  dwarf  and  overshadow  civil 
society.  It  reared  a  theocracy,  and  subject- 
ed every  thing  to  its  unlimited  sway.  The 
Reformation  gave  back  to  the  individual  his 
proper  autonomy.  The  result  is  a  self-re- 
spect, an  intellectual  activity,  a  develop- 
ment of  inventive  capacity,  and  of  energy 
of  character,  which  give  rise  to  such  achieve- 
ments in  science,  in  the  field  of  political  ac- 
tion, and  in  every  work  where  self-reliance 
and  personal  force  are  called  for,  as  would 
be  impossible  under  the  opposite  system. 
In  the  period  immediately  following  the 
Reformation,  signal  proofs  were  afforded  of 
this  truth.  The  little  States  of  Holland,  for 
example,  proved  their  ability  to  cope  with 
the  Spanish  Empire,  to  gain  their  indepen- 
dence, and  to  acquire  an  opulence  and  a 
culture  which  recalled  the  best  days  of  the 
Grecian  republics.  They  beat  back  their 
invaders  from  their  soil,  and  sent  forth  their 
victorious  navies  upon  every  sea,  while  at 
home  they  were  educating  the  common  peo- 
ple, fostering  science  and  learning,  and  build- 
ing up  universities  famous  throughout  Eu- 
rope. England,  in  the  age  of  Elizabeth, 
proved  that  the  native  vigor  of  her  people 
was  re-enforced  in  a  remarkable  degree  by 
the  stimulus  derived  from  the  peculiar  gen- 
ius of  the  Protestant  religion.  It  was  the 
period  when  she  was  acquiring  her  naA'al 
ascendency ;  the  period,  likewise,  of  Shaks- 
peare,  Bacon,  and  Raleigh.  Who  can  doubt 
that  the  United  States  of  America  are — not 
indeed  wholly,  but  in  great  part — indebted 
to  their  position,  as  contrasted  with  that 
of  Mexico  and  the  political  communities  of 
South  America,  to  this  expansion  of  the  pow- 
er of  the  individual,  which  is  the  uniform 
and  legitimate  fruit  of  Protestant  princi- 
ples f 

2.  The  spirit  of  Protestantism  favors  uni- 
versal education.  The  lay  Christian,  who 
is  to  read  and  interpret  the  Scriptures,  and 
to  take  part  in  the  administration  of  govern- 
ment in  the  Church,  must  not  be  an  illiterate 
person.  Knowledge,  mental  enlightenment, 
under  the  Protestant  system,  are  indispen- 
sable. The  weight  of  personal  responsibility 
for  the  culture  of  his  intellectual  and  spirit- 
ual nature,  which  rests  on  every  individual, 
makes  education  a  matter  of  universal  con- 
cern. Far  more  has  been  done  in  Protestant 
than  in  Roman  Catholic  countries  for  the  in- 
struction of  the  whole  people.  It  is  enough 
to  refer  to  the  common-school  system  of  Hol- 
land, and  of  New  England,  and  to  Protestant 
Germany,  to  show  how  natural  it  is  for  tho 


FISHER :  PROTESTANTISM,  ROMANISM,  AND  MODERN  CIVILIZATION.    463 


disciples  of  the  Reformation  to  provide  for 
this  great  interest  of  society. 

The  free  circulation  of  tbe  Bible  in  Prot- 
esttint  lauds  has  disseminated  an  instrument 
of  intellectual,  as  well  as  of  religious,  im- 
provement, the  good  effect  of  which  is  im- 
measurable. As  a  repository  of  history,  bi- 
ography, poetry,  ethics,  as  well  as  a  monitor 
to  the  conscience  and  a  guide  to  heaven,  the 
Bible  has  exerted  an  influence  on  the  com- 
mon mind,  in  all  Protestant  nations,  which 
it  would  be  difficult  to  exaggerate.  The 
practice  of  interpreting  the  Bible  and  of 
exploring  its  pages  for  fresh  truth  affords  a 
mental  discipline  of  a  very  high  order.  How 
often  have  the  Scriptures  carried  into  the 
cottage  of  ths  peasant  a  breadth  and  refine- 
ment of  intellect  which  otherwise  would 
never  have  existed,  and  which  no  agency 
employed  by  the  Roman  Catholic  system, 
in  relation  to  the  same  social  class,  has  ever 
been  able  to  engender ! 

3.  That  Protestantism  should  bo  more 
friendly  to  civil  and  religious  liberty  than 
the  Roman  Catholic  system  would  seem  to 
follow  unavoidably  from  the  nature  of  the 
two  forms  of  faith.  Protestantism  involves, 
as  a  vital  element,  an  assertion  of  personal 
rights  with  respect  to  religion,  the  highest 
concern  of  man.  Moreover,  Protestantism 
casts  off  the  yoke  of  priestly  rule,  and  puts 
ecclesiastical  government,  in  due  measure, 
into  the  hands  of  the  laity.  As  we  have  al- 
ready said,  it  is  a  revolt  of  the  laity  against 
a  usurped  ecclesiastical  authority. 

The  Church  of  Rome  teaches  men  that 
their  first  and  most  binding  duty  is  to  bow 
with  unquestioning  docility  and  obedience 
to  their  Heaven-appointed  superiors.  How 
is  it  possible  that  Protestantism  should  not 
foster  a  habit  of  mind  which  is  incompatible 
with  a  patient  endurance  of  tyranny  at  the 
hands  of  the  civil  power  f  How  can  Prot- 
estantism, inspiring  a  lively  sense  of  person- 
al rights,  fail  to  bring  with  it,  eventually  at 
least,  a  corresponding  respect  for  the  rights 
of  others,  and  a  disposition  to  secure  their 
rights  iu  forms  of  government  and  in  legis- 
lation ?  How  can  men  who  are  accustomed 
to  judge  for  themselves  and  act  independent- 
ly in  Church  affairs  manifest  a  slavish  spir- 
it in  the  political  sphere  ?  On  the  contrary, 
the  habit  of  mind  which  the  Roman  Catholic 
nurture  tends  to  beget  leads  to  servility  iu 
the  subject  toward  the  ruler,  as  long  as  an 
alliance  is  kept  up  between  sovereign  and 
priest.  It  is  true  that  the  Church  of  Rome 
can  accommodate  itself  to  any  of  the  vari- 
ous types  of  political  society.  Her  doctors 
have  at  times  preached  an  extreme  theory 
of  popular  rights  and  of  the  sovereignty  of 
the  people.  While  the  State  is  subordinate 
to  the  Church,  any  form  of  government  may 
be  tolerated ;  and  there  may  be  an  interest 
on  the  part  of  the  priesthood  in  inculca- 
ting political  theories  which  operate,  in  their 


judgment,  to  weaken  the  obligations  of  loy- 
alty toward  the  civil  magistrate,  and  to  ex- 
alt by  contrast  the  divine  authority  of  the 
Church.  When  the  civil  magistracy  pre- 
sumes to  exercise  prerogatives,  or  to  ordain 
measures,  which  are  deemed  hurtful  to  the 
ecclesiastical  interest,  a  radical  doctrine  of 
revolution,  even  a  doctrine  of  tyrannicide, 
has  been  heard  from  the  pulpits  of  the  most 
conservative  of  religious  bodies. 

Generally  speaking,  however,  the  Church 
of  Rome  is  the  natural  ally  and  supporter 
of  arbitrary  principles  of  government.  The 
prevailing  sentiment,  the  instinctive  feeling, 
in  that  Church,  is  that  the  body  of  the  peo- 
ple are  incapable  of  self-guidance,  and  that 
to  give  them  the  reins  in  civil  affairs  would 
imperil  the  stability  of  ecclesiastical  control. 
To  this  reasoning  it  is  often  replied  by  ad- 
vocates of  the  Roman  Catholic  system  that 
Protestantism  opens  a  door  to  boundless  tyr- 
anny by  leaving  the  temporal  power  with- 
out any  check  from  the  ecclesiastical.  The 
State,  it  is  said,  proves  omnipotent;  the  civil 
magistrate  is  delivered  from  the  wholesome 
dread  of  ecclesiastical  censure,  and  is  left 
free  to  exercise  all  kinds  of  tyranny,  without 
the  powerful  restraint  to  which  he  was  sub- 
ject under  the  mediaeval  system.  He  may 
even  violate  the  rights  of  conscience  with 
impunity.  The  State,  it  is  sometimes  said, 
when  released  from  its  subordinate  relation 
to  the  Church,  is  a  godless  institution.  It 
becomes,  like  the  pagan  States  of  antiquity, 
absolute  in  the  province  of  religion  as  in 
secular  affairs,  and  an  irresistible  engine  of 
oppression.  It  must  be  admitted  that  Prot- 
estant rulers  have  been  guilty  of  tyranny ; 
that,  iu  many  instances,  they  can  not  be 
cleai'ed  of  the  charge  of  unwarrantably  in- 
terfering with  the  rights  of  conscience,  and 
of  attempting  to  govern  the  belief  and  regu- 
late the  forms  of  worship  of  their  subjects, 
in  a  manner  destructive  of  true  liberty.  The 
question  is,  whether  these  instances  of  mis- 
government  are  the  proper  fruit  of  the  Prot- 
estant spirit,  or  something  at  variance  with 
it,  and  therefore  an  evil  of  a  temporary  and 
exceptional  character. 

The  imputation  that  the  State  as  consti- 
tuted under  Protestantism  is  heathen  de- 
pends on  the  false  assumption  that  the 
Church  and  the  priesthood  as  established 
in  the  Roman  Catholic  system  are  identical, 
or  so  nearly  identical  that  one  can  not  sub- 
sist without  the  other.  It  is  assumed  that 
when  the  supervision  and  control  which  the 
Church  of  Rome  aspires  to  exercise  over  the 
civil  authority  is  shaken  off,  nothing  is  left 
but  an  unchristian  or  Autichristian  institu- 
tion. The  fact  that  a  layman  can  be  as 
good-  a  Christian  as  a  priest  is  overlooked. 
The  Christian  laity  who  make  up  a  com- 
monwealth, and  the  Christian  magistrates 
who  are  set  over  them,  are  quite  as  able  to 
discern,  and  quite  as  likely  to  respect  person- 


464 


ROMANISM  AND  PROTESTANTISM. 


al  rights,  ami  to  act  for  the  common  weal,  as  if 
they  were  subject  to  an  organized  priesthood. 

Since  tho  Reformation,  a  layman  has  been 
the  head  of  tho  English  Church  and  State, 
and  civil  magistrates  in  England  have  borne 
a  part  in  ecclesiastical  government  With- 
out entering  into  tho  question  of  the  right- 
eousness or  expediency  of  establishments, 
or  broaching  any  of  the  controverted  topics 
connected  with  this  subject,  we  simply  as- 
sert here  that  the  civil  government  of  En- 
gland is  not  to  be  branded  as  unchristian  or 
Autichristian  on  account  of  this  arrange- 
ment. As  far  as  the  administration  of  pub- 
lic affairs  in  that  country  has  been  charac- 
terized by  justice  and  by  a  regard  for  the 
well-being  of  all  orders  of  people,  the  Gov- 
ernment has  been  Christian — as  truly  Chris- 
liau,  to  say  the  least,  as  if  the  supremacy 
had  been  virtually  lodged  with  the  Pope,  or 
with  an  aristocracy  of  priests. 

History  verifies  the  proposition  that  Prot- 
estantism is  favorable  to  civil  and  religious 
freedom,  and  thus  promotes  the  attainment 
of  the  multiplied  advantages  which  freedom 
brings  in  its  train.  The  long  and  success- 
ful struggle  for  independence  in  the  Nether- 
lands, the  conflict  which  established  English 
liberty  against  the  despotic  influence  of  the 
House  of  Stuart,  the  growth  and  establish- 
ment of  the  Republic  of  the  United  States, 
are  events  so  intimately  connected  with 
Protestantism  and  so  dependent  upon  it, 
that  we  may  point  to  them  as  monuments 
of  the  true  spirit  and  tendency  of  the  Re- 
formed religion.  That  religious  persecution 
has  darkened  the  annals  of  the  Protestant 
faith,  and  that  the  earliest  leaders  in  the 
Reformation  failed  to  recognize  distinctly 
the  principle  of  liberty  of  conscience,  must 
be  admitted.  But  Protestantism,  as  is  claim- 
ed, at  the  present  day,  both  by  its  friends 
and  foes,  was  illogical,  inconsistent  with  its 
own  genius  and  principles,  whenever  it  at- 
tempted to  coerce  conscience  by  punishing 
religious  dissent  with  the  sword  and  the 
fagot.  Protestants  illustrate  the  real  char- 
acter and  tendency  of  their  system  by  de- 
ploriug  whatever  acts  of  religious  persecu- 
tion the  predecessors  who  bore  their  name 
Avere  guilty  of,  and  by  the  open  and  sincere 
advocacy  of  religious  liberty.  Liberty  of 
thought,  and  freedom  of  speech  and  of  the 
press,  however  restricted  they  may  have 
been  by  Protestants  in  times  past,  it  is  the 
tendency  of  Protestantism  to  uphold.  It  is 
more  and  more  recognized  that  freedom  in 
the  investigation  of  truth,  and  in  the  publi- 
cation of  opinions,  is  required  by  the  true 
principles  of  the  Reformation. 

On  the  other  hand,  the  dogma  of  persecu- 
tion has  never  been  authoritatively  disa- 
vowed by  the  Church  of  R6me.  Who  has 
ever  done  penance  for  St.  Bartholomew  and 
the  burning  of  Huss?  Even  at  this  day 
this  hateful  dogma  is  boldly  professed  by 


the  organs  of  the  Ultramontane  party,  which 
is  now  in  the  ascendant.  It  is  difficult  to  sec 
how  these  doctrines  can  bo  given  up  by  a 
Church  which  attributes  to  every  one  of  the 
long  line  of  pontiffs  infallibility  on  ques- 
tions of  morals.  In  recent  times  the  doc- 
trine of  "  liberty  of  conscience  "  and  of  wor- 
ship has  been  branded  by  Pius  IX.,  in  an  ad- 
dress to  all  bishops — branded,  therefore,  ex 
cathedra — as  an  error  to  be  abhorred  and  to 
be  shunned  as  the  contagion  of  a  pestilence. 
Tho  recent  dogma  of  the  Council  of  the  Vati- 
can involves  a  formidable  attack  npon  civil 
liberty.  This  new  article  of  belief  subjects 
all  civil  legislation  to  the  moral  criticism  of 
the  Pope  of  Rome,  and  binds  every  mem- 
ber of  tho  Roman  Catholic  Church,  whether 
ruler  or  subject,  to  submit  to  his  decision. 
No  limit  is  set  to  the  power  of  the  priest  to 
intermeddle  with  the  governments  that  ac- 
knowledge his  jurisdiction. 

4.  Protestantism  has  bestowed  a  great 
boon  upon  civilization  in  supplanting  the 
ascetic  type  of  religion.  Christianity  came 
not  to  destroy,  but  to  fulfill.  It  was  not  to 
supersede  any  one  of  the  normal  activities, 
or  to  proscribe  any  of  the  legitimate  prod- 
ucts of  human  exertion.  It  was  to  mingle 
in  the  earthly  pursuits  of  mankind,  a  ren- 
ovating and  purifying  influence.  Family 
life,  letters,  art,  science,  amusement,  trade, 
and  commerce  were  to  suffer  no  blight,  but 
were  rather  to  experience  a  quickening  and, 
at  the  same  time,  an  elevating  power  from 
contact  with  the  Gospel.  Christ  bade  his  fol- 
lowers not  to  retreat  from  the  world,  but  to 
stay  in  it  and  transform  it.  The  kingdom 
of  God  on  earth  was  to  draw  within  it  all 
that  is  pure  and  admirable  in  the  infinitely 
diversified  works  and  achievements  of  the 
natural  man.  It  was  not  to  be  a  ghostly 
realm  of  devotees,  but  a  society  of  men  and 
women,  not  indifferent  to  the  labors  and 
pleasures  that  pertain  to  this  life,  but  infus- 
ing into  all  things  a  spirit  of  religious  con- 
secration. Tho  ascetic  typo  of  religion  in- 
terposes a  gulf  between  religion  and  the 
business  of  the  world,  between  things  nat- 
ural and  supernatural.  The  creation  of  a 
separate  priesthood,  who  are  cut  off  from 
family  life  and  from  the  ordinary  relations 
of  society,  exemplifies  tho  ascetic  tenden- 
cy, which  appears  more  or  less  distinctly 
throughout  the  Roman  Catholic  system. 
The  effect  of  tho  compulsory  rule  of  celiba- 
cy is  to  attach  a  stigma  to  tho  institution 
of  marriage  and  to  tho  domestic  relations. 
These  relations  are  held  to  involve  an  in- 
ferior condition  of  sanctity.  Apart  from  all 
the  other  evils  which  are  connected  with 
tho  law  of  celibacy,  it  strikes  a  blow  at  the 
sacreduess  of  an  institution  on  which  the 
interests  of  civilization  essentially  depend. 
But  the  ascetic  spirit,  tho  unauthorized  di- 
vorce of  things  sacred  and  secular,  pene- 
trates much  further. 


FISHER:  PROTESTANTISM,  ROMANISM,  AND  MODERN  CIVILIZATION.    465 


It  is  a  remarkable  fact  in  history  that  the 
rise  of  commerce  helped  to  undermine  the 
authority  of  the  clergy,  and  was  one  of  the 
potent  instruments  in  educating  the  Euro- 
pean mind  for  the  revolt  of  Protestantism. 
Commerce,  it  is  true,  produced  a  keenness 
and  sagacity  of  intellect,  and  led  to  an  ac- 
tivity of  social  movement  and  intercourse, 
which  tended  to  break  the  yoke  of  supersti- 
tion. Municipalities  of  busy  merchants  soon 
began  to  chafe  under  the  sway  of  ecclesias- 
tics. Independently,  however,  of  these  pe- 
culiar effects  of  trade,  there  was  a  secret  but 
growing  consciousness  that  great  industrial 
enterprises  and  secular  activity  do  not  find 
any  link  of  connection  with  the  ascetic  type 
of  religion.  They  may  get  from  it  a  bare 
toleration,  but  they  must  look  elsewhere  for 
a  sanction  and  a  baptism. 

5.  The  Protestant  religion  keeps  alive  in 
the  nations  that  adopt  it  the  spirit  of  prog- 
ress. There  may  exist  a  high  degree  of  civ- 
ilization in  certain  respects,  but  a  civiliza- 
tion which  has  ceased  to  expand  through 
forces  inherent  in  itself.  China  is  an  exam- 
ple. There  may  be  a  richer  and  more  com- 
plex development  which  yet  culminates,  and, 
thenceforward,  either  remains  stationary,  or, 
which  is  more  likely  to  occur,  becomes  degen- 
erate and  goes  backward.  The  civilization 
of  the  ancient  Roman  empire  is  a  signal  case 
of  such  an  arrest  of  progress  and  of  such  a 
decadence.  The  spirit  of  progress,  the  fresh 
and  unexhausted  energy  and  hopefulness, 
with  the  consequent  rapid  growth  in  mate- 
rial and  intellectual  achievements  which 
distinguish  the  Protestant  nations,  are  due, 
not  to  characteristics  of  race  alone,  nor  to 
incidental  advantages  of  any  kind,  but,  in  a 
great  degree,  to  their  religion.  There  is  a 
disposition  to  look  forward  as  well  as  back- 
ward, to  expect  a  future  greater  than  the 
past,  and  to  believe  in  the  practicableness 
of  carrying  improvement  to  heights  hereto- 
fore uuattained.  Franco  is  a  prosperous  and 
highly  civilized  nation  ;  but  of  all  countries 
nominally  Roman  Catholic,  Franco  is  the 
one  in  which  the  Church  of  Rome  has  had 
the  feeblest  sway,  and  the  one  most  alive  to 
the  iulluences  which  Protestantism  and  the 
Protestant  civilization  of  other  European 
nations  have  sot  in  motion.  The  effect  of 
the  reactionary  Catholicism  that  followed 
the  Reformation  upon  the  nations  of  South- 
ern Europe  was  deadening.  In  the  decay 
of  the  Renaissance,  music,  painting,  and  po- 
etry revived,  in  the  ferment  of  religioius  en- 
thusiasm excited  by  the  Catholic  reaction ; 
but  the  intellectual  vigor  of  Italy  and  Spain 
beneath  the  iron  tread  of  the  Inquisition  was 
soon  crushed.  The  history  of  these  natu- 
rally gifted  peoples,  subjected  to  the  sti- 
lling atmosphere  of  ecclesiastical  tyranny,  is 
a  convincing  illustration  of  the  fatal  effect 
of  such  a  system.  The  present  aspect  of 
South  America  and  Mexico,  when  compared 
30 


with  the  American  communities  which  have 
been  reared  on  Protestant  foundations,  im- 
pressively exhibits  the  same  thing. 

Roman  Catholic  polemics  maintain  that 
Protestantism  is  responsible  for  the  skepti- 
cism and  unbelief  that  prevail  so  extensive- 
ly among  Christian  nations.  They  assert 
that  there  has  arisen  in  the  wake  of  Protest- 
antism a  spirit  of  irreligion  which  threatens 
to  subvert  the  social  fabric.  The  causes  of 
this  evil,  however,  do  not  lie  at  the  door  of 
Protestantism.  The  free  inquiry  that  had 
developed  in  Europe  in  connection  with  the 
revival  of  learning  could  not  be  smothered 
by  mere  authority.  The  earnest  religious 
feeling  which  the  Reformation  at  the  out- 
set brought  with  it  counteracted  the  tend- 
encies to  unbelief,  for  a  time,  at  least ;  and 
it  was  only  when  Protestantism  departed 
from  its  own  principles,  and  acted  upon  the 
maxims  of  its  adversary,  at  the  same  time 
losing  the  warmth  of  religious  life  so  con- 
spicuous at  the  beginning,  that  infidelity 
had  a  free  course.  The  ideas  which  Plu- 
tarch long  ago  embodied  in  his  treatise  on 
Superstition  and  Unbelief  are  well  founded. 
They  are  two  extremes,  each  of  which  be- 
gets the  other.  Not  only  may  the  artificial 
faith  which  leads  to  superstitious  practices, 
and  drives  its  devotees  to  fanaticism,  at 
length  spend  its  force,  and  move  the  same 
devotees  to  cast  off  the  restraints  of  relig- 
ion ;  but  the  spectacle  of  superstition,  also, 
repels  more  sober  and  courageous  minds 
from  all  faith  and  worship.  Such  has  been 
the  notorious  effect  of  the  superstitious  cer- 
emonies and  austerities  of  the  Roman  Cath- 
olic system,  both  in  the  age  of  the  Renais- 
sance and  in  our  own  day.  Religion  comes 
to  be  identified,  in  the  opinions  of  men,  with 
tenets  and  observances  which  are  repugnant 
to  reason  and  common  sense ;  and  hence  truth 
and  error  are  thrown  overboard  at  once. 

Disgusted  with  the  follies  which  pass  un- 
der the  name  of  religion,  and  attract  tho 
reverence  of  the  ignorant,  men  make  ship- 
wreck of  faith  altogether.  The  same  bale- 
ful influence  ensues  upon  tho  attempt  to 
stretch  the  principle  of  authority  beyond 
the  due  limit.  It  is  like  the  effect  of  excess- 
ive restraint  in  the  family.  A  revolt  is  tho 
consequence  wherever  there  is  a  failure  to 
repress  mental  activity  and  to  enslave  tho 
will.  The  subjugation  of  the  intelligence 
which  tho  Roman  Catholic  system  carries 
with  it  as  an  essential  ingredient  compels  a 
mutiny  which  is  very  likely  not  to  stop  with 
tho  rejection  of  usurped  authority.  There 
is  a  general  source  of  unbelief  whicli  is  in- 
dependent of  tho  influence  of  any  particular 
form  of  religion.  Rationalism  has  been  cor- 
rectly described  as  tho  fruit  of  the  under- 
standing stepping  beyond  its  sphere,  and 
supplanting  the  normal  action  of  the  moral 
and  religious  nature.  It  is  due  to  a  one- 


466 


ROMANISM  AND  PROTESTANTISM. 


sided,  exclusive,  and  narrow  activity  of  a 
single  function  of  tho  intellect,  at  the  ex- 
pense of  conscience  and  tho  intuitive  power. 

Such,  for  example,  was  the  character  of 
that  skepticism  which  the  Sophists  encour- 
aged, and  which  Socrates,  appealing  direct- 
ly to  the  immediate,  ineradicable  convic- 
tions of  the  soul,  did  so  much  to  overthrow. 
When  tho  free  and  accountable  nature  of 
the  soul,  and  the  aspirations  and  presenti- 
ments, as  profound  as  they  are  natural,  of 
the  spirit  of  man,  are  flippantly  set  aside  to 
make  room  for  something  called  "  science," 
which  is  converted  by  its  votaries  into  a  fe- 
tich, infidelity  is  the  inevitable  consequence. 
There  is  nothing  in  Protestant  principles, 
rightly  understood,  to  warrant  or  to  induce 
such  a  procedure.  Looking  at  the  matter 
historically,  we  find  that,  in  the  age  prior  to 
the  Reformation,  unbelief  was  most  rife  in 
Italy,  the  ancient  centre  of  the  Roman  Cath- 
olic hierarchy.  In  recent  times,  skepticism 
is  nowhere  more  prevalent  than  among  the 
higher,  cultivated  classes  in  Roman  Catho- 
lic countries,  where  the  doctrines  of  that  re- 
ligion have  been  perpetually  taught,  and 
where  its  ritual  has  been  celebrated  with 
most  pomp. 

To  the  relation  of  Protestantism  and  Ro- 
manism to  special  evils  that  afflict  our  mod- 
ern civilization,  it  is  hardly  possible  within 
the  space  given  to  this  paper  to  allude. 
War  is  still  a  terrible  scourge  of  nations. 
It  is  obvious  that  the  power  of  the  Church 
of  Rome,  as  an  organized  body,  to  avert 
war,  even  between  countries  owning  its  au- 
thority, amounts  to  nothing.  It.  has  been 
reserved  for  two  English-speaking  nations, 
professing  the  Protestant  faith,  to  furnish, 
as  they  have  lately  done,  an  impressive 
proof  of  what  may  be  accomplished  by  the 
peaceful  method  of  arbitration.  The  Church 
of  old  favored  the  emancipation  of  slaves ; 
but  slavery  was  abolished  in  the  United 


States  with  little  or  no  help  from  the  eccle- 
siastics of  tho  Roman  Church. 

In  the  disposition  to  minister  to  poverty 
and  to  the  various  forms  of  physical  dis- 
tress, Roman  Catholics,  be  it  said  to  their 
honor,  vie  with  Protestant  Christians.  But 
this  may  be  claimed  for  Protestantism,  that 
its  disciples  are  more  zealous  to  devise  the 
means  of  prevention,  to  pry  under  these 
great  evils,  and  then  to  apply  radical  and 
permanent  remedies.  Political  economy  and 
social  science,  although  still  immature,  flour- 
ish chiefly  under  the  auspices  of  Protestant 
Christianity.  There  are  questions,  of  which 
the  "  labor  question,"  as  it  is  called,  is  one 
of  the  most  prominent,  with  which  neither 
Church  can  be  said  to  have  fully  grappled. 
But  Protestantism  has  a  better  promise  of 
contributing  to  the  solution  of  these  grave 
and  portentous  problems  than  the  opposite 
system ;  for  the  laborer  has  no  real  quarrel 
with  the  Protestant  religion.  The  hostili- 
ty of  the  laboring  class  to  a  priestly  system 
may  take  the  form  of  a  hatred  to  religion 
itself;  but  better  teaching  and  a  true  spirit 
of  philanthropy  may  give  them  the  needed 
light. 

The  Roman  Catholic  Church  is  at  present 
engaged  in  the  hopeless  struggle  to  uphold 
in  the  midst  of  modern  society  the  religious 
ideas  and  customs  of  the  Middle  Ages.  A 
dictatorial  attitude  toward  the  civil  author- 
ity, the  management  of  education  by  eccle- 
siastics, an  appeal  to  the  senses  by  a  gor- 
geous ritual,  an  exorbitant  demand  upon 
the  credulity  of  mankind  by  unverified  mir- 
acles aud  prodigies,  an  attempt  to  revive 
pilgrimages  and  other  obsolete  or  obsoles- 
cent superstitions,  an  increased  devotion  to 
the  Virgin  Mary,  which  borders  on  idolatry 
— such  are  some  of  the  characteristics  of 
this  movement.  It  is  the  endeavor  to  re-in- 
state or  maintain  a  type  of  civilization  on 
which  history  has  pronounced  a  final  verdict. 


KOMAN  AND  EEFORMED  DOCTRINES  OF  JUSTIFICA- 
TION CONTRASTED. 

BY  THE  RT.  REV.  GEORGE  DAVID  CUMMINS,  D.D.,  OF  KENTUCKY. 


IT  is  a  question  of  no  ordinary  interest, 
Where  did  the  Reformation  of  the  sixteenth 
century  take  its  rise  ?  Which  of  the  coun- 
tries of  Europe  can  rightly  claim  the  honor 
of  giving  birth  to  this  sublime  movement  ? 
For  this  high  distinction  different  nations 
are  still  contending.  "Surely,"  exclaims 
the  German,  "the  Reformation  began  at 
Wittenberg,  in  the  cell  of  an  Augustinian 
monk,  and  the  nailing  of  Luther's  Theses  to 
the  church  door  of  the  little  Saxon  town 
was  the  sound  that  awoke  all  Christendom, 
and  is  reverberating  with  ever-increasing 
volume  through  the  earth." 

"Nay,"  responds  the  Switzer,  "it  was  the 
child  of  the  Tockenburg  Mountains,  the  sou 
of  the  shepherd  of  Wildhaus,  who  first  cleared 
a  path  for  the  free  flowing  of  the  Water  of 
Life,  the  River  that  makes  glad  the  city  of 
our  God,  even  as  the  little  fountain  rising 
.among  the  same  everlasting  hills  becomes 
the  mighty  Rhine,  the  bearer  of  plenty  and 
prosperity  to  nations." 

"  Not  quite  true,"  interposes  the  French- 
man ;  "  to  France  belongs  the  glory.  The 
University  of  Paris  was  the  cradle  of  the 
Reformation.  At  a  time  when  Luther  was 
making  a  journey  to  Rome  on  some  business 
touching  the  interests  of  the  monks — when 
Zwinglo  was  traversing  the  Alps  in  a  com- 
pany of  troops  to  fight  under  the  Pope's  ban- 
ner, Paris  and  France  heard  the  life-giving 
truths  from  Jacques  Lefevre,  the  doctor  of 
Etaples — surely  well  deserving  to  be  called 
the  Father  of  the  Reformation.  Was  it  not 
he  who,  as  early  as  1512,  said  to  his  beloved 
pupil  Farel,  '  William !  God  will  renovate 
the  world,  and  you  will  live  to  see  it.' " 

England  has  yet  to  be  heard.  In  the  very 
year  that  Luther  nailed  his  Theses  to  the 
Wittenberg  church  door,  two  young  stu- 
dents at  the  Universities  of  Oxford  and 
Cambridge,  Thomas  Bilney  and  William 
Tyndale,  divinely  guided,  found  in  the  study 
of  Erasmus's  Greek  Testament  the  great 
truth  that  scattered  all  the  darkness  of  su- 
perstition—  "It  is  Jesus  Christ  alone  who 
saves." 

How  shall  we  settle  these  conflicting 
claims  ?  There  is  but  one  mode.  The  Ref- 
ormation had  a  simultaneous  beginning 
throughout  all  Christendom.  It  was  the 
simultaneous  action  of  the  Holy  Spirit 
through  the  Word  upon  the  hearts  of  men 


in  different  nations.  The  truth  which  was 
to  make  the  human  mind  forever  free  made 
itself  felt  at  one  and  the  same  time  in  prov- 
inces widely  separated  and  dissimilar.  Ger- 
many did  not  communicate  the  light  to 
Switzerland,  nor  did  the  University  of  Paris 
to  Oxford  and  Cambridge,  Lefevre  to  Tyu- 
dale,  nor  Luther  to  Zwingle.  "  I  began," 
said  Zwingle,  "  to  preach  the  Gospel  in  the 
year  of  grace  1516 — that  is,  at  a  time  when 
the  name  of  Luther  had  never  been  heard 
among  these  mountains.  It  was  not  from 
Luther  that  I  learned  the  doctrine  of  Christ; 
it  was  from  God's  Word.  If  Luther  preaches 
Christ,  he  does  as  I  do,  that  is  all." 

The  beginning  of  the  Reformation  was 
like  the  bursting  forth  of  spring,  when  from 
sea-shore  to  mountain  top  the  breath  of  re- 
turning life  is  everywhere  felt  bursting  the 
icy  bonds  that  fettered  a  thousand  streams, 
covering  the  valleys  and  hill-sides  with  ver- 
dure, clothing  the  grand  old  forests  with 
beauty,  foretelling  the  coming  of  rich  har- 
vests for  the  glorious  summer-tide. 

This  simultaneous  beginning  of  the  Ref- 
ormation in  the  great  nations  of  Europe  is  a 
feature  of  profound  interest.  It  stamps  it 
as  pre-eminently  the  work  of  God  and  not 
of  man,  and  at  the  same  time  it  discloses  an- 
other great  truth  which  underlies  this  fea- 
ture. 

The  Reformation  was  not  a  sudden  out- 
growth of  that  century  alone.  Do  we  con- 
ceive of  the  Reformers  of  the  sixteenth  cen- 
tury as  sturdy  laborers,  who  went  forth  into 
a  field  all  fallow  and  unbroken,  into  which 
no  precious  seed  had  been  cast,  and  as  them- 
selves breaking  up  the  fallow  ground,  and 
casting  in  the  ever-living  seed,  and  then  com- 
ing back  at  even-tide  with  their  bosoms  filled 
with  sheaves  of  golden  grain,  the  fruit  of 
their  own  planting  alone  T  Far  from  this 
is  the  true  conception.  Such  a  supposition 
would  be  out  of  harmony  with  all  the  move- 
ments of  God's  Providence,  by  which  he  ac- 
complishes great  results  by  slow  processes, 
and  by  many  and  oftentimes  unseen  agen- 
cies. 

The  Reformation  was  existing  centuries 
before  its  actual  advent.  Long  and  slow 
were  the  processes  which  brought  it  to  its 
final  and  full  development.  "  Like  the  birth 
of  the  beautiful  islands  of  the  Pacific,  the 
foundations  of  the  new  convictions  which 


4C8 


ROMANISM  AND  PROTESTANTISM. 


so  greatly  to  modify  and  pnrify  the 
medieval  faith  were  laid  slowly,  unseen 
and  unsuspected  by  ten  thousand  souls  who 
labored  they  knew  not  for  what,  save  to  ac- 
complish the  necessity  of  their  own  spirit- 
ual belief.  Mighty  convulsions  suddenly 
cast  up  the  submarine  foundations  of  Pacif- 
ic isles  into  mountain  peak  and  lake  and 
plain,  but  the  foundations  were  laid  long 
before,  silently  and  slowly."  Even  so  with 
the  Reformation.  For  centuries  there  had 
been  workers  in  this  field — reformers  before 
the  Reformation — for  the  most  part  silent 
workers,  men  who  lived  quiet  and  holy  lives, 
who  had  found  the  truth  amidst  all  the 
corruptions  surrounding  them,  and  silently 
and  unconsciously  prepared  the  way  for  the 
dawn  of  a  better  day;  others  who  were 
constrained  to  bear  witness  openly,  and  be- 
came a  part  of  the  noble  army  of  martyrs, 
like  Huss  and  Jerome  in  Bohemia,  Savona- 
rola in  Italy,  and  Wickliffe  in  England. 
"  And  herein  is  that  saying  true,  One  soweth, 
and  another  reapeth." 

But  the  'Reformation  was  not  more  mark- 
ed in  the  siniultaneousness  of  its  origin  than 
in  the  common  likeness  which  it  bore  in  all 
lands.  Two  great  principles  distinguish 
Protestantism  :  the  supremacy  of  Scripture,  as 
the  only  infallible  authority,  and  salvation  by 
ffrace  through  faith  only. 

Without  communicating  with  others,  al- 
most unknown  to  each  other,  the  Reformers 
gave  utterance  in  every  country  where  the 
light  spread  to  the  same  testimony  to  these 
great  truths.  "  It  is  God  alone,"  taught  Le- 
fevre  in  the  Sorbonne  at  Paris — "it  is  God 
alone  who  by  his  grace  justifies  unto  eternal 
life.  There  is  a  righteousness  of  our  works, 
and  a  righteousness  which  is  of  grace — the 
one  a  thing  of  man's  invention,  the  other 
coming  from  God ;  the  one  earthly  and  pass- 
ing away,  the  other  divine  and  everlasting ; 
the  one  discovering  sin  and  bringing  the  fear 
of  death,  the  other  revealing  grace  for  the 
attainment  of  life."  "  What !"  replied  Beda, 
the  leader  of  the  crusade  against  the  first 
French  Reformers,  "Lefevre  affirms  that 
whosoever  ascribes  to  himself  the  power  to 
save  himself  will  be  lost ;  while  whosoever, 
laying  aside  all  strength  of  his  own,  casts 
himself  into  the  arms  of  Christ  shall  be 
saved !  Oh,  what  heresy !  what  delusion  of 
the  devil !  Let  us  oppose  it  with  all  our 
power." 

Lefevre's  voice  in  the  Sorbonne  found  an 
echo  all  unknown  to  him  on  the  banks  of 
Lake  ZUrich.  From  the  pulpit  of  the  quiet 
monastery  of  Einsedeln,  Ulric  Zwiugle  pro- 
claimed to  the  throngs  of  pilgrims  who 
flocked  to  that  shrine:  "What  power  can 
there  be  in  unprofitable  works,  weary  pil- 
grimages, offerings,  prayers  to  the  Virgin 
and  the  saints,  to  secure  you  the  favor  of 
God  f  Christ  alone  saves,  and  he  saves  every- 
where.'' 


Bilney,  too,  in  the  University  of  Cam- 
bridge, coming  unexpectedly  upon  a  copy 
of  the  New  Testament  in  Greek,  hastened  to 
shut  himself  in  his  room  to  peruse  it.  At 
the  first  opening  his  eye  caught  the  words 
of  St.  Paul,  "  This  is  a  faithful  saying,  that 
Christ  Jesus  came  into  the  world  to  save 
sinners;  of  whom  I  am  chief."  He  laid 
down  the  book,  and  meditated  on  the  as- 
tonishing declaration.  "What!  St.  Paul 
the  chief  of  sinners,  and  yet  St.  Paul  is  sure 
of  being  saved."  He  read  the  verse  again 
and  again.  "  O  assertion  of  St.  Paul,  how 
sweet  thou  art  to  my  soul !"  he  exclaimed. 
"  I  am  also  like  Paul,  and,  more  than  Paul, 
the  greatest  of  sinners.  But  Christ  saves 
sinners.  At  last  I  have  heard  of  Jesus." 

I  need  not  surely  bring  the  testimony  of 
the  great  Saxon  Reformer,  the  great  work- 
man of  the  sixteenth  century.  It  was  this 
truth  that  flashed  into  his  soul  from  God's 
Word -in  the  convent  of  Erfurt,  "The  just 
shall  live  by  faith,"  the  truth  which  at  once 
made  him  free,  and  became  to  him,  as  ho 
says,  the  very  gate  of  Paradise,  the  very 
heart  of  the  Gospel,  which  he  lifted  up  and 
magnified  perpetually,  rightly  proclaiming 
it  for  that  age  and  this,  and  for  all  coming 
time,  "Articulus  stantis  vel  cadentis  ecclesice." 

My  work,  Fathers  and  Brethren,  in  this 
great  Conference  composed  of  the  children 
of  the  Reformers,  is  to  exhibit  the  contrast 
between  the  doctrine  of  justification  as  held 
by  the  Roman  and  the  Reformed  Churches ; 
to  place  before  you  the  diverse  and  antago- 
nistic answers  which  Protestantism  and  Ro- 
manism give  to  the  mightiest  of  all  ques- 
tions, "  What  must  I  do  to  be  saved  !" — to 
prove,  by  God's  help,  that  in  the  perversion 
of  this  great  truth  lies  the  great  apostasy 
from  God ;  or,  as  Hooker  puts  it,  "  The  mys- 
tery of  the  man  of  sin  is  in  the  Romish  doc- 
trine of  justification,"  or,  as  Calvin  declared, 
"  If  this  one  point  were  yielded  safe  and  en- 
tire, it  would  not  pay  the  cost  to  make  any 
great  quarrel  about  other  matters  in  contro- 
versy with  Rome." 

It  is  the  remark  of  the  latest  American 
historian  of  the  Reformation,  "  The  Roman 
Catholic  theory  of  justification  may  be  so 
stated  as  to  approximate  closely  to  that  of 
the  Protestants,  but  on  a  close  examination 
the  two  doctrines  are  seen  to  be  discordant 
with  one  another."  But,  small  as  the  diver- 
gence may  seem  at  first  view,  the  two  teach- 
ings will  be  found  at  last  separated  by  a 
great  gulf,  even  as  wide  as  that  which  di- 
vides truth  from  error,  light  from  darkness. 
On  the  summit  of  the  Adirondack  Mount- 
ains there  are  found  two  springs  of  water, 
so  close  together  that  the  wild  fox,  while 
slaking  his  thirst  at  the  one,  sweeps  with 
his  tail  the  other,  and  yet  from  the  quiet 
nook  where  they  spring  one  hurries  away 
to  the  north  and  east  to  form  the  majestic 
St.  Lawrence,  with  its  thousand  isles  and 


CUMMINS:  ROMAN  AND  REFORMED  DOCTRINES  OF  JUSTIFICATION.    469 


grand  expanse  of  gulf-like  water ;  the  other 
turns  southward,  and  becomes  the  beautiful 
Hudson,  breaking  through  the  Highlands  to 
bear  its  full  tribute  to  the  sea.  That  Rome 
regards  this  as  the  essential  point  of  diver- 
gence between  her  own  system  and  that  of 
Protestantism  is  evident  from  the  impor- 
tance given  to  this  subject  in  the  discussion 
of  the  Tridentine  Council,  convened  to  op- 
pose and  overthrow  the  work  of  the  Refor- 
mation. The  divines  of  that  council  were 
exhorted  to  "  be  assiduous  and  exact  in  their 
studies "  on  this  subject,  "  because  all  the 
errors  of  Luther  were  resolved  into  that 
point." 

I.  The  Romish  and  the  Reformed  Church- 
es differ  as  to  the  nature  of  justification.  Ac- 
cording to  the  teaching  of  the  Reformed 
Church,  the  term  Justification  has  but  one 
meaning  in  the  Word  of  God.  "It  is  acquit- 
tal from  guilt.  It  is  a  judicial  act  on  the 
part  of  God,  accounting  us  righteous,  not 
making  us  so.  It  is  an  act  done  for  us,  and 
not  in  us.  It  implies  a  relative  change  in 
the  state  of  an  accused  person  in  respect  of 
the  sentence  of  the  Divine  law."* 

The  Church  of  Rome,  on  the  other  hand, 
holds  that  justification  and  sauctification 
are  one  and  the  same.  Says  the  Council 
of  Trent,  "  Justification  is  not  only  remis- 
sion of  sins,  but  the  sanctification  and  re- 
newing of  the  inner  man  by  the  voluntary 
reception  of  grace  and  gifts  ;"t  or,  in  the 
language  of  Mohler,  its  most  accomplished 
modern  defender, "  It  is  a  power  truly  eman- 
cipating, dissolving  the  bands  of  evil,  and 
extirpating  sin."t  This,  then,  is  the  contrast : 

The  Church  of  Rome  holds  the  justifica- 
tion of  a  sinner  to  be  the  sanctificatiou  of 
his  nature,  the  extirpation  of  sin,  the  mak- 
ing him  truly  and  personally  holy. 

The  Reformed  Church  holds  the  justifica- 
tion of  a  sinner  to  be  the  act  of  God  ac- 
counting him  righteous,  his  acquittal  from 
guilt,  the  forgiveness  of  his  sins,  and  his 
reconciliation  to  God. 

Here,  then,  issue  is  made,  and  we  make 
our  appeal  confidently  to  the  Word  of  God 
to  decide  between  the  two  teachings. 

Deuteronomy  xxv.,  1 :  "If  there  be  a  con- 
troversy between  men,  and  they  come  xmto 
judgment,  that  the  judges  may  judge  them  ; 


to  the  charge  of  God's  elect  ?  It  is  God  that 
justifieth.  Who  is  he  that  condemneth  T" 
Romans  v.,  18 :  "  Therefore,  as  by  the  of- 
fense of  one  judgment  came  upon  all  men 
to  condemnation ;  even  so  by  the  righteous- 
ness of  one  the  free  gift  came  upon  all  men 
unto  justification  of  life." 

In  all  these  passages  it  is  impossible  to  as- 
sign but  one  meaning  to  the  terms  "justi- 
fy" and  "justification."  The  judicial  sense 
is  prominent  in  all.  Justification  is  the  op- 
posite of  condemnation :  it  is  acquittal  from 
guilt. 

Here,  indeed,  the  divergence  of  the  two 
systems  may  seem  to  be  very  slight,  and 
many  may  regard  the  difference  as  only  a 
conflict  of  words  and  of  subtle  distinctions 
of  theology.  But,  in  fact,  this  divergence 
will  be  seen,  as  we  examine  more  closely, 
to  underlie  all  opposing  teachings  of  the 
two  systems.  Let  us  mark  this  as  the  sec- 
ond great  point  of  contrast. 

II.  The  Romish  and  Reformed  Churches 
differ  in  their  teachings  concerning  the 
ground  or  basis  of  a  sinner's  justification  be- 
fore God. 

Great  caution  is  needed  here  to  bring  forth 
clearly  the  error  of  the  Church  of  Rome,  ob- 
scured, as  it  is  by  the  scholastic  subtleties 
of  the  Tridentiue  doctors. 

The  doctrine  of  the  Reformed  Church  is 
most  clearly  stated  in  the  eleventh  of  the 
Thirty-nine  Articles  of  the  Church  of  En- 
gland :  "  We  are  accounted  righteous  before 
God  only  for  the  merit  of  our  Lord  Jesus 
Christ,  by  faith,  and  not  for  our  own  works 
and  deservings." 

The  doctrine  taught  here  so  plainly  is  that 
the  ground  or  meritorious  cause  of  our  justi- 
fication is  the  merit  of  Christ  only. 

This  the  Church  of  Rome  anathematizes. 
Says  the  Council  of  Trent :  "  Whosoever  shall 
affirm  that  men  are  formally  justified  by  the 
righteousness  of  Christ,  let  him  be  accursed."* 
Again,  another  decree  says :  "  Whosoever 
shall  affirm  that  men  are  justified  by  the 
imputation  of  the  righteousness  of  Christ, 
to  the  exclusion  of  grace  and  charity  which 
inheres  in  them  ;  or  that  the  grace  by  which 
we  are  justified  is  only  the  favor  of  God,  let 
him  be  accursed."t 

What,  then,  does  the  Church  of  Rome 


then  they  shall  justify  the  righteous,  and  hold  to  bo  the  ground  or  basis  of  a  sinner's 
condemn  the  wicked."  Proverbs  xvii.,  15  :  reconciliation  to  God  ?  She  makes  ad istinc- 
"He  that  justifieth  the  wicked,  and  he  that  '  tion  between  the  meritorious  and  the  formal 
condemneth  the  just,  even  they  both  are  j  cause  of  justification.  "The  meritorious 
abomination  to  the  Lord."  Job  ix., 20 :  "If  cause," she  says,  " is  His  most  beloved,  only- 
I  justify  myself,  mine  own  mouth  shall  con-  begotten  Son,  who,  when  we  were  enemies, 
demn  me."  Psalm  cxliii.,  2:  "Enter  not  on  account  of  his  abounding  love  with  which 
into  judgment  with  thy  servant :  for  in  thy  he  loved  us,  by  his  own  most  holy  passion  on 
sight  shall  no  man  living  be  justified."  Ro-  the  cross,  merited  justification  for  us,  and 
mans  viii.,  33, 34 :  "  Who  shall  lay  any  thing  satisfied  us  to  God."t  Thus  far  we  agree. 

But  proceeds  the  Council :  "  The  only  formal 


*  Bishop  Wilson,  of  Calcutta. 

t  Sess.  VI.,  cap.  viii. 

t  Mohler's  "Symbolism,"  pnjre  190. 


*  Sess.  VI.,  cap.  x. 
t  Sesa.  II.,  cap.  viii. 


t  Sess.  II.,  cap.  viii. 


470 


ROMANISM  AND  PROTESTANTISM. 


cause  is  the  righteousness  of  God,  not  that 
by  which  he  himself  is  just,  but  that  by  which 
he  make*  us  just" 

Here,  then,  the  Church  of  Rome  teaches 
that  our  justification  before  God  is  a,  right- 
eousness in  us.  Says  Hooker :  "  When  they 
of  the  Church  of  Rome  are  required  to  show 
what  the  righteousness  is  by  which  a  Chris- 
tian man  is  justified,  they  answer  that  it  is 
a  Divine  spiritual  quality;  which  quality 
received  into  the  soul  doth  first  make  it  to 
be  one  with  them  who  are  born  of  God ;  and, 
secondly,  indue  the  soul  with  power  to  bring 
forth  such  works  as  they  do  that  are  born  of 
God.  This  grace  they  will  have  to  be  ap- 
plied by  infusion ;  to  the  end  that  as  the 
body  is  warmed  by  the  heat  which  is  in  it, 
so  the  soul  might  be  righteous  by  inherent 
grace."* 

The  same  far-seeing  mind  discerned  the 
specious  error  here  concealed.  "  This,"  says 
he,  "is  the  mystery  of  the  man  of  sin,  that 
they  make  the  essence  of  justification  to  con- 
sist in  a  divine  quality  inherent,  a  righteous- 
ness within  us.  If  it  be  in  us,  then  it  is  ours, 
even  as  our  souls  are  ours,  though  we  have 
them  from  God,  and  can  hold  them  no  long- 
er than  he  pleaseth ;  but  the  righteousness 
wherein  we  must  be  found  if  we  would  bo 
justified  is  not  our  own ;  therefore  we  can 
not  be  justified  by  any  inherent  quality. 
Christ  hath  merited  righteousness  for  as 
many  as  are  found  in  him :  in  him  God  find- 
eth  us,  if  by  faith  we  are  incorporated  into 
Christ." 

Subtle  and  obscure  as  may  be  the  utter- 
ances of  Rome  concerning  the  nature  of  jus- 
tification, it  can  not  conceal  the  deadly  error 
that  the  doctrine  of  infused  personal  right- 
eousness lays  a  foundation  for  the  doctrine 
of  human  merit.  By  this  infused  righteous- 
ness, the  Christian  is  made  capable  of  merit- 
ing God's  grace,  and  securing  salvation  by 
a  righteousness  of  his  own.  "  It  is  not  the 
logic  of  this  point  we  contend  for,"  says 
Bishop  Hall, "  it  is  not  the  grammar,  it  is 
the  Divinity;  what  that  is  whereby  wo 
stand  acquitted  before  God ;  whether  our 
inherent  righteousness,  or  Christ's  imputed 
righteousness  apprehended  by  faith.  The 
divines  of  Trent  are  for  the  former ;  all  an- 
tiquity is  with  us  for  the  latter." 

III.  The  Romish  and  Reformed  Churches 
differ  vitally  in  their  teachings  as  to  the  in- 
strument or  instrumental  cause  of  our  justi- 
fication. 

"  Faith,"  says  Hooker,  "  is  the  only  hand 
that  putteth  on  Christ  unto  justification." 
And  this  is  the  unanimous  testimony  of  all 
Protestant  Christendom ;  the  witness  of  all 
the  Reformers  —  a  witness  founded  upon 
personal  experience.  "  They  had  sought  in 
vain  for  this  infinite  goodj"  says  Professor 
1  isher,  "  in  the  teachings,  injunctions,  cere- 


*  "Discourse  on  Justification.' 


monies,  and  services  of  the  Church.  They 
found  it  in  the  doctrine  of  gratuitous  par- 
don from  the  bare  mercy  of  God,  through 
the  mediation  of  Christ;  a  pardon  that 
waits  for  nothing  but  acceptance  on  the 
part  of  the  soul — the  belief,  the  trust,  the 
faith  of  the  penitent."* 

What,  then,  according  to  the  teaching  of 
Rome,  is  the  instrument  of  our  justification  f 
It  is  baptism,  and  not  faith.  Hear  the  Coun- 
cil of  Trent :  "  The  instrumental  cause  of 
our  justification  is  the  sacrament  of  baptism, 
without  which  no  one  ever  attained  to  jus- 
tificatiou."t 

Then  the  dying  thief  was  not  justified 
when  Christ  opened  to  him  the  gates  of 
Paradise.  Then  Mary  Magdalene  was  not 
justified  when  Christ  said  to  her,  "  Thy  faith 
hath  saved  thee;  go  in  peace."  Then  the 
publican  was  not  pardoned  when  he  went 
down  to  his  house  "justified  rather  than  the 
other." 

We  see  now  the  relation  of  the  teaching 
of  an  infused  personal  righteousness  to  the 
whole  system.  Justification  or  personal 
righteousness  or  sanctification  is  communi- 
cated by  baptism  in  infancy ;  and  thus  bap- 
tismal justification  or  sanctification  becomes 
the  irpotrov  <f>ev£oe  out  of  which  the  whole 
system  naturally  is  developed. 

If  it  be  asked,  "What  is  the  relation  of 
baptism  to  justification  accordiug  to  the 
Reformed  Church,"  perhaps  the  best  reply 
is  to  be  found  in  the  Twenty-seventh  Article 
of  the  Church  of  England :  "  Baptism  is  not 
only  a  sign  of  profession,  whereby  Christian 
men  are  discerned  from  those  that  be  not 
christened ;  but  it  is  also  a  sign  of  regenera- 
tion, whereby,  as  by  an  instrument,  they 
that  receive  baptism  rightly  are  grafted  into 
the  Church ;  the  promises  of  the  forgiveness 
of  sins  and  of  our  adoption  to  be  the  sons  of 
God  are  visibly  signed  and  sealed ;  faith  is 
confirmed  and  grace  increased  by  virtue  of 
prayer  to  God." 

To  this  all  Protestantism  agrees : 

Faith  is  the  sole  instrument  of  justifica- 
tion. Baptism  is — 

1.  A  sign  of  a  Christian  man's  profession. 

2.  A  sign  of  regeneration  or  new  birth. 

3.  An  instrument,  when  rightly  received, 
by  which  we  are  grafted  into  the  Church. 

4.  The  promises  of  our  forgiveness  and 
adoption  are  visibly  signed  and  sealed;  and, 

5.  Faith  is  confirmed  and  grace  increased 
by  virtue  of  prayer  to  God. 

IV.  The  Romish  and  the  Reformed 
Churches  differ  most  essentially  in  their 
teaching  as  to  the  relation  of  good  works  to 
justification.  It  is  the  doctrine  of  the  Re- 
formed Church  that  all  our  works  are  utter- 
ly worthless  to  merit  salvation  of  God,  and 
any  attempt  to  regard  them  as  a  ground  of 


*  "  History  of  the  Reformation,"  page  461. 
t  Couc.  Trident,  Sess.  VI.,  cap.  viii. 


CUMMINS :  KOMAN  AND  KEFORMED  DOCTRINES  OF  JUSTIFICATION.    471 


forgiveness  is  to  disparage  the  work  of  the 
Redeemer,  who  made  upon  the  cross  "  a  full, 
perfect,  and  sufficient  sacrifice,  oblation,  and 
satisfaction  for  the  sins  of  the  whole  world" 
— "  one  sacrifice  for  sins  forever."  "  Good 
works,"  says  the  Twelfth  Article  of  the 
Church  of  England,  "  which  are  the  fruits 
of  faith,  and  follow  after  justification,  can 
not  put  away  our  sins,  and  endure  the  se- 
verity of  God's  judgment." 

Now  hear  the  Council  of  Trent :  "  Whoso- 
ever shall  affirm  that  the  good  works  of  a 
justified  man  are  in  such  sense  the  works  of 
God  that  they  are  not  also  his  worthy  mer- 
its ;  or  that  he  being  justified  by  his  good 
works,  which  are  wrought  by  him  through 
the  grace  of  God,  and  the  merits  of  Jesus 
Christ,  of  whom  he  is  a  living  member,  does 
not  really  deserve  increase  of  grace,  eternal 
life,  the  enjoyment  of  that  eternal  life  if  he 
dies  in  a  state  of  grace,  and  even  an  increase 
of  eternal  glory,  let  him  be  accursed." 

Which  is  right?  "To  the  law  and  the 
testimony."  Hear,  then,  what  the  Spirit 
saith  unto  the  Churches.  "  By  the  works  of 
the  law  shall  no  flesh  be  j  ustitied."  "  To  him 
that  worketh  not,  but  believeth  on  Him  that 
justifieththe  ungodly,  his  faith  is  counted  for 
righteousness."  "  By  grace  are  ye  saved, 
and  that  not  of  yourselves :  it  is  the  gift  of 
God."  "  Believe  on  the  Lord  Jesus  Christ, 
and  thou  shalt  be  saved."  "That  I  may 
win  Christ,  and  be  found  iu  him,  not  hav- 
ing mine  own  righteousness,  which  is  of  the 
law,  but  that  which  is  through  the  faith  of 
Christ,  the  righteousness  which  is  of  God  by 
faith." 

Does  the  Protestant  theory  disparage  and 
depreciate  good  works — holy  living  ?  God 
forbid.  It  teaches  that  good  works  are — 1. 
The  necessary  fruit  of  faith,  springing  from 
it  as  certainly  as  good  fruit  from  a  good 
tree ;  2.  That  they  are  the  evidence  of  a  liv- 
ing faith,  as  the  tree  is  known  by  its  fruits ; 
3.  That  they  are  pleasing  and  acceptable  to 
God,  and  are  rewarded,  but  of  grace  and  not 
of  merit. 

But  while  holding  strenuously  that  the 
motive  to  good  works  is  higher  under  the 
Evangelical  than  under  the  legal  system, 
Protestantism  declares  that  to  claim  any 
desert  of  God  for  man's  righteousness  is  to 
deny  the  sufficiency  of  Christ's  righteousness, 
and  presumptuously  to  attempt  to  strength- 
en and  complete  it  by  our  own. 

V.  One  other  point  of  contrast  yet  re- 
mains, practically  of  greater  importance  than 
all :  it  is  concerning  the  pardon  of  sins  com- 
mitted after  justification,  or,  what  is  synon- 
ymous, in  the  view  of  Rome,  after  baptism. 

In  the  teaching  of  Rome,  "  for  all  sins 
committed  after  baptism  the  offender  owes, 
and  must  render,  satisfaction."  Sins  are  di- 
vided by  the  Church  of  Rome  into  two  class- 
es :  venial  and  mortal  sins.  Venial  sins  do 
not  destroy  our  justification  before  God. 


'  Mortal  sins  do,  and  these  are  removed  only 
by  the  sacrament  of  penance. 

Hooker  thus  sets  forth  this  teaching  of 
Rome:  "As  grace  may  be  increased  by  the 
merit  of  good  works,  so  it  may  be  diminish- 
ed by  the  demerit  of  sins  venial,  and  may 
be  lost  entirely  by  mortal  sin.  To  such  as 
diminish  it  by  venial  sins,  grace  is  applied 
by  holy  water,  Ave  Marias,  crossings,  papal 
benedictions,  and  such  like.  To  such  as 
have  lost  it  by  mortal  sin,  it  is  applied  by 
the  sacrament  (as  they  term  it)  of  penance, 
which  sacrament  hath  power  to  confer  grace- 
anew,  yet  in  such  sort  that  it  only  changeth 
the  punishment  eternal  into  a  temporal,  sat- 
isfactory punishment  in  this  life,  if  time  is 
given ;  if  not,  hereafter  to  be  endured,  ex- 
cept it  be  lightened  by  masses,  works  of 
charity,  pilgrimages,  fasts,  and  such  like." 
"  This  is  the  mystery  of  the  man  of  sin !"  he  ex- 
claims ;  "  this  maze  the  Church  of  Rome  dotli 
cause  her  followers  to  tread  when  they  ask 
her  the  way  to  justification.  I  can  not 
stand  now  to  unrip  this  building  and  sift  it 
piece  by  piece  ;  only  I  will  pass  it  by  in  few 
words,  that  that  may  befall  Babylon  in  the 
presence  of  that  which  God  hath  builded, 
as  happened  unto  Dagou  before  the  Ark." 

In  strong  contrast  to  all  this  will-wor- 
ship, Protestantism  teaches  that  for  all  sins 
there  is  during  life  full  and  free  forgiveness, 
by  the  immediate  approach  of  the  penitent 
soul  in  faith  to  the  fountain  opened  iu  the 
house  of  David  for  sin  and  all  uncleanuess. 

Rome  denies  this  great  truth,  and  in  its 
stead  has  built  up  that  gigantic  system  of 
error  whose  essence  consists  in  placing  the 
Church  between  the  soul  and  God,  as  the 
sole  dispenser  of  this  grace,  and  without 
whose  ministrations  there  is  no  salvation. 
From  this  spring  all  the  kindred  errors,  the 
elevation  of  the  ministry  into  a  hierarchy, 
a  sacrificing,  mediating  priesthood,  through 
whose  offices  alone  all  heavenly  blessings 
can  come ;  a  priesthood  in  whose  hands  sac- 
raments convey  grace  ex  opere  opcrato,  in- 
dependent of  the  faith  of  the  recipient ;  a 
priesthood  empowered  to  forgive  sins  after 
securing  the  confession  of  the  penitent ;  a 
priesthood  by  whoso  words  the  bread  of  the 
sacrament  becomes  God  incarnate ;  a  priest- 
hood empowered  to  offer  sacrifices  for  the 
quick  and  dead.  From  this  error,  too,  spring 
the  doctrines  of  works  of  supererogation, 
a  treasury  of  which  is  laid  up  iu  the  Church, 
to  be  dispensed  in  indulgences — of  the  in- 
vocation of  saints  and  the  mother  of  Christ, 
of  pilgrimages  and  fasts,  and  the  whole  sys- 
tem of  asceticism. 

All  these  fall  before  the  doctrine  of  justi- 
fication by  faith  as  Dagon  fell  before  the 
Ark.  "Whenever  justification  by  faith  is 
held  iu  its  true  Protestant  sense,  the  doc- 
trine of  a  human  priesthood  becomes  a  use- 
less excrescence,  and  falls  off  of  itself.  For 
what  need  can  he  feel  of  a  human  medi- 


472 


ROMANISM  AND  PROTESTANTISM. 


ator  who  already  enjoys  fellowship  with 
(Jod  in  aud  through  Christ  f  Hence  is  to 
be  explained  the  peculiar  vehemence  with 
which  the  Romish  writers  have  ever  assailed 
this  doctrine,  and  the  misrepresentations  to 
which,  in  their  hands,  it  has  been  subject. 
The  assailants  may,  in  mauy  cases,  be  too 
well  acquainted  with  the  writings  of  the 
Reformers,  not  to  know  that  Soltidianism, 
so  far  as  the  word  expresses  a  tendency  to 
laxity  in  practice,  is  as  earnestly  repudiated 
by  the  latter  as  by  themselves ;  the  ani- 
mosity exhibited  proceeds  from  a  different 
source,  aud  the  Protestant  doctrine  of  jus- 
tification is  assailed,  not  so  much  because  it 
is  thought  dangerous  to  morality,  as  because 
it  robs  the  Church — that  is,  the  clerical  or- 
der— of  its  assumed  priestly  character.  As 
the  dogma  of  the  corporate  life  makes  the 
Church,  and  not  Christ,  the  author  of  spirit- 
ual life,  so  the  doctrine  of  a  human  priest- 
hood, under  the  Gospel,  makes  the  clergy 
the  arbiters  of  the  Christian's  destiny ;  for 
such  surely  they  are,  to  whom  is  committed 
the  power  of  barring  or  opening  as  they 
please  access  to  God.  With  an  instinct 
that  never  errs,  the  advocates  of  the  Tri- 
dentine  system  feel  that  justification  by 
faith — by  which  is  simply  meant  that  Christ 
in  his  priestly  office  is  present  instead  of  be- 
ing represented  by  a  sacerdotal  order— is  out 
of  place  in  their  doctrinal  structure,  aud 
must  either  remain  to  mar  its  symmetry  or 
be  expelled  from  it."* 

A  recapitulation  of  the  two  theories  will 
now  be  of  value.  According,  then,  to  the 
teaching  of  the  Reformed  Church — 

Justification  is  the  office  of  God,  and  not 
the  work  of  man. 

It  is  the  act  of  God  accounting  us  right- 
eons,  not  making  us  so. 

It  is  the  forgiveness  of  the  sinner,  the  ac- 
ceptance of  the  penitent  believer,  as  right- 
eous, into  Divine  favor  and  the  hope  of 
eternal  life. 

It  can  not  be  purchased  by  our  good 
works,  and  is  therefore  dependent  on  no  in- 
ternal righteousness,  but  is  wholly  depend- 
ent on  the  righteousness  of  our  Lord  and 
Saviour  Jesus  Christ. 

The  only  means  of  our  securing  it  is  faith, 
and  this  not  because  faith  is  meritorious, 
but  because  faith  remits  us  altogether  to 
Christ,  "  faith  being  only  the  instrument  to 
convey  so  great  a  benefit  to  the  soul,  as  the 
hand  of  the  beggar  receives  the  proffered 
alms."t 

This  faith  is  the  principle  of  all  good 
works,  and  the  parent  of  holiness.  Good 
works  spring  from  it  as  fruit  from  a  living 
tree,  and  the  incentive  to  their  performance 
is  the  love  of  Christ  constraining  the  soul. 


•  Litton's  "Church  of  Christ,"  London   edition, 
pages  652,  C53. 
t  Archbishop  Usher,  "Body  of  Divinity," page  190. 


And  for  all  sins  committed  after  justifica- 
tion there  is  full  and  ample  provision  in  the 
free  grace  of  God,  received  by  faith,  upon 
genuine  repentance. 

Such  is  the  simple  yet  sublime  doctrine  of 
all  Protestant  Christendom. 

According  to  the  teachings  of  Rome — 

Justification  is  the  sanctification  of  the 
soul.  This  sanctification  is  an  inherent  or 
internal  righteousness,  the  formal  cause  of 
our  acceptance  before  God.  This  internal 
righteousness  is  imputed  to  the  soul  through 
baptism,  aud  chiefly  in  infancy. 

This  justification  is  increased  by  our  good 
works,  which  merit  of  God  eternal  life  and 
an  increase  of  glory.  For  all  mortal  or 
deadly  Bins  committed  after  baptism  a  sac- 
rament of  penance  is  provided  which  re- 
moves the  eternal  consequences  of  guilt,  but 
not  the  temporal.  These  must  be  expiated 
by  self-inflicted  pnuishments  in  this  world, 
or  else  by  purgatorial  fires  in  the  world  to 
come. 

Such  is  the  dark  and  perplexing  maze 
into  which  the  followers  of  Rome  are  led 
when  they  ask,  "What  must  I  do  to  bo 
saved  ?" 

It  remains  only  to  characterize  these  op- 
posing theories  as  to  their' effect  and  results 
upon  the  individual  and  society. 

1.  The  one  is  justification  by  immediate 
access  of  the  soul  to  the  Redeemer,  through 
the  Holy  Spirit. 

The  penitent  believing  heart  approaches, 
not  through  media,  but  directly,  the  mercy- 
seat  of  God  in  Christ,  lays  hold  of  the  blood- 
sprinkled  sceptre  of  mercy,  and  receives  from 
a  reconciled  Father's  hand  the  grace  of  par- 
don aud  peace. 

The  other  is  a  justification  by  the  Church, 
by  and  through  the  sacraments  in  the  hands 
of  a  mediating  priesthood.  It  is  first  effect- 
ed by  the  sacrament  of  baptism.  It  is  re- 
newed or  recovered,  if  lost,  by  the  sacrament 
of  penance.  It  is  nourished  aud  sustained 
by  the  sacrament  of  the  mass.  It  is  per- 
fected in  the  hour  of  death  by  the  sacra- 
ment of  extreme  unction.  "  The  substance 
of  this  sacrament,"  says  the  Council  of  Trent, 
"  is  the  grace  of  the  Holy  Spirit,  whoso 
anointing  wipes  away  offenses,  if  any  are 
yet  to  be  expiated,  and  the  remains  of  sin."* 

2.  The  one  is  a  humbling  doctrine;  the 
other,  a  self -exalting  doctrine,  inculcating 
the  proud  notion  of  human  merit. 

The  one  humbles  the  sinner  and  exalts 
the  Saviour.  It  cuts  at  the  root  of  all  self- 
righteousness.  It  renounces  all  dependence 
for  salvation  upon  human  worth.  It  points 
only  to  the  Lamb  of  God.  It  lays  the  sin- 
ner low  at  the  foot  of  the  Cross.  It  teach- 
es him  to  say  from  the  first  moment  of  re- 
pentance to  his  latest  hour,  "  I  will  make 


•  Cone.  Trid.,  Sess.  XIV.,  cnp.  ii.,  De  Extrema  TTiic- 
tioue. 


CUMMINS :  ROMAN  AND  REFORMED  DOCTRINES  OF  JUSTIFICATION.    473 


mention  of  thy  righteousness,  even  of  thine 
only."  It  puts  into  his  mouth  the  jubilant 
song,  "Thou  only  art  worthy;  for  Thou 
wast  slain,  and  hast  redeemed  and  washed 
us  in  thy  blood,  and  hast  made  us  kings  and 
priests  unto  God." 

The  other  exalts  self.  It  encourages  com- 
placency and  confidence  in  human  right- 
eousness. It  mingles  man's  merits  with 
Christ's  merits.  It  aggrandizes  the  Church 
and  abases  the  Saviour.  It  falls  in  with  the 
innate  self-righteousness  of  the  human  heart. 
"  There  is  no  man's  case  so  dangerous,"  says 
Hooker,  "  as  he  whom  Satan  hath  persuaded 
that  his  own  righteousness  shall  present  him 
pure  and  blameless  in  the  sight  of  God." 

3.  The  one  is  a  comforting  doctrine;  the 
other,  where  it  operates  upon  sincere  and 
earnest  minds,  leading  to  gloom,  to  fear,  to 
despair. 

The  Reformed  doctrine,  according  to  the 
Eleventh  Article  of  the  Church  of  England, 
is  "  very  full  of  comfort."  "  There  is,"  says 
Asher,  "  no  such  comfort  to  a  Christian  soul 
like  that  which  floweth  from  this  well  of 
salvation,  this  sweet  doctrine  of  justifica- 
tion." "Let  it  be  accounted,"  says  Hooker, 
"  folly,  or  frenzy,  or  fury,  whatsoever ;  it  is 
our  comfort  and  wisdom ;  we  care  for  no 
knowledge  in  the  world  but  this :  that  man 
hath  sinned,  and  God  hath  suffered ;  that 
God  hath  made  himself  the  Son  of  man,  and 
that  men  are  made  the  righteousness  of 
God." 

What  heart  but  the  heavy-laden  and  sin- 
burdened  shall  tell  the  preciousness  of  this 
truth?  It  is  the  word  of  freedom  to  the 
captive.  It  unveils  the  face  of  a  reconciled 
Father.  It  discloses  the  beaming  smile  of 
a  God  of  love.  It  is  the  spirit  of  adoption. 
Its  first  lisping  is,  "Abba,  Father!  my  Lord 
and  my  God!"  Its  challenge  to  the  Uni- 
verse is,  "It  is  God  that  Justine  th.  Who  is 
he  that  condemneth  ?"  Its  firm  and  un- 
shaken Rock  is  this  :  "  There  is  now  no  con- 
demnation to  them  who  are  in  Christ  Je- 
sus." And  amidst  all  the  changes  and  chances 
of  this  mortal  life,  its  exulting  song  is,  "  Nei- 
ther life  nor  death,  nor  angels,  nor  princi- 
palities, nor  powers,  nor  things  present,  nor 
things  to  come,  nor  height,  nor  depth,  nor 
any  other  creature,  shall  bo  able  to  separate 
us  from  the  love  of  God  which  is  in  Jesus 
Christ  our  Lord." 

The  opposiug  doctrine  is  a  doctrine  lead- 
ing to  uncertainty  and  dread.  It  is  a  spir- 
it of  bondage  again  unto  fear,  and  not  a  spir- 
it of  adoption.  It  puts  a  yoke  upon  the  tru- 
ly earnest  soul  more  galling  than  the  Jew- 
ish, "  which,"  says  the  apostle,  "  neither  we 
nor  our  fathers  were  able  to  bear."  After 
leading  the  devout  soul  through  its  maze  of 
will-worship,  it  leaves  its  eternal  salvation 
in  doubt  and  uncertainty. 

Hence  the  type  of  piety  which  this  teach- 
ing has  ever  produced.  What  are  the  "  Lives 


of  the  Saints  "  but  records  of  appalling  aus- 
terities, of  macerations,  of  penances,  of  self- 
inflicted  cruelties  ? 

"  Where  Rome's  doctrine  of  justification 
lays  hold  of  earnest  and  devout  minds,"  says 
an  able  American  review,  "  what  labyrinths 
does  it  lead  them  to  mistake  for  the  way  of 
holiness !  Their  attention,  of  course,  will  be 
mainly  directed  to  that  satisfaction  which 
they  must  make  for  past  sins,  notwithstand- 
ing their  release  from  its  eternal  penalties 
by  the  satisfaction  of  Christ.  Their  whole 
life  thus  becomes  a  scene  of  purgatorial  en- 
durance, and  their  attainments  in  holiness 
which  are  held  forth  for  admiration  in  the 
lives  of  their  most  esteemed  saints  are  those 
self-inflicted  mortifications  and  sufferings  in 
which  the  Fakirs  of  India  excel  them.  Such 
is  the  sanctity  which,  in  the  lives  of  eminent 
saints,  published  in  our  own  day,  is  commend- 
ed to  the  pious  aspirations  of  the  faithful  of 
Rome.  The  sanctity  of  hair  shirts,  and  gall- 
ing iron  chains,  and  cruel  scourgings,  and  eat- 
ing of  unwholesome  and  putrid  food,  and  all 
the  strangest  devices  of  self-torture  which 
can  be  conceived — this  was  the  sanctity,  as 
set  forth  by  Romanists  themselves,  of  Al- 
phonsus  Liguori,  and  Francis  de  Girolamo, 
and  Joseph  of  the  Cross,  and  Pacificns,  of 
San  Severius  and  Veronica,  Ginbrani,  and 
the  saints  whose  lives  are  contained  in  the 
Breviary ;  all  of  whom  Rome  loves  to  honor, 
and  for  such  sanctity  canonizes.  And  who 
shall  say  that  such  sanctity  is  not  the  na- 
tive result  of  the  Romish  teachings  on  justi- 
fication and  satisfaction  ?  But  such  teach- 
ings are  a  strange  exhibition  of  that  liberty 
wherewith  Christ  hath  made  us  free,  a  most 
sad  forgetfulness  of  his  saving  grace,  and  a 
most  lamentable  caricature  of  that  holiness 
to  which  he  hath  called  us.  And  yet  such 
achievements  as  those  above  alluded  to  are 
the  very  masterpieces  of  the  Romish  sys- 
tem. What  well-instructed  Christian  will 
say  that  they  do  not  stamp  with  falsehood 
the  doctrine  of  justification  from  which 
they  spring?" 

4.  Once  more,  the  Reformed  doctrine  is  a 
"  wholesome  doctrine ;"  the  Roman  teaching, 
pernicious  in  its  tendencies  and  effects.  The 
objection  to  the  doctrine  of  justification  by 
faith  only,  that  it  is  unfavorable  to  morali- 
ty and  holy  living,  is  as  old  as  the  apostles' 
day.  Even  then  St.  Paul  is  found  defend- 
ing it  against  the  gaiusayers :  "  Do  we  make 
void  the  law  through  faith  ?  God  forbid ; 
yea,  we  establish  the  law." 

The  Scriptural  doctrine  of  justification  is 
eminently  a  "  wholesome,"  a  holy  doctrine. 
It  can  not  bo  embraced  earnestly  and  truly 
and  fail  to  bring  forth  fruit  unto  holiness. 
It  implants  within  the  soul  the  mightiest 
mainspring  of  all  exertion.  "  The  love  of 
Christ  constraineth  us,"  is  its  noble  incen- 
tive. "Lord,  what  wilt  thou  have  me  to  do  ?" 
the  first  cry  of  the  pardoned  soul.  "  How 


474 


ROMANISM  AND  PROTESTANTISM. 


much  must  I  do  for  the  Saviour  T"  is  the  Ro- 
manist's utterance ;  "  How  much  can  I  do 
for  Him  T"  the  Protestant's  response. 

In  evidence  of  the  might  of  this  faith  to 
bring  forth  fruits  of  holiuess,  Protestantism 
points  triumphantly  to  the  records  of  the 
past  three  hundred  years,  to  the  lives  he- 
gotten  and  nourished  under  its  influence, 
to  patriots  like  a  Coligny,  a  William  the 
Silent,  a  Sydney,  and  a  Washington;  to 
scholars  and  scientists  like  Selden,  and 
Grotius,  and  Hale,  and  Newton,  and  Boyle, 
and  Locke,  and  Milton,  and  Addison,  and 
Brewster,  and  Faraday ;  to  philanthropists 
like  Howard  and  Wilberforce,  Fliedner,  and 
Francke,  and  Miiller ;  to  divines  like  Me- 
lanchthou  and  Farel,  Hooker  and  Leighton, 
Herbert  and  Ken,  Neander  and  Tholuck, 
Moiiod  and  Vinet,  Baxter  and  Doddridge, 
Wesley  and  Payson,  Chalmers  and  Hall; 
to  missionaries  like  Martyn  and  Elliott, 
Braiuard  and  Schwartz,  Gary,  and  Marsh- 
man,  and  Judson,  Williams  of  Erromanga ; 
Heber,  and  Mackenzie,  and  Patterson,  the 
martyr  of  Melanesia. 

With  equal  confidence  she  points  to  the 
nations  where  this  great  truth  has  been  re- 
ceived in  contrast  with  those  which  have 
rejected  it,  and  says  to  all  mankind,  "  By 
their  fruits  ye  shall  know  them."  Wher- 
ever this  doctrine  is  "truly  preached,  truly 
believed,  and  truly  followed,"  there  will 
ever  be  found  all  the  virtues  that  sanctify 
the  home,  all  the  charities  that  sweeten  life, 
all  the  sterner  moralities  that  adorn  and 
dignify  human  nature;  and,  on  the  other 
hand,  when  the  opposing  doctrine  is  taught 
and  held,  its  fruits  will  ever  be  seen,  to  a 
vast  extent,  in  a  decay  of  private  and  public 
virtue.  Let  the  fruits  of  the  two  systems 
be  seen  on  the  one  hand  in  England,  and  on 
the  other  in  Italy ;  in  Scotland  contrasted 
with  Spain ;  the  United  States,  with  Mexico 
and  Brazil. 

Fellow-Protestants  of  every  name  and  na- 
tionality !  children  of  the  Reformation !  this 
is  the  very  citadel  of  our  faith,  the  very  heart 
of  the  Gospel.  This  truth  made  the  Reforma- 
tion. And,  under  God,  this  truth  alone  can 
preserve  it ;  revive  it  where  it  has  become 


sickly  and  feeble,  purify  it  where  it  has 
fallen  from  its  first  estate.  In  the  recep- 
tion, maintenance,  and  personal  experience 
of  this  "  truth  as  it  is  in  Jesus,"  we  are  to 
find  the  real  unity  of  all  Protestant  Chris- 
tendom. United  to  Christ  by  a  saving  faith, 
I  am  one  with  every  other  believer. 

Two  incidents  in  history  strikingly  con- 
trast the  two  systems. 

In  the  magnificent  cathedral  of  Toledo,  in 
Spain,  among  the  portraits  of  its  archbish- 
ops painted  by  Murillo  and  other  eminent 
artists,  and  by  the  side  of  the  portraits  of 
Mendoza  and  Ximenes,  may  be  seen  that  of 
Carranza,  the  confessor  of  Charles  V.  When 
that  Emperor  was  dying  in  the  convent  of 
Yuste,  Carranza  exhorted  him  to  faith  in  the 
Crucified  as  the  only  hope  of  salvation.  For 
that  offense  he,  an  archbishop  of  Toledo  and 
a  confessor  of  Charles,  was  arrested  on  th« 
charge  of  being  "  infected  with  Lutheran 
opinions,"  was  imprisoned  in  the  castle  of 
St.  Angelo,  and  died  at  last  a  prisoner  in  the 
dungeon. 

In  the  month  of  March  last  the  great  and 
saintly  Bishop  M'llvaine  lay  dying  in  the 
city  of  Florence,  in  Italy.  His  whole  life 
had  been  one  long  testimony  to  the  great 
truth  of  Justification  by  Faith  only.  Ho 
gave  his  profoundest  studies  to  the  estab- 
lishment and  defense  of  this  doctrine.  As 
he  stepped  down  into  the  dark  valley,  this 
truth  became  most  precious  to  his  soul. 
With  a  child-like  faith  he  grasped  the  Cross 
alone.  "  Read  to  me,"  he  asked,  "  the  hymn, 

'  Rock  of  Ages,  cleft  for  me, 
Let  me  hide  myself  in  thee.' 

Then  again, 

'Jesus,  Saviour  of  my  soul, 
Let  me  to  thy  bosom  fly.' 

Once  more,  read  to  me, 

'Just  as  I  am,  without  one  plea, 
But  that  thy  blood  was  shed  for  me, 
And  that  thon  bidst  me  come  to  thee, 
O  Lamb  of  God,  I  come '.' 

That  hymn,"  he  said,  "  contains  the  whole 
of  my  theology.  Let  it  be  sung  at  my  buri- 
al." And  it  was  sung  by  a  vast  multitude, 
as  we  laid  him  away  to  his  qniet  rest  on  the 
banks  of  the  beautiful  Ohio. 


HOW  SHALL  PROTESTANT  MINISTERS  BEST  MEET 
THE  DEMANDS  OF  THE  PRESENT  AGE? 

By  THE  REV.  FRANCK  COULIN,  D.D.,  OF  GENEVA.  SWITZERLAND. 


THIS  is  a  very  interesting  and  well-timed 
question,  an  answer  to  which  would  fill  a 
volume.  The  tenor  of  such  an  answer  must 
depend  on  the  nature  of  the  medium  and  of 
the  church  organization  of  any  particular 
ministry.  To  turn  to  the  best  possible  ac- 
count the  limited  time  granted  us,  I  will 
lay  before  you,  under  three  principal  heads, 
the  succinct  summary  of  my  observations 
and  serious  reflections. 

I.  ORGANIZATION  OF  THE  EVANGELICAL 
MINISTRY. 

To  enable  Protestant  ministers  effectual- 
ly to  meet  the  intellectual  and  practical  de- 
mands of  the  present  age,  it  would,  above 
all,  be  desirable  to  make  them  share  more 
largely,  in  a  system  which  more  than  any 
other  has  quickened  industry;  I  mean  the 
division  of  labor,  which  is  justified  not  only 
by  the  wants  of  the  day,  but  by  the  teach- 
ing of  the  Bible  and  of  the  early  Church. 
The  Apostolic  Church  had  not  to  contend 
with  the  varied  and  crowding  wants  of 
the  present  day ;  still  she  instituted  distinct 
functions  and  ministries  answering  to  the 
varied  God-sent  gifts  which  her  specially 
trained  ministers  imparted  to  the  people 
with  special  ability  (Acts  vi.,  1-4 ;  Rom. 
xii.,  3-8 ;  1  Cor.  xii.,  4-12 ;  Eph.  iv.,  7, 11-16). 

The  Roman  Church  has,  in  its  own  way, 
largely  applied  this  principle,  and  found 
therein  one  of  the  elements  of  her  strength. 
Wherever  she  meets  a  special  gift,  she  appro- 
priates it  to  a  corresponding  special  work. 

The  Reformation  had,  on  its  appearance, 
every  thing  to  provide.  Its  founders — men 
raised  up  by  God  and  gifted  by  him  with 
rare  endowments — had  to  do,  and  did,  ev- 
ery thing  simultaneously.  They  were  men 
of  science,  men  of  action,  pastors,  apostles, 
and  evangelists.  They  instituted  a  minis- 
try in  accordance  with  their  views.  Now 
what  was  for  them  a  necessity  is  for  us  a 
mistake  and  a  weakness.  Our  world  is  a 
different  world  to  their  world,  and  wo  must 
adopt  a  system  calculated  to  meet  its  re- 
quirements. 

Right  it  is,  doubtless,  that  every  man,  ac- 
cording to  his  opportunities,  should  strive 
to  become  as  complete  a  man  as  possible. 
Christendom  is  one,  and  has  a  oneness  of 
purpose ;  its  several  parts  must,  then,  be  har- 
moniously blended,  not  pedantically  sepa- 


rated. Life  is  to  be  distributed,  not  to  be 
divided.  Yet  surely  you  can  not  but  all 
agree  that  the  intellectual  and  practical 
wants  of  the  age  require  the  varied  treat- 
ment of  special  men,  according  to  the  in- 
structions of  St.  Paul. 

1.  In  this  age  of  ours  which  strives  at  re- 
casting science,  in  this  age  when  the  Titan 
pride  of  man  dares  scale  the  heavens  and 
attempt  God's  throne,  the  Church  is  more 
than  ever  in  need  of  many  valiant  teachers ; 
of  men  deeply  and  widely  read,  especially  in 
the  different  branches  of  theology,  who  will 
live  for  her,  and  firmly  will  face  her  scien- 
tific unchristian  opponents,  as  well  as  the 
Christian  rationalists  who,  under  the  garb 
of  theology,  sap  Christian  faith.     In  Switz- 
erland, in  a  late  foray  made  by  the  so-called 
liberal  Christians,  we  could  appreciate  the 
signal  services  done  to  the  cause  of  the  Gos- 
pel by  a  few  men  who  were  so  fortunate  as 
to  be  already  fore -armed  by  hard  study. 
How  useful  it  would  be  for  the  churches,  in 
view  of  such  eventualities,  to  enable  fitly  en- 
dowed men  to  keep  to  the  front  of  the  sci- 
entific phalanx,  by  publishing  books,  hold- 
ing conferences,  and  communicating  to  the 
masses  a  luminous  and  solid  instruction! 
Too  long  have  reading  men  been  kept  in 
the  shade ;  now  is  the  time  to  give  them  a 
lead  in  religious  education. 

2.  In  an  age  of  easy  and  rapid  locomo- 
tion, when  for  several  reasons  Christians  arc 
scattered  over  the  surface  of  the  earth,  as 
they  were  in  the  early  ages  of  Christianity, 
men  should  be  chosen  for  the  apostolic  duties 
of  messengers  and  delegates.     We  have,  in- 
deed, our  missionaries  among  the  heathen, 
and  we  esteem  the  valuable   services  by 
which  they,  so  to  speak,  widen  the  kingdom 
of  God  and  quicken  its  soil  by  varied  cul- 
ture.    A  foreign  mission  has  its  sphere  of 
activity,  but  can  not  replace  a  home  mis- 
sion, the  want  of  which  is  felt,  and  which 
ought  to  occupy  seriously  the  attention  of  all 
churches.     Now  I  say  that  life  is  motion ; 
it  is  maintained,  is  assimilated,  is  strength- 
ened only  by  circulation.     Let  us  encour- 
age, therefore,  the  relations  and  the  commu- 
nication of  the  diverse  members  of  the  Body 
of  Christ.     To  stir  up  the  zeal  of  pastors, 
to  bring  together  the  diverse  Christian  con- 
gregations, to  collect  and  make  known  the 
fruits  of  experience,  to  make  preaching  more 


476 


ROMANISM  AND  PROTESTANTISM. 


telling,  to  draw  the  attention  of  the  church- 
es to  their  reciprocal  duties,  etc.,  let  us  en- 
deavor to  institute  an  apostolic  ministry,  by 
consecrating  to  it  such  men  as  the  Lord  may 
particularly  point  out  for  that  purpose  (see 
Acts  xiii.,  2,  3).  They  would  be  iu  Chris- 
tianity the  representatives  of  the  ecumen- 
ical element  —  of  unity  iu  diversity.  The 
general  conferences  of  the  Evangelical  Alli- 
ance come  within  the  sphere  of  this  activi- 
ty. We  are  here  as  delegates,  as  apostles ; 
we  have  the  feeling  of  carrying  on  by  this 
temporary  ministry  a  work  of  the  highest 
usefulness.  Perhaps  it  may  belong  to  the 
Alliance  to  add  to  its  institution  of  ecumen- 
ical conferences  that  of  a  permanent  apostle- 
ship.  It  alone  sufficiently  represents  evan- 
gelical catholicity  to  take  up  this  initiative. 

3.  In  the  primitive  Church,  there  were 
prophets — men  specially  consecrated  to  the 
ministry  of  preaching.  By  public  preach- 
ing especially  the  Gospel  has  made  its  way 
in  the  world.  But  in  democratic  mediums 
like  ours,  in  which  public  speaking  is  the 
first  of  all  influential  means,  preaching  un- 
der different  forms  tends  to  assume  a  pre- 
ponderating importance.  We  think  it  our 
duty  to  recommend  very  earnestly  to  the  at- 
tention of  the  Church  what  is  called  High 
Pulpit  Eloquence — that  is,  preaching  stud- 
ied both  in  matter  and  manner,  so  as  to  ena- 
ble the  student  to  compose  literary  and  ora- 
torical sermons.  Pulpit  eloquence  not  only 
influences  for  good  sympathetic  crowds  and 
numberless  readers  when  reproduced  by  the 
press,  but  possesses  an  important  conserva- 
tive value  as  a  high  testimony  in  honor  of 
the  Gospel,  projecting  far  around  the  rays 
of  the  truth,  and  drawing  from  far  around 
the  attention  of  cultivated  minds  and  dissi- 
pating their  prejudices.  Now  Cicero  says, 
"Nascuutur  poetae,  fiunt  oratores."  That 
men  gifted  with  the  eloquence  of  public  as- 
semblies should  be  able  to  develop  their 
precious  talent,  they  must  have  time  to  de- 
vote to  it,  they  must  to  a  great  extent  be 
relieved  from  other  pastoral  cares,  so  that 
their  conscience  may  not  have  to  reproach 
them  with  the  time  given  to  study,  to  retire- 
ment and  meditation,  and  that  the  prepara- 
tion of  their  solemn  duties  may  become  their 
first  and  chief  business.  Pulpit  eloquence 
depends  on  such  conditions.  The  Roman 
Church  has  xmderstood  that,  and  may  serve 
us  therein  as  an  example. 

4.  The  primitive  Church  had  its  pastors, 
men  whose  gift  and  office  was  the  cure  of 
souls.  The  cure  of  souls  is  in  one  sense  the 
aim  and  purpose  of  an  evangelical  ministry; 
never  should  I  imagine  a  servant  of  Christ, 
be  he  who  he  may,  saying,  "  That's  not  my 
business !"  In  our  days  of  excited  aud  arti- 
ficial life,  it  is  more  than  ever  desirable  that 
each  member  of  the  flock  should  meet  with 
a  man  capable  of  enlightening,  directing, ' 
and  fructifying  the  results  of  his  experience. 


But  if  there  be  men  peculiarly  gifted  in  this 
respect,  possessing  characters  more  sympa- 
thetic,  better  calculated  to  inspire  coufi- 
deuce,  why  should  not  the  Church  try  to 
\  enable  them  to  make  the  cure  *f  souls  their 
principal  concern  f  The  Roman  Church  has 
its  directors  and  confessors ;  what  I  wish  is 
that,  mutatis  mutandis,  we  had  our  directors 
and  our  confessors.  It  would  usually  be  the 
office  of  men  ripe  in  years  and  experience, 
who  have  suffered  much,  and  who  have  that 
indulgent  seriousness  which  is  the  mark  of 
Christian  maturity.  In  the  exercise  of  com- 
plex pastoral  duties,  the  being  obliged  on  ac- 
count of  specified  functions  to  reserve  the 
cure  of  souls  for  spare  moments  tends  to  un- 
dervalue this  useful  labor  iu  the  minds  of 
the  pastor.  The  more  successful  the  Church 
is  in  finding  the  means  of  making  of  the  cure 
of  souls  a  special  ministry,  the  higher  she 
will  raise  it  in  the  opinion  of  the  congrega- 
tion to  the  greater  good  of  all. 

5.  One  of  the  necessities  of  the  day  is  by 
proper  means  to  carry  the  Gospel  down  into 
the  midst  of  the  lower  classes.     For  this 
purpose  evangelists  are  required.     The  prim- 
itive Church  had  her  evangelists,  whose  ac- 
tion was  no  less  important  than  that  of  the 
apostles.     The  religions  awakening  at  the 
beginning  of  this  century  was  greatly  due 
to  the  initiative  of  Felix  Neff,  Py  t,  Bost,  sim- 
ple evangelists.     The  Church  is  at  present 
in  want  of  such  laborers.     It  is  important 
that  they  should  be  well  chosen,  well  pre- 
pared, well  directed — serious  and  delicate 
points — but  it  is  necessary  that  there  should 
be  besides  the  staff  of  pastors  and  preachers, 
an  enterprising  company  of  popular  mission- 
aries.    The  masses  fall  off  from  the  official 
worship ;  they  have  a  repugnance  for  what- 
ever smells  of  the  priest.     The  Christian 
doctrines  must  be  brought  before  the  peo- 
ple by  men  of  the  people,  living  among  tlio 
people,  and  sharing  in  their  life  struggle. 
Before  entering  the  door  of  the  workshop 
or  the  factory,  he  must,  as  in  early  times, 
wear  the  dress  of  the  workman  and  speak 
the  language  of  the  humble. 

6.  One  of  the  most  desirable  improvements 
is  that  which  would  tend  to  relieve  as  much 
as  possible  the  pastors  of  such  material  cares 
as  office  duties,  administration,  and  alms-giv- 
ing.   The  primitive  Church  had,  at  an  early 
date,  her  deacons.     The  evangelical  ministry 
will  be  the  gainer  iu  re-adopting  the  insti- 
tution, and  developing  it  by  a  clear  and  def- 
inite distinction  between  the  material  and 
the  spiritual  domains.     Chalmers  very  judi- 
ciously observes  that  the  deacon,  if  a  zeal- 
ous believer,  is  always  in  a  position,  without 
inconvenience  to  join  occasionally  evangeli- 
zation with  his  own  ministry.     Thereby  he 
dignifies  it ;   whereas  the  pastor  who  is 
charged  with   evangelizing   and   directing 
souls  is  in  danger  of  lowering  and  compro- 
mising his  ministry,  in  proportion  as  he  is 


COULIN:  PROTESTANT  MINISTERS,  AND  THE  DEMANDS  OF  THE  AGE/477 


called  on  to  meddle  with  material  cares,  and 
particularly  with  the  distribution  of  alms. 
It  is  needless  to  observe  that  relieving  pas- 
tors of  administration  cares  is  removing 
their  fetters,  is  bestowing  on  them  freedom 
and  wings,  is  devoting  them  to  their  special 
mission. 

Let  us  add,  moreover,  that  a  participation 
as  broad  as  possible  granted  to  laymen  in 
the  work  of  the  ministry,  is  one  of  the  most 
important  conditions  in  the  answer  to  the 
question  that  occupies  us. 

The  Church  which,  by  establishing  a  dis- 
tinction in  its  offices,  and  attributing  to 
each  individual  the  functions  best  adapted 
to  his  natural  endowments,  will  succeed  in 
organizing  its  available  strength  in  the  most 
complete  and  intelligent  manner — just  as  an 
army,  which  has  its  soldiers,  chiefs,  special 
arms,  and  its  elite,  forming  a  whole  well  pro- 
portioned and  knit  together  in  all  its  parts — 
such  a  Church  will  meet  best  the  intellect- 
ual and  practical  wants  of  the  present  day. 

II.  PREPARATION  OF  CANDIDATES  FOR  HOLY 
ORDERS. 

Given  the  evangelical  ministry,  such  as  it 
is  in  most  of  our  churches,  I  deem  that  one 
of  the  least  doubtful  causes  of  its  insufficien- 
cy is  to  be  found  in  the  fact  that  the  idea 
of  a  holy  calling  is  weakened.  I  mean  the 
special  call  from  above,  which  beforehand  is 
addressed  directly  to  the  heart  of  the  future 
pastor  by  the  supreme  Shepherd  of  souls. 

1.  This  is  of  all  things  the  most  necessary. 
Sometimes  a  candidate  enters  the  ministry 
without  having  heard,  like  St.  Peter,  the 
call  sound  three  times  in  his  ears :  "  Feed 
my  lambs."  He  enters  it  as  a  human  career 
more  or  less  honorable,  for  which  a  little 
science,  a  few.  administrative  talents,  an 
ordinary  measure  of  piety,  are  sufficient. 
Hence  so  many  ministries  shining  with  a 
certain  brightness  in  the  sphere  of  theolog- 
ical controversy,  of  religious  literature,  of 
oratorical  teaching,  or  philanthropic  activi- 
ty, but  standing  aloof  from  that  sacred  love 
of  souls,  from  that  devouring  zeal  for  the 
house  of  God,  which  urged  St.  Paul  to  ex- 
claim, "Woe  is  me,  if  I  preach  not  the  Gos- 
pel," and  which  alone  can  make  of  the  pas- 
tor a  living  leaven  destined  to  leaven  the 
whole  Church,  and  through  it  the  whole 
world.  The  anticlerical  tendency  of  our 
century  makes  this  condition  all  the  more 
important.  The  more  the  calling  in  its  ex- 
ternal character  loses  its  prestige,  the  more 
essential  it  becomes  that  a  pastoral  calling 
in  its  internal  character  should  bo  a  living 
reality.  Every  Church  desirous  of  obtain- 
ing true  pastors  must,  without  delay,  think 
on  it,  and  decide  on  the  means  of  forming 
positions  for  men  who  are  truly  called.  She 
ought  to  keep  this  in  view  among  the  youth 
in  the  schools;  to  direct  the  attention  of  fam- 
ilies to  it;  to  direct  to  it  the  attention  of  who- 


ever has  at  heart  the  sacred  interests  of  the 
kingdom  of  heaven,  and  particularly  the  at- 
tention of  those  who  have  the  special  charge 
of  preparing  the  candidates  for  holy  orders. 

2.  Too  much  stress  can  not  be  laid  on 
the  necessity  of  saturating  theological  stud- 
ies with  a  spirit  of  living,  inward,  personal 
piety.     You  ask  for  men  on  a  level  with  the 
intellectual  and  social  demands  of  the  age ; 
make  true  Christians !    Not  by  their  science, 
but  by  their  faith,  the  apostles  moved  their 
century.     We  must  not  ignore  that  the  the- 
ological studies,  as  now  carried  on  in  our 
schools  of  theology,  tend  to  imperil  that  sim- 
ple, spontaneous,  communicative  faith  which 
ought  to  be  the  soul  of  the  ministry  itself. 
The  peril  is  greater  than  ever  now  that  re- 
ligious controversies  receive  the  widest  pub- 
licity ;  so  that  to  the  natural  dryness  of  sci- 
ence is  added  the  profane  character  that  in- 
fects most  subjects  in  the  public  press  and 
worldly  conversation.     It  is  incumbent  on 
those  invested  with  the  serious  and  sublime 
charge  of  preparing  the  future  leaders  of  the 
Church,  to  combat  by  the  tendency  of  their 
preaching,  and  especially  by  their  example, 
the  causes  of  this  evil.     They  must  remem- 
ber that,  in  the  preparation  for  the  holy 
ministry,  studies  properly  so  called  are  not 
the  object,  but  a  means  in  many  respects 
fraught  with  danger.     They  must  aim  not 
at  making  theologians,  but  in  forming  pas- 
tors, that  is,  Christians  in  the  highest  sense 
of  the   term,  Christians  ex  officio,  leaders 
and  models  for  the  flock — in  short,  apostles 
of  deep  conviction,  who  can  say  with  St. 
Paul :  "  The  weapons  of  our  warfare  are  not 
carnal,  but  mighty  through  God  to  the  pull- 
ing down  of  strongholds ;  casting  down  im- 
aginations, and  every  high  thing  that  exalt- 
eth  itself  against  the  knowledge  of  God,  and 
bringing  into  captivity  every  thought  to 
the  obedience  of  Christ "  (2  Cor.  x.,  4,  5). 

3.  If  the  object  aimed  at  is  deep  piety 
warmed  by  zeal  and  enlightened  by  solid  sci- 
ence ;  on  the  other  hand,  as  this  piety  must 
be  armed  with  a  general  culture  in  keeping 
with  the  advanced  knowledge  of  the  age, 
and  with  the  tastes  of  the  time ;  moreover, 
as  the  future  soldiers  of  Christ  are  necessa- 
rily destined  to  be  brought  into  contact  with 
the  most  advanced  doctrines  and  manners 
which  they  will  have  to  regulate  or  combat — 
my  opinion  is  that,  provided  the  proper  pre- 
cautions be  taken,  and  the  studies  be  guar- 
anteed from  disturbance,  schools  of  theology 
ought  to  be  situated  in  the  midst  of  large 
capitals,  which  are  the  centres  of  the  mental 
activity  and  social  interests  of  nations.    The 
rocks  ahead  in  this  position  are  the  numer- 
ous forms  of  dissipation  to  be  found  in  largo 
towns  ;  but,  on  the  other  hand,  the  concen- 
trated experience  of  mankind  is  to  bo  found 
only  there.     St.  Paul  deposited  the  propaga- 
ting seeds  of  truth  in  the  chief  towns  of  tho 
ancient  world.    Christian  antiquity  chose  as 


478 


ROMANISM  AND  PROTESTANTISM. 


seats  of  its  schools  of  theology  towns  such  as 
Antioch,  Athens,  Alexandria,  Rome. 

4.  After  these  general  observations,  allow 
me  to  mention  some  points  of  a  more  spe- 
cial character.  (1.)  It  is  of  major  impor- 
tance now  to  train  up,  from  an  early  age, 
I'm  urc  ministers  to  speak  extempore.  I  do 
not  mean  unprepared  speaking.  Madame 
de  Stael  said,  "On  n'  improvise  que  des 
phrases."  In  work,  meditation,  and  prayer, 
the  Bread  of  Life  must  conscientiously  be 
prepared  for  the  souls  of  men.  But  in  this 
present  century,  when  the  freedom  of  speech 
is  eagerly  employed  for  the  acquisition  of 
all  other  liberties,  in  our  century  of  confer- 
ences, meetings,  public  discussions,  it  is  sin- 
gularly important ;  for  the  pastor,  constant- 
ly called  on  to  give  account  for  himself  and 
the  Church  of  the  hope  that  is  in  him,  should 
be  a  man  capable  of  expressing  his  thoughts, 
if  not  always  eloquently,  at  least  simply, 
clearly,  vividly,  in  a  language  both  easy 
and  correct. 

(2.)  I  propose  that  the  instruction  given 
to  future  pastors  should  comprise  two  new 
branches  which  as  yet  have,  I  believe,  sel- 
dom appeared  in  the  official  programmes: 
the  history  of  religions,  and  the  economical 
sciences.  The  history  of  religions  is  a  new 
science,  which  is  abusively  turned  to  the  ad- 
vantage of  the  rationalistic  doctrines  which 
consider  Christianity  a  natural  offshoot  of 
the  development  of  humanity.  The  eco- 
nomical sciences  (les  sciences  sodales),  in  their 
connection  with  the  consequences  and  social 
applications  of  Christianity,  are  a  study  in- 
dispensable in  face  of  the  great  question  of 
the  day,  which  the  Church  that  ought  to 
inherit  the  compassion  of  its  Master  has 
no  right  to  push  aside — the  question  of  the 
moral  and  physical  improvement  of  the  low- 
er classes. 

III.  DIRECTION  OF  THE  EVANGELICAL  MIN- 
ISTRY. 

Whatever  reception  be  given  to  our  ob- 
servations on  the  organization  and  prepara- 
tion of  the  evangelical  ministry,  let  us  now 
ask  how  a  pastor,  working  in  any  particular 
corner  c»f  the  Lord's  field,  may  be  enabled  to 
meet  most  effectually  the  intellectual  and 
practical  demands  of  the  present  age. 

Forms  change,  but  in  substance  these  de- 
mands are  always  the  same;  and  the  reme- 
dy we  have  to  apply  to  the  evils  of  our  time 
will  be  always  the  same — the  Gospel,  the  old 
Gospel  of  the  Cross,  a  scandal  to  some  and 
a  folly  to  others.  To  attempt  to  remove 
from  it  this  character,  to  make  it  more  ac- 
ceptable, would  be  both  an  act  of  guilty  in- 
fidelity and  a  gross  error.  Let  us  repeat  it 
over  and  over  again :  What  the  Master  re- 
quires of  us  is  not  to  stand  up  as  his  advo- 
cates, his  interpreters,  especially  not  his  con- 
tinuators,  but  simply  to  serve  as  witness- 
es. That  is  our  mandate,  and  there  lies  our 


strength.  Let  us  not  distrust  this  weapon 
polished  by  God  himself,  which  alone  will 
conquer  the  world  in  the  future,  as  it  alone 
has  conquered  the  world  in  the  past.  Let 
us  beware  lest,  in  adjusting  it  to  the  fash- 
ions of  the  day,  wo  do  not  blunt  its  edge 
and  destroy  its  temper.  If  we  wish  to  give 
it  its  primitive  force,  only  one  way  is  allow- 
able— we  must  handle  it  with  more  faith, 
and  with  the  willingness  of  a  man  who  has 
in  himself  experienced  its  power. 

It  is  an  ever-recurring  illusion  at  every 
new  evolution  of  humanity,  the  finding  out 
a  new  Gospel  thought  to  be  more  appropri- 
ate to  new  wants.  Which  has  grown  old, 
which  has  been  condemned,  branded,  and 
buried  away  by  time  I  Is  it  the  old  Chris- 
tianity of  old  times,  or  the  gnosticisms  and 
rationalisms  that  advance  the  culpable  pre- 
tension of  refreshing  Christianity  by  tam- 
pering with  it?  All  modern  attempts  for 
this  purpose  will  meet  with  the  same  fate. 
Far  from  seeking  out  new  ways,  it  is  in  a 
sincere  return  to  the  simplicity  of  the  faith, 
it  is  in  meditating  more  deeply  and  serious- 
ly on  pur  message,  it  is  in  more  humbly 
abiding  in  our  modest  position  of  witnesses 
(such  is  my  firm  conviction),  we  ought  to 
seek,  and  we  shall  surely  find  our  newest 
and  most  effectual  resource. 

With  these  considerations,  our  care  should 
be  less  about  the  prevailing  influences  of 
the  day  in  order  to  shape  our  conduct  than 
about  the  means  of  taking  heed  to  ourselves. 
Among  these  influences,  one  is  particularly 
to  be  distrusted.  I  allude  to  what  Pascal 
terms  diversion  (le  divertissement).  We  live 
in  times  the  predominant  character  of  which 
is  the  absorption  which  loses  sight  of  spirit- 
ual things  under  the  pressure  of  the  wheel 
of  present  earthly  interests.  The  stage  of 
life  has  widened  out  and  become  more  crowd- 
ed ;  a  man  finds  himself  forcibly  in  contact 
with  very  many  more  things  and  very  many 
more  persons.  Now,  the  mipgling  with  men 
tends  to  wear  down  our  individual  character 
and  to  assimilate  it  with  that  of  the  many ; 
we  think  with  the  thoughts  of  others,  and 
cease  to  be  ourselves.  A  nerveless  mind 
and  an  artificial. life  threaten  to  supplant 
our  own  mind  and  life.  As  a  natural  conse- 
quence, we  lose  all  hold  on  a  medium  which 
has  enthralled  us  and  fashioned  us  after  its 
own  image.  If  we  wish  to  be  prepared  to 
act  on  surrounding  society,  we  must  beware 
not  to  allow  ourselves  to  bo  swamped  by 
the  preoccupations  that  sway  it.  The  rath- 
er we  would  endeavor  to  keep  aloof,  in  order 
to  be  in  the  midst  of  it  men  of  one  thought 
and  one  purpose :  the  thought  of  Christ,  the 
purpose  of  the  salvation  of  souls. 

The  apostles  lived  in  a  society  which,  like 
ours,  was  in  a  state  of  fermentation.  They 
commanded  its  attention.  Howl  Was  it 
by  rushing  into  the  whirl  of  its  seething  in- 
terests and  preoccupations  f  By  no  means  ? 


COULIN:  PROTESTANT  MINISTERS,  AND  THE  DEMANDS  OF  THE  AGE.  479 


Bat  by  coming  before  a  thoughtless  century 
as  men  intent  upon  a  purpose,  and  not  to  be 
turned  aside  from  an  all  -  absorbing  inter- 
est. To  the  Corinthians,  the  cosmopolites  of 
the  time,  proud  of  their  .varied  culture,  curi- 
ous of  all  the  new  gains  of  human  wisdom, 
St.  Paul  wrote :  "  I  determined  not  to  know 
any  thing  among  you,  save  Jesus  Christ  and 
him  crucified."  We  may  be  convinced  that 
what  our  proud  and  worn-out  century  — 
proud  of  its  progress,  worn  out  by  its  de- 
sires— is  particularly  in  need  of,  is  a  society 
of  men  who,  like  St.  Paul,  are  determined  to 
know  only  one  thing. 

Those  in  the  fourth  century  of  our  era,  an 
epoch  of  subtle  science  and  refined  civiliza- 
tion, so  similar  to  our  own,  who  raised  so 
high  the  influence  of  the  Gospel  ministry — 
the  Chrysostoms,  Gregories,  Basils  —  what 
were  they  ?  Servants  of  Christ  thoroughly 
prepared,  who  in  their  youth  had  largely 
benefited  by  the  resources  of  the  time,  but 
who  were  especially  men  of  solitude^  and 
thought,  strengthening  themselves  for  the 
struggle  by  prayer  and  meditation.  Of  this 
there  is  no  doubt :  we  want  men  of  solitude 
and  thought  more  than  ever  nowadays;  men 
learned  and  clever  if  possible,  but  seeking 
their  strength  in  prayer  and  meditation,  not 
in  their 'own  cleverness  or  in  man's  wisdom. 

I  can  not  better  sum  up  the  numerous  and 
important  observations  that  I  might  lay  be- 
fore you  on  this  grave  question  of  the  direc- 
tion to  be  given  to  our  ministry  than  in  re- 
minding you  of  the  example  of  our  Divine 
Master.  "  Be  my  imitators,  as  I  am  of  Jesus 
Christ,"  said  St.  Paul.  Every  pastor,  at  all 
times,  ought  to  aspire  to  be  able  to  use  the 
same  language.  Let  us  leave  to  Jesus  Christ 
his  redeeming  work.  Let  us  hold  fast  to 
his  Spirit  which  he  has  left  us  as  an  inher- 
itance, and  let  us  ask  ourselves  (how  often 
this  question  has  haunted  us  in  our  per- 
plexity!), What  would  Jesus  Christ  do  if 
he  were  now  to  come  back  and  place  him- 
self at  the  head  of  his  messengers,  to  direct 
them  by  his  example,  as  he  formerly  did  the 
apostles  ?  Let  us  ask  what  special  teaching 
this  model  has  for  us  in  the  present  time, 
whose  excellence  rises  above  all  ages,  the 
same  yesterday,  to-day,  and  forever. 

1.  He  who  devoted  thirty  years  of  inward 
preparation  to  master  his  vocation,  who  be- 
gan his  outward  work  only  when  he  clear- 
ly and  vividly  realized  it ;  he  who  left  his 
home  to  speak  and  act  only  when  he  could 
conscientiously  say,  "  My  meat  is  to  do  the 
will  of  Him  that  sent  me,  and  to  finish  his 
work" — he,  I  say,  shows  the  extreme  impor- 
ance  which  attaches  to  a  realizing  of  our 
vocation.  That,  indeed,  is  a  tower  for  us 
to  build,  a  war  for  us  to  wage.  Let  us, 
then,  count  up  our  forces  and  consider  our 
resources,  for  fear  of  failure.  And  this  re- 
mark refers  not  only  to  novices,  but  also 
bears  on  masters  themselves.  We  whose 


vocation  has  been  necessarily  imperfect,  and 
woefully  so  for  some  of  us,  we  can  not  too 
often  put  our  call  to  the  test.  If  Christian 
life  is  what  it  has  been  said  to  be,  viz.,  a 
continued  conversion,  the  ministry  must  be 
an  ever  renewed  consecration.  As  we  prac- 
tice our  ministry,  the  feeling  of  our  call  ei- 
ther grows  or  flags.  Let  us  beware  lest  it 
vanish ;  let  us  ever  try  to  keep  it  alive ;  let 
not  the  vocation  become  a  trade ;  let  us 
ever  deeply  feel  that  we  depend  not  on  our- 
selves, on  circumstances,  or  any  one  but  the 
Master,  who,  after  thrice  inquiring, "  Lovest 
thou  me,"  thrice  added,  "  Feed  my  sheep !" 
Who  would  deny  that  our  century  is  especial- 
ly in  need  of  self-sacrificing,consecrated  men  ? 

2.  Then,  if  Jesus  should  re-appear  among 
us,  we  can  not  doubt  but  that  his  character 
would  be  just  that  which  our  gospels  have 
faithfully  handed  over  to  us.     Perfection  is 
unalterable !     So  he  would  be  just  as  we 
know  him  in  his  meekness,  in  his  strength, 
in  his  perfect  submission  to  God's  will,  es- 
pecially in  his  self-sacrificing  devotedness. 
And  now,  as  then,  mainly  by  the  manifesta- 
tion of  that  character  in  words  and  deeds, 
would  he  enlighten  the  world  and  found  the 
kingdom  of  heaven. 

Let  us  then  put  on  the  same  character, 
and  impress  our  friends  with  it.  This  gen- 
eration has  done  with  miracles ;  well,  then, 
compel  it  to  accept  the  miracle  of  Christian 
excellence.  As  of  yore,  the  light  will  be 
welcomed  by  some  and  shunned  by  others. 
Christ  in  us  will  again  goad  the  world  to 
opposition.  But  if  the  world  hate  us,  let 
us  take  care  that  it  should  hate  us  as  it 
hated  Christ,  and  that  it  should  thereby 
be  made  inexcusable.  And  besides,  as  min- 
isters, in  fact,  wo  personify  the  Gospel.  Peo- 
ple look  to  us,  not  to  heaven.  Our  Chris- 
tian soundness  is  the  light  of  our  flock,  our 
inconsistencies  are  the  excuses  of  those  who 
refuse  to  come  to  Christ  to  get  life. 

3.  Were  Jesus  Christ  to  re-appear  among 
us,  no  doubt  he  would  bring  with  him  the 
same  social  spirit  which  is  manifest  in  his 
life.     He  would  take  no  part  in  politics; 
ho  would  say  to  those  who  would  tempt 
him  to  do  so,  "  My  kingdom  is  not  of  this 
world!"      With   his   broad   sympathies,  he 
would  not  bo  overparticular  about  details. 
In  the  midst  of  the  present  literary,  scien- 
tific, and  economical  excitement,  ho  would 
ever  assert  that  "  but  one  thing  is  needful." 
He  would  doubtless,  as  of  yore,  travel  from 
place  to  place ;  no  more  from  Galilee  to  Je- 
rusalem, but  from  Europe  to  America,  in  a 
spirit  of  self-sacrifice  for  the  sake  of  doing 
good.     Ho  would  be  every  thing  to  all  men, 
would  address  monarchs,  wealthy  men,  learn- 
ed men ;  but  the  poor  especially  would  have 
his  most  loving  attention,  because  they  arc 
sufferers,  and  because,  in  spite  of  appear- 
ances, they  are  nearer  the  kingdom  of  heav- 
en.   He  would  not  only  teach  in  synagogues 


480 


ROMANISM  AND  PROTESTANTISM. 


and  under  the  porticoes  of  temples,  but  in 
public  squares  aud  on  the  shores  of  lakes,  in 
railway  trains  and  steam-packets ;  always  in 
a  language  simple,  and  adapted  to  the  facul- 
ties of  his  hearers,  blending  in  his  expatia- 
tions  the  visible  with  the  invisible.  His 
life  would  thus  be  a  busy  life,  fraught  with 
occasional  fatigue,  but  refreshed  with  con- 
stant meditation  and  prayer.  Would  that 
the  meu  of  the  present  day  prayed  more  con- 
stantly !  The  battle  of  life  being  now  hard- 
er on  account  of  the  many  new  paths  opened 
tip  to  our  energy,  we  have  a  more  pressing 
need  of  climbing  the  mountain  and  silently 
communing  with  God.  When  we  are  asked 
what  ministers  ought  to  do  to  meet  the  needs 
of  the  present  day,  methinks  it  is  giving  no 
useless  advice  when  I  urge  them  to  give  one 
hour  a  day  to  what  the  very  Gospel  has  call- 
ed the  ministry  of  prayer  (Acts  vi.,  4). 

Be  this  as  it  may,  Jesus  Christ,  the  living 
Jesus  Christ  of  the  Gospels,  such  is  the  ideal 


we  must  each  of  us  try  to  aim  at,  in  order  to 
meet  the  intellectual  and  practical  exigen- 
cies of  the  age.  Let  us  become  Christ-bear- 
ers, and  we  need  not  fear  to  be  found  want- 
ing. This  is  no  new  device,  you  will  sayt 
Newer  than  one  thinks.  Would  God  we 
needed  not  the  advice ! 

Let  the  Church — and  the  Church  is  rep- 
resented by  her  ministers — let  the  Church 
return  to  her  fountain,  to  Christ,  and  be- 
come the  living  manifestation  of  Christ. 
She  may  not  christianize  the  world — that 
promise  was  never  held  out  to  her — but  she 
will  judge  the  world ;  she  will  show  up  the 
inmost  thoughts  and  sift  out  God's  people ; 
she  will  gather  in  her  folds  those  who  have 
been  elected  for  salvation,  and  will  leave 
the  rest  of  maukiud  without  an  excuse. 
Through  her  the  Holy  Ghost  will  "convict 
the  world  of  sin,  of  justice,  aud  of  judg- 
ment." >•• 


CHRISTIAN  LIBERTY. 


BY   THE   REV.  ALVAH   HOVEY,  D.D., 

President  of  Newton  Theological  Institution,  Mass. 


IT  is,  perhaps,  Avell  that  I  am  expected  to 
address  you,  if  at  all,  on  Christian  Liberty, 
since  it  is  a  subject  of  peculiar  historic  and 
present  importance  to  the  body  of  Christians 
with  which  I  am  specially  connected.  For 
members  of  that  body  have  often  been  con- 
strained by  the  love  of  Christ  to  assert,  at 
great  sacrifice,  the  rights  of  conscience  in 
respect  to  the  service  of  God,  and  some  of 
them,  it  is  supposed,  are  doing  this  at  the 
present  hour  in  a  distant  land.  I  shall  con- 
fidently assume  that  the  honored  brethren 
who  assigned  me  this  theme  expected  a  frank 


other ;  and  a  remark  upon  the  former  of 
these  relations  will  cast  a  ray  of  light  upon 
the  latter.  It  is  this :  The  authority  of  God 
is  absolute  and  original,  at  once  the  source 
and  the  limit  of  all  other  authority.  Hence 
the  relations  of  a  Christian  to  God  are  su- 
preme, controlling  all  other  relations.  Every 
man,  as  a  creature,  is  rightfully  subject  to 
God,  his  Creator ;  but  the  grace  of  redemp- 
tion adds  strength  to  this  primary  obliga- 
tion, so  that  Christians  may  be  said  to  owe 
the  profouudest  homage  and  the  most  un- 
qualified obedience  to  the  Lord.  This  fact 


and  earnest  though  temperate  discussion  of  {  can  not  be  emphasized  too  strongly.     Jeho- 
it  from  my  own  point  of  observation.     For   vah  is  King  in  all  the  earth,  and  disloyalty 

to  him  can  never  be  justified  by  the  plea  of 
loyalty  to  another.     Among  the  facts  which 


no  other  could  be  worth y  of  a  Christian  man ; 
no  other  could  satisfy  the  members  of  this 
Evangelical  Alliance ;  and  no  other,  unless  by 
the  overruling  interposition  of  God,  could 
possibly  serve  the  cause  of  truth.  In  what 
I  say,  therefore,  it  will  be  my  duty  to  follow 
a  plain  path,  neither  eulogizing  one  nor  criti- 
cising another,  but,  in  the  spirit  of  love  and 
loyalty  to  Christ,  aiming  to  set  forth  the 
principles  which  seem  to  me  just  and  right. 
Without  controversy,  I  shall  best  speak  for 
one  by  speaking  for  all,  and  I  shall  best 
speak  for  all  by  laying,  if  possible,  the  foun- 
dations of  my  argument  in  facts  that  can 
not  be  moved.  A  word  of  explanation  will 
prepare  the  way  for  this  attempt. 

"Christian  Liberty"  will  be  understood 
to  signify  the  freedom  of  action  in  religious 
matters  which  accords  with  the  Christian 
view  of  man  in  his  relations  to  God  and  the 
State ;  and  this  view  of  man  is  furnished 
with  sufficient  clearness  by  the  teaching  of 
Christ  and  his  apostles.  The  expression 
used  might  be  understood  to  embrace  also 
the  freedom  of  religious  action  which  com- 
ports with  the  Christian  view  of  man  in  his 
relations  to  the  Church  of  which  in  any  case 
he  is  a  member ;  but  this  part  of  the  subject 
I  do  not  propose  to  discuss.  By  action  in 
religions  matters  is  meant,  of  course,  out- 
ward action,  not  that  which  is  purely  men- 
tal or  spiritual ;  for  by  common  consent  the 
latter  should  be  free  from  civil  constraint. 
The  inward  life  of  man  can  not  be  regulated 
by  the  State. 

Now  it  is  evident  from  the  teaching  of 
Christ  and  his  apostles  that  every  man  liv- 
ing in  society  holds  important  relations  to 
God  on  the  one  hand,  and  to  the  State  on  the 
31 


may  help  us  to  fix  the  limits  of  Christian 
liberty  in  religious  concerns,  the  paramount 
authority  of  Christ  must  have  the  first  place. 
It  is  plain,  therefore,  that  such  liberty  never 
offers  to  man  the  alternative  of  disobedience 
instead  of  obedience  to  the  Lord. 

But  it  is  equally  certain  from  the  language 
of  Holy  Writ  that  the  State  is  of  God ;  for 
one  apostle  exhorts  his  readers  to  "honor 
the  king,"  and  "  submit  themselves  to  every 
ordinance  of  man  for  the  Lord's  sake,  whether 
it  be  to  the  king,  as  supreme,  or  unto  gov- 
ernors, as  unto  them  that  are  sent  by  him :" 
another  declares  that  "  the  powers  that  be 
are  ordained  of  God,"  so  that  "  whosoever 
resisteth  the  power  resisteth  the  ordinance 
of  God ;"  while  Christ  himself  says,  "Render 
unto  Ctesar  the  things  that  are  Caesar's." 
The  authority  of  civil  rulers  is  therefore  le- 
gitimate, and  submission  to  it  is  enforced  by 
the  voice  of  conscience  as  well  as  by  the  im- 
pulse of  fear.  Yet  this  conclusion  must  be 
restricted  in  some  way,  or  there  is  danger  of 
infinite  perplexity  and  disorder.  For  civil 
magistrates  must  certainly  be  thought  in 
many  cases  to  command  what  Christ  for- 
bids, and  to  forbid  what  he  commands. 
There  is,  then,  I  am  sure,  some  means  of 
escape  from  this  seeming  conflict  of  author- 
ity ;  and  it  may  be  found  by  adopting  one 
of  the  following  hypotheses:  Either,  first, 
that  the  State,  represented  by  its  rulers,  has 
authority  from  the  Lord  to  interpret  and 
enforce  his  law  in  religious  matters;  or,  sec- 
ondly, that  the  authority  of  the  State  is  lim- 
ited to  secular  affairs.  Let  either  of  these 
theories  be  consistently  applied,  and  a  con- 


i-J 


ROMANISM  AND  PROTESTANTISM. 


flict  of  authority  in  the  domain  of  rcligiou 
is  no  longer  possible  ;  but  attempt  to  mingle 
the  two,  and  confusion,  with  injustice,  is  sure 
to  follow.  Which  of  these  theories,  then,  is 
correct,  when  tested  by  the  words  of  Christ 
and  his  apostles .' 

Can  the  former  be  established  T  Is  it  con- 
sistent with  the  Word  of  God  to  suppose 
that  civil  rulers  stand  between  the  souls  of 
men  and  that  Word,  with  authority  from 
the  Head  of  the  Church  to  declare  and  en- 
force what  it  means?  that  Nero  and  Cou- 
stantine,  Frederick  the  Great  and  Charles 
the  Second,  the  Parliament  of  Great  Britain 
and  the  Congress  of  the  United  States,  have 
been  severally  charged  with  the  duty  of 
regulating  for  a  part  of  mankind  the  service 
of  Godf  I  find  no  evidence  or  even  hint 
of  this  in  the  New  Testament.  Neither  di- 
rectly nor  by  implication  is  such  a  view 
taught.  The  disciples  of  Christ  were,  in- 
deed, to  stand  before  magistrates  and  kings, 
not,  however,  to  learn  from  them  the  mys- 
tery of  Grace,  but  rather  to  bear  witness  to 
the  truth,  and  in  many  instances  to  seal 
their  testimony  with  their  blood.  If  they  had 
been,  taught  by  the  Lord  to  look  to  the  State 
for  instruction  in  the  Gospel  or  for  direc- 
tions in  building  up  churches,  some  refer- 
ence to  this  important  lesson  would  have 
been  put  into  the  record  of  their  work.  Yea, 
more  than  this,  some  provision  would  have 
been  made  to  furnish  the  people  of  every 
Christian  land  with  a  succession  of  godly 
rulers,  who  should  be  able,  with  the  burden 
of  secular  affairs  upon  their  minds,  to  guide 
the  action  of  men  in  religious  concerns  also, 
more  wisely  than  the  saints  themselves,  or 
the  pastors  of  the  flock.  But  I  discover  in 
the  record  no  hint  of  this  function  of  "  the 
powers  that  be"  in  matters  of  religion,  and 
no  provision  to  qualify  them  for  so  high  a 
service.  However  certain  it  may  be  that 
civil  government,  though  founded  by  men, 
is  sanctioned  by  God,  and  should  be  honored 
and  obeyed  by  the  Christian,  it  does  not  fol- 
low that  the  State  has  control  of  every  thing 
human,  and  may  prescribe  to  men  their  du- 
ties to  God  as  well  as  to  one  another ;  it  does 
not  follow  that  the  rough  and  terrible  forces 
which  the  State  must  employ  are  fit  to  be 
used  in  dealing  with  cases  of  conscience. 
Acting  within  his  proper  sphere,  the  magis- 
trate is  God's  minister,  but  there  is  no  suffi- 
cient evidence  that  his  sphere  of  action 
should  embrace  the  duties  of  religion.  The 
first  hypothesis  must  therefore  be  rejected. 

Is  the  second  worthy  of  acceptance  ?  May 
we  justly  conclude  from  the  New  Testament 
that  the  authority  of  the  State  should  be 
confined  to  secular  affairs  ?  If  I  go  further 
in  my  reply  to  this  question  than  some  of 
you  are  prepared  to  go,  I  beg  you  to  bear  in 
mind  the  different  circumstances  and  atmos- 
phere in  which  we  have  lived,  and  to  give 
the  considerations  which  it  may  present  a 


charitable  if  not  a  favorable  hearing.  It 
may  bo  true  that  the  power  of  sympathy  for 
brothers  in  affliction  has  fixed  my  mind  on 
the  evils  which  flow  from  State  action  in 
matters  of  religion,  to  the  neglect  of  certain 
advantages  which  are  said  to  result  from 
that  action,  and  possibly  the  reverse  of  this 
may  be  the  case  with  some  of  you ;  but  it 
will  nevertheless  bo  in  our  power  to  ap- 
proach the  sacred  Word  together,  and  look 
with  an  honest  heart  for  the  lessons  which 
it  teaches.  In  doing  this  a  few  significant 
facts  will  certainly  deserve  attention. 

And  the  first  fact  is  this :  Christ  commit- 
ted to  his  disciples  the  work  of  preaching 
the  Gospel  to  every  creature ;  but  in  giving 
them  this  commission  he  made  no  allusion 
to  consent  or  aid  from  the  State.  The  com- 
mand was  explicit,  and  the  work  to  be  done 
required  them  to  visit  every  land  and  at- 
tempt to  change  the  religious  life  of  every 
people ;  but  not  a  word  was  said  of  their 
asking  the  assistance  or  obtaining  the  per- 
mission of  any  civil  ruler,  nor  a  hint  given 
that  the  State  as  such  had  a  right  to  direct 
in  the  matter.  If  any  one  should  infer  from 
the  form  of  expression  recorded  in  Matthew, 
"Go  ye,  therefore,  make  disciples  of  all  the 
nations,"  that  the  followers  of  Christ  were 
to  approach  the  people  through  their  rulers, 
and  establish  an  organic  union  between  State 
and  Church,  it  is  enough  to  reply  that  na- 
tions in  their  corporate  form  can  neither  be 
taught  nor  baptized,  that  the  same  expres- 
sion is  used  in  a  previous  chapter  to  denote 
the  people  composing  the  nations,  and  that 
the  parallel  passage  in  Mark  requires  us  to 
understand  the  phrase  "all  the  nations"  as 
equivalent  to  "every  creature,"  or  every  man 
in  the  world.  So,  then,  the  fact  to  be  weighed 
is  simply  this — that  the  Saviour  committed 
the  work  of  evangelizing  mankind  and  teach- 
ing them  to  obey  his  will  in  all  things  to  his 
disciples,  with  no  hint  of  aid  to  be  sought  or 
expected  from  the  State. 

The  second  fact  is  this :  Christ  provided 
for  the  proper  organization,  instruction,  and 
discipline  of  his  followers,  thus  preparing 
them  for  united  action-.  This  is  evident  from 
the  history  written  by  Luke,  and  called  "The' 
Acts  of  the  Apostles."  Believers  in  Christ 
were  brought  together  in  churches,  were  fur- 
nished with  leaders,  were  taught  to  meet  on 
the  Lord's  day  for  worship  and  instruction, 
and  were  encouraged,  if  able,  to  assist  the 
poor.  Whatever  view  may  be  held  in  re- 
spect to  this  primitive  organization,  whether 
it  be  declared  popular  or  presbyteriau,  epis- 
copal or  elastic,  it  was  at  least  from  above 
and  sufficient.  Christians  did  not,  therefore, 
need  the  patronage  or  constraint  of  the  "pow- 
ers that  be"  to  hold  them  together  in  relig- 
ious action.  Disconnected  and  weak  as  they 
seemed  to  the  world,  they  could  be  trusted, 
with  faith  in  their  hearts,  to  labqr  in  concert 
for  the  best  cause.  "The  locusts  have  no 


HOVEY:  CHRISTIAN  LIBERTY. 


483 


king,  yet  go  they  forth  all  of  them  by  bands." 
And  so  it  was  with  the  early  Christians,  hav- 
ing no  visible  head  and  no  aid  from  the  State, 
they  were  able,  through  the  love  of  Jesus,  to 
maintain  order  and  carry  the  Gospel  to  the 
ends  of  the  earth.  As  the  motto  at  my  right 
declares,  they  were  "Abgesondert  wie  die  Wage, 
aber  tine  ivie  das  Meer."  The  history  of  Chris- 
tian life,  labor,  and  success  from  the  day  of 
Pentecost  to  the  reign  of  Constautine,  is  wor- 
thy of  profound  study  by  those  who  would 
answer  rightly  the  question  in  debate. 

My  third  fact  is  this :  Christ  affirmed  Lis 
kingdom  to  be  distinct  in  origin  and  agency 
from  that  of  any  earthly  potentate.  He  de- 
scribed himself  as  King  in  the  realm  of 
truth.  He  repudiated  for  himself  and  for  his 
followers,  to  the  end  of  time,  the  use  of  force 
in  defending  or  extending  his  authority  over 
men.  In  saying  this  I  but  offer  you  a  para- 
phrase of  his  reply  to  the  Roman  governor, 
when  asked  if  he  was  the  King  of  the  Jews : 
"  My  kingdom  is  not  of  this  world.  If  my 
kingdom  were  of  this  world,  then  would  my 
servants  fight,  that  I  should  not  be  deliv- 
ered to  the  Jews ;  but  now  is  my  kingdom 
not  from  hence.  To  this  end  was  I  born,  and 
for  this  cause  came  I  into  the  world,  that  I 
should  bear  witness  to  the  truth.  Every  one 
that  is  of  the  truth  heareth  my  voice."  If 
any  person  deny  that  I  have  set  forth  cor- 
rectly the  substance  of  this  reply,  he  must, 
I  think,  suppose  that  the  language  of  Christ 
was  more  comprehensive  than  his  thought, 
and  therefore  obscure,  if  not  misleading ;  for 
this  language  seems  to  explain  his  course  iu 
a  particular  instance  by  appealing  to  the 
very  nature  of  his  kingdom,  which  was  spir- 
itual in  its  means  of  action  as  well  as  iu  its 
origin.  Iu  perfect  agreement  with  the  an- 
swer of  Christ  to  Pilate,  was  his  response  to 
certain  Jews  who  questioned  him  about  the 
lawfulness  of  giving  tribute  to  Caesar ;  for 
this  response,  "Render,  therefore,  to  Caesar 
the  things  that  are  Caesar's,  and  to  God  the 
things  that  are  God's,"  presupposes  a  distinc- 
tion between  civil  and  religious  affairs,  be- 
tween the  service  which  is  due  to  an  earth- 
ly sovereign  and  that  which  is  due  to  the 
Supreme  Ruler,  between  the  interests  con- 
served by  the  State  and  those  conserved  by 
the  Church.  The  same  distinction  may  also 
bo  inferred  from  his  reply  to  one  of  the 
multitude,  who  said  to  him,  "  Master,  bid  my 
brother  divide  the  inheritance  with  me,"  a 
reply  expressed  in  these  words :  "  Man,  who 
made  me  a  judge  and  a  divider  over  you?" 
for  such  a  reply  would  hardly  have  fallen 
from  the  lips  of  Christ  had  the  request  per- 
tained to  spiritual  affairs — to  the  matters  of 
his  own  kingdom. 

My  fourth  fact  is  this:  The  apostles  de- 
nied the  right  of  any  person  iu  authority  to 
restrain  them  from  preaching  the  Gospel. 
It  is  a  significant  circumstance  that  there 
is  no  evidence  of  their  applying  in  a  single 


instance  to  rulers  of  any  kind  for  permission 
to  teach  the  new  faith,  but  it  is  still  more 
significant  that  there  is  conclusive  evidence 
of  their  declining  to  refrain  from  the  work 
of  teaching  when  commanded  to  do  so  by 
the  highest  court  of  their  nation.  Behold 
them  standing  before  the  Jewish  Sanhedrim, 
and  listen  to  the  words  of  the  high-priest, 
as,  iu  behalf  of  the  great  council,  he  com- 
mands Peter  and  John  "Not  to  speak  at  all, 
nor  teach  iu  the  name  of  Jesus !"  What  now 
do  you  hear  in  response  ?  "  Whether  it  be 
right  in  the  sight  of  God  to  hearken  unto 
you  more  than  unto  God,  judge  ye ;  for  we 
can  not  but  speak  the  things  that  we  have 
seen  and  heard."  And,  as  if  this  wore  not 
enough,  the  scene  repeats  itself — the  apos- 
tles stand  once  more  before  the  august  tribu- 
nal, and  the  indignant  high-priest  asks,  "Did 
we  not  straitly  command  you  that  ye  should 
not  teach  in  this  name?"  while  clear  and 
firm,  as  before,  the  response  comes,  "We 
ought  to  obey  God  rather  than  men."  Now, 
bearing  iu  mind  the  fact  that  a  right  to 
prdach  the  Gospel  involved  a  right  to  or- 
ganize churches,  and  through  them  carry  on 
a  systematic  effort  to  change  the  religious 
life  of  the  whole  people,  it  is  safe  to  con- 
clude from  these  replies  that  neither  civil 
nor  ecclesiastical  rulers  are  authorized  to  de- 
termine what  forms  of  religion  may  be  taught 
among  the  people.  You  will  observe  that  ec- 
clesiastical rulers  are  included  in  this  state- 
ment. Neither  pope  nor  council,  nor  any 
other  body  of  men,  however  exalted  as  lead- 
ers and  guides,  can  lawfully  decide  for  the 
people  what  truth  they  may  hear  and  exam- 
ine in  the  fear  of  God.  In  obvious  harmony 
with  the  apostles'  language  to  the  Jewish 
Sanhedrim  was  their  conduct  ever  after. 
They  acted  on  the  assumption  that  religious 
truth  should  be  laid  before  the  mind  of  every 
man,  in  order  that  he  might  accept  or  reject 
it  freely.  So,  too,  when  the  apostle  to  the 
Gentiles  refers  to  the  weapons  used  by  Chris- 
tians iu  their  warfare,  he  pronounces  them 
"not  carnal,  but  spiritual,"  and  describes 
them  in  language  which  may  be  summed  up 
in  two  words,  Christian  character  and  Chris- 
tian truth.  Using  such  weapons  only,  it  is 
not  surprising  that  the  apostles  declined  to 
rest  from  their  holy  warfare  though  com-- 
manded  to  do  so. 

Looking,  then,  to  the  teaching  of  Christ 
and  his  apostles  for  light,  I  seem  to  find  that 
the  rightful  authority  of  the  State  is  limited 
to  secular  affairs,  and  that  Christian  liber- 
ty is  identical  with  religious  liberty.  But 
if  Christian  liberty  is  identical  with  religious 
liberty,  believers  in  Christ  are  simply  on  a 
level  in  this  respect  with  all  other  men. 
What  they  claim  for  themselves  they  should 
cheerfully  concede  to  others,  be  they  Jews 
or  Turks,  Buddhists  or  infidels ;  for,  accord- 
ing to  this  view,  so  far  as  the  State  is  con- 
cerned, the  right  of  free  inquiry  and  action 


484 


ROMANISM  AND  PROTESTANTISM. 


iu  matters  of  religion  is  natural  and  univer- 
sal, belonging  to  men  as  spiritual  beings,  and 
not  to  the  defenders  of  any  particular  creed. 
Hence  all  that  any  government  should  be 
expected  to  do  in  this  direction  is  to  protect 
the  people  in  the  exercise  of  their  natural 
right  to  religious  liberty. 

I  am  riot  so  vain  as  to  imagine  that  the 
argument  -which  has  been  briefly  stated  is 
either  new  or  striking,  nor  so  sanguine  as  to 
hope  that  all  of  you  will  see  in  it  the  force 
•which  it  has  to  me ;  but  this  at  least  you 
-will  admit,  that  a  practical  assent  by  all 
Christians  to  the  view  advocated  would  put 
an  end  without  delay  to  the  religious  perse- 
cutions and  oppressions  which  in  milder  or 
more  terrible  forms  have  been  almost  a  stand- 
ing reproach  to  the  Christian  name.  If 
man's  right  to  religious  liberty  were  guard- 
ed throughout  Christendom  as  no  less  sacred 
than  his  right  to  life  —  which  can  only  be 
forfeited  by  crime — it  would  be  an  easy  task 
to  bring  all  other  nations  into  practical  ac- 
cord with  the  same  view ;  and  then  the  con- 
flict between  light  and  darkness,  truth  and 
error,  would  be  waged  in  a  fair  field  with  le- 
gitimate weapons,  insuring  victory  to  the 
stronger.  What  better  thing  can  you  ask 
for  our  holy  religion  from  "  the  powers  that 
be"  than  just  this  undisturbed  conflict  ?  It 
would  be  certain  to  result  in  a  triumph  of 
the  cross  such  as  the  world  has  never  seen ; 
nay,  more,  it  would  itself  be  such  a  triumph; 
for  it  would  be  evidence  of  a  most  tender  re- 
gard for  the  religious  convictions  of  every 
human  soul,  of  a  most  singular  readiness  to 
forego  the  use  of  powers  now  possessed  for 
the  sake  of  avoiding  possible  wrong  to  oth- 
ers, of  a  most  admirable  and  holy  resolve  to 
obey  in  all  things  the  golden  rule,  and  of  a 
most  unwavering  faith  in  the  spiritual  re- 
sources of  the  King  of  Zion. 

Brethren  of  the  Evangelical  Alliance,  I 
have  laid  this  view  before  you  because  I 
could  not  from  the  heart  propose  any  other ; 
but  it  is  proper  for  me  now  to  leave  it  with- 
out fear  in  your  hands.  "  I  speak  as  unto 
wise  men,  judge  ye  what  I  say."  Before 
closing,  however,  I  beg  leave  to  express  to 
you  my  gratitude  for  AY  hat  you  have  already 
done  in  a  practical  way  in  behalf  of  Chris- 
tian liberty.  If  you  deem  my  theory  ill 
adapted  to  the  present  state  of  the  world,  I 
rejoice  to  believe  that  your  hearts  cry  out 
with  mine  against  the  practice  of  afflicting 
quiet  citizens  with  fines  and  imprisonment 
because  they  insist  upon  being  honest  in  the 
worship  of  God.  If  it  be  true  that  "  oppres- 


sion maketh  a  wise  man  mad,"  we  need  not 
claim  that  our  brothers  of  the  Baptist  faith 
who  are  called  to  endure  it  are  always  free 
from  error.  Should  we  make  this  claim,  the 
shades  of  Miiuster,  per  fas  aut  nefas,  would 
be  summoned  to  rise  from  their  graves  and 
testify  against  us  ;  but  we  may  devoutly 
hope  that  the  day  will  soon  dawn  when  re- 
ligious liberty  will  be  universal ;  when  Chris- 
tian states  will  set  the  example  of  Belf-de- 
nial  in  this  matter ;  when  Christian  rulers 
will  see  that  they  can  best  serve  the  cause 
of  their  Lord  by  using  none  but  spiritual 
weapons  in  his  service ;  when  all  who  know 
the  name  of  Christ  will  assert  for  others  the 
freedom  of  action  in  divine  things  which  they 
claim  for  themselves,  and,  opening  wide  the 
doors  of  honest  inquiry,  call  upon  every  man 
to  examine  for  himself  the  religion  of  their 
Lord  ;  then,  rnethiuks,  will  all  the  fears 
which  fill  the  hearts  of  many  be  scattered  to 
the  winds,  and  angels,  having  the  everlast- 
ing Gospel  to  preach,  will  fly  swiftly  to  the 
ends  of  the  earth,  persuading  the  heathen  to 
believe  in  the  Lord  Jesus. 

But  while  saying  this  with  strong  confi- 
dence, I  do  not  overlook  the  bearing  of  such 
a  view  upon  legislation  in  respect  to  the 
Lord's  day,  the  marriage  covenant,  the  use 
of  the  Bible  in  state  schools,  and  the  release 
of  Church  property  from  taxation.  For  the 
doctrine  of  religious  liberty  now  explained 
does  not  forbid  all  legislation  in  these  mat- 
ters. It  allows  the  State  to  prohibit  ordinary 
labor  on  the  first  day  of  the  week,  in  so  far 
as  such  Ifibor  is  found  to  be  unfavorable  to 
the  health  of  the  people,  or  to  the  quiet 
which  is  necessary  for  religions  worship  as 
practiced  by  large  numbers  of  them.  It  al- 
lows the  State  to  prohibit  polygamy  and  easy 
divorce,  in  so  far  as  they  are  inconsistent 
with  the  equal  and  natural  rights  of  men,  or 
with  the  interests  of  virtue  among  the  peo- 
ple. It  allows  the  State  to  place  the  Bible 
in  its  schools,  inasmuch  as  this  volume  has 
a  high  literary  and  moral  character,  con- 
ducive to  good  order  and  virtue.  And  it 
allows  the  State  to  release  from  taxation 
the  property  of  churches,  in  so  far  as  this 
property  is  held  in  trust  for  a  definite  and 
humane  object,  with  no  power  in  the  trustees 
to  use  it  for  their  own  pecuniary  advan- 
tage. Such  legislation  would  doubtless  re- 
quire special  caution  and  care,  but  to  the  ex- 
tent in  which  it  can  be  pronounced  essential 
to  the  welfare  of  the  State,  it  would  nev- 
er prove  itself  incompatible  with  religious 
liberty. 


SECOND   SECTION.-THE   OLD   CATHOLICS. 


LETTER  FROM  THE  OLD  CATHOLIC  CONGRESS, 

ASSEMBLED  AT  CONSTANCE,  SEPTEMBER  12-14,  1873. 

WITH  INTRODUCTION  BY  THE  REV.  PROF.  PHILIP  SCHAFF,  D.D.,  OF  NEW  YORK. 


I  HAVE  the  honor  to  lay  before  you  a  Ger- 
man letter  of  salutation  just  received  from 
the  President  of  the  third  Old  Catholic  Con- 
gress, which  was  held  a  few  weeks  ago  in 
the  city  of  Constance.  It  is  signed  by  Bish- 
op Reinkens  and  the  presiding  officers  of  the 
Congress,  and  is  addressed  to  the  General 
Conference  of  the  Evangelical  Alliance.  It 
hails  from  the  famous  chamber  where,  in  the 
early  part  of  the  fifteenth  century,  an  OZcu- 
meuical  Council  was  convened  for  the  pro- 
fessed purpose  of  healing  the  papal  schism, 
and  effecting  a  "  reformation  of  the  Church 
in  the  head  and  the  members" — a  Council 
which  deposed  two  rival  popes,  and  thus  as- 
serted its  superiority  over  the  papacy,  but 
which  also  condemned  Huss  to  the  death  on 
the  stake  for  teaching  evangelical  truth,  and 
thus  defeated  the  object  of  a  reformation. 
The  document  is  important,  not  only  for  the 
authentic  information  it  contains,  but  still 
more  as  an  indication  of  the  spirit  and 
tendency  of  Old  Catholicism,  which  now  so 
largely  attracts  the  attention  of  the  relig- 
ious world. 

The  Old  Catholic  movement  has,  by  the  re- 
cent election  of  a  bishop  and  the  adoption 
of  a  sy nodical  constitution,  passed  the  stage 
of  a  mere  experiment,  and  assumed  the  char- 
acter of  a  regular  Church  organization,  which 
stands  between  Romanism  and  Protestant- 
ism, with  the  avowed  desire  to  reform  Ro- 
manism, and  to  bring  about,  if  possible,  a  re- 
union of  divided  Christendom  on  the  basis 
of  the  Scriptures  and  the  unanimous  tradi- 
tion of  the  primitive  Church. 

The  new  organization,  which  sends  us  a 
fraternal  greeting,  takes  its  rise  from  the  last 
(Ecumenical  Council  of  Rome,  which  pre- 
sents a  striking  contrast  to  this  General  Con- 
ference of  the  Evangelical  Alliance.  The 
Vatican  Council  was  intensely  Romish ;  the 
Conference  is  just  as  decidedly  Protestant. 
The  ono  was  commanded  by  the  pope,  the 
other  is  a  voluntary  assembly.  The  one  held 
up  the  standard  of  tradition  as  embodied  in 


the  Pope  ("la  tradizione  son  /o"),  the  other 
raises  the  standard  of  the  Bible,  as  the  only 
rule  of  faith  and  practice.  The  one  over- 
powered the  senses  by  a  prelatical  and  cere- 
monial splendor  such  as  even  Rome  and  St. 
Peter's  Cathedral  never  saw  before,  or  are  like- 
ly ever  to  see  again  ;  the  other  meets  in  un- 
ostentatious simplicity,  and  appeals  simply 
to  the  intelligence,  the  heart,  and  the  con- 
science. The  one  lasted  ten  long  months, 
the  other  will  be  concluded  in  ten  days. 
The  one  was  an  assembly  of  bishops,  exclud- 
ing not  only  the  laity,  but  even  the  lower 
clergy ;  the  other  is  a  convention  of  Chris- 
tian brethren,  and  recognizes  the  principle 
of  the  general  priesthood  of  all  believers. 
The  one  used  a  dead  language,  the  other 
speaks  in  the  living  languages  of  the  people. 
The  one  sat  with  closed  doors,  and  the  citi- 
zens of  Rome  were  indifferent  to  its  dis- 
cussions ;  the  other  has  no  secrets  to  con- 
ceal, and  excites  such  an  interest  among  all 
classes  of  the  people  that  there  is  scarcely 
room  for  the  crowds  eager  to  hear  solid  in- 
struction, and  to  join  in  the  praise  of  Christ. 
The  Council  discussed  the  one  question  of 
infallibility,  and  even  this  the  ablest  of  its 
members  considered  inopportune ;  the  Con- 
ference passes  in  review  all  the  leading  re- 
ligious topics  of  the  age.  The  one  claimed 
legislative  authority  which  can  not  be  resist- 
ed without  the  risk  of  eternal  damnation ; 
the  other  relies  on  the  moral  power  of  truth, 
which  must  and  will  prevail  in  the  end  over 
all  force  and  error.  The  one  enforced  an 
outward  unity  at  the  sacrifice  of  personal 
conviction ;  the  other  manifests  a  spiritual 
unity  in  essentials,  with  great  freedom  and  di- 
versity in  non-essentials.  The  one  declared 
war  on  modern  civilization  and  all  independ- 
ent civil  government ;  the  other  means  to 
extend  and  promote  general  knowledge, free- 
dom, and  reform  on  a  positive  basis  of  faith. 
The  one  proclaimed  the  absolute  spiritual 
sovereignty  and  official  infallibility  of  a  sin- 
ful mortal  man,  though  he  be  personally  a 


486 


ROMANISM  AND  PROTESTANTISM. 


morul  monster,  like  Alexander  VI.,  or  a  con- 
demned heretic,  like  Honoriii8,or  a  theologic- 
al ignoramus,  like  Pius  IX.,  who  is  said  to  be 
unable  even  to  read  the  Bible  in  the  original ; 
the  other  upholds  the  infallibility  of  God's 
Word,  and  the  exclusive  headship  and  inedi- 
atorship  of  Jesus  Christ,  who  needs  no  vicar, 
being  himself  ever  present  with  his  people, 
according  to  his  unfailing  promise.  The  one 
imposed  a  new  and  blasphemous  dogma  on 
the  consciences  of  men  as  an  article  necessary 
to  salvation ;  the  other  stands  up  for  the  lib- 
erty, wherewith  Christ  has  made  us  free.  The 
one,  threw  a  flame  of  discord  into  society, 
and  provoked  a  new  schism ;  the  other  tends 
to  greater  unity  among  true  Christians  of 
every  land  and  every  name.  The  Council 
ended  with  the  glorification  of  the  Pope, 
who  can  now  say,  "I  am  the  Church  (I'eglisc 
c'est  mm) ;"  the  Conference  will  end,  as  it  be- 
gan, with  the  glorification  of  Christ  and  his 
Gospel,  as  the  only  hope  of  salvation,  and  the 
only  basis  of  peace  and  union  in  the  Church, 
which  is  his  body,  the  fullness  of  him  that 
filleth  all  in  all. 

More  than  eighteen  hundred  years  ago  an- 
other council  was  held  in  an  humble  room 
at  Jerusalem — a  council  composed  of  "  apos- 
tles, elders,  and  brethren;"  a  council  \vhich  al- 
lowed free  discussion,  although  blessed  with 
the  presence  of  inspired  apostles  ;  a  council 
in  which  Peter,  unlike  his  pretended  follow- 
ers, spoke  in  favor  of  liberty,  and  warned 
the  brethren  "  not  to  put  a  yoke  on  the  neck 
of  the  f_  Gentile]  disciples;"  a  council  which 
proclaimed  no  other  dogma  but  this,  that 
both  Jews  and  Gentiles  are  saved,  not  by 
good  works,  not  by  the  sacraments,  not  by 
the  Church,  not  by  any  human  mediators, 
but  only  "  by  the  grace  of  the  Lord  Jesus  Christ,1" 
as  apprehended  by  a  living  faith  ;  a  council 
which  maintained  and  strengthened  the  uni- 
ty between  the  believers  of  the  circumcision 
and  the  believers  of  the  uncircumcision,  and 
gave  a  new  impulse  to  the  spread  of  the 
Gospel. 

You  will  not  be  at  a  loss  to  decide  whether 
the  Vatican  Council  or  the  New  York  Confer- 
ence is  more  in  harmony  with  the  spirit  and 
aim  of  the  Apostolic  Synod  at  Jerusalem. 

Old  Catholicism  is  an  indignant  protest, 
iu  the  name  of  learning,  reason,  and  con- 
science, against  the  Vatican  decrees  of  papal 
absolutism  and  papal  infallibility.  It  is  head- 
ed by  men  who  a  few  years  ago  were  re- 
garded as  the  pillars  and  ornaments  of  the 
Roman  Church.  It  is  strongly  supported  by 
the  traditions  of  ancient  Catholicism,  in- 
cluding fathers,  councils,  and  popes  ;  by  the 
spirit  of  modern  civilization ;  and  even  by 
the  former  convictions  of  eighty-eight  bish- 
ops of  the  Vatican  Council  —  and  they  the 
most  learned  and  intelligent — who,  on  the 
memorable  13th  of  July,  1870,  voted  against 
the  dogma  of  papal  infallibility,  but  who  at 
that  momentous  crisis  suddenly  left  Rome, 


to  make  afterward  a  cowardly  submission, 
in  a  mistaken  zeal  for  a  false  peace  and  a 
liollow  unity  of  outward  organization.  Their 
intolerant  proceedings  against  their  former 
teachers,  friends,  and  pupils  have  forced 
these  into  the  attitude  of  schism,  and  an  ap- 
proach to  Protestantism. 

As  the  Old  Catholics  meet  Protestants  half- 
way, and  are  sincerely  aiming  at  a  reforma- 
tion of  the  Romish  Church  by  a  return  to 
primitive  purity  and  simplicity,  Protestants 
ought  to  consider  it  a  duty  and  privilege  to 
extend  to  them  the  helping  arm  of  prayer 
and  active  sympathy.  They  have  invited 
theologians  and  dignitaries  of  other  church- 
es to  their  Congresses  at  Munich,  Cologne, 
and  Constance ;  why  should  we  not  invite 
them  to  our  Conference?  A  meeting  of  the 
Swiss  branch  of  the  Alliance,  which  met  at 
Geneva  in  September  of  last  year,  opened 
the  way  by  addressing  to  them  a  fraternal 
letter  of  encouragement,  drawn  up  by  Dr. 
Merle  d'Aubigne"  a  few  days  before  his  peace- 
ful departure  into  eternity. 

I  deemed  it,  therefore, right  and  proper,  dur- 
ing a  recent  visit  to  Europe  in  behalf  of  the 
Alliance,  to  put  myself  iu  personal  commu- 
nication with  Professor  Von  Schulte,  Bishop 
Reiukeus,  Dr.  Dollinger,  and  other  leaders  of 
the  Old  Catholics,  and  to  extend  to  them  an 
invitation  to  the  New  York  Conference  as 
honorary  guests  (without  committing  them 
to  our  Protestantism,  nor  committing  the  Al- 
liance to  their  Old  Catholicism),  that  they 
might  give  us  authentic  information  on  their 
condition,  object,  and  aim,  and  at  the  same 
time  get  an  idea  of  the  concentrated  power 
of  evangelical  Protestantism,  such  as  they 
could  not  see  on  the  Continent  of  Europe. 
The  invitation  was  very  cordially  received, 
and, had  not  various  hinderances  intervened, 
we  would  now  see  among  us  two  or  three  of 
the  champions  of  this  reform  in  the  Church 
of  Rome.  Instead  of  their  personal  presence, 
we  have  from  them  an  official  letter,  which, 
I  venture  to  say,  is  one  of  the  most  inter- 
esting papers  brought  before  this  Confer- 
ence, and  will  take  its  place  among  the  his- 
toric documents  of  the  Old  Catholic  Church. 
As  the  latest  item  of  news  from  Constance, 
I  will  add  that,  on  the  last  day  of  the  Con- 
gress, Bishop  Reinkens  delivered  an  eloquent 
and  enthusiastic  address  before  a  large  au- 
dience, in  which  he  characterized  the  papal 
prohibition  of  popular  Bible  reading  as  a 
crime,  and  exhorted  the  hearers  "to  read 
again  and  again  the  Word  of  Life,  not  from 
idle  curiosity  nor  for  the  sake  of  controversy, 
but  in  humility  and  gladness,  sitting  at  the 
feet  of  Jesus,  and  listening  to  the  voice  of 
the  heavenly  Bridegroom  (John  iii.,29),  that 
thus  they  may  enter  into  closest  communion 
with  God." 

This  principle  of  the  sovereignty  of  the 
Bible  as  the  book  of  God  for  all  the  people, 
and  of  direct  communion  of  the  believer 


LETTER  FROM  THE  OLD  CATHOLIC  CONGRESS. 


with  Christ,  is  the  very  soul  of  sound  evan- !  other  churches,  and  promoting  a  better  iin- 
gelical  Christianity,  aud  augurs  well  for  the    derstanding  among  them. 


success  of  this  new  reformation.     May  God 
prosper  it,  and  make  it  a  means  for  reviving 


With  this  explanatory  statement,!  submit 
a  translation  of  the  communication  received. 


THE  LETTER  OF  THE  OLD  CATHOLICS.* 


MOST  REVEREND  AND  HIGHLY  ESTEEMED 

GENTLEMEN  : 

The  President  of  last  year's  Cologne  Con- 
gress received,  from  the  Rev.  Dr.  Schaff,  un- 
der date  of  July  21  of  this  year,  a  request 
to  propose  to  the  Old  Catholic  Congress  at 
Constauce  that  they  would  send  three  dele- 
gates to  the  sixth  International  General  Con- 
ference of  the  Evangelical  Alliance,  to  be  held 
in  the  city  of  New  York  from  the  2d  to  the  12th 
of  October,  commissioning  them  "to  com- 
municate to  the  Christian  public  of  America 
authentic  information  concerning  the  origin, 
progress,  and  aims  of  the  Old  Catholic  move- 
ment." He,  therefore,  with  the  concurrence 
of  the  Synodical  representation  of  the  Old 
Catholics  of  the  German  Empire,  submitted 
this  proposition  to  the  Congress  at  Con- 
stance. The  President  had  first  taken  pains 
to  fix  upon  a  number;  of  gentlemen  who,  by 
their  social  position  and  standing  in  the 
movement,  as  also  by  their  linguistic  and 
other  attainments,  were  fit  to  bo  proposed  to 
the  Congress  as  delegates  for  the  discharge 
of  this  mission.  Unfortunately,  various  rea- 
sons, partly  of  a  personal  nature  and  partly 
relating  to  the  circumstances  of  the  time,  es- 
pecially the  ravages  of  .the  cholera  in  several 
parts  of  Germany,  compelled  them  to  decline 
the  mission.  The  President  himself,  for  pure- 
ly personal  reasons,  could  not  assume  the 
charge.  In  consequence,  the  Conference  had 
to  forego  the  idea  of  sending  delegates,  and 
content  itself  with  passiug  a  unanimous  res- 
olution to  address,  through  the  presiding  of- 
ficers, a  letter  to  the  General  Conference  of 
the  Evangelical  Alliance,  thanking  them  for 
the  friendly  invitation,  aud  for  the  kind  and 
generous  manner  in  Avhich  the  visit  of  the 
delegates  would  have  been  facilitated  by  the 
executive  committee  in  New  York.  At  the 
same  time  we  were  to  express  our  sincere 
pleasure  at  the  testimony  this  invitation 
renders  to  our  unchangeable  purpose  and  en- 
deavor, expressed  by  us  from  the  very  first, 
to  reunite  all  Christian  confessions  into  one 
great  Church  of  Christ,  in  which  any  par- 
ticular Church,  though  united  as  far  as  es- 
sential doctrines  are  concerned,  may  still 


*  [The  letter  was  accompanied  by  a  printed  copy  of 
the  remarkable  Pastoral  Letter  of  Bishop  Reiukens, 
and  a  copy  of  the  Synodical  and  Parochial  Constitu- 
tion, which  is  quite  liberal,  and  provides  for  the  reg- 
ular'participation  of  the  lay  element  in  the  govern- 
ment of  the  Church  and  the  congregation.  A  member 
of  the  Congress  at  Constance  proposed  to  send  to  the 
New  York  Conference  the  whole  Old  Catholic  litera- 
ture, but  this  is  so  very  voluminous  that  the  proposal 
was  found  impracticable.— AU] 


preserve  all  other  peculiarities  correspond- 
ing to  its  national  character,  its  historical 
antecedents  aud  training,  and  its  political 
and  social  condition. 

With  regard  to  authentic  information 
touching  the  origin,  progress,  aud  aims  of 
our  movement,  we  need  say  but  little  after 
the  publication  of  the  Munich  programme 
of  Whitesuutide,  1871,  and  the  resolutions 
aud  declarations  of  both  Old  Catholic  Con- 
gresses, at  Munich  in  1871,  and  at  Cologne 
in  1872. 

We,  therefore,  propose  to  give  you  only  a 
brief  sketch  of  our  movement.  For  a  long 
time  there  had  been  a  large  number  of  think- 
ing Catholics,  especially  among,  the  repre- 
sentatives of  theological  science,  ecclesiastic- 
al law,  history,  and  philosophy,  who  clearly 
perceived  that  the  Roman  Curia  had  entered 
upon  a  course  which  inevitably  tended  to 
the  annihilation  of  spiritual  liberty  in  all 
branches  of  knowledge,  to  the  overthrow  of 
the  independence  of  bishops,  the  absolute 
centralization  of  Church  government  by  the 
destruction  of  all  national  and  territorial  pe- 
culiarities in  individual  churches ;  in  short, 
to  the  absolute  sovereignty  of  the  Pope  in 
Church  aud  society.  It  was  known  that  the 
ideas  of  Gregory  VII.  and  Boniface  VIII. 
were  exclusively  followed  by  the  Curia,  aud 
that  every  seeming  concession  to  the  exigen- 
cies of  the  times  was  duo  only  to  the  fact 
that  Rome  could  not  yet  openly  come  for- 
ward with  its  real  plans.  Up  to  the  last 
hour  a  return  was  thought  possible,  and  it 
was  attempted  to  effect  it  upon  the  domain 
of  science,  and  then  to  prepare  the  ground  for 
further  labors.  The  so-called  Munich  Con- 
gress of  Catholic  scholars,  held  September 
28  to  October  1,  1863,  openly  expressed  this 
endeavor.  The  conduct  of  the  Curia,  how- 
ever, prevented  such  meetings,  aud  the  Syl- 
labus fully  revealed  the  real  situation.  The 
struggle  which  had  begun  quietly  in  the 
realm  of  science  assumed  a  general  charac- 
ter soon  after  the  announcement  of  an  (Ecu- 
menical Council  to  be  opened  December  8, 
18(59,  in  St.  Peter's  Church,  when  the  designs 
of  Rome,  aud  of  the  Jesuits  who  directed 
them,  became  known.  The  Vatican  decrees 
of  July  18,  1870,  made  this  contest  an  open 
one  for  the  whole  Church. 

First  of  all  we  have  those  decrees  which 
directly  and  frankly  pronounce  the  infalli- 
bility of  the  Pope  and  his  universal  episco- 
pate; but  which,  by  logical  inference,  in- 
clude the  Pope's  absolute  control  of  the  con- 
science, mode  of  life,  and  rights  of  iudivid^ 


483 


ROMANISM  AND  PROTESTANTISM. 


uals  as  well  as  of  nations.  This  is  the  legal 
origin  and  justification  for  our  movement, 
because,  after  the  publication  of  those  de- 
crees, it  became  impossible  for  auy  one  who 
desired  to  continue  in  Christ's  Word  and 
give  evidence  to  the  truth  to  remain  silent 
without  renouncing  all  hope  of  reform.  It 
had  become  evident  to  us  that  these  decrees 
had  the  sole  object  of  sanctioning  a  system 
(practically  called  into  life  three  hundred 
years  ago)  which  identifies  Jesuitism  with 
Christianity,  Romanism  with  Catholicism, 
and  Ultramontanisin  with  Christian  policy ; 
and  of  giving  to  this  whole  system  an  im- 
movable foundation  under  the  mask  of  di- 
vine revelation.  Should  the  decrees  of  July 
18, 1870,  be  recalled  in  the  same  solemn  and 
precise  manner  in  which  they  have  been 
promulgated,  Curialism  would  be  destroyed, 
and  that  reform  of  the  Church  would  be  be- 
gun which  wo  are  now  striving  for.  lu  that 
case  only  could  we  re-enter  iuto  relations 
with  Rome.  We  might  acknowledge  in 
principle  the  primacy  of  Rome  as  an  histor- 
ical institution  in  the  same  sense  in  which 
the  ancient  undivided  Christian  Church  ac- 
knowledged it. 

We  hope  and  strive  for  the  restoration  of 
the  unity  of  the  Christian  Church.  We 
frankly  acknowledge  that  no  branch  of  it 
has  exclusively  the  truth.  We  hold  fast  to 
the  ultimate  view  that  upon  the  foundation 
of  the  Gospel  and  the  doctrines  of  the  Church 
grounded  upon  it,  and  upon  the  foundation 
of  the  ancient,  undivided  Church,  a  union  of 
all  Christian  confessions  will  be  possible 
through  a  really  (Ecumenical  Council.  This 
is  our  object  and  intention  in  the  movement 
which  has  led  us  into  close  relations  with 
the  Evangelical,  the  Anglican,  the  Anglo- 
American,  the  Russian,  and  the  Greek 
churches.  We  know  that  this  goal  can 
not  easily  bo  reached,  but  we  see  the  pri- 
mary evidences  of  success  in  the  circum- 
stance that  a  truly  Christian  intercourse  has 
already  taken  place  between  ourselves  and 
other  Christian  churches.  Therefore  we 
seize  with  joy  the  hand  of  fellowship  you 
have  extended  to  us,  and  beg  you  to  enter 
iuto  a  more  intimate  communion  with  us,  in 
such  a  way  as  may  be  agreed  upon  by  both 
parties. 

In  order  that  the  work  of  restoring  and 
completing  the  unity  of  the  one  Church  of 
Christ  may  be  realized,  every  individual 
Christian  Church  must  cast  off  every  thing 
which  proves  to  be  a  merely  human  addi- 
tion, and  must  restore  that  constitution  and 
discipline  which  rest  upon  the  foundation 
laid  by  Christ  the  Lord,  and  which  meet  the 
just  requirements  of  the  different  nations 
and  the  present  age.  This  it  is  our  inten- 
tion and  task  to  perform  within  the  bosom 
of  the  Catholic  Church.  We  wish  to  cleanse 
it  from  the  stains  of  a  corruption  which  has 
gradually  increased  for  more  than  a  thou- 


sand years.  All  that  Roman  ambition  and 
domination  have  created  for  selfish  ends 
must  bo  removed.  Every  institution  and  cus- 
tom hurtful  to  true  Christian  vitality  must.. 
be  cast  out;  active  faith  must  be  substitu- 
ted for  righteousness  by  works ;  a  sincere- 
ly Christian  life  in  faith  and  practice  must 
be  substituted  for  pious  bigotry.  The  de- 
terioration of  the  constitution  of  the  Church 
into  an  instrument  of  the  hierarchy  and  of 
the  Roman  Bishop  must  be  set  aside  by  the 
introduction  of  corrected  rules  which  guar- 
antee to  the  Christian  laity  their  rights  both 
in  the  local  congregation  and  the  general 
government  of  the  Church.  A  system  of 
discipline  must  be  introduced  in  which  trno 
Christian  earnestness  and  Christian  moral- 
ity united  with  Christian  love  constitute 
the  end,  instead  of  a  blind  subjection  of  tho 
individual,  or  of  all,  to  the  fiat  of  a  class  or 
of  a  single  man.  In  brief,  we  wish  to  reform 
the  Church  in  such  a  manner  that  it  shall 
become  again  a  fellowship  in  love,  in  faith, 
and  in  work,  of  all  who  believe  in  Jesus 
Christ  as  the  Son  of  God,  and  as  the  Saviour 
who  alone  has  been  and  still  is  and  remains 
our  Mediator. 

Great  changes  will  be  necessary  to  attain 
this  end.  It  can  only  be  reached  by  pru- 
dence and  a  wise  choice  of  ways  and  means. 
Therefore  we  were  not  disconcerted  at  the 
derision  of  those  who  said,  "You  only  reject 
the  infallibility  of  the  Pope;  you  wish  to 
retain  all  the  other  absurdities."  WTe  have 
unitedly  overcome  the  desire  that  existed 
among  ourselves  for  sudden  change,  since 
we  have  all  come  to  the  belief  that  the  preju- 
dices and  ideas  in  which  successive  genera- 
tions have  been  educated  can  not  be  de- 
stroyed in  a  single  night.  It  has  become 
manifest  to  all  of  us  that  our  reform  will  be 
far  more  efficient  if  we  proceed  with  delib- 
eration and  caution,  because  the  experience 
of  the  good  we  introduce  will  then  teach  xis 
the  better  to  know  the  shadow  of  evil  that 
still  remains.  We  may  contend,  without 
vanity  and  without  being  accused  of  exag- 
geration, that  no  religious  movement  which 
does  not  aim  at  the  destruction  but  at  the 
amelioration  of  the  existing  state  of  things, 
which  has  to  rely  upon  its  own  efforts,  which 
has  hitherto  enjoyed  no  assistance  from  tho 
State,  but  on  tho  contrary  has  had  great  ob- 
stacles laid  in  its  way,  which  occiirs  in  an 
age  when  on  the  one  hand  indifference  and 
materialism,  and  on  the  other  fanaticism  and 
political  churchmanship  predominate  in  all 
classes  of  society,  has  been  so  successful  in 
so  short  a  time,  whether  we  consider  its  pro- 
portions or  internal  results,  either  in  the  do- 
main of  the  law  or  that  of  life. 

On  September  22, 1871,  it  was  determined 
in  Munich  to  organize  regular  parishes.  To- 
day the  Old  Catholic  Church  numbers  in  tho 
German  Empire  nearly  100  congregations 
(in  Baden, 27;  in  Bavaria,  33;  in  Hesse,  2;  in 


LETTER  FROM  THE  OLD  CATHOLIC  CONGRESS. 


489 


Prussia,  22  congregations ;  1  congregation  in 
Birkenfeld).  In  these  congregations  over 
50,000  members  are  enrolled.  If,  despite  the 
difficulties  and  inconveniences  which  many 
suffer  from  openly  joining  an  Old  Catholic 
congregation,  and  in  spite  of  the  want  of 
churches,  etc.,  such  a  result  has  been  already 
reached,  we  may  boldly  hope  for  far  greater 
successes  as  soon  as  our  Church  has  been  rec- 
ognized by  the  State.  Over  forty  priests,  of 
whom  six  have  joined  us  in  the  course  of  this 
year,  attend  to  parochial  duties.  They  will 
also  have  accessions.  Six  young  men  next 
winter  will  study  Old  Catholic  theology  in 
the  University  of  Bonn.  In  many  places,  the 
friendship  of  our  Evangelical  brethren  has 
rendered  regular  worship  possible  in  Prot- 
estant churches;  in  others,  the  civil  local 
authorities  or  the  Government  have  granted 
us  churches.  In  Austria,  in  Switzerland, 
even  in  France,  Italy,  and  Spain,  our  move- 
ment meets  with  a  response. 

If  we  look  at  the  internal  results,  they  are 
equally  encouraging.  By  the  choice  of  the 
clergy  and  the  congregations,  on  June  4, 1873, 
Joseph  Hubert  Reiukeus,  Professor  of  The- 
ology at  Breslan,  was  elected  Old  Catholic 
bishop.  His  inclosed  pastoral  letter  fur- 
nishes an  evidence  that  the  episcopal  office 
will  be  carried  out  iu  the  true  apostolic 
spirit.  He  was  consecrated  011  August  11 
by  the  Bishop  of  De venter,  in  the  presence 
of  numerous  priests  of  all  the  three  dioceses 
of  the  Church  of  Utrecht.  His  consecration 
has  strengthened  our  fellowship  with  that 
Church.  Steps  have  been  taken  to  commu- 
nicate with  the  Armenian  Catholics*  Thus 
we  are  in  intimate  communication  with  that 
portion  of  the  whole  Church,  formerly  united 
under  Rome,  which  does  not  submit  itself 
to  papal  absolutism,  and  stands  fast  by  the 
rights  and  faith  of  the  ancient  Church.  In- 
ternal reforms  have  already  been,  begun, 
such  as  perhaps  are  enjoyed  by  no  branch 
of  the  Christian  Church.  We  have  quietly 
abandoned  the  abuses  of  the  adoration  of 
saints,  especially  the  exaggerated  devotion 
to  the  Virgin  Mary,  and  the  indulgences. 
We  have  done  away  with  the  abuse  of  scap- 
ularies,  medals,  and  such  like.  The  payment 
of  money  for  the  reading  of  masses  and  pub- 
lic prayers,  etc.,  has  been  given  up.  The 
national  language  has  practically  been  gen- 


erally adopted  in  the  Church  service,  and  in 
the  administration  of  the  sacraments  as  far 
as  it  was  possible  to  do  without  changing 
the  generally  accepted  liturgical  rules  of  the 
Latin  Church. 

The  inclosed  provisional  rules,  which  were 
adopted  in  Cologne,  June  3,  1873,  have  al- 
ready secured  to  laymen  a  certain  share  of 
authority  in  the  government  of  the  Church 
—  an  authority  which  in  all  its  conditions 
is  thoroughly  in  keeping  with  the  rules  and 
customs  of  the  ancient  Church  of  the  first 
centuries,  and  fully  satisfies  the  reasona- 
ble desires  in  our  own  age.  If  the  propo- 
sition for  a  set  of  rules  for  synods  and  con- 
gregations should  be  accepted,  as  it  doubt- 
less will  be  by  the  Congress  at  Constance 
and  by  the  first  synod,  we  shall  possess  a  con- 
stitution which  will  probably  be  for  sometime 
a  pium  desiderium  with  most  of  our  Evangel- 
ical brethren  in  Germany.  A  Catholic  synod, 
composed  of  a  bishop,  priests,  and  laymen, 
indicates  a  reform  in  the  Church  which  only 
a  few  years  ago  would  have  appeared  impos- 
sible. Thus  we  have  realized  what  appears 
to  us  essential  in  the  Constitution  of  the 
Church,  viz. :  the  Episcopal  office  as  the  lead- 
ing one ;  the  functions  of  bishops  and  priests 
for  the  administration  of  the  means  of  grace 
and  for  the  proclamation  of  the  Word  of 
God ;  the  full,  harmonious  co-operation  of 
all  believers  in  a  legal  and  orderly  man- 
ner. 

Thus  we  hope  to  have  replaced  the  reign 
of  arbitrary  and  centralized  absolutism  by 
laws  coinciding  with  the  spirit  of  love  and 
unity,  by  which  the  communion  of  believers 
should  be  guided. 

We  close  with  the  expression  of  our  wish 
that  your  Conference  may  succeed  in  bring- 
ing about  an  active,  close  union  between 
members  of  the  different  branches  of  the 
Evangelical  Church;  and  with  another  wish, 
both  for  you  and  for  ourselves,  that  the  bond 
of  mutual  love  maybe  drawn  closer  and  closer, 
that  we  may  found  institutions  fitted  to  pre- 
pare the  way  for  the  reconciliation  ofallChris- 
tian  creeds,  and  to  lead  to  that  end  we  all 
should  labor  for,  when,  under  one  Shepherd, 
our  Lord  Jesus  Christ,  the  members  of  his 
holy  Church  shall  form  a  single  flock. 

May  God  grant  this,  and  may  his  blessing 
bo  upon  your  work. 


THE  CONGRESS  OF  THE  OLD  CATHOLICS  OF  GERMANY. 


CONSTANCE,  September  12, 1873. 
In  the  name  thereof: 

The  Bishop : 
JOSEPH  HUBEUT  REINKENS. 


The  President : 

Dr.  VON  SCHULTE, 

Privy  Councilor  and  Professor  at  Bonn. 

The  First  Vice-President : 
Dr.  C.  A.  CORNELIUS,  from  Munich. 

The  Second  Vice-President : 
Dr.  AUGUSTIN  KELLER,  from  Aarau. 


LETTER  FROM  PERE  HYACINTHE  LOYSON. 


[Translated  from  the  French.] 


To  THE  MEMBERS  OP  THE  EVANGELICAL 
ALLIANCE  ASSEMBLED  ix  GENERAL  CON- 
FERENCE AT  NEW  YORK  : 

GENTLEMEN, — When  I  accepted  —  now 
more  than  a  year  ago — the  invitation  -which 
your  committee  did  me  the  honor  to  send 
me  for  the  meeting  of  the  Evangelical  Alli- 
ance, I  could  not  conjecture  the  obstacles 
which  would  check  the  execution  of  my 
promise.  While  suffering  from  the  sacrifice 
which  they  impose  upon  me  now,  I  do  not 
regret  these  obstacles,  for  they  concern  a  new 
development  of  a  reform  to  which  is  attach- 
ed, in  my  opinion,  the  salvation  of  the  Cath- 
olic Church. 

In  confiding  to  me  a  task  much  beyond 
my  individual  powers,  but  which  he  will 
aid  me,  I  trust,  to  perform,  God  has  imposed 
upon  me  duties  which  take  precedence  of  all 
others.  Will  you  excuse  me,  then,  gentle- 
men, if  in  heart  alone  I  join  you  ?  By  its 
warm  impulses  my  whole  being  goes  out  to 
you.  For  a  long  time  already  I  have  count- 
ed friends  among  your  ranks — indeed,  I  can 
call  you  all  by  that  name,  for,  united  by 
faith  in  the  same  Christ,  the  only  Son  of  God, 
and  the  Redeemer  of  men,  you  are  laboring 
to  bring  together  on  a  common  ground  the 
different  Christian  confessions,  which  have 
been  so  sadly,  and,  until  now,  so  irremediably 
separated. 

My  ambition,  I  confess,  is  still  higher : 
where  you  are  satisfied  Avith  an  alliance,  I 
would  desire  an  organic  and  vital  unity 


(uniti  organique  ct  rirante).  I  believe  this 
unity  to  lie  in  the  future  destinies  of  the 
Christian  Church,  because  I  discover  it  in 
its  primitive  traditions,  and,  above  all,  be- 
cause it  is  in  the  will  of  its  divine  Found- 
er. If  all  Christianity  were  not  like  that 
weakened  Church  of  the  Apocalypse,  more 
or  less  "  fallen  from  its  first  love,"  it  would 
not  be  so  difficult  for  it  to  realize,  or  even, 
alas !  to  conceive  the  joyous  mystery  of  its 
unity. 

Time  does  not  permit  me,  gentlemen,  to 
give  you  the  details  of  the  particular  work 
in  which  I  am  laboring  at  Geneva,  and  which 
you  wish  to  honor  with  your  sympathetic 
interest.  Besides,  this  work  is  sufficiently 
known  to  you  through  the  public  press.  I 
venture  to  count,  at  need,  upon  the  Rev. 
Pastor  Franck  Coulin  (who  will  deliver  to 
you  this  letter)  to  speak  to  you  of  my  plans. 
Pastor  Couliu  is  not  only  a  friend  of  my  per- 
son, but  also  of  my  work,  and  among  our 
brethren  of  the  Protestant  churches  in  Switz- 
erland, we  count  no  one  who  has  for  our  re- 
form more  intelligent  and  more  cordial  sym- 
pathies. 

Will  you  accept,  gentlemen,  with  the  re- 
newed expression  of  my  deeply  felt  regrets, 
that  also  of  my  most  respectful  and  affection- 
ately devoted  regards,  in  our  common  Mas- 
ter and  Saviour. 

HYACINTHE  LOYSON. 

GENEVA,  September  9, 18T3. 


THE  VATICAN  COUNCIL  AND  THE  OLD  CATHOLIC 

MOVEMENT. 

BY  THE  KEY.  W.  KEAFFT,  D.D. 

Professor  of  Chnrch  History  in  the  University  of  Bonu. 
[Born  Sept.  8, 1821,  at  Cologne,  Prussia.]  ' 


So  much  has  been  written  in  regard  to 
the  history  of  the  Vatican  Council,  that  a 
whole  library  might  be  filled  with  this  lit- 
erature.* I  call  your  special  attention  to 
Frommanu's  excellent  representation. t 

In  treating  of  the  Council  and  the  Old 
Catholic  movement,  the  former  can  be  con- 
sidered only  in  so  far  as  it  gave  rise  to  the 
latter  movement,  bestowing  upon  it  not  only 
justification  in  itself,  but  great  importance 
also. 

On  the  eighteenth  day  of  July,  1870,  in 
presence  and  with  the  assent  of  the  major- 
ity of  the  voters  of  the  Vatican  Council,  at 
midday — but  the  sky  being  dark,  under 
thunder  and  lightning,  and  by  candle-light — 
Pope  Pius  the  Ninth  commanded,  iu  the  bull 
"  Pastor  astern  us,"  all  Eomau  Catholic  Chris- 
tendom to  believe  implicitly  in  the  follow- 
ing as  a  sacred  law,  warranted  by  Divine 
revelation : 

"Adhering  faithfully  to  the  Tradition  de- 
livered unto  us  from  the  beginning  of  the 
Christian  faith,  We,  with  the  assent  of  the 
Sacred  Council,  teach  and  declare,  to  the 
honor  of  God  our  Saviour,  the  exaltation  of 
the  Catholic  Religion,  and  the  salvation  of 
all  Christendom,  that  the  Roman  Pontiff, 
wheu  speaking  ex  cathedra,  i.  e.,  when  he,  iu 
virtue  of  his  highest  apostolic  authority,  and 
in  the  exercise  of  his  office  of  shepherd  and 
teacher  of  all  Christians,  proclaims  in  ex- 
plicit terms  .1  dogma,  to  be  believed  by  the 
whole  Church — may  it  concern  either  faith 
or  morals — possesses,  by  right  of  the  Divine 
assistance  promised  unto  him  through  St. 
Peter,  that  infallibility  with  which  the  Di- 
vine Saviour  wanted  his  Church  to  be  en- 
dowed in  all  matters  of  faith  and  morals ; 
And  that,  therefore,  such  dogmas  of  the  Ro- 
man Pontiff  are  iu  themselves  (ex  sese),  and 
not  through  consent  of  the  Church,  immuta- 
ble. Should,  however,  any  one  dare  to  dis- 
sent from  this  our  dogma,  what  God  forbid ! 
— let  him  be  anathema !" 

With  this  decisive  sentence  of  the  Pope 
the  Jesuits  have  at  last  reached  a  long-de- 
sired aim.  Papal  infallibility  had,  years 


*  A  complete  list  of  this  literature  is  to  be  found  in 
the  "Qnellerisammlnng"  of  Friedberg. 
.   t  Frommaun,  "History  of  the  Vatican  Council,  Go- 
thn,  1872." 


ago,  been  designated  and  defended  by  them 
as  the  last  consequence  of  the  principles  of 
their  own  order. 

The  principle  of  the  order  of  Jesuits  was, 
from  the  very  beginning,  in  direct  opposi- 
tion to  the  Protestant  principle  of  faith ;  the 
founder,  Ignatius  Loyola,  declaring  that  im- 
plicit obedience  is  the  source,  and  the  great- 
est of  all  Christian  virtues. 

In  his  celebrated  letter,  De  virtute  obedi- 
cntiae  (A.D.  1553),  addressed  to  the  Portu- 
guese members  of  the  order,  he  says : 

"  The  members  of  the  Society  of  Jesus  may 
be  surpassed  by  other  religious  orders  iu  fast- 
ing, vigils,  and  ascetic  mode  of  living,  but  iu 
regard  to  implicit  obedience,  denial  of  self- 
will,  and  reason  they  exceed  all  others. 

This  obedience  of  the  members  of  the 
"  compauia"  to  their  superior  was  to  be  ex- 
orcised iu  a  military  manner,  as  to  a  general. 
The  latter  was,  therefore,  invested  with  the 
highest  authority  possible :  he  was  to  act  as 
the  substitute  of  God  and  Christ.  "  Who- 
soever heareth  him,  heareth  me,"  i.  e.,  Christ. 
"  Whosoever  despiseth  him,  despiscth  me." 

In  consequence,  the  members  are  bound 
to  consider  the  general's  command  as  the 
voice  of  Christ,  according  to  the  word  of 
St.  Paul  to  the  Colossiaus :  '•  Whatsoever  ye 
do,  do  it  heartily,  as  to  the  Lord,  and  not 
unto  men :  knowing  that  of  the  Lord  ye 
shall  receive  the  reward  of  the  inheritance : 
for  ye  serve  the  Lord  Christ." 

Ignatius  distinguishes  three  degrees  of 
obedience : 

The  first  degree  comprises  those  persons 
who  .fulfill  their  superior's  command  as  the 
will  of  God,  even  if  their  own  will  and  judg- 
ment bo  opposed  to  it :  this  act  does  not  de- 
serve the  name  of  virtue. 

The  second  degree  comprises  those  who, 
in  enacting  the  order  of  the  general,  make 
his  will  their  own  :  this  sacrifice  of  the  will 
is  virtue. 

The  third  degree  contains  those  who  en- 
act the  order  of  the  superior,  not  only  in  ac- 
cordance with  their  own  will,  but  their  judg- 
ment also — thus  making  the  sacrifice  of  their 
intelligence.  This  degree  of  blind,  implicit 
obedience  is  the  highest,  and  all  individual 
responsibility  of  action  ceases  with  it. 

In. the  same  spirit,  the  virtue  of  obedience 


492 


ROMANISM  AND  PROTESTANTISM. 


is  enjoined  in  tbe  rules  of  the  order ;  the 
subaltern  has  to  so  direct  all  his  efforts  that 
his  obedience  may  be  perfect  iu  every  regard, 
both  according  to  will  and  intelligence. 

"Let  everyone  be  convinced  that  those 
who  live  under  obedience  must  needs  be  di- 
rected and  governed  by  Divine  Providence, 
through  the  interposition  of  their  superiors, 
as  if  they  were  nothing  but  a  mere  cadaver 
which  may  bo  carried  in  any  direction  and 
treated  in  any  manner;  or  they  may  be 
likened  to  an  old  man's  staff,  assisting  him 
who  holds  it,  wheresoever  and  whensoever 
he  may  use  it." 

In  the  same  manner,  as  all  the  members 
of  the  order  are  bound  to  the  will  of  their 
superior,  thus  should,  according  to  the  rules 
of  Ignatius,  the  superior,  in  his  turn,  pay  im- 
plicit obedience,  and  without  any  reasoning 
whatsoever,  to  him  whom  God  placed  above 
him,  i.  e.,  the  Roman  Pope,  the  Vicegerent  of 
God  and  Christ  on  earth.  He  is,  therefore, 
the  absolute  sovereign  of  the  order,  and  his 
commands  must  be,  at  all  times  and  in  all 
parts  of  the  world,  implicitly  and  uncondi- 
tionally carried  out  by  the  members  of  the 
order.  This  nominal  superiority  of  the  Pope 
over  the  general  of  the  order  of  the  Jesuits 
was,  however,  a  mere  pretext  for  the  real 
superiority  of  the  order  over  the  Pope.  Al- 
ready the  founder  of  the  order  named  Rome 
as  the  permanent  residence  of  the  general, 
so  that  he  might  live  in  the  Pope's  immedi- 
ate vicinity.  The  most  intelligent  members 
of  the  order  were  brought  hither  from  all 
parts  of  the  world,  and  thus  by  seemingly 
serving  the  Roman  chair,  the  order  assumed 
in  fact  the  supremacy  over  the  same,  and 
through  it  over  the  whole  church.  Better 
than  at  any  other  period,  Roman  Jesuitism 
succeeded  in  our  times  in  gaining  influence 
over  the  Pope,  Pio  Nouo,  making  him  entire- 
ly subservient  to  their  aims.  This  has  been 
done  to  such  an  extent  that  at  the  present  day 
the  general  of  the  Jesuits  is  called  "  Papa 
Nero," to  distinguish  him  from  "Papa  Bian- 
co," Pio  Nono. 

Making  use  of  their  unlimited  influence, 
the  Jesuits  believed  that  at  last  the  moment 
had  arrived  when  they  might  extend  the 
constitution  of  their  order  over  the  whole 
Roman  Catholic  Church.  Now  at  last  should 
blind,  implicit  obedience,  the  life-principle 
of  their  order,  be  binding  upon  the  whole 
Roman  Catholic  Church,  nay,  it  should  thus 
govern  the  world.  That  is  to  say,  the  Ro- 
man Catholic  Church  should  be  changed  into 
one  grand  order  of  Jesuits,  embracing  all  na- 
tions and  all  countries. 

To  this  end  the  two  following  dogmas 
were  especially  defended  in  the  party-press 
of  the  Jesuits :  1st.  The  dogma  of  the  uni- 
versal papal  episcopacy,  i.  e.,  his  complete, 
absolute  jurisdictional  power;  and  2d.  The 
dogma  of  papal  infallibility  in  questions  of 
faith  and  morals. 


The  declaration  of  the  immaculate  concep- 
tion (A.D.  1854),  which — as  is  almost  need- 
less to  say — is  in  direct  contradiction  to  the 
Christian  fundamental  doctrine  of  original 
sin,  served  as  an  introduction  to  the  two 
dogmas  just  mentioned.  This  secret  the 
Jesuits  betrayed  themselves.  Schrader,  in 
his  book,  "  Pius  IX.  as  Pope  and  King,"  has 
told  us  that,  at  that  time,  they  simply  wish- 
ed to  test  how  far  they  could  go.  The  votes 
of  the  bishops  having  been  cast  aside,  it  was 
declared  that  the  Pope  alone  was  inspired  by 
the  Holy  Spirit :  this  virtually  decided  al- 
ready the  infallibility  of  the  Pope. 

The  Jesuits,  elated  by  this  success,  and 
certain  of  final  victory,  predicted  in  their 
papers  the  sure  acceptance  of  the  two  above- 
mentioned  doctrines  regarding  the  Pope. 

But  as  the  Jesuits  were  striving  to  secure 
the  Pope  the  same  position  in  the  whole 
Roman  Catholic  Church  which  the  general 
holds  in  their  order,  they  were  obliged  to 
increase  papal  authority  to  the  very  utmost. 
The  Pope,  who  had  formerly  been  considered 
but  the  visible  representative  of  the  Roman 
Church,  and  at  the  highest  was  looked  upon 
as  demonstrating  the  unity  of  the  Church 
in  a  juridical  sense,  was  now  declared  to  be 
the  principle  of  the  unity  of  faith  and  love, 
and  was  placed  in  such  close  communion 
with  God  as  is  impossible  to  any  other  mor- 
tal being. 

Under  the  eyes  of  the  Pope,  the  Ch'iUcI, 
Cattolica,  the  official  press  at  Rome,  pub- 
lished this  blasphemy :  "  Si  medita  il  Papa 
6  dio  che  pensa  in  lui,"  i.  e.,  "  when  the  Pope 
thinks,  it  is  God  thinking  within  him !" 

In  the  book  of  Faber,  the  Oratorian,  "  Of 
the  Devotion  to  the  Pope,"  the  faithful  are 
taught  that  this  devotion  is  an  essential 
sign  of  all  Christian  holiness,  and  a  necessa- 
ry condition  to  salvation ;  "  for  the  Pope  is 
the  third  visible  presence  of  Christ  among  us." 

This  view  has  been  openly  defended  by 
the  Infallibilists.  During  the  Vatican  Coun- 
cil, Mermillod,  the  pretender  of  the  Genevan 
episcopacy,  preached  at  Rome  on  the  three- 
fold theophauy :  "  In  the  manger  at  Bethle- 
hem, on  the  altar  iu  fhe  Eucharist,  and  iu 
the  person  of  the  Pope  in  the  Vatican." 

In  this  sense,  also,  deus  has  been  changed 
to  pins  in  some  hymns  originally  addressed 
to  God,  and  the  Pope  himself  rewarded  the 
defenders  of  these  outrages  with  a  "  Breve." 

By  the  side  of  Raphael's  pictures  in  the 
Vatican,  Pius  IX.  had  a  picture  painted, 
wherein  he  announces  the  immaculate  con- 
ception of  the  Virgin  Mary;  he  is  represent- 
ed as  touching  the  ground  lightly  with  his 
feet;  a  ray  of  light  falling  from  heaven 
upon  him,  while  his  month  and  the  bull 
testify  to  his  inspiration  by  the  Holy  Spirit. 

The  Pope  even  attempted  to  work  mira- 
cles, but  without  success;  and  in  order  to 
make  up  for  this  failure  he  prophetically  an- 
nounced some  future  miraculous  doings. 


KRAFFT:  THE  VATICAN  COUNCIL  AND  THE  OLD  CATHOLIC  MOVEMENT.  493 


Count  Montalembert,  formerly  a  very  pil- 
lar of  the  Catholic  Church  in  France,  was 
quite  right  when  he,  on  his  death-bed,  thus, 
with  his  last  words,  warned  the  "  Ultramou- 
tanes  :"  "  You  are  erecting  an  idol  in  the  Vati- 
can /"  Yes,  an  idol  indeed,  for  Romish  anti- 
Christianity  has  never  been  as  strong  as  in 
our  days ! 

The  Jesuits,  however,  did  not  permit  them- 
selves to  be  warned,  but  went  on.  The 
mock  council,  prepared  and  arranged  by 
them,  was  destined  to  execute  their  plans. 

It  is  a  fearful  arrogance  of  the  Romish 
Church  to  presume  the  representation  of  an 
Ecumenical  Council  in  our  days.  The  Orien- 
tal and  Evangelical  Churches  protested  de- 
cidedly against  such  a  proceeding.  Even 
in  the  midst  of  the  Catholic  Church  some  of 
the  bishops  opposed  it,  and  during  the  ses- 
sions of  the  Council  frequently  declared  that 
they  could  not  recognize  it  as  ecumenical. 
For  who  was  represented  at  Rome  but  the 
cardinals  of  the  Romish  curia,  the  bishops, 
and  orders?  But  the  hundreds  of  thou- 
sands of  priests  and  the  millions  of  so-called 
laymen  were  not  represented ;  and  when  they, 
nevertheless,  urged  their  testimony,  it  was 
timidly  refused  by  the  bishops,  as  if  thereby 
the  work  of  the  Divine  Spirit  was  disturbed 
within  them. 

The  Council  was  furthermore  not  free.  The 
transactions  of  the  Council  were  tampered 
with  from  the  very  beginning,  as  the  Pope 
in  the  most  arbitrary  manner  had  himself 
appointed  all  the  officers,  and  even  before 
the  bishops  were  assembled  administered 
the  oath  to  every  one,  from  the  president 
down  to  the  last  teller-of-votes.  The  very 
business  transactions  of  the  Council  were  fix- 
ed in  the  most  arbitrary  mode,  as  the  Pope 
enforced  a  double  order  of  the  day.  Against 
this  outside  pressure,  this  business  mechan- 
ism, a  very  impressive  protest  was  raised  by 
the  most  intelligent  bishops,  but  without 
success.  Freedom  of  debate  and  confer- 
ence was  consequently  impossible ;  the  Pope 
alone,  through  his  president,  brought  his 
own  resolutions  before  the  house ;  no  bishop 
had  a  right  to  do  so ;  their  resolutions  had 
to  be  laid  before  a  commission  outside  of 
the  Council,  and  their  introduction  to  the 
Council,  nay,  the  mere  knowledge  of  them, 
depended  solely  upon  the  Pope's  decision. 
The  speeches  were  mostly  unintelligible, 
partly  on  account  of  the  size  of  the  hall,  and 
partly  on  account  of  the  different  pronuncia- 
tion ;  and  an  insight  into  the  steuographical 
reports  was  strictly  prohibited.  Publica- 
tions of  the  Opposition  had  to  be  printed 
outside  of  Rome,  while  the  Infallibilists 
made  a  grand  display  of  their  views  by  ad- 
vertisements on  the  walls.  Sudden  adjourn- 
ments would  frequently  shut  the  tongues  of 
half  a  hundred  prelates,  so  that  their  testi- 
mony was  silenced. 

The  order  of  the  day,  i.  e.,  the  important 


questions  which  were  to  come  before  the 
house,  were  not  published  beforehand,  but 
intentionally  kept  secret.  Very  strangely 
indeed,  the  decrees  of  the  Pope  were  brought 
in  only  during  the  sessions  of  the  Council. 
And  this  was  the  worse,  as  they  were  in 
contradiction  to  Scripture  and  Tradition, 
and  were  shown  to  be  Jesuitic  innovations. 
The  only  Scriptural  proof  for  papal  infalli- 
bility, Luke  xxii.,  32,  which  appears  also  in 
the  decree  of  July  18,  1870,  proves  the  very 
opposite,  although  the  Jesuits  consider  it 
convincing. 

Christ  in  this  passage  says  to  Peter, "  But 
I  have  prayed  for  thee,  that  thy  faith  fail  not : 
and  when  thou  art  converted,  strengthen  thy 
brethren."  Shortly  before  the  passion  of  Je- 
sus, Peter  had  made  some  rash  and  presump- 
tive remarks.  The  Lord  now  announces  to 
him  his  fall,  but  comforts  him  also  by  re- 
ferring to  his  conversion.  But  when  the 
apostle  continued  in  his  self-confidence,  the 
Lord  told  him  in  plain  words  that  he  would 
deny  him  thrice  this  night. 

No  commentator  of  former  times  has  ever 
seen  in  these  words  any  reference  whatever 
to  the  purity  of  the  faith  or  to  the  functions 
of  St.  Peter's  successors  at  Rome,  or  any  suc- 
cessor of  the  apostle ;  they  all  justly  refer 
it  to  Peter  himself,  who  did  deny  his  Lord. 
These  convincing  arguments  drove  the  In- 
fallibilists  to  the  bold  assertion  that  the 
doubtful  meaning  of  the  passage  referred  to 
had  now,  by  the  papal  decree  of  July  18, 
1870,  been  settled  for  all  times ;  and  thus 
the  fundamental  doctrine  of  the  Council  of 
Trent,  that  very  pillar  of  the  Catholic 
Church,  "  that  it  is  the  right  of  the  Church 
(ecclesia)  to  judge  of  the  true  exposition  of 
Holy  Scripture,"  is  destroyed,  and  the  Pope 
alone  has  been  instituted  sole  interpreter  of 
the  Bible. 

The  principle  of  Tradition  too,  which  might 
be  called  the  corner-stone  of  Roman  Catholi- 
cism, has  been  overturned  and  trampled  un- 
der foot  by  the  Vatican  decree. 

While  the  Reformation  asserted  that  only 
that  which  could  be  proved  from  Scripture 
could  be  accepted  as  a  doctrine  of  Christ,  the 
Romish  Church  clung  to  Tradition,  trying  to 
establish  a  criterion  for  it.  If,  namely,  the 
apostolic  validity  of  any  church  doctrine 
could  not  be  proved  directly  from  Scripture, 
and  if  such  a  doctrine  was  found  to  have 
been  taught  and  believed  after  the  apostol- 
ic age — "semper,  ubique,  et  ab  omnibus" — 
then  it  was  taken  for  granted  that  such  a  doc- 
trine must  have  originated  in  the  apostolic 
preaching.  The  Council  of  Trent  went  still 
further,  and  taught  that  Tradition  had  come 
down  to  us,  from  hand  to  hand,  in  uninter- 
rupted succession,  through  all  generations. 
The  Church  alone,  as  the  Romish  Catechism 
teaches,  can  not  err  in  the  interpretation  of 
faith  and  morals,  because  she  is  taught  by 
the  Holy  Spirit. 


494 


ROMANISM  AND  PROTESTANTISM. 


The  bishops  of  the  Opposition,  who  formed 
by  far  the  majority  of  the  Roman  Catholic 
Christians  there  represented,  protested  that 
the  accepted  criterion  of  Tradition  did  not 
refer  to  papal  infallibility.  Such  teachings 
•were  mere  innovations,  and  the  doctrine 
•which  had  hitherto  been  believed  was  the 
true  one.  "  God  forbid  that  we,  on  account 
of  the  necessities  of  the  time,  should  forge 
the  original  meaning  of  the  divine  law." 
When  Bishop  Hefele,  of  Rottenburg,  by  his 
essay  on  "  Pope  Houorius  "  (printed  at  Na- 
ples), had  so  confounded  the  leading  cardi- 
nals that  they  could  not  conceal  their  con- 
fusion before  the  Pope,  Pius  IX.  decisively 
said, "  I  am  the  Tradition !"  which  means,  in 
plain  English :  The  agreement  of  the  whole 
church  with  tradition  does  in  no  way  con- 
cern papal  decrees;  for  they  are  iu  them- 
selves infallible. 

The  Infallibilists  now  openly  declare  that, 
because  the  doctrines  of  the  universal  episco- 
pacy of  the  Pope  and  his  infallibility  are  con- 
tained in  the  constitution  of  July  18,  1870, 
they  must  therefore  be  contained  in  Tradi- 
tion also.  Their  only  criterion  for  Tradition 
is  the  Pope,  who,  as  teacher  and  shepherd  of 
all  Christians,  binds  the  Church  Universal 
to  his  teachings  of  faith  and  morals.  The 
historical  and  political  papers  were  quite 
elated  at  the  decrees  of  the  Vatican  Coun- 
cil, for  now  it  is  established  who  should  at 
any  moment,  by  day  or  night,  have  the  final 
decision  in  matters  of  faith  and  morals. 

It  is  a  pity  that  the  old  Christian  Church 
did  not  know  this,  or  she  might  have  saved 
herself  a  gigantic  task  in  the  christologic- 
al  and  theological  disputes.  One  decree  ex 
cathedra  of  a  Pope  whom  she  might  have 
had  at  any  moment,  and  the  redeeming  word 
was  spoken,  the  proper  formula  found!  Why 
did  not  the  Pope  speak  at  Nicaea,  in  the  year 
325? 

I  now  come  to  that  highly  praised  una- 
nimity of  which  the  Vatican  Council  boast- 
iugly  says  that  at  the  last  meeting  533 
of  535  fathers  present  consented  to  the  de- 
cree (forty  of  them  being  members  of  or- 
ders and  cardinals).  But  according  to  the 
papal  call  there  ought  to  have  been  present 
1037  voting  members,  which  leaves  502  votes 
wanting.  More  than  100  voters  left  during 
the  last  days,  the  majority  of  whom  authen- 
tically declared  that  they  should  reject  the 
doctrine  of  infallibility  if  they  could  bo  pres- 
ent. The  really  decisive  vote  was  cast  July 
13,  1870,  while  the  solemn  meeting  of  July 
18  was  a  mere  formality.  On  the  former 
date  88  bishops  from  the  largest  dioceses 
had  voted  nay,  while  400  Italian  bishops  of 
the  very  smallest  dioceses,  and  more  than  100 
missionary  bishops — in  part,  infid. — with- 
out any  diocese  at  all,  formed  the  majority. 
This  fact,  which  is  a  convincing  proof  that 
there  was  no  agreement  in  the  Romish 
Church  on  papal  infallibility,  is  inscribed 


on  the  pages  of  history,  and  no  power  in  the 
world  can  erase  it  therefrom. 

The  Vatican  Council,  therefore,  can  not 
show  one  single  quality  necessary  to  an  ecu- 
menical council ! 

When  afterward  obedience  and  subjection 
were  urged  by  the  bishops  on  the  plea  that 
the  Council  had  spoken  it  was  justly  re- 
plied :  "  Where  do  we  read  this  ?  The  Coun- 
cil has  not  published  any  resolutions !" 

It  was  the  Pope  who  in  this  mock  council 
made  the  bishops  perform  mock  work.  Iu 
these  solemn  meetings  the  Pope  in  his  own 
name  ordained  decrees,  assuring  his  audience 
of  the  assent  of  the  Council.  In  the  consti- 
tution of  July  18,  1870,  he  alone  declares 
his  infallibility,  for  he  concludes  with  the 
above-mentioned  words :  "  But  if  any  one 
should  dare  to  dissent  from  this  our  dogma — 
what  God  forbid! — let  him  be  anathema!" 
He  does  not  say,  if  any  one  should  dare  to 
dissent  from  the  resolution  of  the  Council, 
but  "  from  my  own  doctrine  and  decision !" 

In  these  solemn  meetings  Pius  IX.  was  to 
the  Jesuits  not  the  successor  of  the  apostle, 
but  a  Vice-God,  the  Representative  of  the 
King  of  Glory,  the  triple  crown  on  his  head, 
and  his  under-shepherds  on  their  knees  be- 
fore him. ! 

Former  councils  spoke  by  their  own  au- 
thority, but  henceforth  all  councils  are  su- 
perfluous, as  papal  doctrines  ex  cathedra  are 
in  themselves  immutable.  The  bishops,  or 
uuder-shepherds,  are  henceforth  nothing  but 
the  Pope's  servants,  and  those  phrases  in  the 
Vatican  decree  regarding  the  real  power  of 
the  bishops  are  mere  sham  and  deception. 

The  words  of  Gregory  the  First,  "  I  shall 
have  my  honor  when  every  bishop  has  his 
honor,"  have  been  thus  distorted  by  Pius 
IX. :  "The  other  bishops  are  honored.through 
my  honor."* 

The  former  constitution  of  the  Roman 
Church  has  thus  been  shaken  and  changed 
from  its  very  fundaments,  and  in  the  place 
of  the  Ecumenical  Council  the  Pope  has  been 
put  as  the  Universal  Bishop. 

Those  eighty  -  eight  opposition  bishops 
who,  on  July  13, 1870,  had  voted  Non  placet, 
were  decidedly  the  most  intelligent  members 
of  the  Council,  and  represented  almost  one- 
half  of  the  whole  Roman  Catholic  Christen- 
dom. They  understood  the  victory  which 
the  Jesuits  had  gained  by  this  revolution. 
But  instead  of  obeying  the  voice  of  their  con- 
science, which  before  and  during  the  Council 
had  spoken  so  loudly  to  them,  they,  after 
the  Council,  submitted  to  the  papal  decree. 
Instead  of  fulfilling  their  holiest  duty  "to  be 
witnesses  of  the  truth,"  as  they  had  solemn- 
ly promised  to  their  charges,  in  accordance 
with  the  apostolic  word  that  "  whosoever 
wishes  to  please  men  can  not  be  a  servant 
of  Christ,"  they  yielded.  And  what  did  de- 


J.  II.  Reinken's  speech  nt  Wurzbnrg,  page  17. 


KRAFFT:  THE  VATICAN  COUNCIL  AND  THE  OLD  CATHOLIC  MOVEMENT.  495 


•termine  them  to  take  this  step  ?  Nothing 
.but  a  miserable  consideration  for. the  Pope. 
They  did  not  wish  to  grieve  or  provoke  the 
Holy  Father,  as  they  had  testified  before  their 
departure,  July  17, 1870,  to  their  own  eternal 
shame!  Preferring  to  please  a  poor  sinful 
man,  they  ceased  to  be  servants  of  Christ. 

Further  quotations  from  the  later  writ- 
ings of  these  original  opposition  bishops — to 
which  most  of  the  German  bishops  belonged 
— will,  I  trust,  be  superfluous.  It  would  be  a 
grievous,  an  actually  disgusting  task.  Giv- 
ing their  full  and  unconditional  assent  to  the 
decrees  of  the  Council,  they  requested  the 
faithful  to  receive  the  dogma  by  pain  of  ex- 
communication ;  and  instead  of  thoroughly 
enlightening  their  people  on  this  innovation, 
they  heaped  lie  upon  lie !  And  what  drove 
them  to  such  a  cowardly,  dishonorable  flight 
of  their  colors?  Solely  the  fear  of  a  schism 
of  the  juridical  unity  with  the  Pope.  To 
avoid  this,  they  were  prepared  to  bring  the 
very  highest  sacrifice  of  obedience,  that  of 
their  own  reason  (sacrificio  dell'  iutellet- 
to). 

This  is  most  clearly  shown  in  the  action  of 
Bishop  Hefele,  the  learned  and  world-re- 
nowned author  of  the  History  of  the  Coun- 
cils of  the  Church,  who  was  the  last  to  yield 
to  the  decrees  of  the  Council.  Quite  a  while 
after  the  mock  council  had  been  dissolved, 
he  wrote,  "  I  can  not  betray  my  conscience ; 
I  would  rather  lose  my  place."  But  soon  af- 
ter, April  10, 1871,  he  turned  apostate,  giving 
this  explanation :  "  The  peace  and  unity  of 
the  Church  are  of  such  high  value  that  the 
greatest  and  bitterest  sacrifices  must  be 
made  for  it." 

What  a  mistaken  sacrifice !  What  hypoc- 
risy !  As  if  truth  were  not  infinitely  more  val- 
uable than  mere  external  unity  with  Rome! 

Listen  to  the  following  solemn  declara- 
tions of  the  German  episcopacy,  given  be- 
fore the  Council ;  see  how  they  contradicted 
themselves  by  their  slavish  subjection  to 
Romish  tyranny! 

"  We  solemnly  declare  that,  first,  the  Ecu- 
menical Council  will  never  proclaim  any  doc- 
trine which  is  not  contained  in  Holy  Scrip- 
ture, or  in  the  traditions  of  the  Church ;  and 
that,  secondly,  the  Council  will  not  proclaim 
any  new  or  different  doctrines  from  those 
which  by  faith  and  conscience  are  inscribed 
on  the  hearts  of  all  people,  and  which,  hav- 
ing been  considered  sacred  by  Christian  na- 
tions throughout  all  ages,  are,  now  and  ever, 
the  basis  upon  which  the  welfare  of  states 
and  the  freedom  of  nations  rest." 

Yet  these  same  German  bishops  pros- 
trated themselves  under  Popish  tyranny, 
and  this  at  a  time  when,  after  the  battle  of 
Sedan,  the  whole  German  nation  felt  exalted 
beyond  measure,  and  when  the  unity  of  the 
German  Empire,  the  aim  of  long  and  patient  I 
efforts,  was  reached  at  last.  This,  above  all 
others,  was  the  moment  when  the  German 


Catholic  Church  ought  to  have  returned  to 
the  primacy  of  St.  Boniface,  its  founder. 

And  because  this  was  not  done,  Germany 
now  became  the  real  and  actual  centre  of 
the  Old  Catholic  movement,  just  as  iu  the 
sixteenth  century  she  had  been  the  cradle 
of  the  Reformation.  The  leader  of  the  oppo- 
sition was  the  Nestor  of  Roman  Catholic  the- 
ology, Professor  Dr.  Dollinger, .  of  Munich, 
formerly  one  of  the  most  zealous  champions 
of  Rome  against  Protestantism,  as  may  be 
sufficiently  proved  from  his  "  History  of  the 
Reformation."  At  his  side  we  see  Dr.  Fried- 
rich,  Professor  of  Church  History  in  Munich, 
who  by  his  "  Journal  of  the  Vatican  Coun- 
cil "  gave  evidence  of  his  deep  insight  into 
the  intrigues  of  the  Jesuits,  and  of  his  ap- 
preciation of  the  position  formerly  taken  by 
the  opposing  bishops.  As  the  second  ally, 
Professor  Dr.  Huber,  of  Munich,  is  to  be  men- 
tioned, whose  work  on  the  Jesuits  is  among 
the  most  profound  and  best  writings  ever 
published  concerning  this  order.  An  impor- 
tant influence  on  the  consolidation  of  their 
canons  was  even  then  exerted  by  the  pro- 
fessor of  laws,  Dr.  Von  Schulte,  of  Prague, 
who  was  afterward  called  to  Bonn  by  the 
Prussian  Government.  More  than  any  oth- 
er man  of  the  opposition,  he  was  able  to  be 
the  very  soul  of  the  movement,  and  subse- 
quently to  become  the  leader  of  the  same. 
The  Munich  scholars  wrere  joined  by  a  num- 
ber of  theologians  and  philosophers  of  Bres- 
lau  and  Bonn — Jos.  Hub.  Reiukeus,  well 
known  as  a  learned  Church  historian ;  Dr. 
Rensch,  the  editor  of  the  Theologische  Lite- 
raturblatt,  which  appears  now  iu  its  eighth 
volume,  and  is  one  of  the  most  solid  scien- 
tific publications  in  Germany  ;  and  Professor 
Laugen,  the  author  of  an  excellent  work  on 
the  Vatican  decrees,  in  which  he  shows  con- 
clusively the  untenability  of  these  decrees 
in  the  light  of  the  tradition  of  the  ancient 
Church. 

The  battle  of  Old  Catholicism  began  at 
Nuremberg,  about  the  end  of  July,  1870,  by 
some  renowned  Catholic  scholars.  It  was 
the  opposition  of  science,  of  historical  crit- 
icism, of  philosophy,  and  canonical  law.  The 
consequence  was  that  the  bishops,  after  vain- 
ly urging  the  subjection  of  their  opponents, 
suspended  and  excommunicated  them,  there- 
by provoking  a  most  decided  resistance.  To 
most  of  the  leaders  opposition  became  now 
a  serious  matter  of  conscience.  A  congress 
at  Munich,  about  Whitsunday,  1871,  was 
largely  attended  by  people  of  all  classes, 
and  the  following  programme  was  decided 
upon,  that  they  wished  to  continue  in  the 
Old  Catholic  faith  as  given  in  Scripture  and 
in  the  traditions  of  the  church,  and  were, 
therefore,  obliged  to  reject  the  Vatican  de- 
crees as  innovations.  No  council  had  a  right 
to  proclaim  dogmas  which  were  not  in  ac- 
cordance \yith  the  faith  and  the  conscience 
of  the  people.  The  right  of  scientific  in- 


496 


ROMANISM  AND  PROTESTANTISM. 


vestigation  was  insisted  upon  ;  their  agree- 
ment with  the  principles  of  modern  states, 
in  opposition  to  the  papal  Syllabus,  was  pro- 
nounced, and  it  was  resolved,  that  the  efforts 
of  the  Jesuits,  so  hurtful  to  public  welfare, 
ohould  be  stopped. 

The  aim  of  their  resolutions  was  the  for- 
mation, of  parishes  of  their  own,  a  thorough 
reform  of  the  church  discipline,  aud  last, 
not  least,  the  reunion  with  the  separated 
Christian  churches. 

The  party  made  important  progress  at  the 
meeting  at  Cologne,  the  former  cis-alpiue 
Rome  (Sept.,  1872).  More  than  sixty  priests, 
among  them  the  most  eminent  theologians 
and  canonists,  renowned  historians  aud  phi- 
losophers, and  almost  all  the  Catholic  pro- 
fessors of  the  German  universities  declared 
their  adherence.  They  were  joined  in  great 
numbers  by  the  educated  laymen,  aud  al- 
though the  mass  of  the  people  remained 
passive  from  indifferentism  or  narrow-mind- 
edness, steadily-rising  life  was  nevertheless 
shown  wherever  parishes  had  been  formed. 
Four  hundred  delegates  of  different  parishes 
and  societies  attended,  wise  moderation  be- 
ing exercised  by  all,  as  was  necessary  for 
such  a  mixture  of  radical  elements.  Im- 
portant resolutions  on  the  further  develop- 
ment of  Old  Catholicism  in  reference  to  it- 
self and  the  state  were  passed.  Its  relation 
to  other  churches  was  also  considered. 

1.  The  present  bishop  of  Rome  can  not 
be  recognized  any  longer  as  the  head  of  the 
Catholic  Church,  neither  can  those  bishops 
who  yielded  to  the  Vatican  dogma  be  con- 
sidered Catholic  bishops  any  longer.     Their 
excommunication  is,  therefore,  without  ef- 
fect. 

2.  The  Old  Catholics  are  justified  in  claim- 
ing all  rights  and  privileges  which  hereto- 
fore by  constitution,  stipulation,  aud  law  be- 
longed to  the  Catholic  Church. 

3.  The  present  situation  is  not  only  dis- 
tressing to  the  Old  Catholics  individually, 
who,  cut  off  from  the  church,  are  driven  by 
necessity  to  the  organization  of  new  parishes, 
which  are  justified  in  demanding  recognition 
of  the  government ;  but  it  is  disti-essiug  also 
to  the  whole  Catholic  Church  at  large,  as 
formerly  a  heretical  pope  could  be  deposed, 
which  after  the  promulgation  of  the  new 
dogma  is  impossible.     The  above  resolution 
that  the  Roman  pope  and  the  bishops  obey- 
ing him  do  lawfully  exist  no  longer,  is,  there- 
fore, final. 

4.  As  it  is  impossible  for  us  to  nominate 
the  episcopacy  in  the  normal  manner,  be  it 
resolved,  that  we  return  to  the  ancient  form 
of  election  by  the  clergy  and  the  people. 

Many  reforms  were  made  at  Cologne,  and 
a  number  of  Romish  statutes  were  abolished, 
as  indulgences,  adoration  of  the  Virgin  Mary 
and  the  Saints,  scapularics,  payment  of  (sur- 
plice fees  and)  stipends  for  masses.  The  Ger- 
man language  was  to  be  used  during  service. 


'  Abolition  of  celibacy  was  recommended  by 
the  laity.     The  obligatory  character  of  the 
1  confessional  was  to  cease,  and  several  things 
were  to  be  changed  in  the  church  ceremo- 
nials. 

Further  reforms  were  postponed  until  an 
Old  Catholic  Church,  with  episcopacy  and 
synods,  could  be  organized.  Security  for 
further  reforms  is  given  in  the  expulsion  of 
all  Jesuitic  excrescences,  and  in  the  very 
principle  of  Old  Catholicism ;  only  such  dog- 
mas' can  be  proclaimed,  which  can  be  proved 
from  the  Scriptures,  or  from  the  ancient  ec- 
clesiastical traditions. 

With  regard  to  the  state  and  modern  civ- 
ilization, the  Old  Catholics  openly  rejected 
the  Syllabus  of  December,  1864,  which  is  now 
infallible.  They  came  to  this  decision,  be- 
cause it  condemns  not  only  freedom  of  faith 
and  conscience,  but  freedom  of  scientific  in- 
vestigation, which,  also,  they  especially  need. 
They  declared  their  adherence  to  the  civil 
constitutions  of  their  respective  states,  there- 
by rejecting  the  dogma  of  papal  oversight, 
so  dangerous  to  civil  law,  and  resolved  that, 
in  the  battle  with  Rome,  they  would  side 
with  the  state.  For  these  reasons  the  Ger- 
man and  Swiss  governments  protected  aud 
recognized  them.  The  highest  court  in  Prus- 
sia recognized,  by  a  decision  of  May  24,  the 
Old  Catholics  as  true  members  of  the  Cath- 
olic Church,  and  as  having  a  claim  on  the 
protection  of  the  state.  The  legal  position 
of  the  Old  Catholics  before  the  judge  is 
defined  in  this  unmistakable  manner :  "  If 
there  is  in  question  the  formation  of  a  new 
religious  society,  in  the  sense  of  the  '  Edict 
of  Toleration  of  1847,'  it  affects  not  the  Old 
Catholics,  but  rather  the  New  Catholics,  who, 
in  fact,  established  a  new  doctrine,  while 
they  wish  to  prove  themselves  as  the  only 
true  members  and  representatives  of  the  Ro- 
man Catholic  Church  on  the  ground  that 
they  are  actually  in  possession  of  the  church 
buildings  and  other  property  of  the  Catholic 
Church."  [The  Emperor  of  Germany  has  re- 
cently recognized  Dr.  Reiukens  as  a  legiti- 
mate bishop  of  the  Catholic  Church. — Ed.~] 

The  "  fatherland"  of  the  German  Old  Cath- 
olics does  not  lie  ultra  monies,  as  that  of 
the  Infallibilists,  but  their  hearts  and  their 
love  are  with  united  and  strong  Germany, 
flourishing  in  industries,  and  advancing  in 
politics  and  civilization. 

The  hopes  for  the  existence  and  develop- 
ment of  the  Old  Catholic  movement  have 
been  raised  higher  yet  during  the  present 
year,  by  the  episcopal  election  at  Cologne, 
June  4.  Twenty-two  priests  and  fifty-five 
laymen,  who  are  representative  delegates  of 
60,000  souls,  partook  in  it.  The  number  of 
eligible  priests,  who  must  be  over  thirty 
years,  was  thirty.  Of  the  seventy-seven  votes 
cast,  Dr.  Reinkens,  late  Professor  of  Theology 
at  Breslau,  who  was  elected,  received  sixty- 
nine. 


KRAFFT:  THE  VATICAN  COUNCIL  AND  THE  OLD  CATHOLIC  MOVEMENT.  497 


After  his  acceptance,  free  love  and  devo- 
tion, but  not  blind  obedience,  were  promised 
to  him.  His  ordination  by  the  Bishop  of 
Deveuter,  Bishop  of  the  Utrecht  Church,  took 
place  at  Rotterdam,  Aug.  11.  In  his  Pastor- 
al he  proves  the  right  of  his  bishopric,  and 
describes  his  task  as  a  service  to  the  faith- 
ful. 

"  It  is  not  the  bishop's  task  to  preach  him- 
self and  the  interests  of  his  position,  but  Je- 
sus Christ.  His  ministrations  to  the  believ- 
ers are  not  his  property,  but  the  inheritance 
of  the  children  of  God,  of  which  he  is  but  a 
steward.  It  belongs  to  the  episcopacy  to 
preach  obedience  to  the  civil  authorities  as 
a  religious  duty  for  conscience  sake." 

About  three  weeks  ago  (Sept.  14),  Bishop 
Reinkens  solemnly  declared  that  the  papal 
command  "not  to  read  the  Bible"  was  thence- 
forth not  binding  for  the  Old  Catholics  ;  he, 
on  the  contrary,  in-ges  and  recommends  that 
all  Old  Catholics  should  read  the  dear  holy 
Book  again  and  again,  and  should,  in  all  hu- 
mility and  joy,  sib  at  the  feet  of  the  Lord ; 
for  he  alone  has  the  words  of  eternal  life. 
A  meeting  of  delegates  from  nearly  100  Old 
Catholic  congregations  at  Constance  accept- 
ed a  new  syuodicalaud  parochial  constitution 
of  such  excellence  as  many  an  evangelical 
church  stands  still  in  need  of,  as  I  am  sorry 
to  state. 

Who  of  us  is  not  rejoiced  at  this  Old  Cath- 
olic movement,  which  originated  iu  the  re- 
ligious conscience,  and  is  now  growing  and 
progressing!  It  is  an  open  protest  against 
Romish,  Jesuitic  Ultramontanism,  which  ap- 
proaches more  and  more  to  Autichristianity. 
32 


All  of  you,  I  trust,  will  unite  with  me  in 
the  earnest  prayer  that  the  outward  expan- 
sion of  the  movement  may  be  strengthened 
and  deepened  by  an  inward  growth  on  the 
true  evangelical  basis ;  so  that,  in  opposition 
to  the  Jesuitic  principle  of  blind  obedience, 
the  light  of  evangelical  faith,  of  free  grace 
in  God  through  Christ,  may  shine  every- 
where, and  that  Old  Catholicism  may  break 
loose  for  all  time  from  the  canons  of  the 
Council  of  Trent.  The  new  church  must  re- 
nounce forever  the  Supremacy  and  Primacy 
of  the  Pope,  who  can  claim  no  historical 
rights  whatever,  for  Rome  will  never  with- 
draw the  Vatican  decrees,  or  undertake  such 
reforms  as  are  desired  by  the  Old  Catholics. 
Then  will  the  Old  Catholics  reach  their  aim 
of  reunion  with  other  Christian  denomina- 
tions in  the  only  possible  and  true  manner, 
by  joining  the  Evangelical  Alliance!  And 
unto  this  end  we  ask  the  blessing  and  help 
of  God ! 

In  the  battle  which  is  waging  just  now 
between  the  German  Empire  and  Rome,  the 
Old  Catholics  stand  on  our  side.  Bishop 
Reinkens  will,  within  a  few  weeks,  take  the 
oath  of  obedience  to  the  Emperor.  [He  has 
done  so  since. — Ed.'] 

According  to  the  principle  of  our  great 
warrior,  Moltke,  Protestants  and  Old  Catho- 
lics will,  for  a  time  at  least,  march  in  sepa- 
rated bodies,  but  will  always  be  united  in 
the  battles  against  Rome.  The  victory  can 
only  be  ours  alone,  for  we  fight  for  eternal 
truth  under  the  stars  and  stripes  of  Jesus 
Christ,  who  has  given  us  the  promise,  "  I  am 
with  you  always,  to  the  cud  of  the  world !" 


ROMAN  CATHOLICISM  IN  SWITZERLAND  SINCE  THE 
PROCLAMATION  OF  THE  SYLLABUS. 

BY  THE  REV.  C.  PRONIER, 

Professor  of  Systematic  Theology  in  the  Free  Seminary  of  Geneva,  Switzerland. 


MY  DEAR  BRETHREX, — You  know  what 
an  impression  was  produced  by  the  publica- 
tion of  the  Syllabus,  the  convocation  of  the 
so-called  Ecumenical  Council,  and  the  dog- 
matic decisions  promulgated  by  it  in  1870. 
The  impression  would  have  been  all  the 
more  profound  had  not  the  war,  which  de- 
ranged so  much  our  peaceful  conferences, 
suddenly  burst  forth.  The  thunder  of  the 
cannon  drowned  the  voice  of  the  Council. 
Every  thing  for  the  moment  disappeared  in 
the  smoke  of  battle-fields.  But  when  once 
the  atmosphere  was  cleared  iip,  notwith- 
standing the  cries  of  the  wounded,  the  ruins 
to  be  repaired,  the  debts  to  be  paid,  a  mighty 
empire  to  be  consolidated,  an  ill-assured  con- 
quest to  be  strengthened,  it  was  necessary 
to  remember  what  had  been  done  at  Rome 
in  that  year,  at  once  so  glorious  and  fatal, 
which  marks  so  great  an  epoch  in  the  histo- 
ry of  European  nations.  It  was  then  that 
the  new  dogma,  the  result  of  Ultramontane 
intrigues,  produced  its  first  effects  in  the  re- 
lations existing  between  Roman  Catholicism 
and  the  governments  of  Europe.  I  shall  not 
remind  you,  gentlemen,  of  the  shame  of  those 
feigned  submissions  of  which  we  have  been 
the  astonished  spectators.  It  is  much  bet- 
ter to  pass  them  over  in  silence.  Let  us 
remember  only  the  energetic  protestations 
which  have  been  heard,  and  still  are,  from 
noble-minded  men  unable  to  trifle  with  the 
truth  for  the  sake  of  a  lying  unity ;  remem- 
ber the  Dollingers,  Friederichs,  Reiukens,  and 
Father  Hyacinthes ;  and  let  us  for  a  moment 
glance  at  Switzerland,  that  old  republic  so 
long  accustomed  to  struggle  for  liberty. 

I.  The  entire  population  of  Switzerland,  ac- 
cording to  the  census  of  1870,  was  2,669,147, 
of  which  1,084,369  were  Catholics.  Their  in- 
terests, or  rather  those  of  the  Roman  See,  are 
managed  by  a  chargt  tfaffaires,  whose  ill-de- 
lined  functions  appear  to  be,  above  all  things, 
to  serve  as  a  medium  between  the  Pope  and 
bishops. 

As  to  the  bishoprics,  they  were  five  in  num- 
ber :  1.  That  of  Sion,  which  contains  112  par- 
ishes, and  comprises  the  canton  of  Valais  and 
the  district  of  Aigle  in  the  canton  of  Vaud ; 
2.  That  of  Lausanne,  comprising,  besides  the 
canton  of  Freiburg,  those  of  Geneva,  Vaud, 
and  Neuchatcl.  It  is  divided  into  158  par- 


ishes; 3.  That  of  Solenre  or  Basle,  which 
comprises  the  cantons  of  Soleure,  Lucerne, 
Zug,  Berne,  Aargau,  Thurgan,  Basle,  Schaft- 
hausen,  and  contains  about  380  parishes;  4. 
That  of  Coire,  which  comprises  the  cantons 
of  Uri,  Schwytz,  Uuterwald,  Appenzell, 
(Rhodes  inte"rieures),  the  Orisons,  Ziirich, 
Glaris,  and  contains  about  160  parishes ;  5. 
That  of  St.  Gall,  comprising  the  canton  of 
that  name  and  some  parts  of  Appeuzell,  con- 
tains about  104  parishes. 

Tessin,  the  canton  in  which  the  Catholic 
population  is  proportionally  the  greatest, 
lately  formed  part  of  the  bishopric  of  Como 
and  the  archbishopric  of  Milan.  By  a  decree 
of  the  Federal  Government  it  has  been  sep- 
arated from  these,  but  no  agreement  has  as 
yet  been  entered  into  with  the  Roman  See 
in  order  to  determine  its  new  ecclesiastical 
position.  Each  of  these  dioceses  had  in  ad- 
dition its  chapter,  seminaries,  and  convents. 
A  recent  statistical  table,  prepared  by  order 
of  the  present  President  of  the  Confedera- 
tion, enumerates  88  of  the  latter,  and  esti- 
mates approximatively  their  entire  proper- 
ty, personal  and  real,  at  22,645,915  francs. 

What  effect  was  produced  in  Switzerland 
by  the  proclamation  of  the  Syllabus  and  by 
the  Vatican  Council  1  A  very  different  ef- 
fect in  different  parts  of  the  country.  The 
primitive  cantons,  Uri,  Schwytz,  Uuterwald, 
and  the  canton  of  Valais  are,  more  than  any 
others,  under  the  control  of  the  clergy.  Jeal- 
ous of  certain  ancient  privileges,  ever  more 
and  more  infringed  upon,  the  population  of 
these  are  animated  with  a  spirit  of  the  most 
conservative  kind.  Every  thing  is  in  the 
hands  of  the  bishop  and  clergy,  to  whom  is 
rendered,  with  the  sincerity  of  the  olden 
times,  an  almost  absolute  submission.  There 
men  awaited,  without  impatience  or  appre- 
hension, whatever  it  seemed  good  to  the  Vat- 
ican to  decree.  It  was  understood  before- 
hand that  not  the  slightest  desire  to  resist 
would  be  manifested.  Rome,  having  suc- 
ceeded, since  the  period  of  the  French  res- 
toration (1815),  and  the  dissolution  of  the 
diocese  of  Constance,  in  substituting  among 
the  lower  clergy  an  ultramontane  obedi- 
ence instead  of  the  liberal  spirit  of  the  Sail- 
ers and  Wessenbergs,  expected  her  decrees 
to  be  accepted  in  silence.  It  was  not  the 


PHONIER:  ROMAN  CATHOLICISM  IN  SWITZERLAND. 


499 


same,  however,  elsewhere.  The  Protestant 
and  mixed  cantons,  having  been  for  a  long 
time  up  in  arms  against  the  Catholic  pre- 
tensions, were  on  their  watch  against  the 
proceedings  of  Roman  policy.  Far  from  ! 
being  disposed  to  yield  a  single  point,  this  ' 
part  of  Switzerland  regarded  with  horror 
both  the  Pope  and  the  Jesuits.  Evangel- 
ical and  rationalistic  Protestants,  radicals 
and  conservatives,  free-thiukers  and  serious 
believers,  were  found  banded  together  as 
one  man  when  it  was  a  question  of  resist- 
ance to  Rome.  Need  I  add  that  the  public 
attention  in  this  part  of  Switzerland  was 
strongly  aroused  by  the  ultramontane  proj- 
ects ?  Not  only  was  there  in  the  text  of  the 
Syllabus  and  the  accompanying  Encyclical 
letter  a  declaration  of  war  against  the  fun- 
damental institutions  of  our  country  and 
the  principles  the  most  respected  in  modern 
society,  but  men  endeavored  to  foresee  their 
consequences.  When  the  Council  of  the  Vat- 
ican assembled,  its  movements  were  watch- 
ed with  keen  attention ;  the  conduct  of  the 
Swiss  bishops  present  at  it  was  carefully 
observed,  and  conferences  were  held  in  dif- 
ferent places.  In  short,  every  preparation 
was  made  to  withstand  the  menacing  storm 
which  was  gathering  on  the  southern  side 
of  our  mountains. 

It  was  long  however  before  it  burst  forth. 
Old  Catholicism,  continually  increasing  in 
Germany,  endeavored  to  organize  itself  in 
Switzerland.  In  April,  1871,  that  is,  after 
the  commencement  of  the  struggle  between 
Canon  Dollinger  and  the  Archbishop  of  Mu- 
nich, a  meeting  convened  at  Soleure  protest- 
ed loudly  against  the  decretttm  vaticanum.  In  j 
the  month  of  September  of  the  same  year,  a 
congress  of  about  two  hundred  members  met 
in  the  same  town,  formed  a  regular  society 
of  Liberal  Catholics,  and  sent  three  of  their 
principal  members  as  delegates  to  the  Con- 
gress of  Munich.  They  set  about  forming 
active  committees  of  Liberal  Catholics,  and 
in  this  they  succeeded.  Notwithstanding 
the  demands  of  the  Roman  Catholic  clergy 
to  be  permitted  to  proclaim  the  Pope's  per- 
sonal Infallibility  from  their  pulpits,  not- 
withstanding the  lively  discussion  of  the 
press  at  this  period,  Rome  seemed  to  be  ab- 
sorbed in  profound  meditation.  She  was  in 
no  hurry  to  put  in  practice  the  principles  of 
the  Syllabus,  but,  watching  attentively  the 
auti  -  infallibilist  movement,  she  was  un- 
doubtedly waiting  for  a  favorable  opportu- 
nity to  execute  her  projects. 

Why  did  she  do  so  ?  It  is  not  easy  to  say. 
Two  facts,  however,  the  one  general,  and 
the  other  applicable  only  to  Switzerland, 
might  perhaps  explain  the  slowness  of  her 
movements.  The  first  is  the  issue  of  the 
terrible  war  of  1870;  the  second  is  the  re- 
vision of  our  Federal  Constitution,  the  sub- 
ject that  then  occupied  tho  attention  of 
our  representatives,  and  was  to  be  sub- 


mitted to  the  popular  vote  in  the  spring  of 
1872. 

Right  or  wrong,  it  is  generally  believed  in 
Switzerland  that,  if  the  Franco-German  war 
broke  out  at  the  very  moment  the  Council 
proclaimed  the  dogma  of  the  personal  infal- 
libility,, this  coincidence  was  not  the  mere 
work  of  chance.  It  is  thought  that  Roman- 
ism had  formed  plans  for  reconquering  the 
Protestant  countries.  At  the  present  mo- 
ment even,  France,  disorganized  and  con- 
quered as  she  is,  is  looked  upon  by  Rome  as 
her  most  powerful  champion  in  Europe. 
And  in  so  far  Rome  is  right.  The  golden 
rose  bestowed  on  Isabella  has  not  saved 
Spain  from  revolution,  civil  war,  and  a 
frightful  anarchy  which  has  buried  her  in 
ruins  and  deluged  her  with  blood.  Austria 
has  been  rendered  powerless.  Prussia  and 
Italy  are  hostile.  To  whom,  then,  should 
the  owner  of  the  Vatican  look  from  his  tow- 
ers if  not  to  France,  still  strong,  notwith- 
standing her  reverses,  and  more  Catholic 
than  ever,  despite  all  her  aspirations  after 
liberty  ?  It  was  the  same,  it  is  thought,  in 
1870.  The  Pope  and  the  Jesuits  were  cer- 
tain that  the  sword  of  a  victorious  Caesar, 
assisted  by  the  advice  of  a  Spanish  lady, 
would  turn  the  scale  of  the  destinies  of  Eu- 
rope in  their  favor.  But  the  sword  of  the 
CiBsar  proved  more  brittle  than  a  reed.  He 
fell,  and  with  him,  if  they  existed,  fell  the 
plans  formed  by  the  Court  of  Rome.  Per- 
haps the  short  period  of  confessional  peace 
that  followed  the  war,  in  Switzerland  and 
the  rest  of  Europe,  is  due  to  the  fall  of  the 
French  empire  in  1870.  Be  that  as  it  may, 
it  is  certain  that,  so  far  as  the  first  hostile 
steps,  the  fanatical  exhortations  of  the 
priests,  had  caused  men  in  the  South  of 
Germany,  and  even  in  France,  to  apprehend 
the  renewal  of  the  bloodiest  catastrophes  of 
the  wars  of  religion,  so  far  did  the  first  re- 
verses of  the  French  arms  allay  the  fears  of 
the  Protestants.  The  Ultramontane  agents, 
insolent  at  first,  were  silenced.  Permit  me 
to  adduce  a  striking  example  of  this  fact. 
The  day  of  the  battle  of  Worth  it  was  re- 
ported at  Geneva  that  the  Prussians  had 
been  routed.  Thereupon  the  hosannas  of 
the  curd  of  Geneva  rose  to  the  gates  of  heav- 
en, and,  in  delighted  anticipation,  he  saw 
himself  installed  in  our  cathedral  church, 
and  in  Calvin's  pulpit.  But  he  was  obliged 
to  abate  his  pretensions,  and  reduce  his 
boasting  to  underhand  calumnies  against 
the  Protestant  mission  to  French  prisoners. 
At  the  same  time  our  legislature  was  occu- 
pied with  the  revision  of  the  Federal  Con- 
stitution. Do  not  fear  that  I  shall  occupy 
your  time  with  questions  of  a  political  na- 
ture. It  is  not  my  subject.  I  shall  there- 
fore only  say,  that  by  one  of  those  strange 
combinations  with  which  the  political  world 
at  times  surprises  us,  tho  new  constitution 
presented  to  the  Swiss  people  by  our  legisla- 


500 


ROMANISM  AND  PROTESTANTISM. 


turo  was  opposed  botli  by  Radicals  and  Ul-   new  Constitution,  revised  by  our  legisla- 

-A-J  :i  ~~  :-     ture,  was  taken  throughout  tbe  whole  of 


tramontanes.  The  former  rejected  it  as  in- 
fringing on  the  sovereignty  of  the  cantons, 
the  latter,  because  it  maintained  the  consti- 
tutional laws  of  1848  against  the  Jesuits, 


Switzerland.  To  the  great  joy  of  Radicals 
and  Ultramontanes,  it  was  rejected  by  the 
majority  of  the  people  and  cantons ;  and  al- 


and modified  in  nothing  the  legal  position  (  most  immediately  after,  the  Ultramontanes, 
of  Catholicism  in  Switzerland — a  deplorable  j  believing  themselves  masters  in  Switzerland, 
one,  were  we  to  believe  them.  From  the  [  commenced  the  struggle  on  another  point, 
commencement  of  the  protracted  debates  on  j  Within  a  few  months  two  of  the  most  im- 
the  project  of  the  Constitution,  the  aims  of  .  portant  dioceses  of  Switzerland  were  dis- 
Roman  Catholicism  were  clearly  apparent,  solved.  One  bishop  was  deposed,  an  apos- 
In  fact,  availing  themselves  of  so  favorable  tolic  vicar  was  escorted  to  the  frontier  by 
an  opportunity  for  making  known  their  de-  the  'federal  police  —  grave  events,  which, 
sires,  the  Swiss  bishops  addressed  the  Fed-  •  with  the  expulsion  of  the  Jesuits  from  Ger- 
eral  Assembly  in  a  full  and  well-drawn  np  (  many,  and  the  laws  voted  by  the  Prussian 
memoir  which  it  is  very  curious  to  read  at  j  parliament  at  the  commencement  of  the 
this  day.  It  is  dated  April,  1871,  and  a  sum-  present  year,  sound  as  a  stern  reply  to  the 
mary  of  it  may  be  given  in  these  words :  Syllabus. 

"  Every  thing  went  well  in  the  past,  is  go-  j  II.  Every  thing  has  been  said  that  could 
ing  badly  at  present,  and  will  go  worse  in  be  said  of  the  encyclical  "  Quanta  cura,"  ev- 
the  future,  if  our  just  demands  are  not  at-  ery  thing  of  the  Syllabus,  that  compendium 


tended  to." 


of  errors  condemned  by  the  Pope.     The  doc- 


As  a  conclusion  to  their  discourse,  the  trine  set  forth  in  these  famous  publications 
bishops  drew  up  their  demands  in  eight  gen-  ;  is  not  new  ;  and  notwithstanding  this,  it  is 
eral  and  four  particular  propositions.  The  j  impossible  to  read  them  without  feeling  a 
following  are  the  most  important  of  the  for-  ,  continual  surprise.  Every  point  concerning 
iner :  That  the  right  of  all  ecclesiastical  au-  the  relations  of  Church  and  State  which  is 
thorities  to  do  in  things  purely  religious  ab-  considered  to-day  as  a  progress  to  be  real- 
solutely  what  they  will,  be  expressly  affirmed  I  ized,  an  ideal  to  be  attained,  or  an  evangel- 
by  the  Federal  Constitution ;  that  in  matters  ;  ical  truth,  is  formally  anathematized  as  pes- 
relating  to  education,  marriage,  convents,  j  tilential  error.  The  Church,  you  say,  has 
and  religious  orders,  those  cantons  contain-  not  the  right  to  employ  force — condemned ! 
ing  a  mixed  population  be  governed  by  a  You  maintain  the  separation  of  Church  and 
double  legislature,  one  Catholic,  the  other  State — condemned !  You  think  that,  if  the 
Protestant ;  that  the  iudissolubility  of  mar-  '•  Church  aud  State  are  united,  the  latter 
riage  be  legally  imposed  on  Catholics ;  that  should  at  least  preserve  some  rights  rela- 
the  religious  brotherhoods  be  under  the  pro-  j  tive  to  the  hierarchy — error,  damnable  and 
tection  of  the  law  like  other  societies ;  last-  condemned.  Bishops  have  the  right  to  pub- 
ly,  that  a  federal  law  protect  the  Church, her  lish  their  proclamations,  ordinances,  bulls, 
faith,  worship,  and  dignitaries,  against  the  etc.,  without  the  sanction  of  the  government 
abuse  of  the  press.  Such  were  the  demands  that  pays  them ;  the  ecclesiastical  courts  for 
of  the  Swiss  bishops.  To  you,  gentlemen,  the  trial  of  the  clergy,  whether  in  matters 
who  live  in  a  country  where  Church  and  |  civil  or  criminal,  should  not  be  abolished ; 
State  are  separated,  several  of  their  demands  all  the  ancient  immunities  of  the  clergy, 
may  appear  well  founded.  But  when  viewed  source  of  the  most  frightful  abuses,  should 
in  the  light  of  secular  traditions,  under  the  be  most  carefully  respected ;  everywhere 
regime  of  a  union  the  advantages  of  which  j  canon  law  should  take  precedence  of  civil 
the  Swiss  bishops  had  not  the  slightest  in-  j  law ;  there  is  no  appeal  against  abuses ;  no 
tention  of  renouncing,  and  with  the  formal  common  school  in  which  the  Church  may  not 
agreements  which  are.  at  the  base  of  our  dio-  intermeddle  ;  the  Catholic  religion  should  be 
cesan  institutions,  these  propositions  were  considered  as  the  only  religion  of  the  State, 
simply  monstrous.  To  adopt  them  were  to  to  the  exclusion  of  all  others ;  and  in  Cath- 
give  all  power  into  the  hands  of  Rome,  and  olic  countries  no  other  should  be  tolerated, 
divide  in  two  the  Swiss  nation.  This  was  etc.,  etc.  What  is  it,  then,  the  Pope  aud  his 
not  even  to  be  thought  of.  Nor  could  the  clergy  desire  ?  Nothing  less  than  supreme 
bishops  deceive  themselves  on  the  fate  that '  authority  in  both  domains :  to  dictate  to  the 
awaited  their  propositions.  All  their  ulte-  State  what  it  shall  do,  to  govern  in  every 
rior  projects  Avere  adjourned,  undoubtedly  thing  without  having  any  account  to  render 
because  they  did  not  feel  themselves  strong  to  the  civil  authority  even  in  criminal  cases ; 
enough  to  pursue  them.  I  such  is  the  height  of  their  modest  ambition. 

To  these  two  facts  we  owe,  perhaps,  the  Gregory  VII.  and  Innocent  III.  would  have 
respite  procured  us  in  the  struggle  against !  been  contented  with  less. 
Ultramontanism,  armed  with  the  Syllabus  ;  Happily,  gentlemen,  the  theocratic  sys- 
and  the  decree  of  Infallibility.  But  this  tern,  of  which  the  Syllabus  is  in  our  century 
state  of  things  could  not  last  long.  In  fact,  the  most  striking  exponent,  exists  only  in 
on  the  12th  of  May,  1872,  the  vote  on  the  theory.  Rome  is  immovable,  inflexible,  hard- 


PHONIER:  ROMAN  CATHOLICISM  IN  SWITZERLAND. 


501 


er  thau  iron  and  keener  than  steel,  concern- 
ing the  theoretical  proclamation  of  her  prin- 
ciples whether  in  religion  or  politics.  In 
practice  it  is  quite  another  thing.  The  iron 
melts,  the  steel  becomes  softer  than  wax, 
and  the  theory,  pliable  as  if  by  enchant- 
ment, assumes  every  shape  and  form  with 
surprising  flexibility.  Thus,  while  she  con- 
demns in  theory  the  separation  of  Church 
and  State,  good  care  is  taken  in  countries 
like  yours,  where  this  mutual  independence 
of  the  two  societies  is  an  accomplished  fact, 
not  to  attack  the  principle.  In  theory,  the 
right  of  placet,  and  the  intervention  of  the 
State  in  the  choice  of  bishops,  in  civil  legis- 
lation, or  marriage,  and  in  matters  relating 
to  real  property,  are  rejected  with  horror, 
but  they  do  not  let  the  opportunity  slip  of 
signing  concordats  in  which  these  pretended 
rights  of  the  Church  are  entirely  overlooked. 
In  short,  the  Romish  Church  iu  her  relations 
with  civil  society  accepts  almost  all  trans- 
actions, resting  satisfied  with  protesting  in 
theory.  Why  does  she  act  so  ?  Because,  in 
order  to  govern  to-morrow,  it  is  necessary  to 
exist  and  live  to-day ;  because  this  necessity 
is  of  a  nature  to  justify,  not  the  abandon- 
ment of  principles,  oh  no ;  but  clever  con- 
cessions  and  skillful  transactions  with  those 
governments  as  yet  little  inclined  to  submit 
to  the  dictation  of  clerical  authority.  Rome 
yields  then,  yet,  while  doing  so  in  appear- 
ance, she  in  reality  yields  nothing ;  she  post- 
pones her  plans,  submits  to  the  present 
necessity,  but  it  is  with  a  view  to  the  fu- 
ture. The  theocratic  principles  are  there 
unchangeable.  She  never  renounces  them, 
and  the  most  seemingly  solid  state  of  things, 
the  most  solemnly  promulgated  concordats, 
are  in  her  eyes  but  temporary  and  void  when 
they  do  not  correspond  to  her  hopes  in  form- 
ing them.  Does  she  believe  herself  strong 
enough  to  trample  them  underfoot  without 
seriously  compromising  her  interests  ?  She 
does  so  without  scruple;  and  in  breaking 
them  she  too  often,  alas,  has  pretended  to 
sigh  in  sadness  over  the  ruins  she  herself 
has  produced,  over  the  blood  she  has  spilled. 

The  events  that  have  taken  place  in  Switz- 
erland since  the  rejection  of  the  revised  Con- 
stitution is  but  an  eloquent  commentary  on 
this  policy  of  Rome.  There,  gentlemen,  you 
are  going  to  see  in  operation  the  principles 
proclaimed  in  the  Syllabus,  and  sanctioned 
by  the  decree  of  the  Council  of  the  Vatican. 

In  the  confusion  which  involved  every 
thing  at  the  end  of  the  last  century,  the  or- 
der of  things  established  by  Roman  Cathol- 
icism in  Switzerland  was  destroyed,  as  else- 
where in  Europe.  After  Napoleon  I.'s  final 
defeat  at  Waterloo,  the  ruins  were  restored. 
But  to  reconstruct  thjB  social  edifice  as  it 
was  before  was  impossible.  Men  had  to  be 
satisfied  with  collecting  a  few  of  the  ruins 
scattered  over  the  soil,  and  it  was  hoped  to 
initiate  a  new  order  of  things,  more  lasting 


than  the  preceding,  by  the  treaties  of  Vien- 
na. It  was  at  this  period  the  Swiss  Con- 
federation was  formed,  of  twenty -two  can- 
tons, and  that  Geneva  in  particular,  rejoi- 
cing in  having  recovered  at  last  her  lost  in- 
dependence, took  her  place  in  it. 

On  the  reconstitution  of  Switzerland,  the 
question  of  the  dioceses  would  naturally  be 
brought  forward.  After  long  negotiations, 
the  history  of  which  remains  very  obscure, 
the  Papacy,  in  the  person  of  Pius  VII.  at 
Rome,  and  his  nuncio,  Vincent,  consented, 
in  so  far  as  concerned  the  canton  of  Geneva, 
to  separate  its  Catholic  population  from  the 
diocese  of  Chambe'ry,  of  which  it  formed  a 
part,  and  place  them  under  the  jurisdiction 
of  the  bishop  resident  at  Freiburg.  This 
latter  then  received,  honoris  causa,  the  title 
of  Bishop  of  Lausanne,  Freiburg,  and  Gene- 
va. A  brief,  dated  November  1, 1819,  legally 
confirmed  the  new  state  of  things  on  the 
part  of  Rome.  This  document  is  drawn  up 
in  that  Roman  phraseology  in  which  the 
shrewdest  terms  of  a  far-seeing  policy  are 
cleverly  combined  with  the  vague  expres- 
sions of  Catholic  mysticism.  The  Pope  de- 
clares that  in  granting  it  he  yields  to  the 
prayers  which  have  been  addressed  to  him 
so  fervently  on  different  hands ;  he  repeats 
at  different  times,  and  almost  at  each  par- 
ticular stipulation,  the  following  formula : 
"  Thus  then,  of  our  own  free-will,  of  our  cer- 
tain knowledge,  and  after  ripe  deliberation, 
we  decree,"  etc.  He  hopes  that  the  Catholic 
religion,  maintained  and  protected,  as  in  the 
past,  in  the  Catholic  communes  of  Geneva, 
will  receive  additional  adherents  from  day 
to  day.  In  fine,  the  document  terminates 
with  this  significant  declaration :  "  The  pres- 
ent brief  will  remain  forever  binding,  valid, 
and  durable ;  ever  producing  its  full  effect,  it 
will  be  religiously  observed  by  those  bound 
thereby,  in  the  present  and  for  the  future ; 
it  declares  null  every  thing  that  may  cause 
prejudice  to  these  presents,  whether  know- 
ingly or  ignorautly,  by  whomsoever  it  may 
be,  or  by  whatever  authority."  On  the  com- 
munication of  this  brief,  the  Couseil  d'Etat 
of  Geneva  decreed  the  reception  of  the  Con- 
vention thus  framed,  referring  to  thp  proto- 
col of  the  Congress  of  Vienna,  which  deter- 
mined the  religions  position  of  the  new  Sav- 
oyard communes  annexed  to  the  canton  of 
Geneva.  Among  other  laws  framed  later, 
one  was  to  this  effect :  that  candidates  for 
vacant  parishes  should  be  presented  by  the 
bishop  and  named  by  the  Government.  Thus 
the  legal  position  of  the  Geuevese  Catholics 
was  definitely  established. 

Nine  years  later,  after  still  longer  negotia- 
tions, the  bishopric  of  Basle  was  constituted 
or  reorganized.  The  bull  for  this  purpose 
was  given  by  Leo  XII.  on  the  7th  of  May, 
1828 ;  the  same  authoritative  tone,  with  the 
same  style,  and  the  same  solemn  declarations 
regarding  the  inviolability  of  the  contract 


508 


ROMANISM  AND  PROTESTANTISM. 


then  formed.  It  is  in  obedience  to  the  holy 
articles  of  the  canon  law,  which  provide  that 
ouch  diocese  have  its  own  spiritual  director, 
that  the  papal  bull  is  granted.  It  gives  the 
new  See  of  Soleure,  the  chapter  and  diocese 
in  perpetuity,  to  the  present  bishop,  our  most 
worthy  brother,  Francis  Xavier  de  Neveu, 
and  to  his  successors  in  the  diocese  of  Basle, 
with  all  the  rights,  immunities,  and  privi- 
leges belonging  thereto,  etc.  This  diocese, 
oAvhich  the  different  cantons  signing  the 
Concordat  were  to  form  parts,  comprised  So- 
leure, the  Episcopal  seat,  Lucerne,  Aargau, 
Thurgau,  and  Zug,  the  Catholic  parishes  of 
the  canton  of  Berne,  and  those  of  Basle.  The 
bishop  should  be  named  by  a  senate  of  ten 
canons,  and  be  accepted  by  the  contracting 
states.  Each  of  these,  entering  of  its  own 
accord  into  the  diocese,  reserved  to  itself  the 
power  to  separate  therefrom  should  it  ever 
be  deemed  either  suitable  or  necessary.  Nay, 
they  went  even  further.  While  sanctioning, 
on  the  12th  of  July,  1828,  the  contents  of  the 
Pontifical  Bull,  the  states  then  forming  the 
diocese  reserved,  in  formal  terms,  the  sover- 
eign rights  of  their  respective  governments. 
In  their  ratification  of  the  Convention,  they 
express  themselves  thus :  "  Without  its  being 
possible  to  deduce  in  any  manner  from  this 
ratification  any  thing  whatsoever  prejudicial 
to  the  sovereign  rights  of  the  governments, 
nor  any  thing  contrary  to  the  laws  of  the 
country  or  the  ordinances  of  the  State,  to  the 
archiepiscopal  or  episcopal  rights,  and  final- 
ly to  the  relations  established  in  the  Swiss 
confederation  between  the  two  confessions 
for  religious  toleration." 

Lastly,  each  newly  elected  bishop,  when 
entering  on  his  functions,  was  to  take  the 
following  oath:  "I  swear  and  promise  on 
the  Holy  Gospel  obedience  and  fidelity  to 
the  cantonal  governments  which  form  part 
of  the  bishopric  of  Basle.  I  prom  ise,  besides, 
neither  in  Switzerland  or  elsewhere  to  form 
any  compact,  nor  take  part  in  any  project, 
norentertain  suspected  relations  which  might 
endanger  the  public  peace.  And  if  ever  I  am 
informed  of  any  project  hurtful  to  the  state, 
whether  in  my  own  diocese  or  elsewhere,  I 
shall  inform  the  Government  of  it.  I  shall 
faithfully  and  loyally  keep  and  accomplish 
the  tenor  of  this  oath  read  in  my  presence. 
And  this  I  swear  in  presence  of  Almighty 
God,  relying  on  his  grace  and  the  support  of 
all  the  saints." 

Thus  was  concluded  the  Concordat  reor- 
ganizing the  bishopric  of  Basle.  An  As- 
sembly representing  the  diocesan  states  was 
afterward  summoned  to  deliberate  on  those 
ecclesiastical  matters  common  to  all,  and 
serve  as  a  medium  between  the  bishop  and 
each  of  the  cantonal  governments. 

How  unstable  human  things  are,  gentle- 
men !  Certainly,  if  any  transactions  in  the 
world  could  hope  for  duration,  there  might 
be  those  I  have  just  described.  Here  we 


have  not  two  secular  enemies,  who,  maimed 
and  wounded  in  a  deadly  struggle,  at  last 
agree  to  conclude  a  peace.  It  was  a  friend- 
ly arrangement,  a  convention  long  deliber- 
ated upon,  ripely  examined  in  all  its  articles; 
a  contract  passed  between  the  loyalty  of 
some  Swiss  cantons  and  that  power  which 
on  earth  pretends  to  be  the  only  representa- 
tive of  the  gospel  of  truth,  justice,  and  equi- 
ty. Nevertheless,  these  conventions  are  to- 
day a  dead  letter.  It  is  even  probable  that 
Rome  never  regarded  them  as  binding. 

As  to  the  diocese  of  Basle,  it  has  been 
greatly  agitated  since  its  reorganization. 
More  than  once  the  politico-religious  events 
have  endangered  its  existence.  The  Revo- 
lution of  1830,  which  struck  so  heavily  tho 
legitimate  reigning  line  in  France,  by  rais- 
ing to  power  under  a  constitutional  king  tho 
liberal  party  of  the  day,  was  like  a  mountain- 
billow  which,  upheaved  by  the  wind,  rolled 
toward  the  shore.  The  movement  was  felt 
in  Switzerland,  and  the  stability  of  the  po- 
litical arrangements  established  by  the  res- 
toration was  threatened.  Lucerne,  that 
canton  since  so  Ultramontane,  took  the  in- 
itiative, as  leading  canton  (Vorort)  in  con- 
voking an  assembly,  which,  held  at  Baden 
in  the  commencement  of  1834,  has  been  long 
remembered  in  Switzerland,  and  has  given 
rise  to  a  declaration  of  principles  that  have 
ever  since  been  famous  among  us,  under  the 
name  of  the  Baden  Articles.  One  of  the 
articles  proposed  was  the  substitution  for 
the  office  of  nuncio  of  a  Swiss  archbishop,  a 
national  metropolitan,  as  in  so  many  other 
countries.  At  first  a  great  many  cantons 
accepted  these  articles.  They  were  about 
to  proceed  to  their  application ;  but  the  Ro- 
man See,  which  prefers  dealing  with  several 
weak  bishops  tied  to  its  interests  rather  than 
a  powerful  metropolitan,  refused  all  action 
in  the  matter,  and  by  an  almost  insulting 
proclamation  condemned  the  articles  of  Ba- 
den in  their  entirety.  The  whole  affair 
ended  in  nothing.  Under  the  influence  of 
the  nuncio  and  time,  the  principal  Catholic 
cantons,  and  Lucerne  the  foremost,  retracted 
one  by  one  their  adhesion  to  them.  After- 
ward agitation  was  produced  in  Aargau  by 
disputes  with  the  Bishop  of  Basle  in  refer- 
ence to  the  dismissal  of  some  cure's,  and  an 
oath  which  the  state  wished  to  force  upon 
them.  Still  later,  the  suppression  of  the 
convents  in  Aargau,  the  introduction  of  tho 
Jesuits  in  Schwytz  and  Lucerne,  the  Avar  of 
the  Souderbund,  to  which  the  nuncio  wished 
to  give  the  character  of  a  religious  war, 
were  not  without  producing  emotions  whose 
effects  might  have  been  more  profoundly 
felt  than  it  has  been  in  the  diocese  of  Basle. 
Fortunately  the  titular  bishops  at  these  pe- 
riods, Salzmann  and  Arnold,  adopted  a  most 
prudent  line  of  conduct.  It  was  not  so  with 
their  successor,  M.  Eugene  Lachat,  elected 
bishop  in  1863.  Mark  the  date,  gentlemen, 


PRONIER:  ROMAN  CATHOLICISM  IN  SWITZERLAND. 


503 


and  remember  that  it  was  in  1864  that  the 
encyclical  "  Quanta  cura"  and  Syllabus  were 
promulgated.  Tims  M.  Lachat,  aided  by  a 
chancellor  who  is  said  to  be  a  Jesuit,  and 
who  in  any  case  belongs  to  the  worst  school 
of  Ultramontanisin,  found  himself  placed  in 
the  episcopal  see  of  Basle  at  the  hottest  pe- 
riod of  clerical  effervescence.  He  has  been 
governed  in  all  his  acts  by  the  theocratical 
spirit.  Regardless  of  his  oath  to  the  dioce- 
san states,  of  the  cantonal  laws  and  liberal 
traditions,  which  in  the  primitive  cantons 
are  almost  as  old  as  the  propagation  of 
Christianity,  he  has  been  ever  ready  to 
withdraw  himself  from  the  sovereignty  of 
the  cantons,  and  to  deny  it  in  every  ques- 
tion where  the  Roman  hierarchy  has  pre- 
tended rights. 

Since  1863  he  tried  to  apply,  either  ab- 
ruptly or  by  those  ddtours  so  well  known 
to  Romish  politicians,  the  principles  of  the 
Syllabus  in  the  government  of  his  diocese. 
The  diocesan  states  have  the  right  of  pla- 
cet, which  he  constantly  endeavored  to  evade, 
principally  in  the  collection  of  Peter-pence, 
the  promulgation  of  the  Syllabus,  and  the 
decrees  of  the  Council  of  1870.  In  matters 
of  education  and  marriage  he  attempted  to 
act  in  accordance  with  the  domineering  pre- 
tensions.of  the  hierarchy,  and  not  with  the 
laws  of  his  country.  After  allowing  the 
ethics  of  the  Jesuit  Gury  to  be  taught  in 
the  Seminary  at  Soleure,  he  tried  to  elude 
the  condemnation  of  that  book  by  dissolv- 
ing this  Seminary,  and  erecting,  contrary  to 
the  rights  of  the  cantons  and  the  Concor- 
dat, one  after  his  own  model.  An  Infallibil- 
ist  himself,  he  deposed  of  his  own  authori- 
ty and  excommunicated  Old  Catholics  and 
Anti-infallibilist  priests.  In  short,  he  act- 
ed as  if  clothed  with  a  supreme  authority 
to  which  every  thing  should  yield.  And 
that  he  acted  thus  in  virtue  of  the  pretend- 
ed rights  of  the  Church  may  be  seen  by  the 
merest  glance  at  those  publications  which 
this  abuse  of  power  has  produced.  It  is 
easy  to  observe,  in  these  numerous  docu- 
ments, and  in  all  those  which  have  been 
published  latterly  by  the  Swiss  bishops, 
that  they  take  good  care  to  look  at  mat- 
ters very  seldom  from  the  stand-point  of 
concordats  and  written  conventions.  The 
divine  power  of  the  Church,  the  supreme 
authority  of  the  Sovereign  Pontiff,  the  can- 
on law,  such  is  the  basis  of  all  their  reason- 
ings and  attacks  against  existing  laws.  It 
is  thus  M.  Lachat  has  acted.  In  vain  did 
the  Diocesan  Assembly  remind  him  of  his 
oath,  of  the  violated  articles  of  the  Con- 
cordat, the  reserves  made  by  the  canton, 
and  all  that  constitutes  positive  law;  he 
but  seldom  permits  himself  to  regard  the 
subject  from  this  point  of  view.  Evidently 
treaties  are  in  his  eyes  documents  of  little 
value.  Sometimes  he  loudly  protests  his  in- 
nocence ;  at  other  times  he  accuses  the  can- 


tons of  intolerance  and  oppression ;  now  he 
invokes  the  happiness  and  well-being  of  the 
Catholics ;  and  again  he  challenges  the  com- 
petence of  the  authorities  in  the  Protestant 
cantons  of  his  diocese,  but  he  especially  in- 
sists on  his  authority  as  bishop.  Listen  to 
the  commencement  of  one  of  these  docu- 
ments. "  The  bishops,"  says  he,  "  are  the 
successors  of  the  apostles,  and,  as  such,  es- 
tablished by  the  Holy  Spirit  to  govern  the 
Church  of  God.  It  is  from  on  high  they  have 
received  their  dignity  and  authority  over 
their  charge,  and  it  is  from  the  Church,  that 
is  to  say,  the  Apostolic  See,  they  hold  their 
special  jurisdiction  over  such  or  such  a  parish. 
It  is  on  this  account  each  bishop  calls  him- 
self bishop  by  the  Grace  of  God  and  the 
Apostolic  See.  It  is  not,  then,  in  any  man- 
ner from  the  state  they  have  received  what- 
ever authority,  power,  and  jurisdiction  they 
possess."  It  is  the  doctrine  of  the  Syllabus. 
As  the  Government  of  Aargau  told  him,  the 
bishop  recognizes  in  the  State  no  other  right 
than  that  of  paying  him. 

But  what  has  passed  at  Geneva  is  more 
significant  still.  Here  the  acts  of  the  Court 
of  Rome  have  not  the  slightest  possible  ex- 
cuse ;  they  appear  to  be  those  of  a  power 
which  makes,  unmakes,  and  remakes  every 
thing  that  may  further  its  interests,  caprices, 
or  the  foolish  ambition  of  its  agents.  The 
treaties  of  1815  had  placed  Catholicism  at 
Geneva  in  a  situation  exceptionally  privi- 
leged. And  what  hopes  have  not  been  con- 
ceived from  this  circumstance !  To  judge 
by  the  Catholic  writings  only,  from  that 
moment  and  perhaps  even  before,  the  Court 
of  Rome  aimed  at  nothing  less  than  the  re- 
establishment  of  the  bishopric  of  Geneva, 
destroyed  at  the  Reformation.  One  man. 
in  particular,  has  personified  these  hopes  in 
himself,  and  pursued,  with  the  tenacity  of  a 
priest,  the  realization  of  this  project.  The 
curd  Vuarin,  of  Savoyard  origin,  combined 
in  his  person  superior  intelligence  with  rare 
administrative  capacities,  and  an  audacity 
of  execution  seldom  met  with.  No  scruple, 
no  feeling,  no  moral  nicety  troubled  him. 
During  the  time  he  occupied  the  parish  of 
Geneva  the  Government  was  forced  to  re- 
sist, on  the  ground  of  law  or  treaties,  those 
intrigues  in  which,  through  the  influence  of 
the  cur6  Vuarin,  the  most  powerful  person- 
ages of  Europe  were  involved.  The  bishop- 
ric of  Geneva  was  not  re-established,  the  tit- 
ular bishop  at  that  time,  M.  Yenny,  having 
absolutely  refused  to  abandon,  in  any  re- 
spect, his  jurisdiction. 

But  Catholicism  was  sufficiently  strong 
in  its  position  to  bo  able,  after  the  fall  of 
the  Conservative  Government  of  1846,  to 
hope  and  expect  every  thing.  I  can  not 
here  relate  in  detail  by  what  favorable  cir- 
cumstances Roman  Catholicism  has  been  en- 
abled, since  our  radical  revolutions,  to  take 
such  a  development  as  caused  the  hearts  of 


504 


ROMANISM  AND  PROTESTANTISM. 


its  priests  to  beat  with  joy,  and  the  greatest 
enthusiasm  to  prevail  iu  the  Catholic  coun- 
tries that  surround  us.  Permit  me  only  to 
say  that,  thanks  to  measures  of  quite  a  polit- 
ical kind,  the  Catholic  population  has  gone 
on  increasing;  that  the  different  govern- 
ments which  have  succeeded  each  other  in 
the  canton  have  shown  favor  to  the  new  cit- 
izens, and  thereby  forwarded  the  attempts 
of  Catholicism ;  that  the  new  curd  of  Gene- 
va, a  Geneveso  himself,  but  an  Ultramon- 
tane of  the  purest  water,  insinuating,  affa- 
ble, ambitions,  and  good-looking,  wrought 
underhand  to  get  himself  named  bishop, 
and  had  not  to  deal  with  men  cither  able 
or  firm  enough  resolutely  to  oppose  his  in- 
trigues ;  let  me  add,  in  fine,  that  our  Gov- 
ernment only  resolved  to  act  on  the  day  | 
when  the  Ultramontane  intrigues  were  ex- 
hibited almost  without  concealment.  Meas- 
ures were  then  taken,  but  it  was  too  late. 
What  had  passed  at  Rome  ?  Had  the  curd 
of  Geneva,  M.  Mermillod,  named  successive- 
ly Bishop  of  Hebron  in  partibus  infidelium, 
and  then  vicar-general  to  his  ordinary  the 
Bishop  of  Freiburg,  succeeded  in  having 
Geneva  erected  into  a  bishopric,  and  in  get- 
ting himself  elected  to  the  new  see  in  de- 
spite of  the  brief  of  1819,  and  without  pre- 
vious negotiations  either  with  the  Federal 
Government  or  the  cantonal  authorities  ? 
No  answer  can  be  obtained  to  this  question. 
The  Pope's  nuncio  knows  nothing,  the  law- 
ful Bishop  of  Geneva  residing  at  Freiburg 
•  knows  nothing,  and  the  curd  of  Geneva, 
Bishop  of  Hebron,  only  gives  evasive  an- 
swers. But  in  the  mean  while  the  ordinary 
refuses  to  fulfill  the  functions  of  his  epis- 
copal charge,  and  even  gave  iu  his  resigna- 
tion, so  far  as  concerns  the  Geuevcse  Catho- 
lics. M.  Mermillod  acts  as  bishop.  He  is 
obeyed  by  his  clergy,  who  treat  him  as  bish- 
op. To  every  demand  of  explanation  he  re- 
sponds with  the  haughtiness  of  an  authori- 
ty who  has  no  account  to  give  to  the  State. 
One  day,  however,  matters  were  cleared  up. 
The  Federal  Council  appears  on  the  scene. 
It  had  expressly  declared  to  the  Pope  that 
the  creation  of  Geneva  into  a  separate  bish- 
opric was  absolutely  impossible,  and  that 
negotiations  relative  to  the  establishment 
of  an  apostolic  vicariate  could  only  be  open- 
ed on  two  conditions :  1st.  That  the  Govern- 
ment of  Geneva  be  first  consulted ;  2d.  That 
the  vicariate  should  not  be  conferred  on  the 
Bishop  of  Hebron.  But  Rome  was  decided. 
Without  previous  warning,  without  nego- 
tiations, without  the  consent,  ever  demand- 
ed on  similar  occasions,  of  cither  the  confed- 
eration or  the  canton  of  Geneva,  the  Pope, 
on  the  16th  of  January,  1873,  issued  a  brief 
appointing  the  Bishop  of  Hebron  vicar  apos- 
tolic for  the  canton  of  Geneva.  In  the  same 
document,  with  the  stroke  of  a  pen,  he  form- 
ally annuls  all  tho  conventions  so  solemnly 
concluded  in  1819.  Is  it  possible  to  see,  in 


this  tyrannical  manner  of  acting,  other  than 
a  manifestation  of  that  absolute  supremacy 
which  the  Roman  hierarchy  claims  to  pos- 
sess over  the  nations  t  Rome  was  formerly 
intoxicated  with  tho  blood  of  the  saints,  but 
at  present  it  is  with  her  own  power.  Every 
thing  is  permitted,  every  thing  possible,  ev- 
ery thing  legitimate,  when  it  is  she  who  de- 
cides and  executes. 

III.  These  events  have  taken  place  iu  a 
little  country;  they  are,  nevertheless,  of 
universal  import.  It  is  not  only  in  our 
towns  and  nation  that  men  are  indignant  at 
the  new  intrigues  of  the  Roman  See.  The 
echo  of  these  facts  has  resounded  in  En- 
gland, Germany,  France,  and  Italy.  It  has 
been  borne  back  to  our  ears  with  strains  of 
triumph  iu  the  clerical  press,  and  with  the 
accent  of  sympathy  iu  the  journals  friendly 
to  liberty.  We  have  rejoiced  both  in  the 
sympathies  expressed  toward  us,  and  in  the 
insults  "which  the  Ultramoutauism  of  the 
Veuillots  has  directed  against  us.  In  fact  it 
is  necessary  to  be  on  the  watch.  A  solemn 
question  is  laid  down.  The  Papacy  has  long 
waged  war  with  the  Episcopacy  for  the  pur- 
pose of  concentrating  in  itself  the  entire  au- 
thority of  Church  and  tradition.  On  the 
18th  of  July,  1870,  thanks  to  the  serried 
ranks  of  the  Jesuits,  a  decisive  victory  has 
despoiled  tho  bishops  of  the  last  remains  of 
independence.  Tho  Pope  has  been  able  to 
say, "  lo  sono  la  chiesa,  io  sono  la  tradizione  " 
— I  am  the  Church,!  am  the  tradition.  But 
another  war, formerly  undertaken,  then  more 
or  less  abandoned,  is  about  to  recommence. 
It  is  a  war  against  nationalities ;  a  holy  war, 
since  the  Roman  hierarchy  pretends  to  have 
all  the  rights  of  God  on  earth;  a  terrible 
war,  threatening  Europe  with  awful  disas- 
ters, since  the  whole  of  modern  civilization 
is  up  in  arms  against  Rome.  How  shall 
these  nations  resist  ?  What  can  and  what 
should  they  do  to  avoid  such  perils  f  Such 
is  the  question.  I  wish  to  draw  your  atten- 
tion to  it  for  a  moment. 

Had  I  only  to  answer  the  question  iu  the 
abstract  and  theoretically,  I  would  say  the 
best  means  of  combating  the  Papal  theoc- 
racy is  to  place  the  Romish  Church  every- 
where on  a  footing  of  perfect  equality  with 
all  the  other  Christian  communions  of  the 
same  country.  And  should  any  one  consid- 
er this  a  strange  mode  of  warfare,  I  would 
endeavor  to  demonstrate  its  excellence  in 
tho  following  manner.  One  day  the  chief  of 
a  tribe  that  shall  bo  nameless,  composed  of 
five  or  six  families,  was  very  much  embar- 
rassed on  the  following  occasion.  Ho  was 
seated  under  his  peaceful  tent,  and  scarcely 
feeling  the  weight  of  his  government,  when 
the  head  of  one  of  the  families  approached 
him  haughtily,  and  spoke  in  almost  the  fol- 
lowing terms:  "Listen,  illustrious  chief  of 
this  tribe.  I  am  come  to  warn  you  that  I 
have  received  from  on  high  supreme  author- 


PRONIER :  ROMAN  CATHOLICISM  IN  SWITZERLAND. 


505 


ity  and  special  revelations.  Obey  me,  and  in 
every  thing  rule  according  to  the  counsels 
I  am  about  to  announce  to  you  ;"  and  there- 
upon he  declares  them,  threatening  him  at 
the  same  time  with,  the  anger  of  Heaven 
should  he  not  adopt  them.  Plunged  in  pro- 
found astonishment  at  this  discourse,  the 
chief  had  not  yet  replied,  when  the  head  of 
the  second  family  appeared.  To  his  great 
surprise,  he  spoke  in  almost  the  same  terms 
as  the  iirst,  with  this  exception,  however, 
that  his  principles  were  widely  different. 
Scarcely  had  the  second  ceased,  when  the 
third,  approaching  unexpectedly,  made,  in 
his  turn,  a  vehement  speech  resembling  that 
of  the  two  first,  but  also  with  a  great  differ- 
ence as  to  conclusions,  the  adoption  of  which 
he  demanded  immediately.  The  remaining 
three  did  the  same.  And  the  heart  of  the 
chief  was  troubled !  Having  dismissed  them 
without  an  answer,  he  did  not  sleep  that 
night.  "  What  shall  I  do  ?"  said  he  to  him- 
self. "  If  I  adopt  the  principles  of  Ibrahim  or 
Abdallah,  it  is  a  declaration  of  war  against 
the  others.  I  shall  be  under  the  odious  ob- 
ligation of  employing  constraint,  and  per- 
haps of  drawing  the  sword,  in  order  to  en- 
force an  obedience  which  will  ever  cover  a 
spirit  of  revolt.  I  shall  perhaps  do  what  is 
unjust,  or,  at  least,  appear  to  do  so.  What 
am  I,  then,  to  do  ?  I  will,  in  a  few  articles, 
frame  a  law  without  special  reference  to  any 
one  of  them.  It  will  respect  their  dearest 
principles.  .It  will  leave  each  of  the  six  free 
to  practice  at  home  what  seems  good  to  him, 
but  it  will  prevent  any  of  them  in  any  way 
compelling  the  others  to  believe  or  practice 
what  they  can  not  conscientiously.  Each 
one  will  be  equal  in  the  eye  of  the  law,  and 
free  at  the  same  time."  The  illustrious 
chief  meditated  on  this  subject  the  whole 
of  the  night,  and  it  was  not  too  long.  Early 
in  the  morning  the  heads  of  the  families  re- 
turned, and  after  having  informed  them  of 
the  cares  that  burdened  his  heart  lie  made 
known  to  them  the  law,  which  was  so  ex- 
cellent in  every  respect  that  they  could  only 
— at  least  so  says  the  story,  though  I  can 
scarcely  believe  it — prostrate  themselves  at 
his  feet  and  celebrate  the  praises  of  his  pro- 
found intelligence. 

This  apologue  requires  no  interpretation. 
Certainly,  if  an  order  of  things  could  be  es- 
tablished, either  in  a  republic  or  a  monarchy, 
so  that  the  different  sects  would  be  on  the 
same  legal  footing,  while  preserving  in  an 
absolute  manner  the  free  exercise  of  their 
respective  worship,  the  desired  solution  of 
the  problem  would  bo  effected.  What  could 
the  Catholic  Church  say  that  would  not  be 
refuted  by  facts?  Protected  like  all  other 
communions,  she  would  undoubtedly  have 
no  legal  privilege  over  any  of  them ;  but 
what  could  she  legitimately  complain  of? 
This  equality  would  force  her  to  silence.  She 
could  neither  dictate  her  will  to  the  govern- 


ment, nor  declare  herself  persecuted.  It  is 
just  this  she  dreads  above  all  things.  At 
any  cost,  she  will  have  an  exceptional  posi- 
tion. She  even  prefers  oppression  to  equal- 
ity, because  oppressiou  is  inequality — nay, 
a  distinguished  exception — flattering  her  to 
a  certain  extent,  and  attracting  the  public 
gaze  on  her  pretensions. 

Besides,  gentlemen,  I  must  add  that  this 
equality  in  liberty  can  only,  in  my  opinion, 
be  established  by  a  rigorous  distinction  be- 
tween things  civil  and  religious,  by  the  sep- 
aration of  Church  and  State.  Wherever 
there  is  a  Church  privileged  by  any  title,  or 
to  any  degree  whatsoever,  there  will  be  in- 
equality, and  consequently  a  just  cause  for 
complaint  to  other  communions  as  well  as 
to  Roman  Catholics.  I  agree,  therefore,  with 
Bunseu  and  Vinet  against  Stahl,  with  the 
ecclesiastical  system  of  America  in  opposi- 
tion to  that  union  of  Church  and  State 
which  secular  tradition  has  caused  to  pre- 
vail everywhere  in  Europe.  I  believe  the 
separation  of  Church  and  State  to  be  one  of 
the  most  powerful  preservatives  against  the 
despotism  of  the  Papal  hierarchy.  I  believe 
that,  if  there  is  a  country  in  a  better  posi- 
tion than  another  to  free  itself  from  this  in- 
fluence, it  is  the  United  States  of  America. 
Hold  firm,  then,  your  system  of  religious  lib- 
erty, which  seems  destined  to  procure  one 
day  for  the  Churches  of  Old  Europe  an  era 
of  prosperity,  and  for  her  states  that  con- 
fessional peace  vainly  sought  for  in  legisla- 
tion on  religious  matters. 

Do  not,  however,  think  that  I  am  labor- 
ing under  delusions.  To  imagine  that  the 
principle  of  separation  would  solve  all  diffi- 
culties, no  matter  of  what  kind,  between 
Church  and  State,  would  be  to  forget  that 
such  a  thing  as  perfect  peace  does  not  exist 
in  this  world.  To  believe  that  this  new  so- 
cial order  of  things  could  be  established  im- 
mediately would  be  to  forget  both  that  this 
principle  is  repudiated  by  a  powerful  pub- 
lic opinion,  and  that  the  States  and  Church- 
es of  Europe  bow  beneath  the  weight  of  bur- 
densome traditions.  Though  I  regret,  I  am 
not,  therefore,  astonished  that  the  attacks  of 
Rome  have  nowhere  produced  either  the  ap- 
plication of  this  principle,  or  even  the  meas- 
ures fit  for  bringing  it  about.  Time  pressed. 
Nothing  could  be  promptly  done  that  was 
not  more  or  less  in  accordance  with  the 
principles  till  then  prevailing.  To  speak 
properly,  these  principles  seemed  to  have 
received  a  new  baptism  in  repulsing  the  at- 
tacks of  Rome.  In  Switzerland,  where  the 
hierarchy  placed  itself  boldly  in  presence  of 
the  State  with  the  intention  of  dictating  its 
will,  the  State  felt  itself  insulted  in  its  dig- 
nity, wounded  in  its  sovereignty,  and,  arous- 
ing itself,  has  seen  it  to  be  its  duty  energet- 
ically to  maintain  its  traditional  rights. 

Representatives  from  the  seven  states 
forming  the  diocese  of  Basic  met  at  Soleure 


5C6 


ROMANISM  AND  PROTESTANTISM. 


on  the  29th  of  January,  1873,  and  adopted 
the  following  resolutions: 

1st.  The  consent  given  the  30th  of  No- 
vember, 1863,  to  the  bishop,  Eugene  Lachat, 
of  Mervelier,  for  the  taking  possession  of 
the  episcopal  see  of  Basle,  is  withdrawn, 
and  the  diocese  is  thus  declared  vacant. 

2d.  M.  Lachat  is  prohibited  to  exercise  the 
episcopal  functions  in  the  cantons  of  the  dio- 
cese. These  will  be  invited  no  longer  to  pay 
into  his  hands  the  episcopal  revenues;  and 
in  the  cantons  where  the  diocesan  funds  are 
not  united  to  those  of  the  State,  they  will, 
for  the  present,  be  sequestrated. 

3d.  The  Government  of  Soleure  will  be 
invited  to  serve  M.  Eugene  Lachat  with 
a  notice  to  quit  the  official  episcopal  resi- 
dence in  due  time.  It  will  also  take  care 
to  claim  the  inventory  of  the  bishopric  of 
Basle. 

4th.  In  conformity  with  Article  III.  of  the 
Convention,  agreed  upon  by  the  diocesan 
States  the  28th  of  March,  1828,  for  the  for- 
mation of  the  bishopric ;  in  conformity  with 
the  Papal  brief  dated  15th  of  September, 
1828,  and  the  decisions  taken  by  the  dioce- 
san Assembly  the  24th  of  October,  1830,  the 
Chapter  will  be  invited  to  appoint,  within 
fourteen  days  after  the  communication  of 
this  decision,  an  administrator  ad  interim  ac- 
ceptable to  the  cantonal  authorities. 

5th.  The  five  diocesan  governments  will 
immediately  commence  negotiations  for  the 
revision  of  the  diocesan  Convention.  They 
*  will  invite  the  governments  of  Zurich,  Basle- 
ville,  Schaffhausen,  Tessin,  and  Geneva  to 
take  part  in  them  for  their  Catholic  popu- 
lation. 

6th.  The  decision  of  the  diocesan  States 
will  be  communicated  to  the  Federal  Coun- 
cil, in  prospect  of  negotiations  with  the 
Holy  See. 

7th.  The  Assembly  adjourns  to  the  14th 
of  February  in  order  to  know  the  decisions 
of  the  Chapter  and  attend  to  the  settlement 
of  current  afi'airs. 

Zug  and  Lucerne,  thinking  the  deposition 
of  the  bishop  beyond  the  jurisdiction  of  the 
diocesan  States,  did  not  sign  this  decree. 
They  alone  still  submit  to  the  authority  of 
M.  Lachat. 

Almost  at  the  same  time,  M.  Mermillod, 
who  no  longer  held  a  legal  position  at  Ge- 
neva, caused  the  brief  of  the  16th  of  Janu- 
ary, appointing  him  vicar  apostolic,  to  be 
read  by  the  curds  from  the  pulpits,  and 
that  without  any  legal  communication  to 
the  civil  authority.  The  Pope's  charge  cCaf- 
faires  simply  communicated  the  nomination 
to  the  President  of  the  Confederation.  Sum- 
moned to  desist  from  fulfilling  the  functions 
of  vicar  out  of  respect  for  the  Federal  Gov- 
ernment, that  had  not  been  consulted  in  the 
matter,  M.  Mermillod  repelled  haughtily 
this  demand,  and  almost  immediately  after, 
in  consequence  of  a  decree  of  the  Federal 


Council,  a  carriage  accompanied  by  a  police 
officer  and  his  men  presented  themselves  at 
his  residence.  The  vicar  was  conducted 
across  the  frontier,  there  to  remain  till  he 
should  recognize  the  rights  of  the  civil  pow- 
er. Ho  is  still  there. 

Thus,  to  the  authoritative  acts  emanating 
from  the  Roman  See,  the  cantons  of  the  Swiss 
Confederation  replied  by  others  equally  au- 
thoritative. In  this  violent  shock  of  the  two 
powers  the  dioceses  of  Basle  and  Lausanne 
fell  at  the  same  time  to  pieces. 

These  events  have  caused  much  discus- 
sion. Pius  IX.,  from  the  Vatican,  has  not 
failed  to  reprimand  Switzerland  in  the  most 
violent  terms.  The  enthusiasm  of  French 
Ultramontanism  for  the  martyrs  of  the 
Church  has  only  been  exceeded  by  their  in- 
sults and  contempt  for  our  country.  In 
Switzerland  the  charge  d'affaires  of  the  Holy 
See  has  protested.  M.  Lachat,  having  with- 
drawn to  the  territory  of  Lucerne,  has  pray- 
ed the  Federal  Council  for  redress  against 
the  States  who  have  had  the  boldness  to 
depose  him.  M.  Mermillod,  vicar  apostolic, 
has  protested  against  the  police  measures 
which  exiled  him,  and,  roaming  around  our 
Genevese  frontier,  performs  his  functions  of 
vicar  as  best  he  may.  The  cantons,  for  their 
part,  are  endeavoring  to  restore  to  something 
like  legal  order  the  elements  dispersed  by  the 
revolutionary  clergy ;  new  ecclesiastical  laws 
are  being  voted ;  the  organization  of  a  Swiss 
archbishopric  is  being  discussed ;  the  Feder- 
al Council  is  looked  to,  and  much  is  expect- 
ed from  the  new  Federal  constitution,  the 
project  of  which,  already  known,  is  going  to 
be  submitted  to  our  legislature.  But  till 
now  this  display  of  authority  has  been  nei- 
ther in  favor  of  the  Catholic  Church  nor  of 
the  States  of  the  Confederation.  As  to  the 
former,  not  only  has  it  lost  in  this  combat 
two  of  its  official  representatives,  but  it  has 
seen,  what  is  otherwise  more  serious,  Old 
Catholicism  taking  a  firm  footing  in  Switz- 
erland, which  it  would  never  have  done  but 
for  the  provocations  of  the  Holy  See.  In 
the  diocese  of  Basle  a  considerable  number 
of  parishes  have  openly  declared  against  the 
new  dogma.  The  Association  of  Liberal 
Catholics  is  actively  engaged  in  organizing 
them.  In  Geneva,  a  man  as  highly  respect- 
ed for  the  nobility  of  his  Christian  charac- 
ter as  for  his  oratorical  powers,  Father  Hy- 
acinthe,  has  given  a  number  of  public  ad- 
dresses which  have  been  received  with  en- 
thusiasm, and  the  practical  result  of  which 
has  been  the  formation  of  a  congregation  of 
Old  Catholics,  which  in  a  short  time  may 
become  the  only  Catholic  Church  officially 
recognized.  Thus,  as  in  the  eleventh  cen- 
tury, as  in  the  sixteenth,  and  as  in  Germa- 
ny at  the  present  day,  the  exorbitant  pre- 
tensions of  Rome  produce  schism  and  con- 
vulse her  dominion. 

As  to  the  States  whose  patience  has  been 


PRONIER :  ROMAN  CATHOLICISM  IN  SWITZERLAND. 


507 


exhausted  by  these  clerical  manoeuvres,  some  ' 
are  undertaking,  as  formerly,  the  manage- ; 
uient  of  ecclesiastical  affairs.      They   are 
seen  embarrassing  themselves  with  ques-  j 
tions  which,  if  they  are  not  dogmatic,  are  j 
closely  allied  to  what  is.     Thus  the  preten- 
sion of  the  Church  to  dominate  over  the 
State  forces  the  latter  on  a  dangerous  posi- 
tion, where  it  advances  with  so  much  the 
less  assurance  as  it  professes  with  conviction 
the  most  entire  respect  for  the  liberty  of 
conscience  and  worship.     The  claims  of  the 
theocracy  produce  the  antagonistic  assertion 
of  the  supreme  authority  of  the  State. 

What  will  be  the  result  of  all  that?  Is 
it  to  be  the  separation  of  Church  and  State? 
Some  think  so.  The  exaggeration  of  clerical 
power,  they  say,  has  provoked  a  crisis ;  but 
this  exaggeration  is  such  that  the  only  pos- 
sible issue  is  the  sudden  and  violent  rupture 
of  all  the  bonds  which  till  now  have  uuited 
Church  to  State  in  Switzerland.  I  too,  gen- 
tlemen, hope  that  the  system  of  the  separa- 
tion of  Church  and  State  will  be  adopted. 
Imperfect  though  it  be,  like  all  things  here 
below,  yet  it  seems  to  me  no  less  one  of  the 
most  peaceful  of  refuges  iu  comparison  with 
that  rock-bound  coast  on  which  the  storm 
is  driving  us.  But  I  do  not  believe  that  we 
are  ready  to  cast  anchor  in  that  harbor  of 
safety.  It  is  not  more  than  three  or  four 
years  since  one  might  still  augur  well  for 
the  future  in  this  respect.  How  often  have 
not  projects  of  laws  in  the  French-speaking 
cantons  of  Geneva,  Neuchatel,  and  Vaud 
been  brought  before  the  constituted  author- 
ities for  the  separation  of  Church  and  State! 
These  have  been  rejected.  Have  they  any 
more  chance  of  being  accepted  to-day  ?  Less 
than  ever.  True,  the  principle  is  accepted 
now  almost  without  discussion.  It  is  an  ar- 
ticle of  faith  with  political  liberalism  ;  but 
this  party,  though  professing  it  openly,  re- 
coils even  before  its  partial  application.  In 
the  German  cantons  it  is  much  worse.  There 
the  principle  is  not  even  accepted  by  those 
directing  the  movement.  The  State  is  all  in 
all  for  them ;  they  see  salvation,  so  to  say, 
only  in  severe  legislation  for  the  recognized 
communions ;  the  churches  are  in  their  eyes 
only  a  department  of  the  State.  Thus,  with- 
out speaking  of  the  considerable  practical 
difficulties  in  each  canton,  and  for  the  mo- 
ment insurmountable  in  the  Confederation 
as  a  whole,  I  do  not  believe  we  should  be  jus- 
tified in  expecting  the  separation  of  Church 
and  State. 

Shall  a  great  national  Church,  Catholic 
but  not  Roman,  rise  out  of  the  confusion  in 
which  we  are  at  present  plunged?  Shall 
we  have  a  primate  or  Swiss  metropolitan, 
as  the  Baden  Articles  proposed  ?  Is  Old  Ca- 
tholicism strong  enough  iu  my  native  land 
to  take  its  place  as  a  church  separated  from 
Rome  ?  I  am  afraid  not  yet.  Ultramonta- 


nism,  its  antagonist,  is  still  powerful.  It  has 
in  its  favor  all  the  prestige  of  a  tradition 
which  has  not  ceased  to  charm  the  senses  of 
many,  notwithstanding  the  Council  of  1870 ; 
its  organization  is  complete;  priests, bishops, 
religious  orders,  seminaries,  the  majority  of 
the  population,  and  a  majority  of  the  govern- 
ments in  the  Catholic  cantons — every  thing, 
in  a  word,  is  on  its  side.  On  the  other  hand, 
Liberal  Catholicism  has  as  yet  nothing  ex- 
cept the  love  of  liberty  and  the  hatred  of 
clerical  intolerance,  some  ancient  liberties, 
the  sympathy  of  Liberal  and  Protestant 
opinion,  and  a  few  clever  leading  men.  It 
is  much,  you  say.  Yes,  it  is  much ;  but  is  it 
enough  to  found  a  lasting  ecclesiastical  in- 
stitution ?  No  durable  foundation  can  bo 
laid  in  religious  matters  without  an  ardent 
faith,  a  disdain  of  polity,  and  an  all-absorb- 
ing interest  for  the  salvation  of  men's  souls. 
Heaven  grant  I  may  be  mistaken  iu  my  opin- 
ion ;  but  till  now  there  is,  it  seems  to  me, 
too  much  polity  and  too  little  religious  zeal 
among  the  Old  Catholics  of  Switzerland,  to 
allow  us  to  form  great  hopes  for  the  future 
of  their  cause. 

The  future  is, then, obscure, gentlemen;  as 
obscure  as  those  cloudy  and  indistinct  ho- 
rizons toward  which,  when  crossing  the  At- 
lantic, I  have  sometimes  seen  the  passengers 
on  deck  casting  uneasy  glances.  The  mighty 
ship  was  dashingthrough  the  trackless  ocean ; 
her  prow  was  cleaving  the  foaming  waves ; 
her  sails  were  swelling  in  the  wind,  and  the 
heavy  sound  of  her  working  engines  struck 
on  the  ear ;  thus,  with  the  ever-increasing 
obscurity,  did  we  sail  into  night  and  dark- 
ness. So  is  it  often  with  nations.  What  is 
iu  store  for  us  I  know  not.  Perhaps  the  fu- 
ture has  in  reserve  for  us  strange  surprises 
that  will  far  exceed  our  hopes  or  fears.  The 
horizon  may  perhaps  clear  when  some  kind- 
ly breeze  springs  up  to  drive  away  the  thick- 
est of  the  fog.  But  be  that  as  it  may,  bo 
certain,  gentlemen,  that  Switzerland  will 
never  become  the  hot-bed  of  clerical  fanat- 
icism. We  are  assured  that  God  will  never 
abandon  that  home  of  liberty,  that  theatre 
of  religious  events  which,  with  the  names 
of  Zwingli  and  Calvin,  have  borne  the  bless- 
ings of  the  Reformation  to  the  most  distant 
coast  of  your  distant  land.  Ho  will  remem- 
ber the  work  of  our  fathers.  He  will  inspire 
the  faithful  preachers  of  his  Word,  the  church- 
es and  societies  jealous  of  his  glory,  with  an 
heroic  and  simple  faith.  He  will  destroy  tho 
best-laid  plans  of  the  enemy.  Therefore,  gen- 
tlemen, let  Switzerland  hold  a  large  place  in 
your  affections.  Pray  for  her  in  this  her  day 
of  crisis.  Often  does  she  direct  her  gaze  to- 
ward you.  Remember  her  also;  and  may  a 
powerful  current  of  sympathies  traverse  tho 
seas  like  that  submarine  wire  which  enables 
us  to  maintain  uninterrupted  communication 
with  each  other! 


THIRD  SECTION.-EVANGELIZATION  OF  ROMAN  CATHOLIC  COUNTRIES. 


EVANGELIZATION  IN  IRELAND. 

BY  THE  REV.  LOWKY  EDMONDS  BERKELEY,  LURGAX,  IRELAXD. 


I  AM  to  speak  of  "  Evangelization  in  Ire- 
laud,"  and  I  desire  that  what  I  say  may 
throw  light  upon  the  subject  of  missions 
among  Roman  Catholics  in  other  countries. 
Let  us  survey — 

The  Field. — lerue,  the  "Western,"  or,  as 
some  say,  the  "  Sacred  "  Isle,  the  "  Hibernia  " 
of  the  Romans,  the  "Scotia"  of  later  cen- 
turies, the  "  Emerald  Isle  "  of  the  poets.  It 
is  about  three  hundred  miles  long  by  one 
hundred  and  seventy  broad,  with  an  area 
of  32,000  square  miles — a  piece  of  territory 
that  would  hardly  be  missed  out  of  these 
United  States,  yet  inhabited  by  races  exer- 
cising at  the  present  moment  world-wide 
influence  for  good  and  evil. 

The  population  of  Ireland  in  1841  was 
8,196,597.  In  1871  it  was  only  5,402,759,  a 
decrease  of  2,793,838  in  thirty  years.  Whith- 
er have  these  multitudes  gone?  Many  of 
them  to  the  grave,  in  the  days  of  famine  and 
pestilence ;  very  many  to  seek  homes  in  this 
and  other  lauds.  Owing  to  constant  emi- 
gration, the  missionary  field  in  Ireland  is  be- 
coming daily  more  manageable ;  but  owing 
to  the  same  cause  the  Protestant  Churches 
of  the  country  are  in  one  respect,  at  least, 
becoming  daily  less  equal  to  the  task.  They 
are  constantly  losing  some  of  their  best  mem- 
bers, who  take  the  deepest  interest  in  evan- 
gelistic work  in  their  native  land,  and  are 
best  qualified  to  take  part  in  it. 

Religious  Denominations. — The  adherents 
of  the  Roman  Catholic  Church  in  Ireland 
amounted  in  1871  to  4,141,933  persons  ;  Prot- 
estant Episcopalians  numbered  683,295 ;  Pres- 
byterians, 503,461;  Methodists,  41,815;  In- 
dependents, 4485  ;  Baptists,  4643  ;  the  Socie- 
ty of  Friends,  3834 ;  and  other  Christian  per- 
suasions, including  Moravians,  etc.,  19,035. 

Agencies  at  Work. — The  Protestant  Episco- 
pal Church,  at  the  period  of  its  disestablish- 
ment in  1869,  had  1551  churches,  and  2172 
clergy.  Its  ministers  are  now  about  1900. 
Not  a  few  of  them  are  able,  earnest,  faithful 
men,  who  labor  assiduously  to  spread  the 
Gospel  and  to  bring  sinners  to  Christ.  In 
connection  with  this  Churchf  the  principal 
direct  evangelistic  agency  is  the  "Society 
for  Irish  Church  Missions  to  Roman  Catho- 
lics," formed  in  1849,  with  which  is  now  in- 


corporated the  "  Irish  Society  of  London  for 
promoting  the  Education  and  Religious  In- 
struction of  the  native  Irish  through  the 
medium  of  their  own  language,"  formed  in 
1818. 

It  is  not  generally  known  that  there 
were  in  Ireland  in  1861,  the  latest  period  of 
which  we  have  yet  received  full  informa- 
tion, 163,275  persons  who  could  speak  Irish 
only,  and  that  23,180  of  these  were  resident 
in  Ulster.  There  were  besides  in  that  year 
942,261  persons  who  spoke  Irish  and  English, 
and  it  is  well  known  that  as  a  rule  these 
people  prefer  to  speak  in  Irish,  and  love  to 
hear  the  Gospel  in  that  tongue.  To  give 
that  Gospel  to  them  in  their  native  language 
is  one  of  the  aims  of  the  leading  Protestant 
Churches  of  the  country.  Means  could  easi- 
ly be  had  to  send  it  to  them  if  they  dwelt 
in  Hindostan  or  Thibet ;  but,  as  they  have 
their  home  in  the  British  Islands,  there  is 
little  of  the  romantic  in  the  effort  to  reach 
them,  and  it  is  difficult  to  excite  any  enthu- 
siasm on  the  subject. 

The  object  of  the  "Society  for  Irish 
Church  Missions,"  says  one  of  its  recent 
publications,  "is  to  promote  the  glory  of 
God  in  the  salvation  of  the  souls  of  our 
Roman  Catholic  countrymen  in  Ireland." 
"The  means  employed  to  this  end  are  an 
open,  plain,  faithful,  and  affectionate  exhi- 
bition of  the  Gospel  from  the  pulpit ;  from 
house  to  house ;  in  schools,  day,  night,  Sun- 
day, and  ragged ;  by  distribution  of  the 
Scriptures ;  by  Irish  teaching  and  Scripture- 
text  teaching;  by  friendly  disputation  ('In 
meekness  instructing  those  that  oppose  them- 
selves'); by  the  publication  of  Scripture 
texts  on  placards;  by  the  distribution  of 
tracts  and  handbills,  and  by  every  loving 
and  faithful  influence  Avhich  can  be  brought 
to  bear  upon  those  who  are  in  dangerous  er- 
ror, and  whose  salvation  is  earnestly  sought." 

"  The  Society  has  raised  within  the  last  22 
years  £553,255,  or  over  half  a  million  pounds 
stei-ling.  In  addition  to  this  sum,  spent  in 
maintaining  missionaries  and  teachers,  it 
has  been  the  means  of  erecting,  with  funds 
specially  raised  for  the  purpose,  19  churches, 
9  parsonages,  8  orphanages,  and  23  school- 
houses."  *'  It  maintains  at  this  date,"  eays 


BERKELEY:  EVANGELIZATION  IN  IRELAND. 


509 


a  circular  issued  in  April  of  the  present  year, 
"  46  Sunday-schools,  attended  by  2198  chil- 
dren and  adnlts,  and  76  week-day  schools, 
with  an  attendance  of  3062  scholars.  The 
Missionary  Agency  numbers  394,  which  com- 
prises 31  ordained  clergymen,  217  trained 
agents  —  Scripture  readers,  school  masters 
and  mistresses — and  146  agents  employed 
in  Irish  teaching  and  teaching  texts  of 
Scripture.  About  184  Sunday  and  142  week- 
day services  are  held  during  each  month,  at- 
tended by  aggregate  congregations  of  over 
20,000.  During  each  mouth  the  Scripture 
readers  make  about  10,000  visits,  visiting  in 
the  aggregate  about  24,000  persons.  Besides 
which,  the  press  is  largely  employed  for 
communicating  truth  and  exposing  error — 
nearly  a  million  tracts,  handbills,  and  other 
plain  spiritual  and  pointed  publications  be- 
ing circulated  every  year." 

By  a  "  Scripture  Readers'  Society,"  in  con- 
nection with  the  same  Church,  the  word  of 
the  truth  of  the  Gospel  is  heard  in  many 
homes  of  the  poor,  while  the  revival  of  the 
"Home  Mission"  in  some  districts  gives 
promise  that  that  Gospel  will  be  earnestly 
and  faithfully  preached  in  churches  and 
school-houses,  with  a  view  to  reach  especial- 
ly the  outlying  Protestant  population. 

The  Presbyterian  Church,  under  the  care 
of  the  General  Assembly,  has  increased  from 
433  congregations  and  460  ministers  in  1841 
to  553  congregations  and  625  ministers  in 
1873,  and  now  employs  various  and  impor- 
tant agencies  for  the  evangelization  of  the 
country.  By  a  "  church  extension  "  scheme, 
she  seeks  primarily  to  bring  her  own  nomi- 
nal adherents  under  the  sound  of  the  Gos- 
pel, and  to  organize  them  into  congregations. 
By  her  "  Irish  Mission,"  she  labors  more  di- 
rectly for  tlie  evangelization  of  the  Roman 
Catholic  population.  About  £1000  a  year 
are  spent  in  maintaining  her  Scripture  read- 
ers and  colporteurs.  Her  system  of  "  Con- 
naught  schools "  originated  in  1847,  when 
famine  opened  a  wide  field  for  missionary 
labor  in  the  destitute  districts  of  Ireland. 
In  these  schools,  20,000  children  have  re- 
ceived instruction,  very  few  of  whom  had 
such  opportunities  elsewhere.  In  connec- 
tion with  them  there  is  an  Orphanage  and 
Refuge  Home  for  females  and  young  persons 
fleeing  from  persecution,  in  which  they  re- 
main till  fit  for  service  at  homo  or  for  emi- 
grating. Artisans,  servants,  clerks,  and  min- 
isters of  the  Gospel,  on  both  sides  of  the 
Atlantic,  are  the  fruits  of  the  Connaught 
schools,  while  many  happy  death -beds  of 
pupils  have  illustrated  the  power  of  Divine 
grace  and  the  blessed  effects  of  Scripture 
teaching. 

In  connection  with  the  Assembly  there 
has  been  carried  on  for  the  past  twenty- 
four  years  a  system  of  "open-air  preach- 
ing," by  which  multitudes  of  the  poor  and 
spiritually  destitute  portions  of  the  popula- 


tion, of  all  denominations,  have  been  brought 
under  the  sound  of  the  Gospel.  The  Assem- 
bly's "  Committee  of  Evangelization  "  sends 
ministers,  if  possible  two  and  two,  to  lead- 
ing towns,  manufacturing  districts,  water- 
ing-places, and  elsewhere,  to  hold  special 
services,  sometimes  for  four  or  five  evenings 
in  succession,  with  a  view  to  the  revival  of 
religion  and  the  exciting  of  a  deeper  interest 
in  the  things  of  God.  The  "  Sabbath-school 
Society"  iu  connection  with  the  Assembly 
furnishes  books  and  all  needful  appliances 
for  the  instruction  of  the  young,  while  the 
"  Orphan  Society,"  recently  organized,  al- 
ready sustains  1400  orphans  iu  the  homes 
of  relatives  and  friends. 

Besides  the  Presbyterian  Church  under 
the  care  of  the  General  Assembly,  there  arc 
in  Ireland  four  small  Presbyterian  denomi- 
nations, numbering  about  50  ministers  in  all ; 
namely,  the  Reformed  Presbyterian,  East- 
ern Synod  of  the  same,  the  United  Presbyte- 
rian, and  the  Secession.  Their  ministers  all 
adhere  to  the  doctrine  of  the  Westminster 
Confession  of  Faith.  The  members  of  their 
own  churches  are  carefully  looked  after  by 
them,  but  the  churches  are  too  weak  to  do 
much  general  evangelistic  work. 

The  Wesleyans  and  Primitive  Wesleyans, 
with  their  wonted  energy  and  zeal,  have 
pushed  into  many  destitute  districts  and 
some  populous  towns  in  Ireland,  and  through 
them  many  are  made  to  possess  the  blessed- 
ness of  the  people  that  know  the  joyful 
sound.  Although  the  number  of  persons 
returning  themselves  as  Methodists  iu  the 
last  Government  census  is  comparatively 
small,  yet  have  they  in  their  various  sec- 
tions about  280  ministers,  including  super- 
numeraries and  missionaries,  and  conse- 
quently they  can  do,  and  they  do,  much  in 
the  way  of  aggression  upon  the  territories 
of  ignorance  and  carelessness. 

The  Independents  and  Baptists  in  Ireland 
have  each  about  19  ministers,  and  by  them 
in  their  several  spheres  a  full  Gospel  is  faith- 
fully preached,  and  they  contribute  a  share 
to  the  evangelization  of  the  country. 

Of  late  years  God  has  graciously  quicken- 
ed a  goodly  number  of  laymen  in  connection 
with  the  various  churches,  who  have  gone 
everywhere  preaching  the  Word,  and  whoso 
labors  have  been  blessed  to  the  conversion 
of  souls.  Much  was  looked  for  from  the 
efforts  of  these  earnest  men ;  but  unhappi- 
ly some  of  them,  while  publicly  addressing 
loud  calls  to  sinners  to  come  to  Christ,  hav« 
more  privately  addressed,  if  possible,  still 
louder  calls  to  the  children  of  God  to  como 
out  from  existing  Church  connections,  and 
have  thus  created  divisions  and  disunion, 
have  added  to  tho  number  of  sects  in  onr 
island,  and  greatly  marred  what  would  oth- 
erwise be  a  most  delightful  and  effective 
work. 

Xon-dcnominatiottal  Agencies. — Chief  among 


510 


ROMANISM  AND  PROTESTANTISM. 


non-denominational  institutions  -working  in 
our  country  I  mention  the  "  Hibernian  Bi- 
ulo  Society,"  which  has  for  its  object  the 
circulation  of  the  Scriptures  in  Ireland  and 
throughout  the  world.  There  is  also  the 
"  Sunday-school  Society  for  Ireland,"  doing 
an  important  work  among  the  young,  and 
there  is  the  "Bible  and  Colportage  Socie- 
ty." Though  I  have  named  this  society 
last,  I  would  direct  special  attention  to  its 
character,  objects,  and  operations.  Man- 
aged mainly,  though  not  exclusively,  by 
Presbyterians,  it  is  not  denominational,  but 
evangelical  in  its  constitution.  It  works 
by  means  of  central  de"p6ts,  book  agents,  and 
colporteurs.  It  circulates  the  Scriptures, 
and  books,  periodicals,  and  tracts  founded 
on  them.  Formed  in  1858  by  a  combina- 
tion of  various  existing  societies,  and  com- 
mencing operations  on  the  1st  of  January, 
1859  ("the  year  of  grace"),  it  has  sold  to  the 
people  of  Ireland  since  then  upward  of  seven 
and  a  half  millions  of  publications,  besides 
tracts  distributed  gratuitously,  and  has  re- 
ceived in  cash  for  sales  upward  of  £56,000 
sterling.  This  Society  is  seeking  to  embrace 
the  entire  country. in  its  operations,  and  has 
already  penetrated,  especially  by  means  of 
colportage,  into  some  of  its  darkest  nooks 
and  most  distant  corners. 

General  Results. — I  give  this  brief  account 
of  the  condition  of  the  Protestant  Churches 
and  societies  iu  Ireland  to  indicate  in  a  gen- 
eral way  their  preparedness,  so  far  as  agen- 
cies and  means  are  concerned,  for  going  in  to 
possess  the  land  for  Christ,  fully  persuaded 
as  I  am  that  there  must  be  an  enlightened, 
educated,  revived,  living,  loving  Protestant- 
ism in  our  country  before  we  can  succeed  to 
any  large  extent  in  the  evangelization  of  the 
Roman  Catholic  portion  of  the  population. 
So  long  as  ignorance,  intemperance,  party 
spirit,  and  immorality  are  characteristic  of 
any  considerable  portion  of  Protestants, 
Avhat  inducement  is  there  for  earnest  Ro- 
man Catholics  to  look  favorably  on  our 
principles  or  systems  ?  Were  all  Protest- 
ants, or  the  majority  of  them,  "  living  epis- 
tles of  Christ,"  they  would  be  the  most  ef- 
fective agents  for  the  evangelization  of  their 
neighbors  and  countrymen.  I  rejoice  great- 
ly to  think  that  of  late  Protestantism  with 
us  has  been  raised  to  a  higher  platform — 
has  become  more  self-reliant,  and  earnest, 
and  active,  and  thus  the  way  of  the  Lord  is 
being  prepared.  And  who  knows  how  soon 
"the  dayspring  from  on  high  may  visit"  all 
the  people  of  our  laud  ? 

By  the  agencies  and  means  above  men- 
tioned, much  of  the  Protestant  population 
of  Ireland,  numbering  in  1871  1,260,568,  has 
become  well  instructed  in  the  truth,  and 
some  of  the  churches  are  enjoying  a  good 
measure  of  spiritual  prosperity.  None  of 
the  societies  named  are  as  old  as  the  pres- 
ent century,  some  of  the  most  important  are 


only  a  few  years  in  existence ;  yet,  to  say 
the  least,  they  are  helping  Protestantism  to 
hold  its  own  in  the  country.     This  was  by 
no  means  the  case  during  the  deadness  and 
lukewarmness  of  previous  centuries.     I  be- 
lieve they  are  also  enabling  it  to  make  some 
aggression  on  the  territory  of  the  man  of  sin. 
]  True,  there  is  no  general  stirring  of  the  pop- 
ular mind.      Rome  never  seemed  stronger 
|  outwardly  than  at  present.     Her  cathedrals 
and  churches  are  towering  up   on  every 
side,  her  ministers  are  everywhere  active 
|  and  zealous,  and  she  seems  in  many  places 
'  to  have  the  country  at  her  feet.     Yet  am  I 
|  fully  persuaded  that  in  not  a  few  quarters 
|  the  truth  is  quietly  winning  its  way.    Light 
is  breaking  in  here  and  there  upon  the  dark- 
ness, and  a  preparatory  work  is  going  on 
which  may  tell  one  day,  and  perhaps  soon- 
er than  most  people  expect.     There  are  nu- 
merous evidences  that  impatience  of  eccle- 
siastical control  is  on  the  increase  among 
the  people,  a  spirit  of  independence  exhib- 
its itself  in  the  priesthood,  and  her  long  and 
fierce  struggle  for  denominational  education 
at  the  expense  of  the  State  shows  how  much 
she  feels  herself  pressed  by  the  influences  at 
work  around  her. 

Evangelization  of  Roman  Catholics. — When 
I  speak  of  "  Evangelization  iu  Ireland,"  I 
presume  I  shall  be  expected  to  refer  main- 
ly to  efforts  to  reach  the  Roman  Catholic 
population  with  the  Gospel  of  God's  grace. 
Here,  however,  a  preliminary  question  pre- 
sents itself.  Is  it  a  duty  to  try  to  reach 
them  with  the  Gospel  ?  Have  they  not  got 
a  religion  already,  which,  if  not  the  very 
best,  is  yet  sufficient  for  all  spiritual  and 
eternal  ends  ?  I  dread  the  growing  latitu- 
dinariauism  of  these  times,  which  would  in- 
cline to  deny  that  the  system  of  the  Church 
of  Rome  is  Antichristian.  Doubtless  some 
of  its  nominal  adherents  may  be  and  are 
safe  in  Christ ;  but  the  system  as  such  is 
one  of  soul-destroying  error,  and  the  Church 
of  Christ  should  sound  iu  the  ears  of  its  ad- 
herents the  call  of  God,  "  Come  out  of  her, 
my  people !"  Those  who  hold  otherwise  will 
be  found,  J  believe,  tending  to  deny  alto- 
gether the  necessity  of  the  new  birth,  of 
real  conversion,  in  the  case  both  of  nomi- 
nal Protestants  and  Roman  Catholics,  and 
the  power  of  the  truth  when  applied  by  the 
Holy  Spirit  to  effect  the  regeneration  of  the 
human  soul. 

But  I  fear,  on  the  other  hand,  that  some 

professing  Protestants,  who  acknowledge  the 

doctrine  of  the  necessity  of  a  spiritual  birth 

and  resurrection,  are  yet  inclined  to  give  up 

!  Roman  Catholics  in  hopeless  despondency, 

!  and  to  say  that  "  they  are  joined  to  their 

'  idols,"  and  may  be  left  to  perish  in  their 

'  sins.     Hindoos  and  Mohammedans  may  be 

converted,  these  people  say,  but  can  Roman 

Catholics  be  reached  by  the  grace  of  God  ? 

You  may  well  doubt  the  Christianity  of  the 


BERKELEY:  EVANGELIZATION  IN  IRELAND. 


511 


man  who  asks  or  remotely  suggests  such  a 
question.  If  a  man  has  been  himself  con- 
verted, he  knows  that  the  same  grace  which 
sought  and  found  him  can  reach  any  other 
member  of  the  human  family.  He  despairs 
of  no  one,  however  abandoned  or  blindfold- 
ed. He  knows  that  conversion  is  the  work 
of  God, and  that  "of  his  own  will  men  are 
begotten  with  the  word  of  truth/'  For  con- 
verts to  a  creed  or  a  system  outwardly  we 
care  not.  If  all  the  Roman  Catholics  in  Ire- 
land were  to-day  to  make  a  merely  nominal 
profession  of  Protestantism,  the  influx  of 
them  would  be  deeply  injurious  to  the  Chris- 
tian Church.  It  could  be  hailed  only  as 
bringing  them  within  the  reach  of  the  means 
of  grace  and  under  the  sound  of  the  Gospel. 
It  is  convert*  to  Christ  we  want,  and  the  pow- 
er and  love  of  the  Holy  Spirit  can  give  them 
in  answer  to  prayer,  and  as  the  result  of 
wise  and  loving  effort.  It  will  not  be  by 
miracle,  however,  but  by  the  truth  as  it  is 
in  Jesus  applied  to  their  hearts,  that  they 
will  be  led  to  renounce  self  and  the  world, 
to  receive  Christ  and  his  righteousness,  and 
to  give  themselves  up  to  God  to  serve  and 
obey  him. 

But  is  it  not  difficult  to  reach  them  with 
the  truth — to  get  it  brought  in  contact  with 
their  minds  ?  In  my  country  it  is  difficult. 
Protestantism  is  the  religion  of  those  whom 
they  have  been  taught  to  regard  as  oppress- 
ors. With  them  it  is  not  only  a  heresy,  but 
a  tyranny.  At  the  same  time,  it  would  be 
well  for  time-serving  agitators  to  remember 
that  hatred  of  England  and  of  English  in- 
stitutions was  generated  in  the  minds  of 
Irishmen  before  the  name  of  Protestantism 
was  heard  of.  Ireland's  troubles  may  be 
said  to  have  begun  with  the  day  when  Pope 
Adrian  IV.,  having  arrogantly  claimed  the 
sovereignty  of  the  kingdom,  by  a  bull  issued 
in  the  year  1155,  formally  conferred  it  on 
Henry  II.,  on  condition  of  his  reducing  his 
newly  acquired  dominions  to  unqualified 
submission  to  the  papal  supremacy,  and  con- 
formity with  the  Romish  Church.  The  En- 
glish court  before  the  time  of  the  Reforma- 
tion prohibited  the  use  of  the  Irish  language, 
through  the  vain  idea  of  banishing  it  alto- 
gether from  the  kingdom,  to  make  way  for 
the  adoption  'of  the  English  tongue.  The 
Reformation  in  Ireland,  in  the  first  instance, 
consisted  merely  in  the  proclamation  of  the 
royal  instead  of  the  papal  supremacy.  Ex- 
ternal conformity  was  enforced,  but  no  prop- 
er effort  was  made  to  instruct  the  people  by 
the  circulation  of  the  Scriptures  in  their  own 
tongue  and  by  the  preaching  of  the  Gospel. 
Fines  were  exacted  from  those  who  failed 
to  attend  the  parish  church,  yet  the  service 
was  not  alloAved  in  Irish,  the  only  language 
the  people  understood ;  but,  where  the  priest 
and  people  did  not  understand  English,  it 
was  decreed  that  the  Latin  tongue  must  be 
used !  The  Romish  faith  was  formally  con- 


demned by  acts  of  Parliament,  and  profes- 
sion of  the  Reformed  religion  enforced  un- 
der the  heaviest  penalties,  before  any  at- 
tempts were  made  to  convince  the  people  of 
their  former  errors.  This  is  the  fundament- 
al mistake  made  in  regard  to  our  country 
which  has  yet  to  be  Corrected.  Protestant- 
ism has  yet  to  be  presented  to  our  country- 
men as  a  religion  of  love  and  self-sacrifice. 
"  Even  as  the  prince  of  Cuba  in  India  is  re- 
ported to  have  said  that  ho  would  not  go  to 
heaven  if  the  Spaniards  Avent  there,  because 
he  thought  that  could  be  no  good  place 
where  such  cruel  tyrants  were,  so  in  days 
gone  by  in  our  country  many  would  not  be 
of  our  religion,  because  they  thought  that 
could  be  no  true  religion  which  had  such 
unconscionable  professors  and  ministers." 
The  Bible  has  yet  to  be  presented  in  love  to 
the  Irish  people  in  their  homes.  In  other 
days  there  were  no  self-denying  men  to  go 
forth  in  our  land,  as  the  Vaudots  went  on 
the  Continent  in  the  capacity  of  peddlers 
that  they  might  circulate  the  Word  of  life, 
and  no  occasion  was  given  for  the  utterance 
of  the  complaint  made  by  the  Romanists  in 
England  at  the  time  of  the  Reformation : 
"  The  gospelers  of  these  days  do  so  fill  the 
world  with  their  noisome  little  books  that 
they  be  like  the  plague  of  locusts  that  came 
up  over  the  land  of  Egypt." 

Ireland  has  now  no  just  cause  of  complaint 
against  the  British  Government ;  the  Irish 
Roman  Catholic  now  labors  under  no  civil 
disability  whatever ;  but  he  carries  about 
with  him  the  memory  of  bitter  wrongs,  some 
more  recent  and  others  of  ancient  date,  and 
hence  it  is  difficult  for  Protestants  to  do 
missionary  work  among  Roman  Catholics ; 
but  I  believe  the  difficulty  has  been  griev- 
ously and  grossly  exaggerated. 

Those  who  talk  much  of  the  difficulty 
have  probably  never  tried  to  any  great  ex- 
tent to  deal  with  men  individually  about 
their  souls,  whether  Protestant  or  Roman 
Catholic.  It  is  not  to  be  expected  that  the 
latter  will  come  to  our  churches,  in  the  first 
instance  at  least,  to  hear  the  preaching  of 
the  Gospel ;  but  can  they  be  reached  in  no 
other  way  ?  To  be  saved,  multitudes  of 
people  of  every  creed  must  be  sought  out — 
in  the  field  and  by  the  wayside,  in  their  own 
homes  and  at  their  own  firesides — and  ad- 
dressed in  the  spirit  of  love  and  conciliation. 
There  is  too  little  in  the  churches  of"  warn- 
ing every  man  and  teaching  every  man  in 
all  wisdom,"  taking  them  distributively,  and 
going  to  each  of  them  with  the  message  of 
mercy.  The  great  Master  not  only  preached 
in  cities  .and  villages,  dealing  with  men  in 
the  mass,  but  talked  lovingly  and  earnestly 
with  Nicodeiuus  and  with  the  woman  of  Sa- 
maria, and  so  sought  to  preach  the  Gospel 
to  "every  creature  ;"  and  the  great  Apostle 
of  the  Gentiles  tells  the  Ephesiaus  that  by 
the  space  of  three  years  he  ceased  not  to 


512 


ROMANISM  AND  PROTESTANTISM. 


warn  "every  one  "  in  Ephesus  night  and  day 
•with  tears.  When  will  the  churches  feel 
that  they  have  not  done  their  duty  till  they 
have  made  an  otter  of  Christ  and  eternal  life 
through  him,  as  far  as  may  be,  individually 
and  personally,  to  every  Roman  Catholic  in 
Ireland  f 

Who  should  do  tins? — We  ministers  of  the 
Gospel  as  well  as  the  Christian  people  should 
make  opportunities,  more  than  we  do,  of 
talking  with  ignorant  neighbors  about  their 
danger  as  sinners,  and  the  way  of  recovery 
through  Jesus.  If  any  minister  says  he  can 
not  do  this  with  Roman  Catholics — "  that  the 
door  is  shut " — it  is  time  for  him  to  begiu 
to  inquire  as  to  his  spirit  and  temper,  his 
connections  and  relations,  and  especially  if 
he  has  been  taking  the  right  way  to  com- 
mend the  Gospel  to  the  ignorant  and  oppos- 
ing. If  we  were  all  like  the  Master,  "of 
quick  understanding  in  the  fear  of  the  Lord," 
the  story  of  the  woman  at  the  well  would  bo 
repeated  in  multitudes  of  instances ;  and  it  is 
worth  remembering  that,  if  there  were  only 
two  Christian  people  in  the  world  at  this 
moment,  and  if  before  the  end  of  the  year 
each  of  these  by  prayer  and  effort  were  to 
be  the  means  of  bringing  one  other  to  Christ, 
and  next  year  each  of  the  four  another,  and 
so  on  from  year  to  year,  every  converted  per- 
son being  honored  of  God  in  every  twelve 
months  to  bring  one  sinner  to  the  Saviour, 
in  thirty-three  or  thirty-four  years  all  the 
people  of  the  world  would  know  and  ac- 
knowledge Jesus. 

But  with  reference  to  Roman  Catholics  i:i 
particular,  I  am  fully  persuaded  that,  what- 
ever ministers  of  the  Gospel  may  be  honored 
of  God  to  do,  it  is  by  the  agency  mainly  of 
converted  laymen,  and  of  women  "  who  la- 
bor with  us  in  the  Gospel,"  that  they  are  to 
be  evangelized.  Far  be  it  from  me  to  de- 
preciate the  Gospel  ministry.  It  is  God's 
own  institution.  It  must  be  maintained  in 
all  its  efficiency.  The  waste  places  must 
be  occupied  with  Christian  churches,  and 
every  pastor  must  be  a  missionary  and  a 
superintendent  of  missionary  operations  in 
his  own  district.  Church-members  as  well 
as  ministers  need  to  go  "  everywhere  preach- 
ing the  Word ;"  but,  however  faithful  they 
may  be,  there  are  multitudes  whom  they 
can  not  reach.  We  want  a  class  of  men, 
humble,  earnest,  loving,  godly  —  "men  of 
the  Evangel" — with  the  love  of  Christ  and 
of  souls  in  their  hearts — we  call  them  "  col- 
porteurs"— who  are  not  ashamed  to  carry  a 
pack,  and  who,  while  pushing  the  Bible  and 
good  books  into  the  hands  of  the  people, 
can  yet  speak  what  they  know,  and  testify 
what  they  have  seen,  of  God's  love  and 
Christ's  grace.  They  must  be  prudent,  con- 
ciliatory, quick-witted  men,  who  can  give  a 
ready  answer  regarding  the  hope  that  is  in 
them ;  men  trained  for  the  purpose,  and  fa- 
miliarized beforehand  with  the  questions 


likely  to  be  raised  by  those  whom  they  vis- 
it, and  the  nature  of  the  opposition  they 
may  expect.  They  go,  in  the  first  instance, 
not  as  missionaries,  but  as  traders,  as  the 
Vaudois  went  prior  to  the  Reformation,  with 
the  view  to  lodge  the  Bible  in  the  homes  of 
the  people. 

There  are  at  present  fifty  snch  men  in 
connection  with  the  Bible  and  Colportage 
Society  of  Ireland,  but  there  should  be  at 
least  five  hundred.  They  carry  the  Scrip- 
tures, and  good  books,  and  illustrated  pa- 
pers, and  periodicals,  They  get  access  to 
the  hamlets  of  the  poor,  and  sometimes  to 
the  more  pretentious  dwellings  of  the  rich, 
and  they  can  talk  with  not  a  few,  as  one 
says,  "  as  much  as  they  like,"  about  Jesus 
and  his  love.  They  are  asked  for  a  "dream 
book,"  and  they  sell  for  a  penny  a  complete 
copy  of  "  The  Pilgrim's  Progress ;"  for  a  song 
book,  and  they  present  a  copy  of  the  hymns 
of  the  sweet  Psalmist  of  Israel.  They  have 
sold  to  priests  of  the  Church  of  Rome  "  The 
Life  of  Calvin,"  "The  Blood  of  Jesus,"  "The 
Last  Day  of  our  Lord's  Passion."  They  dis- 
pose of  large  quantities  of  such  works  as 
Baxter's  "Call"  and  "Saint's  Rest,"  "The 
Rise  and  Progress  of  Religion,"  "The  Prac- 
tical View  of  Christianity,"  "Blind  Barti- 
mens,"  and  "  The  Power  of  Prayer."  And, 
if  the  circulation  of  the  Bible  and  good 
books  had  so  much  to  do  in  bringing  about 
the  Reformation  in  many  countries  of  Eu- 
rope centuries  ago,  why  may  we  not  expect 
God  to  bless  similar  means  now  ?  Colport- 
age in  Ireland  is  no  longer  an  experiment. 
It  is  a  success.  It  has  been  tried  in  every 
county  in  Ireland,  and  nowhere  has  it  fail- 
ed. The  colporteurs  traverse  every  part  of 
the  land  without  molestation,  or,  at  least, 
without  injury.  They  may  be  hooted  at, 
or  called  by  ugly  names  occasionally,  but 
this  only  gives  them  an  opportunity  of 
showing  "the  meekness  and  gentleness  of 
Christ."  And 

In  what  Spirit  do  they  go? — Not  in  a  spirit 
of  controversy,  or,  in  the  first  instance,  to 
engage  directly  in  controversy.  Protest- 
antism has  been  long  regarded  by  our  coun- 
trymen as  a  mere  negation — denying,  and 
too  often  denouncing,  much  they  hold  dear. 
We  wish  to  show  them  that  Protestantism 
is  a  positive  thing,  holding  fast  the  grand 
old  apostolic  doctrines,  especially  that  of  a 
present,  free,  full,  and  everlasting  salvation 
through  Christ  Jesus,  and  teaching  its  adhe- 
rents to  live  "  soberly,  righteously,  and  god- 
ly in  this  present  world."  Hence  our  agents 
are  instructed  to  talk  with  the  people  about 
the  things  in  which  they  agree  rather  than 
about  those  in  which  they  differ,  to  speak 
of  sin  and  salvation,  of  Jesus  and  his  love, 
of  the  Holy  Ghost  and  his  work,  and  espe- 
cially to  exhibit  a  spirit  of  love,  and  com- 
passion, and  humility  in  their  daily  con- 
duct. Questions  soon  come  to  be  asked 


BERKELEY:  EVANGELIZATION  IN  IRELAND. 


513 


•which  compel  them  to  turn  attention  to  the 
errors  of  the  Church  of  Rome.  A  spirit  of 
inquiry  is  excited.  Protestantism  is  seen 
in  the  life  and  language  of  its  adherents  to 
be  any  thing  but  the  overbearing,  persecu- 
ting system  many  imagined.  If  we  began 
by  denouncing  Romanism,  the  door  would 
be  shut  against  us  at  once ;  but  we  seek 
rather  to  begiu  by  teaching  that,  "except  a 
man  be  born  again,  he  can  not  see  the  king- 
dom of  God;"  that  "without  faith  it  is  im- 
possible to  please  Him ;"  and  that  "  without 
holiness  no  man  shall  see  the  Lord ;"  and  by 
trying  to  show  that  religion  has  a  positive 
influence  on  men's  lives  in  making  them 
humble,  loving,  holy,  and  devoted.  We  try 
to  reach  the  conscience  and  the  heart,  and 
if  controversy  must,  as  we  find  it  must,  bo 
engaged  in,  our  agents  seek  to  carry  it  on 
in  a  very  loving  spirit,  and  as  men  who 
"contend  earnestly  for  the  faith  once  de- 
livered to  the  saints." 

The  Ehemish  or  Douay  Testament. — The  col- 
porteurs of  the  Bible  and  Colportage  Society 
make  effective  use  of  the  Rhemish  or  Douay 
Testament  in  their  intercourse  with  the  peo- 
ple. We  have  an  edition  of  this  Testament 
iu  Ireland,  without  notes,  published  some  fif- 
ty years  ago  by  the  authority  of  the  Roman 
Catholic'  bishops,  and  solemnly  sanctioned 
by  Pope  Pius  VII.  This  was  done  when 
these  parties  were  seeking  emancipation, 
and  wished  to  convince  the  British  public 
and  Parliament  that  the  Church  of  Rome  is 
favorable  to  the  circulation  of  the  Scrip- 
tures without  note  or  comment.  I  believe 
they  would  gladly  recall  this  edition  of  the 
Testament,  but  the  stereotyped  plates  arc 
in  the  hands  of  Protestants,  and  many  thou- 
sands of  the  precious  book  are  being  print- 
ed and  circulated  every  year.  Our  colport- 
eurs and  others  use  it  thus :  They  are  talk- 
ing with  Roman  Catholics  about  the  way 
of  life,  controversy  ensues,  and  the  colport- 
eur, producing  the  book,  says,  "  See,  here  is 
your  own  Testament.  I  abide  by  what  it 
says ;"  and  he  opens  and  reads,  perhaps,  Acts 
xiii.,  39,  "  In  Him  every  one  that  believeth 
is  justified;"  or  Rev.  xxii.,  14,  iu  that  ver- 
sion standing  thus,  "  Blessed  are  they  that 
have  washed  their  robes  and  made  them 
white  in  the  blood  of  the  Lamb,  that  they 
may  have  right  to  the  tree  of  life,  and  may 
enter  in  through  the  gates  into  the  city." 
And  surprise  is  expressed,  and  the  book  is 
purchased,  and  days  and  nights  are  some- 
times spent  in  comparing  the  two  versions ; 
and  the  priest  is  occasionally  consulted  as 
to  the  genuineness  of  the  Rheniisb,  a  thing 
he  can  not  deny,  and  most  important  results 
follow.  I  believe  the  Douay  Testament,  thus 
used,  to  be  a  most  effective  instrument  for 
the  regeneration  of  Ireland ;  and  why  not  of 
other  countries  as  well  ? 

Support  of  Colporteurs. — A  sum  of  about 
£60  sterling  is  required  to  support  a  col- 
33 


porteur  for  a  year.  If  any  individual  or 
committee  give  the  committee  of  our  Socie- 
ty £30,  they  engage  to  salary  and  maintain 
a  colporteur  in  any  given  district  in  Ireland 
for  a  year.  Could  any  evangelistic  agency 
be  simpler,  cheaper,  or  more  effective  f  We 
do  not  expect  any  great  movement  among 
our  countrymen  arising  directly  from  the 
outside.  We  look  for  it  from  within  the 
Church,  and  hence  we  seek  quietly  and  ev- 
erywhere to  leave  the  leaven  of  the  Gospel 
iu  the  homes  and  minds  of  the  people,  till  by 
God's  blessing  the  whole  shall  be  leavened. 

Can  the  Men  le  gotfoi-  the  Work  and  the  Pay  f 
— This  is  an  important  inquiry,  and,  thank 
God,  we  can  answer  it  satisfactorily.  Men 
can  be  had,  humble,  loving,  earnest,  who, 
after  in  every  case  preliminary  training  for 
three  or  four  months  under  one  of  our  mis- 
sionaries, make  most  effective  agents.  They 
are  mostly  the  fruit  of  the  "  year  of  grace  " 
— the  revival  of  1859.  Prior  to  that  era 
some  had  been  found  and  were  employed  by 
the  Hibernian  Bible  Society,  on  from  1846,  in 
the  colportage  of  the  Scriptures  and  noth- 
ing else.  Others  were  employed  by  the 
churches  as  Scripture  readers,  and  by  the 
Presbyterian  Church  in  particular  in  the 
colportage  of  good  books  besides  the  Scrip- 
tures; but  almost  all  those  recently  em- 
ployed are  free  to  testify  that  they  were  ei- 
t  her  converted  or  revived  in  1859 ;  and  when 
I  left  Ireland  they  were  being  found  in  con- 
siderable numbers,  who,  on  appeal  made,  re- 
sponded readily  and  joyfully,  "Here  are  we. 
Send  us!" 

JF/io  should  send  them? — The  churches  in 
Ireland,  we  reply.  On  them  especially  the 
responsibility  rests.  They  are  placed  in  thai- 
land  to  be  lights  in  it.  Thank  God,  we  be- 
lieve many  Christians  there  are  taking  as 
their  motto  more  distinctly  and  heartily 
than  ever,  "Ireland  for  Christ."  But  the 
work  is  too  great  for  us.  Great  Britain  and 
America  should  help.  We  thank  them  most 
heartily  for  what  they  have  already  done ; 
but  I  believe  they  do  not  see  clearly  enough 
that  the  work  is  too  great  for  us,  or  they 
would  come  still  more  earnestly  to  our  aid. 
A  gentleman  in  Scotland  the  other  day  gave 
half  a  million  to  assist  in  overtaking  spirit- 
ual destitution  in  that  land  of  Bibles,  and 
churches,  and  Sabbaths,  and  ministers.  How 
can  it  be  expected  that  1,260,000  Protestants 
in  Ireland  can  at  once  overtake  the  spiritu- 
al destitution  of  4,141,000  Roman  Catholics 
without  help  from  abroad  f  Selfishness  might 
be  appealed  to  on  this  subject.  Are  not  the 
Roman  Catholic  Irish  the  difficulty  of  states- 
men in  both  these  Protestant  empires  ?  Are 
not  the  most  recently  appointed  and  ener- 
getic bishops  iu  both  from  Ireland  ?  Do 
they  not  boast  that  Ireland  is,  like  Israel 
of  old,  made  to  possess  a  multitude  of  peo- 
ple, that  they  may  bo  missionaries  to  the 
world?  Would  it  not  be  the  wisest  and 


514 


ROMANISM  AND  PROTESTANTISM. 


most  economical  thing  for  the  Christians 
of  these  countries  to  help  us  in  doing  what 
Elisha  of  old  did  long  ago  while  he  was  tar- 
rying at  Jericho T  "The  men  of  the  city 
said  to  him,  Behold  the  situation  of  this  city 
ia  pleasant:  but  the  water  is  naught,  and 
the  ground  barren.  And  he  said,  Bring  me 
a  new  cruse  and  put  salt  therein.  And  they 
brought  it  to  him.  And  he  went  forth  unto 
the  spring  of  the  waters,  and  cast  the  salt  in 
there,  and  said,  Thus  saith  the  Lord,  I  have 
healed  these  waters ;  there  shall  not  be  from 
thence  any  more  death  or  barren  land.  So 
the  waters  were  healed  unto  this  day,  ac- 
cording to  the  saying  of  Elisha  which  he 
spake."  So  here.  It  is  the  duty  of  the 
Lord's  prophets  and  people  to  cast  the  salt 
of  the  Gospel  into  the  springs  of  our  coim- 
try.  We  say  advisedly  it  can  be  done  by  those 
who  know  the  country  and  understand  the 
people, having  been  brought  up  among  them. 
The  healing  power  in  this  as  in  every  other 
case  can  come  from  God  only.  He  has  made 
us  responsible  for  the  use  of  the  means ;  but 
when  in  answer  to  prayer  did  he  refuse  to 
give  the  increase  to  \vise  and  loving  efforts  ? 
Have  you  in  these  States  3806  Roman  Cath- 
olic churches  and  five  and  a  half  millions  of 
a  Roman  Catholic  population,  the  greater 
part  of  which  is  from  Ireland  or  of  Irish 
origin  f  Then  for  your  own  protection  you 
ought  to  come  over  and  help  us.  But,  be- 
sides, the  Protestant  Churches  of  Ireland, 
and  specially  the  Presbyterian  Church,  have 
for  many  years,  not  to  say  for  centuries,  been 
giving  the  best  of  their  people  to  this  coun- 
try. Our  most  earnest  Sabbath-school  teach- 
ers and  Christian  workers  come  hither  in 
great  numbers,  and  form  a  not  unimportant 
element  of  your  strength.  Latterly  you  have 
been  getting  some  of  the  best  of  our  ministers. 
You  have  not  been  sending  us,  but  there  have 
been  coming  from  this  country  to  us  in  re- 
turn a  very  troublesome  class  of  men,  in  the 
shape  of  political  agitators.  They  left  home 
simple-minded  Irishmen,  but  they  came  back 
apostles  of  anarchy,  whom,  to  say  the  Jeast, 
we  would  rather  want.  We  wish  for  a  bet- 
ter return  in  the  shape  of  generous  sympa- 
thies and  earnest  prayers,  and — shall  I  say 
it  ? — liberal  contributions  for  the  spread  of 
the  Gospel  in  our  country. 

The  Alliance  Spirit  in  the  Work. — Colport- 
age,  as  at  present  canned  on  in  Ireland,  is 
in  the  spirit  of  the  Evangelical  Alliance. 
Members  of  all  the  Evangelical  Churches  of 
the  country  are  being  associated  more  and 
more  in  the  work.  A  Protestant  Episcopa- 
lian and  his  wife,  in  remitting  recently  the 
£30  required  toward  the  support  of  a  col- 
porteur for  a  year,  said :  "  We  care  not  of 
what  denomination,  he  is,  provided  he  be  of 
the  Church  which  Jesus  'hath  purchased 
with  his  own  blood.'"  A  Methodist  writes 
in  great  admiration  of  one  of  our  agents, 
and  offers  £10  a  year  toward  the  support 


of  such  an  agent  in  his  locality.  A  Baptist 
has  for  years  superintended  one  of  our  col- 
porteurs, and  raised  the  sum  required  toward 
his  support.  But,  above  all,  the  colporteurs 
themselves  long  for  the  union  of  the  people 
of  God  in  our  land,  in  sentiment,  feeling,  and 
work.  One  writes  recently :  "  I  find  that 
the  divisions  among  Protestants  form  a  great 
barrier  to  Roman  Catholics  in  the  way  of 
receiving  from  us  any  instruction  concern- 
ing the  way  of  salvation.  When  will  the 
Christian  Churches  take  their  names  mere- 
ly from  their  localities,  as  in  days  of  yore  T" 

Hinderances. — This  reminds  me  that  there 
are  many  serious  hinderances  to  the  success 
of  the  Gospel  in  our  country,  and  many  dif- 
ficulties in  the  way  of  its  dissemination. 
Where  Rome  has  the  sway,  the  people  arc 
left  in  ignorance.  She  cares  for  education 
and  encourages  it  only  where  she  knows 
that,  if  not  given  by  her,  it  will  be  had  by . 
her  people  somehow.  In  other  cases  she  is 
true  to  her  motto, "  Ignorance  is  the  mother 
of  devotion,"  and  the  darkness  is  "  such  as 
may  be  felt."  The  history  of  the  past  is  an 
impediment — a  history  of  errors,  and  blun- 
ders, and  mistakes  without  number — almost 
without  end.  The  ungodliness  of  many 
Protestants  is  a  great  hinderance  to  the 
truth.  The  use  of  carnal  weapons — party 
spirit,  and  warfare,  and  exhibitions,  and  pro- 
cessions—  imbitter  the  people  against  the 
religion  of  those  who  indulge  in  them.  On 
board  the  vessel  by  which  I  reached  this 
country,  the  only  person  of  whom  I  heard 
who  objected  to  the  distribution  of  tracts 
among  the  steerage  passengers  was  an  Irish 
Roman  Catholic,  who  was  leaving  an  in- 
tensely Protestant  district  in  the  North,  but 
a  district  where  these  things  sadly  prevail, 
and  his  words  to  me  in  a  pleasant  conversa- 
tion were,  "  You  may  gain  men  by  love,  but 
never  by  force."  As  I  have  said  already, 
want  of  union  among  Protestants  is  a  "  sore 
evil  under  the  sun "  everywhere,  but  espe- 
cially in  Ireland.  Where,  in  any  case,  one 
set  of  professedly  Christian  people  live  apart 
in  haughty  exclusiveness,  saying,  "  Stand  by, 
for  we  are  holier  than  you,"  and  another  set 
meet  those  pretensions  in  the  spirit  of  proud 
defiance,  what  hope  can  there  be  of  spiritual 
progress  and  prosperity  f  If  the  2894  Prot- 
estant ministers  of  all  denominations  in  Ire- 
land were  meeting  from  time  to  time  in  their 
different  localities  to  pray  together,  to  take 
common  counsel,  and  to  uuito  in  Christian 
work,  how  soon  might  the  world  round  about 
believe  that  the  Father  had  sent  the  Son, 
and  the  Roman  Catholic  world  be  brought 
to  look  to  the  Saviour  Avhoin  they  honor 
and  obey ! 

Encouragements. — There  are  many  things 
to  encourage  us  in  the  present  condition  of 
our  country.  There  are  1,030,000  pupils  on 
the  rolls  of  our  national  schools  alone  (not 
reckoning  private  and  higher  schools),  or 


BERKELEY :  EVANGELIZATION  IN  IRELAND. 


515 


almost  one  in  five  of  OUT  population.  The 
people  have  learned  to  read,  and  the  art  of 
reading  is  a  power.  They  have  a  thirst  for 
knowledge.  A  spirit  of  inquiry  is  abroad. 
Recent  events  on  the  Continent  have  shaken 
the  faith  of  some  in  the  stability  of  the  Ro- 
mish system.  France,  long  the  bulwark  of 
the  Papacy,  lies  prostrate  in  the  dust.  Aus- 
tria has  annulled  the  concordat  with  the 
Pope.  Italy  prospers  in  the  face  of  the 
curse  and  excommunication.  Free  Churches 
have  been  formed  in  France  and  Italy.  The 
Old  Catholic  movement  progresses  in  Germa- 
ny. Wise  legislation  at  home  takes  away 
occasion  from  those  who  desire  occasion. 
All  things  seem  to  be  moving  in  the  direc- 
tion of  liberty  and  truth.  Does  not  the 
time  spoken  of  by  Haggai  seem  to  be  near 
at  hand, "  I  will  shake  all  nations,  and  the 
Desire  of  all  nations  shall  come,  and  I  will 
fill  this  house  with  my  glory,  saith  the  Lord 
of  Hosts?" 

Ireland  was  once  full  of  the  Gospel.  When 
Great  Britain  was  in  midnight  darkness,  our 
schools  and  colleges  were  thronged  with 
students  from  the  Continent  of  Europe  and 
elsewhere,  who  spent  much  of  their  time  in 
studying  David's  Psalms  and  Paul's  Epistles. 
We  were  in  days  long  gone  by  evangelistic 
as  well  as  evangelical,  and  missionaries  from 
Irelaud,  such  as  Columkille,  held  forth  the 
light  of  truth  in  multitudes  of  places  as  well 
as  in  lona.  Ireland  was  the  last  country  in 
Europe  that  submitted  to  the  yoke  of  the 
man  of  sin,  and  it  may  be  the  last  to  cast  it 
off;  but  the  day  of  its  redemption  draweth 
nigh.  God  is  putting  a  spirit  of  desire  and 
of  expectation  into  the  hearts  of  not  a  few 
in  our  country,  that  the  isles  shall  soon  wait 
for  his  law,  and  our  island  among  the  rest. 
We  have  been  greatly  encouraged  by  the 
calls  to  prayer  issued  by  the  Evangelical 
Alliance.  The  31st  of  March  last  was  a 
time  of  earnest  wrestling,  publicly  and  pri- 
vately, with  many  among  us.  We  hope  that 
a  day  of  prayer  for  Ireland  will  now  be  ob- 
served by  Christians  throughout  the  world 
annually.  Never  did  I  hear  more  sweet  or 
earnest  singing  than  when  on  that  day 
the  children  of  my  Sabbath-schools  joined 
in  the  hymn  composed  for  the  occasion  by 
Frances  Ridley  Havergal : 

"  Father,  we  would  plead  thy  promise,  bending  nt 

thy  glorious  throne, 
That  the  isles  shall  wait  upon  thee,  trusting  in  thine 

arm  alone. 
One  bright  isle  we  bring  before  thee,  while  iu  faith 

thy  children  pray 
For  a  full  and  mighty  blessing,  with  united  voice 

to-day." 

The  Alliance  has  been  inviting  us  to  spe- 
cial preaching,  as  well  as  special  prayer, 
and  the  New  Year  is  a  season  of  union  in 
the  proclamation  of  the  everlasting  Gospel. 
My  decided  conviction  is  that  that  invitation 
to  PREACH  should  be  extended  beyond  the 


bounds  of  Protestantism.  The  Pope  of  Rome 
invited  us  to  the  Ecumenical  Council  at 
Rome,  but  he  asked  us  first  to  renounce  our 
Protestantism.  I  need  not  say  we  did  not 
go  on  those  terms.  I  would  ask  him,  and 
all  Roman  Catholic  bishops  and  priests  ev- 
erywhere, not  to  renounce  their  Romanism, 
but  on  a  Sabbath  to  be  named  to  join  us  in 
preaching  from  the  Word  of  God.  I  would 
take  my  text  on  that  day  from  the  Douay 
Testament,  and  I  would  invite-  his  holiness 
and  all  his  satellites  to  do  the  same,  and  let 
it  be  a  passage  already  named,  Acts  xiii.,  39, 
in  that  version  standing  thus, "  IN  HIM  every 
one  thai  believeth.  is  justified."  "  IN  HIM  " — 
not  in  Mary,  or  Joseph,  or  the  Pope,  but  in 
JESUS — "  EVERY  one,"  however  guilty — not 
that  worketh,  or  prayeth,  or  doeth  penance, 
but "  every  one  that  believeth  " — "  is  JUSTIFIED," 
cleared,  acquitted,  has  a  title  to  everlasting 
life.  I  suggest  the  thing  to  the  friends  here. 
Such  a  friendly  challenge  sent  forth  from 
this  great  continent  to  all  parts  of  the  world 
would  meet  with  a  glorious  response ;  and 
as  the  walls  of  Jericho  fell  down  flat  while 
the  priests  blew  the  trumpets,  so  the  Lord 
might  begin  in  a  more  manifest  way  to  con- 
sume that  system  "  with  the  breath  of  his 
mouth" — the  word  that  goeth  out  of  it — as 
he  has  begun  already  "to  destroy  it  with 
the  brightness  of  his  coming" — iu  awful 
providential  dispensations. 

The  evangelizing  party  in  Irelaud  espe- 
cially, or  anywhere,  may  seem  few  and  weak 
compared  with  the  number  and  strength  of 
their  enemies.  So  did  David  appear  very 
weak  when  he  went  forth  against  the  gi- 
ant of  Gath.  "When  the  Philistine  looked 
about,  and  saw  David,  he  disdained  him : 

for  ho  was  but  a  youth Then  said 

David  to  the  Philistine,  Thou  comest  to  me 
with  a  sword,  and  with  a  spear,  and  with  a 
shield :  but  I  come  to  thee  in  the  name  of 
the  Lord  of  hosts,  the  God  of  the  armies  of 

Israel,  whom  thou  hast  defied And 

all  this  assembly  shall  know  that  the  Lord 
saveth  not  with  sword  and  spear:  for  the 
battle  is  the  Lord's,  and  he  Avill  give  you 

into  our  hands And  David  put  his 

hand  in  his  bag,  and  took  thence  a  stone, 
and  slung  it,  and  smote  the  Philistine  in  his 
forehead;  and  he  fell  upon  his  face  to  the 
earth."  It  is  the  stone  of  divine  truth, 
slung  by  the  Church  of  Christ  with  the  arm 
of  faith  and  in  the  spirit  of  prayer,  and  God 
Almighty  will  direct  its  course,  and  Baby- 
lon will  fall.  That  system,  as  such,  the  Lord 
will  take  up  as  a  great  millstone,  and  cast  it 
into  the  sea;  and  thereafter  and  thereupon  the 
voice  of  much  people  will  be  heard  in  heaven, 
saying,  "Alleluia ;  Salvation,  and  glory,  and 
honor,  and  power, unto  the  Lord  our  God :  for 
true  and  righteous  are  his  judgments." 

Meanwhile,  be  it  ours,  by  the  preaching 
of  the  Gospel  and  the  circulation  of  the 
Scriptures  and  good  books,  to  sound  among 


51G 


ROMANISM  AND  PROTESTANTISM. 


the  adherents  of  Rome  everywhere  the  cry,  mates  many  of  our  Christian  workers  in 
"  Coine  out  of  her,  my  people !"  And  as  a  Ireland,  I  give  you  the  following  poem, 
specimen  of  the  spirit  of  earnest  desire,  and  j  lately  composed  by  one  of  our  colporteurs, 
strong  faith,  and  ardent  hope  Avhich  aui-  j  and  entitled — 

"THE    CALL    OF   THE    MASTER   TO  ERIN." 

"The  Master  is  come,  and  calleth  far  thee." — JOUN  xi.,  28. 


Birthplace  of  poetic  dreams, 
Mother  of  romantic  streams, 
With  thy  lakes  and  mountains  hoary, 
Vales  renowned  in  song  and  story, 
Waving  woods  and  fertile  plains, 
Scenes  where  virgin  beauty  reigns — 
Erin  !  cradled  by  the  eea. 
Rise !    The  Master  calleth  thee ! 

Beautiful  without;  within, 
Error,  superstition,  sin, 
Blinded  zeal,  misled  devotion  ; 
Restless  as  the  waves  of  ocean, 
Fierce  in  hate,  though  strong  in  love, 
Varying  as  the  clouds  above— 
This  is  not  what  thou  shouldst  be, 
Rise !    The  Master  calleth  thee ! 

Heed  not  what  false  friends  may  say, 
Love  and  Duty  point  the  way ; 
Lay  aside  thy  weeds  of  mourning, 
Gladly  hail  thy  Lord's  returning ; 
Be  again  what  thou  hast  been— 
"Isle  of  Saints,"  a  garden  green. 
Fling  thy  chains  aside,  be  free ! 
Rise  1    The  Master  calleth  thee ! 

Ah !  but  light  and  life  are  fled  ! 
Can  the  Master  raise  the  dead, 
Bring  again  the  loved  departed, 
Make  the  downcast  buoyant-hearted  ? 
Long  the  night,  and  dark  the  skies, 
Can  his  Word  make  Light  arise  ? 
Erin,  yes !  though  dark  it  be, 
Up !    E'en  now  he  calleth  thee ! 


Torn  by  fierce  intestine  strife, 
Wake  to  higher,  holier  life. 
See  the  nations  round  thee  growing, 
Light  advancing,  Knowledge  flowing; 
Dream  not  of  thy  days  of  youth, 
This  thy  morning ;  seize  the  Truth ; 
God's  own  Truth  can  make  you  free. 
Rise !    In  love  he  calleth  thee ! 

Master,  come !    Thy  word  of  might 
Sounded  once,  and  there  was  light  I 
See,  we  doubt  thy  promise  never — 
Faithful  hearts  are  pleading  ever 
For  the  sunshine  of  thy  smile 
To  illumine  this  our  Isle. 
Let  us  thy  Salvation  see. 
Master,  come !    We  wait  for  thee  1 

Morning-star  of  Hope  and  Love, 
Shine  on  Erin  from  above ! 
Jesus,  Source  of  true  affection, 
Thou  the  Life,  the  Resurrection, 
Speak  1    Restore  the  dead  to  life, 
Calm  the  waves  of  party  strife, 
That  our  Island,  blessed  and  free, 
May  be  given  entire  to  thee ! 

Then  our  lakes  of  silver  sheen, 
Verdant  plains  and  valleys  green, 
Rivers  broad  and  flashing  fountains, 
Wooded  hills  and  rocky  mountains, 
Shall  re-echo  full  and  free 
Earth's  glad  song  of  Jubilee. 
Truth  shall  flourish  as  of  yore, 
God  shall  bless  the  Shamrock  shore ! 


THE  EVANGELIZATION  OF  FRANCE. 


BY  THE  EEV.  THEOPHILUS  LOERIAUX,  B.D.,  PARIS, 

Secretary  of  the  Central  Protestant  Evangelical  Society  of  France. 


A  FEW  years  ago  a  man  died  at  Chateau- 
roux,  D6partemeut  de  1'Iudre.  Every  body 
knew  he  belonged  to  the  Roman  Catholic 
Church ;  and  as  he  was  wealthy,  the  priests 
arranged  for  him  a  first-class  funeral.  But 
what  was  the  surprise  of  all  and  the  dis- 
appointment of  the  clergy  when,  the  man's 
Avill  being  opened,  the  following  clause  was 
found  in  it:  "I  have  lived  and  I  die  a  Ro- 
man Catholic ;  but  when  I  was  a  soldier  I 
visited  Protestant  nations,  and  iny  wish  is 
that  France  may  embrace  that  religion.  I 
give  all  niy  property  for  the  erection  of  a 
Protestant  chapel  in  this  town  of  Chateau- 
roux,  my  native  place." 

During  the  last  Franco-German  war,  the 
French  soldiers  were  visited  in  their  camps 
and  on  the  battle-fields  by  ministers  and 
Christian  friends,  who  distributed  to  them 
New  Testaments,  and  spoke  words  of  love  in 
Jesus  Christ :  everywhere  they  received  the 
most  cordial  reception.  Eighty  thousand 
men  of  our  army  were  driven  into  Switzer- 
land: they  brought  back  religious  impres- 
sions never  to  be  effaced.  In  a  village  of  the 
North  of  France  one  of  these  internes  came 
home,  bringing  with  him  a  New  Testament. 
Nobody  in  the  place  had  ever  seen  one  be- 
fore, but  on  the  pressing  exhortation  of  the 
returned  soldier  they  almost  all  procured 
the  holy  Volume ;  and  now  that  locality  is 
evangelized  by  the  Soci4te  Ccntrale  Protes- 
tante  ff  Evangelisation  en  France. 

During  the  awful  scenes  of  the  Commune, 
whHe  the  most  auticatholic  feelings  were 
manifested,  wo  saw  in  Paris  men  coming  to 
our  ministers  for  religious  consolation.  A 
communist  one  day  was  being  buried  with- 
out the  assistance  of  a  priest ;  his  mother 
entreated  his  friends  to  call  for  a  Protest- 
ant minister.  The  Rev.  G.  Monod  went, 
spoke  to  those  rude  men,  and  all  of  them, 
with  tears  in  their  eyes,  thanked  him  for 
the  good  ho  had  done  them.  A  few  days 
afterward,  when  Paris  was  on  fire,  the  Sena- 
tor Bonjean  (one  of  our  most  distinguished 
statesmen,  who  was  to  be  shot  as  a  hostage) 
wrote  to  a  Protestant  friend  of  his,  "  Send 
me  a  Bible,  that  I  may  prepare  to  die." 

What  do  all  these  facts  mean  ?  What 
mean  the  meetings  held  by  the  Rev.  MacAll 
in  different  parts  of  Paris,  and  crowded  by 
hundreds  of  workmen  and  people  of  all 
classes  ?  What  mean  the  meetings  of  the 


Rev.  Armaud  Delille,  assisted  by  clergymen 
of  all  denominations,  and  where  so  many 
conversions  have  taken  place  ? 

All  these  facts  are  most  evident  and 
joyful  indications  that  France  needs  the 
good  news  of  salvation,  that  she  is  suscep- 
tible of  receiving  it,  and  that  in  most  in- 
stances when  the  inhabitants  are  brought 
in  contact  with  it,  especially  since  the  war, 
they  receive  it  gladly. 

We  would  not  deny  the  difficulties  which 
we  may  encounter  in  propagating  the  Gos- 
pel. The  Jesuits  are  certainly  having  a 
great  levee  de  boucliers,  and  they  succeed  in 
raising  a  persecution  against  us ;  but,  "with 
the  help  of  God,  this  persecution  will  be  as 
provisional  as  our  actual  Government  it- 
self; the  fact  is,  that  never  before  has  the 
door  been  so  wide  open  for  the  Gospel. 

Here  is  a  striking  instance.  Every  body 
knows  that  one  of  the  most  bigoted  popula- 
tions of  the  world  is  that  of  Corsica.  Some 
time  ago,  a  few  Protestant  families  residing 
in  Bastia  applied  to  the  Societe  Centrale  Pro- 
iestante  ff  Evangelisation  to  have  a  minister. 
The  committee  thought  it  was  impossible 
even  to  consider  that  application.  "What! 
in  that  laud  of  fanaticism  and  ignorance !  our 
agent  would  be  murdered  on  arriving  there." 
However,  a  missionary  agent  was  sent  to 
that  island ;  the  clergy  were  in  an  unspeak- 
able rage  ;  but  the  work  of  evangelization 
began,  and  now  there  is  an  important  con- 
gregation in  Bastia,  among  whom  are  many 
proselytes. 

Since  that  time  a  similar  application  was 
received  from  Ajaccio,  on  the  other  side  of 
the  island,  and  the  same  result  as  at  Bastia 
is  being  attained,'  And  now  the  question  is 
asked,  What  are  the  agencies  in  France  for 
carrying  on  the  work  of  evangelization? 

Agencies. — There  are  three  Bible  societies, 
which  spend  together  yearly  150,000  francs  ; 
four  religious  book  and  tract  societies,  whose 
expenditure  is  260,000  francs;  a  society  for 
promoting  the  interest  of  education  among 
Protestants,  expending  120,000  francs;  a  Sun- 
day-school society,  which  has  sent  a  deputy 
to  this  Conference ;  a  Christian  association 
for  young  men;  a  society  called  Du  Sou 
Protestant,  to  encourage  systematic  benevo- 
lence ;  a  society  for  the  Mission  Interieurc, 
which  has  also  sent  a  representative  here, 
the  Rev.  M.  Lelievre.  There  are,  besides, 


518 


ROMANISM  AND  PROTESTANTISM. 


more  than  fifty  philanthropic  institutions, 
among  which  I  would  mention  the  Rev.  John 
Host's  asylums,  a  foreign  missionary  society 
which  expends  200,000  francs,  and  five  socie- 
ties of  evangelization,  the  two  most  impor- 
tant of  which  are  the  Socic'te' JSvangtliquc  and 
the  Soctftt  Centrale  Protestante  d'fivange'lisa- 
llon.  The  whole  expenditure  of  our  Prot- 
estant evangelical  and  philanthropic  institu- 
tions exceeds  two  millions  of  francs.  This 
is  very  little  compared  to  the  hundreds  of 
millions  that  you  consecrate  to  the  service 
of  the  Lord ;  but  the  Protestants  are  a  very 
small  minority  in  France,  and  if  you  compare 
the  present  with  the  past  you  will  rejoice  to 
know  that  almost  all  our  religious  societies 
have  to-day  an  expenditure  twice  as  large  as 
twelve  years  ago. 

Especially  remarkable  has  been  the  prog- 
ress of  the  two  great  societies  of  evangel- 
ization which  have  just  been  mentioned. 

The  Societi  iSvange'lique  employs  sixty 
agents,  and  spends  yearly  140,000  francs ;  it 
is  doing  a  most  prosperous  work  among  the 
Roman  Catholic  population,  and  in  some 
departments,  as  well  as  in  Paris,  it  witnesses 
and  accomplishes,  under  the  blessing  of  God, 
great  revivals.  The  able  and  devoted  di- 
rector of  that  society,  Rev.  Dr.  Fisch,  has 
just  given  you  interesting  particulars. 

I  have  more  especially  to  speak  to  the 
conference  of  the  Societe  Centrale  Protestantc 
(F  Evangelisation,  established  two  years  ago, 
with  a  view  of  providing  for  the  scattered 
Protestants  of  France  means  of  worship  and 
religious  education.  In  almost  every  local- 
ity of  our  country  there  are  Protestants; 
but  some  of  them  live  more  than  one  hun- 
dred and  fifty  miles  from  the  nearest  place 
of  worship.  Left  to  themselves,  they  would 
become  identified  with  the  Romau  Catholic 
population.  A  Protestant  lady  told  a  min- 
ister, the  other  day,  that  she  went  every 
Sunday  to  the  Catholic  Church  with  a  New 
Testament,  to  read  it  during  the  mass.  "  I 
can  not  spend  the  Sabbath,"  said  she, 
"without  taking  part  in  some  public  wor- 
ship." The  Socie'te'  Centrale  has  resolved  to 
hire  a  room,  and  have  a  service  in  that  lo- 
cality. 

Would  you  judge  of  the  importance  of  our 
work,  go  from  Paris  to  the  extreme  limit  of 
the  west.  You  find  a  Protestant  congrega- 
tion at  Versailles,  and  one  at  Brest ;  between 
those  two  towns  there  is  a  distance  of  five 
hundred  miles.  Some  years  ago,  in  that  im- 
mense space  there  was  not  one  Protestant 
congregation.  The  Societe  Centrale  estab- 
lished three  home  missionary  stations,  at 
about  equal  distance  from  each  other — one  at 
Chartres,  one  at  Le  Mans,  and  the  other  at 
Rennes — and  now  these  stations  have  become 
flourishing  congregations. 

Between  Paris  and  Boulogne  in  the  North, 
there  are  only  three  towns,  including  Bou- 
logne itself,  in  which  are  found  ministers 


and  places  of  worship ;  those  three  stations 
have  been  organized  by  the  Socie'te'  Centrale. 

Notice  that  those  localities  are  important 
towns,  in  which  exist  large  schools,  prisons, 
soldiers'  barracks,  where  we  find  many  co- 
religionists. We  have  stations  in  eighty  such 
towns.  It  may  be  said  that,  without  our 
society,  whole  provinces  would  not  have  yet 
heard  of  the  Gospel. 

It  is  to  be  remarked  that,  in  grouping 
the  scattered  Protestants,  and  in  forming 
them  into  regular  congregations,  the  socie- 
ty spreads  at  the  same  time  the  light  of  the 
Gospel  amidst  the  Roman  Catholic  popula- 
tion. The  arrival  of  a  pastor  is  a  great  event 
in  the  country ;  many  come  to  hear  him ;  the 
Holy  Spirit  reaches  well-disposed  souls,  and 
frequently  important  religious  movements 
take  place — movements  which  are  generally 
serious  and  lasting,  because  they  start  from 
the  knowledge  of  the  Gospel,  and  are  con- 
nected with  a  Protestant  Christian  nucleus 
which  forms  the  permanent  and  enlighten- 
ing element  of  the  new  congregation. 

Frequently  the  movement  extends  to  pop- 
ulations entirely  Catholic,  as  is  the  case  with 
St.  Andelin  in  the  De"partement  de  la  Nievre. 
Five  years  ago  there  was  not  in  that  depart- 
ment one  single  evangelical  place  of  worship. 
A  religious  movement  sprang  up  at  St.  Au- 
delin,  a  beautiful  village  on  the  Loire,  not 
far  from  Saucerre,  one  of  our  oldest  and  most 
celebrated  in  the  history  of  the  Protestant 
Church  of  France. 

The  people  asked  the  pastor  of  Sancerre 
to  come  and  preach  to  them.  At  first  the 
meetings  were  held  in  an  inn ;  but  a  friend 
from  Paris  gave  10,000  francs  for  the  erec- 
tion of  a  chapel  in  that  locality.  I  had  the 
privilege,  after  having  preached  three  years 
ago  in  the  inn,  of  preaching  last  year  in  a 
neat,  tasteful  church,  built  on  a  hill,  and 
which  can  be  seen  at  a  distance  of  more  than 
ten  miles.  The  day  before  I  arrived,  a  vio- 
lent storm  had  torn  away  the  roof  of  the 
church,  and  carried  it  over  the  road,  on  the 
house  of  the  Sisters  of  Mercy.  At  once  the 
people  set  to  work  to  replace  the  roof.  Be- 
sides the  church,  there  are  now  two  schools, 
attended  by  more  than  one  hundred  children. 
Lately  an  English  clergyman  visited  those 
schools,  and  he  declared  that  the  children 
answered  on  religious  subjects  as  well  as  the 
children  of  a  good  Protestant  Sunday-school. 

The  movement  is  extending  to  neighbor- 
ing villages  like  fire  in  your  Western  prairies. 
Two  schools  have  been  opened  by  our  socie- 
ty at  Lamarche,  a  village  ten  miles  from  St. 
Andelin,  and  the  converts  declare  that  they 
are  ready  to  suffer  and  to  die  for  their  new 
convictions.  One  of  our  proselytes  goes  on 
Sundays  in  the  country  distributing  tracts 
and  engaging  in  religious  conversations.  We 
reckon  in  those  two  villages  about  six  hun- 
dred people  who  have  embraced  Protestant- 
ism. Many  are  not  born  again,  but  all  pre- 


LORRIAUX :  THE  EVANGELIZATION  OF  FRANCE. 


519 


fer  the  teachings  of  the  Gospel  to  those  of 
the  priests ;  all  wish  to  be  enlightened,  and 
rejoice  to  think  that  their  children  receive 
an  evangelical  education. 

The  society  is  about  to  place  an  agent  also 
at  Nevers,  the  chef-lieu  of  La  Nievre,  where 
there  is  a  great  prospect  for  evangelization, 
la  the  department  of  La  Marue,  at  Troissy, 
in  Champaign,  a  similar  movement  is  pro- 
gressing, which  originated  in  this  way : 

Many  years  ago  a  woman  of  that  place,  a 
Roman  Catholic,  became  a  servant  in  the 
family  of  a  Christian  minister  in  Paris. 
There  she  felt,  little  by  little,  the  power  of 
the  Gospel.  She  was  converted,  and,  after 
a  few  years'  service,  she  returned  to  her  na- 
tive village.  She  commenced  a  quiet  but 
earnest  work  of  evangelization,  telling  oth- 
ers she  had  found  the  Saviour ;  sind  this  she 
did  with  such  perseverance  and  such  effect 
that  a  large  portion  of  the  population  went 
to  the  nearest  place  where  there  is  a  Prot- 
estant church.  Since  that  time  they  made 
up  their  minds  to  abandon  Roman  Catholi- 
cism. "  Now,"  they  say,  like  the  Samaritans 
to  the  woman  of  Sychar — "  now  we  believe, 
not  because  of  thy  saying,  for  we  have  heard 
Him  ourselves." 

The  war,  and  the  need  of  spiritual  truth 
and  comfort,  developed  the  movement,  which 
had  slowly  grown  in  the  hearts  of  the  peo- 
ple. Some  time  ago  I  went  there,  accom- 
panied by  the  Rev.  Mr.  Cory,  of  Dublin.  We 
found  the  people  assembled  in  a  building 
which  one  of  their  number  had  erected,  at 
his  own  expense,  for  public  worship  and  for 
a  school.  The  service  lasted  about  two  hours ; 
the  room  and  street  were  crowded,  and  the 
preaching  listened  to  with  the  most  earnest 
attention.  We  received,  at  the  close  of  the 
service,  an  invitation  to  go  to  another  vil- 
lage, at  a  distance  of  about  four  miles,  where 
the  Gospel  had  only  been  preached  ouce  be- 
fore. One  of  the  inhabitants  of  the  place 
had  offered  his  house  to  hold  the  meeting. 
We  went  accordingly,  accompanied  by  a  few 
of  the  more  prominent  members  of  the  con- 
gregation of  Troissy ;  and  "  I  think,"  says 
the  Rev.  Mr.  Cory,  "  the  scene  Avhich  follow- 
ed was  the  most  interesting  I  ever  witness- 
ed." 

Through  the  influence  of  the  priests,  the 
movement  had  been  denounced  to  the  au- 
thorities, which  led  to  the  arrival  in  our 
midst  of  the  mayor  of  the  commune,  clad  in 
his  scarf  of  office,  and  come  to  demand,  in 
the  name  of  the  law,  by  what  authority  AVC 
did  these  things.  We  answered  that  we 
were  preaching  the  Gospel,  and  not  causing 
disturbance  in  the  place.  The  mayor  ad- 
mitted that  all  he  had  heard  was  excellent, 
and  quite  contrary  to  what  he  had  been  told ; 
and  the  meeting  terminated  very  calmly, 
with  singing  and  prayer,  the  mayor  remain- 
ing quite  grave  to  the  end.  These  people 
want  to  have  a  permanent  pastor  appointed 


to  take  charge  of  them.  But  of  all  this  the 
Archbishop  of  Reims  was  powerfully  dis- 
pleased ;  he  induced  the  pr4fet  to  send  men 
to  take  a  census  of  the  new  Protestants  of 
Troissy ;  threats  were  used ;  the  people  were 
told  that  this  change  of  religion  would  bring 
upon  them  great  difficulties.  Not  one  of 
them  drew  back ;  they  signed  the  documents 
by  which  they  declared  they  would  perse- 
vere in  their  resolution.  A  man,  in  writing 
down  his  name,  wept  bitterly :  being  asked 
the  reason  of  his  grief,  he  answered,  "  I  weep 
because  last  year,  at  the  census,  I  put  my 
name  down  as  a  pagan." 

Our  society  has  opened  a  school  at  Trois- 
sy, and  placed  there  an  evangelist.  The 
place  of  worship  is  now  shut,  but  from  time 
to  time  our  faithful  friends  go  to  Reims, 
thirty  miles  away.  On  Easter -day  more 
than  fifty  went  there  to  be  received  in  the 
Church  by  the  pastor  of  Reims,  and  to 
stand,  for  the  first  time,  around  the  holy 
table. 

Now  notice  that,  while  in  the  Marne  onr 
worship  is  prohibited,  in  the  department  of 
Nievre  we  meet  with  no  opposition  whatever. 
It  depends  very  much  on  the  good  pleasure 
of  theprtfets;  but  notice,  at  the  same  time, 
the  spiritual  progress  is  deeper  wrhere  the 
difficulties  are  greater.  What  a  subject  for 
thanksgiving  and  encouragement ! 

In  the  De"partement  de  1'Ain,  a  few  years 
ago,  there  was  only  one  minister  of  the  Gos- 
pel and  one  Protestant  school;  now  there 
are  in  that  department  eight  faithful  minis- 
ters, four  schools,  and  ten  Protestant  libra- 
ries. One  of  those  agents  goes  from  fair  to 
fair,  selling  or  giving  out  New  Testaments 
and  Bibles,  and  holding  open-air  meetings 
at  the  same  time. 

The  part  of  that  department  located  on 
the  frontier  of  Geneva  was  formerly  almost 
entirely  Protestant,  but,  under  the  influence 
of  Francois  de  Salle,  the  Protestants  were 
persecuted  and  banished  from  the  country. 
Now  the  seed  which  has  been  dormant  in  the 
ground  for  three  centuries  seems  to  burst 
out,  and  bring  abundant  and  beautiful  fruit. 
The  same  remark  may  bo  made  about  the 
movement  in  La  Nievre.  Who  has  not  heard 
of  the  numberless  Protestants  drowned  in 
the  Loire  by  the  soldiers  of  Louis  XIV.  T 
Well,  those  terrible  noyades  took  place  in  the 
very  localities  where  now  people  become 
anxious  to  hear  the  Gospel.  Well  may  we 
say: 

"  God  moves  in  a  mysterious  way 
His  wonders  to  perform  !" 

Oh,  if  wo  could  see  again  those  glorious 
times  when  France  gave  to  the  world  Cal- 
vin, Thdodoro  de  Beze,  Coligny,  Cavalier, 
and  so  many  other  witnesses  of  the  truth ! 

But  why  should  we  not  see  such  times 
again  f  Has  the  arm  of  God  become  shorten- 
ed ?  Our  duty  is  to  labor  faithfully,  leaving 
to  the  Lord  to  appoint  the  time  for  gathering 


ROMANISM  AND  PROTESTANTISM. 


fruit.  Besides,  we  are  not  to  expect  France  ' 
to  be  brought  to  light  all  of  a  sudden.  No ; 
but  the  light  will  penetrate  darkness,  lit- 
tle by  little,  from  one  place  to  another;  old 
churches  will  resuscitate ;  they  will  bring 
forth  young  churches;  and  as  the  sun  ad- 
vances, and  covers  new  space  with  its  rays, 
so  will  the  Gospel  gain  ground  until  all 
know  it. 

A  remarkable  resurrection  of  one  of  our 
old  churches  is  that  of  Villefagnau,  in  the 
Charente.  It  was,  in  the  time  of  the  Refor- 
mation, a  large  and  influential  church.  Lou- 
is XIV.  sent  his  dragoons,  who  dragged  the 
minister  down  from  his  pulpit,  and  left  not 
one  stone  on  the  other  of  the  temple.  From 
that  time  until  now  the  worship  has  been 
in  the  woods  or  in  a  barn.  (I  preached  in 
that  barn.)  In  1864  the  Sotieti  Centrale 
placed  an  agent  at  Villefagnau,  and,  little 
by  little,  lie  gathered  together  the  scattered 
members  of  that  small  flock.  Just  now  we 
are  building  a  chapel  in  the  very  centre  of 
the  locality,  and  the  Catholics  themselves 
contribute  to  the  erection  of  that  edifice,  as 
if  to  make  amends  for  the  ill  treatment  of 
their  ancestors. 

To  resume  :  Our  society,  that  twenty 
years  ago  had  6  agents,  employs  now  107 ; 
our  annual  expense  was  then  30,000  francs, 
it  is  now  200,000  francs ;  we  had  4  schools, 
we  have  now  43;  the  number  of  our  sta- 
tions exceeds  200.  In  order  to  supervise 
more  efficiently  and  more  minutely  such  an 
immense  field  of  labor,  wo  have  divided  it 
into  twelve  sections,  which  are  indicated  on 
the  map  our  society  has  published  by  differ- 
ent colors.  Each  section  is  administered  by 
a  special  committee,  and  has  its  own  treas- 
ury ;  all  the  sectional  committees  report  to 
the  general  committee  in  Paris :  in  one 
word,  it  is  organized  as  a  confederation. 

Such  an  extension  of  our  field  requires  a 
large  number  of  agents.  Indeed,  that  is  a 
great  subject  of  anxiety  for  our  churches; 
there  are  too  few  laborers.  However,  our  so- 
ciety has  to  thank  God  for  the  able  and  de- 
voted men  he  provides  for  the  work  of  evan- 
gelization. Our  proselytes  furnish  it  with  a 
certain  number ;  at  Estissac,  for  instance,  a 
young  man,  formerly  a  Roman  Catholic,  and 
belonging  to  the  wealthiest  family  of  the 
place,  has  entered  our  theological  school  to 
prepare  for  the  ministry.  That  school,  which 
is  sustained  by  the  SocMte  Centrale,  is  located 
in  a  large  and  appropriate  building  erected 
by  our  society,  103  Rue  Nollet,  Paris.  It 
is  under  the  direction  of  an  eminent  and 
learned  clergyman,  the  Rev.  J.de  Visme.  Al- 
ready one  hundred  and  thirty-three  young 
men  have  been  prepared  in  our  establish- 
ment for  their  higher  course  of  studies.  All 
except  three  are  faithful  and  evangelical  in 
life  and  doctrine,  which  fact  is  of  great  im- 
portance in  the  struggle  we  sustain  against 


the  Liberal  party  in  our  figlisc  Reformde.  A 
member  of  our  deputation,  the  Rev.  Mr.  De- 
coppct,  one  of  our  eminent  pastors  in  Paris, 
was  a  student  in  our  theological  seminary. 

It  is  easily  perceived,  by  what  has  been 
said,  that  our  field  of  labor  in  France  is  large. 
To-morrow  it  would  be  twice  as  large,  if  we 
could  answer  favorably  to  the  applications 
which  are  under  the  consideration  of  the 
Committee. 

Oh !  let  us  scatter  the  good  seed  without 
sparing  it.  One  of  our  great  sources  of  en- 
couragement is  the  sympathy  our  work 
meets  with  on  the  part  of  our  Christian 
friends  abroad.  How  encouraging  for  us 
were  the  words  of  the  Rev.  E.  W.  Hitchcock, 
the  able  and  devoted  pastor  of  the  American 
chapel  in  Paris,  at  our  last  general  assembly ! 
"We  gladly  recognize  in  your  society  an  agen- 
cy, divinely  commissioned,  to  minister  to  the 
moral  and  religious  necessities  of  the  people ; 
to  reach  down  to  the  fallen  and  lift  them  up 
to  a  better  and  holier  life ;  to  give  to  the  ig- 
norant the  means  of  useful  knowledge ;  to 
emancipate  the  masses,  on  the  one  hand,  from 
the  meshes  of  infidelity,  and  on  the  other 
from  the  fetters  of  superstition  and  a  corrupt 
faith;  to  erect  her.e  and  there  substantial 
light-houses  to  illumine  the  paths  and  direct 
the  steps  of  benighted  wanderers  over  life's 
desert ;  in  a  word,  to  lay  hold  of  the  hearts 
and  lives  of  men,  instruct  their  ignorance, 
strengthen  their  faith,  elevate  their  hopes, 
purify  their  morals,  stimulate  their  zeal,  sub- 
stitute for  their  blind  propensities  convic- 
tions of  truth  and  right,  and  the  principles 
of  a  pure  Christianity.  For  the  wisdom  and 
zeal  and  success  of  your  society  in  its  benefi- 
cent mission,  so  clearly  exhibited  in  the  re- 
ports that  have  been  read  to-night,  we  both 
congratulate  you  and  join  you  in  thanksgiv- 
ing." 

Dear  friends  of  America,  these  wishes, 
which  the  Rev.  Mr.  Hitchcock  expresses  on 
our  behalf,  are  for  you  a  joyful  and  sacred  re- 
ality. What  a  favored  country  you  dwell  in ! 
For  two  years  I  have  had  the  privilege  of 
living  with  your  ministers  and  your  people. 
I  have  breathed  your  atmosphere  of  free- 
dom and  prosperity,  which  the  Gospel  alono 
can  procure.  We  French,  and  especially  we 
Protestant  French,  love  this  your  country  ; 
we  love  your  flag ;  the  stars  Avhich  shine  in 
its  folds  seem  to  say,  "Each  State  which 
composes  this  Union  lives  under  the  light 
of  the  Morning-star." 

May  God  prosper  your  churches,  your  in- 
stitutions, your  Sunday-schools, your  great 
and  free  country !  As  for  us,  more  than  ever 
attached  to  you  by  the  tie  of  historical  rec- 
ollections and  natural  sympathy,  we  say  to 
you,  before  returning  home, "  Finally,  breth- 
ren, pray  for  us,  that  the  Word  of  God  may 
have  free  course  and  be  glorified,  even  as  it 
is  with  you." 


VI 

CHRISTIANITY  AND  CIVIL  GOVERNMENT. 

Thursday,  October  Oth,  1873. 


DIVISION  VL-CONTENTS, 


FIRST  SECTION— CHURCH  AND  STATE. 

PAG* 

1.  WOOLSEY:    Civil  Government  and  Religion  in  the  United  States..  523 

2.  FREJIANTLE:    The  Church  and  the  Nation 529 

3.  GIRDLESTOXE  :   Legislation  on  Moral  Questions 535 

4.  HOPKINS  :    Sunday  Legislation 540 

5.  CURRY:   Evils  of  a  Union  of  Church  and  State 544 

6.  ASTIE  :    The  Free  Churches  of  Europe 549 

SECOND  SECTION— CHRISTIANITY  AND  LIBERTY. 

1.  CAMPBELL:  Influence  of  Christianity  on  Civil  and  Religious  Liberty  558 

2.  GOODWIN:  Effects  of  Civil  and  Religious  Liberty  on  Christianity.  562 

THIRD  SECTION— MINISTERIAL  SUPPORT. 

1.  HALL:   Need  of  Liberal  Support  for  the  Gospel  Ministry 567 

2.  KILLEN:  Ministerial  Support  in  the  Irish  Churches 571 

3.  JACOBUS  :   Support  of  the  Christian  Ministry 574 


FIRST   SECTION.-CHURCH   AND   STATE. 


THE  RELATIONS  OF  CONSTITUTION  AND  GOVERN 
MENT  IN  THE  UNITED  STATES  TO  RELIGION. 

BY  THE  EEV.  THEODORE  D.  WOOLSEY,  D.D.,  LL.D., 

Lately  President  of  Yale  College,  New  Haven,  Conn. 


THE  subject  on  which  I  have  been  request- 
ed to  prepare  a  paper  for  this  meeting  of  the 
Evangelical  Alliance  is  "The  attitude  of 
Constitution  and  Government  in  the  United 
States  toward  Christianity."  If  these  words 
were  meant  to  include  only  the  relations  of 
the  general  Government  toward  Christianity, 
the  answer  would  he  short  and  easy.  The 
Constitution  of  the  United  States  is  a  writ- 
ten instrument  conveying  limited  powers, 
among  which  is  not  included,  either  express- 
ly or  by  fair  interpretation,  the  power  either 
to  establish  or  to  support  any  form  of  religion 
whatever.  In  fact,  the  first  of  the  amend- 
ments to  the  Constitution,  which  was  pro- 
posed in  1789,  expressly  provides  "  that  Con- 
gress shall  make  no  law  respecting  an  estab- 
lishment of  religion,  or  prohibiting  the  free 
exercise  thereof." 

Hence,  while  it  is  on  other  accounts  certain 
that  no  laws  of  the  United  States  could  es- 
tablish or  support  religion  ire  any  of  the  states, 
it  is  equally  certain  from  this  amendment 
that  no  such  legislation  in  a  territory,  not  yet 
made  a  state,  would  be  constitutional.  Con- 
gress could  make  laws  touching  marriage 
and  divorce  for  a  territory,  but  it  could  not 
for  a  state ;  the  control  of  the  family  rela- 
tions falls  entirely  within  the  province  of 
the  immediate  state  power,  as  far  as  those 
are  concerned  who  are  under  its  jurisdiction. 
And  in  the  same  way,  no  public  Act  of  Con- 
gress touching  religion  would  have  any  va- 
lidity within  the  borders  of  any  one  of  the 
United  States. 

Such  being  the  nature  of  the  Constitution, 
the  few  points  where  Christianity  and  the 
general  Government — not  the  Constitution — 
come  into  contact,  are  of  small  importance. 
They  are  such  as  these :  1.  The  appointment 
of  chaplains  in  the  army  and  navy,  in  mili- 
tary and  naval  schools,  and  for  the  Houses 
of  Congress.  2.  The  recognition  of  Sunday 
as  a  holiday  for  the  Legislature  and  all  em- 
ploye's in  the  civil  service — a  usage  which  in 
pressing  cases  might  be  violated.  3.  The 
power  of  the  courts  to  consider  on  appeal 


contracts  for  any  religious  or  eleemosynary 
purpose  with  which,  it  is  alleged,  the  states 
may  have  interfered  —  a  power,  be  it  re- 
marked, which  relates  to  contracts  for  such 
purposes  because  they  are  contracts,  and  not 
because  they  are  religious.  4.  The  power  un- 
der the  general  control  exercised  over  terri- 
tories which  has  been  mentioned,  of  limiting 
the  privileges  of  ecclesiastical  together  with 
other  corporations.  Thus,  by  an  Act  of  1862, 
corporations  and  associations  for  charitable 
or  religious  purposes  are  not  allowed  to  ac- 
quire and  hold  real  estate  in  any  territory 
of  greater  value  than  fifty  thousand  dollars, 
and  all  such  property  acquired  and  held  by 
such  bodies  after  the  passage  of  this  Act  are 
escheated  to  the  United  States.  This  stat- 
ute is  of  the  nature  of  statutes  of  mortmain, 
and  implies  not  a  jealousy  of  religion,  but  of 
overgrown  religious  corporations. 

Thus  the  Constitution  of  the  United  States 
has,  properly,  nothing  whatever  to  do  with 
religion.  If  the  people  were  Mohammedans 
under  the  same  constitution,  similar  depart- 
ures in  minor  points  from  the  principle  of 
absolutely  ignoring  a  particular  religious 
faith  would  be  possible. 

We  pass  over,  now,  to  the  attitude  of  the 
particular  states  toward  the  Christian  re- 
ligion. Here  a  wide  field  opens  before  us,  to 
explore  which  thoroughly  would  require  far 
more  time  than  can  be  allowed  to  papers 
presented  to  this  Conference ;  and,  in  fact,  a 
very  great  abridgment  of  this  paper,  as 
originally  written,  has  been  found  necessary. 
The  subject  may  be  looked  at  under  these 
several  points  of  view.  We  may  ask,  What 
were  the  earlier  religious  institutions  and  the 
feelings  of  the  colonies  before  the  Revolution  t 
How  the  institutions  and  feelings  were  al- 
tered ?  What  is  the  spirit  shoirn  in  the  consti- 
tutions and  laics  of  the  states  within  the  pres- 
ent century,  and  u-hat  is  the  sober  conviction  of 
all  denominations  of  Christians  in  the  more 
recent  times  in  regard  to  the  relations  of 
Church  and  State? 

I.  All  the  earliest  colonies — with  the  excep- 


524 


CHRISTIANITY  AND  CIVIL  GOVERNMENT. 


tion  of  Maryland,  where  the  establishment 
of  the  Catholic  Church  would  have  been  il- 
legal according  to  English  law,  and  of  Rhode 
Island,  where,  first,  equality  of  all  Christian 
churches  and  faiths  was  a  theory  as  well  as 
a  practice — followed  the  mother  country  in 
regarding  it  to  be  the  duty  of  the  State  to 
set  up  some  form  of  Christian  worship,  and 
to  recognize,  nearly  or  remotely,  some  arti- 
cles of  Christian  faith.  Such  was  the  case  in 
most  of  the  Puritan  colonies — in  Plymouth, 
Massachusetts,  Connecticut,  and  New  Ha- 
ven ;  and  also  in  Virginia,  South  Carolina, 
and  New  York,  where  the  English  Church 
was  established.  In  Newr  York,  the  attempt 
to  create  an  Establishment  was  made  in 
1693,  at  too  late  a  day  to  produce  much  ef- 
fect. According  to  Chief  Justice  William 
Smith,  the  Dutch  colonists  belonging  to  the 
Church  of  Holland,  and  members  of  other 
denominations,  numbered  together  fifteen  to 
one  Episcopalian.  So  that  nowhere  among 
the  colonies  was  religious  legislation  so  im- 
politic and  so  unreasonable. 

The  Puritan  colonies  and  Virginia  supply 
ns  with  the  results  of  a  nearly  similar  ex- 
perience. They  passed  from  the  establish- 
ment of  one  exclusive  form  of  Church  order, 
through  toleration,  to  the  recognition  of  en- 
tire religious  equality.  The  leading  Puri- 
tan colonies,  however,  after  conceding  re- 
ligious freedom  to  all  existing  denomina- 
tions, halted  for  a  long  time  at  the  point  of 
requiring  all  to  contribute,  according  to 
general  rules  of  taxation,  to  the  support  of 
their  respective  forms  of  Church  order.  Vir- 
ginia passed,  as  if  per  saltum,  from  toleration 
to  the  voluntary  system. 

In  all  these  colonies  the  territory  was  di- 
vided into  parishes,  where  the  doctrine  and 
discipline  either  of  the  Church  of  England, 
as  in  Virginia,  cr  of  Congregationalism,  as 
in  the  other  colonies,  was  protected.  Glebes 
were  set  apart  in  every  parish  of  Virginia, 
and  manses  built.  Things  were  left  in  the 
Puritan  colonies  more  to  the  separate  church- 
es. In  all,  at  first,  other  sects  were  not  en- 
dured. In  Virginia,  before  1643,  certain  min- 
isters from  New  England,  sent  for  by  some  of 
the  inhabitants,  were  remanded.  In  Massa- 
chusetts two  of  the  early  colonists  were  sent 
back  to  England,  because  they  favored  the 
worship  of  the  Church  of  England. 

All  the  colonies  agreed  with  the  mother 
country  in  protecting  Sunday  by  law ;  at- 
tendance at  church  was  required  in  Vir- 
ginia, and,  if  I  mistake  not,  in  New  En- 
gland. Sectaries,  especially  Quakers,  were 
frowned  upon  by  the  laws  of  all  the  colo- 
nies, and  their  assemblages  for  worship  for- 
bidden. In  Virginia  baptism  was  so  far  com- 
pulsory that  every  person  refusing  to  have 
his  child  baptized  by  a  regular  minister  was 
amerced  in  two  thousand  pounds  of  tobacco. 

In  two  of  the  New  England  colonies — in 
Massachusetts,  and  New  Haven,  until  its  un- 


ion with  Connecticut  in  1665 — church  mem- 
bers alone  could  be  citizens  with  full  power. 

In  the  colonies  of  New  England,  while  the 
ministers  were  held  in  great  respect,  mar- 
riage was  exclusively  a  civil  ordinance — 
until  1692  in  Massachusetts,  and  until  1694 
in  Connecticut. 

Virginia  being  within  the  diocese  of  the 
Bishop  of  London,  the  Legislature  of  the 
colony  had  no  independent  ecclesiastical 
legislation ;  it  was  otherwise  in  the  New 
England  colonies.  Synods  were  called  by 
advice  of  the  general  courts  or  assemblies — 
the  Legislatures,  as  we  now  call  them.  The 
Synod  called  in  this  way  to  meet  at  Say- 
brook,  in  Connecticut,  in  1708,  prepared  a 
confession  of  faith  and  scheme  of  discipline, 
which  was  accepted  by  the  Legislature  as 
the  legally  enacted  Church  order  in  the 
colony. 

The  Toleration  Act  of  1  William  and  Mary 
was  binding  in  all  parts  of  the  dominions  of 
England.  Under,  and  after  this  Act,  all  sec- 
taries included  within  its  provisions  could 
have  free  worship.  But  toleration  grew 
every  where  in  the  colonies  as  in  the  moth- 
er country ;  and,  finally,  the  actual  equality 
in  the  social  system  of  the  colonies,  as  well 
as  the  principles  of  freedom,  of  which  the 
Revolution  was  an  outgrowth,  carried  the 
colonies  beyond  the  old  and  more  fixed  habits 
of  Old  England. 

Thus,  for  example,  in  Connecticut,  in  1727, 
four  years  after  the  first  Episcopal  church 
was  founded,  the  laws  were  altered  so  as  to 
exempt  them  from  contributing  to  the  reg- 
ular parish  worship  as  well  as  to  their  own, 
and  the  same  privilege  was  extended  to  the 
Baptists  two  years  afterward. 

In  Virginia  Quakers  were  allowed  to  tes- 
tify on  affirmation  in  the  eighteenth  cent- 
ury, and  even  acquired  the  right  of  A-oting 
for  burgesses.  Still,  marriages  could  be  cele- 
brated only  according  to  the  forms  in  the 
Prayer-book.  The  century  was  marked, 
here  as  every  where,  by  increasing  tolera- 
tion and  increasing  lukewarmuess  toward 
the  established  churches.  The  important 
Act  of  1776  abolished  all  past  Acts  which 
made  religious  opinions  criminal,  or  made 
absence  from  church  penal;  it  declared  that 
to  be  compelled  to  support  a  Church  contrary 
to  conscientious  convictions  is  unjust,  and 
ordained  that  all  Dissenters  should  be  free 
and  exempt  from  all  taxes  and  impositions 
of  any  kind  for  the  support  of  the  Estab- 
lished Church.  Another  clause  suspended  the 
Act  for  supporting  the  clergy  by  parish  lev- 
ies ;  and  in  1779  this  ancient  Act  was  repeal- 
ed. This  was  followed,  the  next  year,  by  an 
Act  dissolving  all  vestries,  .and  appointing 
overseers  of  the  poor  to  discharge  one  of 
their  functions.  Thus  the  last  cord  was  cut 
which  tied  religion  to  the  State. 

As  already  said,  the  legislation  in  the  New 
England  colonies  did  not  go  quite  as  far,  but 


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525 


made  all  denominations  nearly  equal  by  al- 
lowing every  tax-payer  to  have  his  tax,  so  far 
as  it  went  to  the  support  of  religion,  go  to  the 
minister  of  his  choice. 

II.  Such  was  the  progress  of  legislation 
and  of  public  feeling  influencing  legislation 
in  the  principal  colonies  where  there  had 
been  laws  for  the  maintenance  of  religion. 
We  are  led  to  ask,  next,  What  are  the  powers 
and  what  the  spirit  of  the  states  in  regard  to 
religion  ?  The  answer  in  regard  to  the  powers 
of  the  states  is  simple  and  brief.  They  lost 
no  power  in  this  respect  by  the  formation  of 
the  Constitution  of  the  United  States.  They 
could  have  had  religious  establishments  and 
laws  sanctioning  religion  before ;  some  of 
them  carried  such  laws  and  establishments 
over  and  beyond  the  Revolution ;  they  could 
have  the  same  now.  Nothing  is  altered  in 
this  respect  on  account  of  the  institution  of 
a  general  Government.  A  Catholic  state, 
like  Mexico — and  with  a  privileged  clergy — 
could  be  admitted  into  the  Union  to-morrow. 
It  is  true  that  quite  a  number  of  constitu- 
tions of  states  lay  down  in  their  provisions 
the  widest  possible  religious  freedom,  and 
the  most  entire  separation  between  Church 
and  State.  But  the  power  that  made  such 
constitutions  could  unmake  them,  and  set  up 
others  of  an  opposite  character.  The  only 
restraint,  outside  of  the  popular  will,  in 
any  given  state,  would  be  retaliatory  legis- 
lation on  the  part  of  other  states,  and  per- 
haps, in  extreme  cases,  the  Constitution  of 
the  Union  would  be  amended  to  meet  the  dif- 
ficulty. 

But  such  a  state  of  things  as  a  return  to 
the  old  feelings  and  institutions  of  the  sev- 
enteenth and  first  part  of  the  eighteenth  cent- 
uries is  hardly  conceivable.  It  would  be 
as  great  a  wonder  almost  as  a  change  in  the 
order  of  nature.  It  might  come  when  ranks 
of  society  and  another  form  of  government 
were  introduced,  but  certainly  not  before. 
The  feeling  of  the  country  is  now,  and  for 
the  last  generation  or  two  has  been,  that  the 
true  idea  of  government  among  us  involves 
the  entire  and  absolute  separation  of  Church 
and  State ;  the  complete  liberty  and  exact 
equality  of  all  denominations  of  Christians — 
nay,  of  all  religionists — whether  their  views 
accord  or  not  with  the  Scriptures ;  the  free- 
dom of  all  who  wish  to  propagate  any  doc- 
trine or  system  of  religion  whatever;  and 
the  inexpediency  as  well  as  injustice  of  re- 
straining any  one  from  publishing  his  opin- 
ions on  any  religious,  moral,  or  political  sub- 
ject whatever,  so  long  as  private  rights  are 
not  violated.  A  man  may  inveigh  openly, 
if  he  please,  against  this  policy,  and  seek  to 
change  the  convictions  on  which  it  is  found- 
ed. But  it  can  not  be  denied  that  such  is 
the  conviction  of  a  vast  mass  of  the  thinking 
persons  of  the  country.  There  are  many  who 
doubt  whether  we  are  religious,  moral,  and 
steady  enough  to  bear  our  prosperity  and 


our  freedom.  But  probably  there  is  almost 
no  one,  at  least  among  Protestants,  who  would 
dream  that  we  are  to  be  saved  by  surrender- 
ing these  convictions,  especially  by  abandon- 
ing those  which  have  a  relation  to  religious 
liberty  and  equality. 

III.  Such  are  the  settled  convictions  of  the 
country.  If,  now,  one  were  to  ask  the  re- 
ligious men  of  all  Protestant  denominations 
whether  they  would  accept  of  State  sup- 
port to  religion,  given  in  the  least  objec- 
tionable form — that  of  a  general  tax,  to  be 
devoted  in  the  ratio  of  numbers  to  all  denom- 
inations, or  even  to  all  Protestant  ones — they 
would,  I  think,  with  one  voice  say  no.  This 
fixed  sentiment  of  American  Christians  may, 
I  think,  be  expressed  under  the  following 
heads  with  fairness  and  exactness: 

1.  That  if  it  were  admitted  that  in  some 
forms  and  conditions  of  society  the  Church 
might,  without  evil  to  itself,  have  a  connec- 
tion with  the  State — and  I  for  one  can  make 
this  admission  without  unwillingness — the 
various  forms  of  faith  and  worship  in  this 
country  calling  themselves  Christian  could 
never  agree  or  consent  to  any  relation  ex- 
cepting one  in  which  all  would  be  equal.  Nay, 
if  any  one  of  the  Protestant  sects  could  attain 
to  the  rank  of  a  State  religion,  the  voice  in 
every  other  one  of  them  would  be,  I  am  con- 
vinced, most  decidedly  against  superiority 
over  the  rest,  both  as  an  evil  in  itself  and  as 
unjust  toward  them.     Still  further,  not  one 
of  them  would  consent  to  have  Romanism 
frowned  upon  by  State  law. 

2.  That  the  absolutely  voluntary  system 
best  answers  to  our  political  system,  and 
best  secures  the  spread  of  religion  in  a  coun- 
try ever  enlarging  itself  like  this. 

3.  That  the  evils  of  this  system,  such  as 
competition    of  sects,  increased    sectarian 
spirit,  proselyting,  and  encroachment  upon 
one  another's  provinces,  the  weakness  of 
new  churches    in   new  settlements   conse- 
quent upon  the  number  of  sects,  and  the 
stiffness  and  narrowness  of  religious  preju- 
dices engendered  by  religious  rivalry — while 
they  are  felt  to  be  evils,  and  great  ones — are 
not  to  be  compared  with  the  impotence  and 
deadness  of  which  exclusive  State  churches 
are  in  danger. 

4.  That  our  system  lays  a  great  and  salu- 
tary responsibility  on  Christian  people  for 
spreading  the  Gospel,  and  that  much  of  the 
religious  life  of  the  nation  expresses  itself 
in  this  way.     The  power  to  act,  the  duty  to 
act,  the  feeling  that  instant  action  is  neces- 
sary, in  order  to  preserve  and  extend  Chris- 
tianity in  a  land,  into  which  emigrants  of 
all  sorts  and  from  all  parts  press,  are  mo- 
tives of  immense  power. 

5.  That  no  other  but  an  absolutely  volun- 
tary system  is  possible,  because  those  who 
have  no  religion,  and  those  who  have  sus- 
picion or  dislike  of  even  the  remotest  tie 
between  it  and  the  State,  would  utter  such 


CHRISTIANITY  AND  CIVIL  GOVERNMENT. 


complaints  as  to  make  it  to  be  believed  tbat 
their  rights  were  injured. 

I  have  intended,  in  what  has  been  said,  to 
express  the  convictions  of  the  great  mass  of 
thoughtful,  religious  men.  It  ought  to  be 
said,  however,  that  these  feelings  have  not 
always  existed  with  equal  strength  since  the 
days  when  full  religious  equality  began.  In 
the  earlier  parts  of  the  century  it  was  the 
opinion  of  many,  in  one  or  two  of  the  old 
states,  that  the  commonwealth  ought  bylaw 
to  provide  for  the  support  of  ministers,  in 
such  sort  that  all  pastors  of  all  sects  in  the 
towns  could  have  their  proportionate  share 
in  the  taxes  laid  for  that  purpose.  Dr. 
Dwight,  President  of  Yale  College,  a  wise 
and  large-minded  man,  died  in  1817,  while 
an  agitation  was  going  on  in  Connecticut 
which  destroyed  in  1818  the  last  faint  trace 
of  State  religion  in  that  commonwealth.  I 
can  remember,  as  a  boy,  that  he  thought  the 
foundations  of  religion  were  giving  way,  and 
in  this  feeling  of  his  there  were  no  elements 
of  sectarianism  mingled.  So  felt  Dr.  Lyman 
Beecher  also,  one  of  his  scholars — a  hopeful, 
courageous,  self-relying  man.  Of  the  crisis 
he  writes,  being  then  a  pastor  of  an  impor- 
tant church  in  that  state:  "It  was  as  dark 
a  day  as  ever  I  saw.  The  injury  to  the 
cause  of  Christ,  as  we  then  supposed,  was 
irreparable.  For  several  days  I  suffered 
what  no  tongue  can  tell  for  the  best  thing 
that  ever  happened  to  the  churches.  It  cut 
the  churches  loose  from  dependence  on  State 
support.  It  threw  them  wholly  on  their  own 
resources  and  on  God.  They  say  ministers 
have  lost  their  influence :  the  fact  is,  they 
have  gained.  By  voluntary  efforts — societies, 
missions,  and  revivals — they  exert  a  deeper 
influence  than  ever  they  could  by  queues  and 
shoebuckles,  and  cocked  hats  and  gold-head- 
ed canes."  While  it  provokes  a  smile  to 
think  that  so  small  a  change  as  that  from 
the  parish  laws  then  existing  to  perfect  free- 
dom in  supporting  public  worship  should 
have  awakened  great  alarms,  we  admire 
those  strong  religious  convictions  and  ener- 
gies which  very  soon  converted  the  appre- 
hended curse  into  a  blessing.  For  that  it 
was  a  blessing  to  religion  all  unite  in  believ- 
ing, and  all  facts  show. 

IV.  While  thus  religion  is  entirely  di- 
vorced from  the  State,  it  is  not  altogether 
outside  of  law.  Worship  and  Church  or- 
ganizations need  houses  of  worship — that  is, 
common  property ;  the  minister  must  be  sup- 
ported out  of  a  fund  or  by  a  contribution, 
which  is  generally  stipulated  beforehand ; 
subsidiary  religious  institutions,  such  as  cem- 
eteries and  parish  schools,  may  need  special 
funds.  Thus  the  rights  of  property  and  of 
contract,  to  which  we  may  add  that  of  pro- 
tection against  disturbance  of  worship  and 
others,  come  under  the  control  of  public  laws. 
Again,  there  is  a  jealousy  of  large  religious 
corporations,  and  of  ministers  as  representing 


them,  and  thus  another  class  of  laws  may  be 
called  forth.  And,  still  again,  the  State  may 
judge  that  certain  truths  of  natural  or  re- 
vealed religion  in  their  separate  form,  inde- 
pendently of  any  Church  or  ecclesiastical 
power,  are  necessary  for  the  well-being  of 
the  civil  community,  and  may  ingraft  them 
in  some  shape  into  its  constitution.  I  shall 
devote  a  few  words  to  each  of  these  points, 
beginning  with  the  last,  and  referring  those 
who  wish  to  look  at  them  more  at  large  to 
Dr.  Joseph  Thompson's  "  Church  and  State  in 
the  United  States  of  America,"  published  in 
Berlin,  in  the  German  language,  a  few  months 
since,  and  more  recently  in  English  in  this 
country. 

1.  While  most  of  the  states  say  nothing  of 
religion — even  of  what  is  called  natural  re- 
ligion— in  their  constitutions,  several  with- 
hold civil  office  from  atheists,  from  disbe- 
lievers in  future  rewards  and  punishments, 
and  even  from  disbelievers  in  the  Christian 
religion  (Mississippi,  Tennessee,  Arkansas, 
North  Carolina,  Pennsylvania,  and  perhaps 
others).    One,  a  few  years  since,  disqualified 
Jews  from  holding  civil  office.     But,  if  I  am 
not  in  an  error,  every  new  revision  obliter- 
ates all  these  old  recognitions  of  religious 
truth  from  the  constitutions,  as  being  a  dead 
letter,  or  as  inconsistent  with  the  political 
equality  of  persons  against  whom  no  crimi- 
nal charge  can  be  brought. 

2.  In   many  constitutions   a  jealousy  is 
shown  of  organized  religious  power ;   and 
precautions  are  taken  against  the  disturb- 
ance of  religious  equality.     Sixteen  consti- 
tutions, at  least,  declare  in  different  forms  of 
words  that  no  preference  shall  be  given  to 
any  religious  establishment  or  mode  of  wor- 
ship.   In  others  the  Legislature  is  restrained 
from  passing  any  law  requiring  or  author- 
izing any  religious  society,  or  the  people  of 
any  district,  to  levy  any  tax  for  the  repair 
of  any  house  of  public  worship  or  the  sup- 
port of  any  Church  or  ministry.     Others, 
again,  forbid  the  Legislature  to  compel  any 
one  to  attend,  erect,  or  support  any  place  of 
religious  worship,  or  to  pay  tithes,  taxes,  or 
other  rates  for  the  support  of  any  minister 
of  the  Gospel.    In  one  or  two  states  no  mon- 
ey can  be  constitutionally  appropriated  to 
any  religious  society,  or  theological  or  relig- 
ious seminary  (Michigan,  Wisconsin,  Minne- 
sota).    The  constitutions  of  two  states  pro- 
vide that  no  gift  or  devise  to  any  ecclesias- 
tical pei-son,  as  such,  shall  be  valid  (Mary- 
land, Missouri).     So  also  one  state  limits 
the  amount  of  real  property  which  a  church, 
parsonage,  or  burial-ground  can  hold  to  five 
acres.     Again,  the  amount  of  income  from 
real  and  personal  property  which  the  trus- 
tees of  any  religious  corporation  can  acquire 
and  hold  is  limited  by  an  Act  of  the  State  of 
New  York  of  1813  to  three  thousand  dollars 
per  annum.    A  few  exceptions  were  made  to 
the  operations  of  this  Act  in  the  Act  itself; 


WOOLSEY:  CIVIL  GOVERNMENT  AND  RELIGION  IN  THE  U.  S. 


527 


arid  in  1863  a  general  exception  was  made  in 
favor  of  Roman  Catholic  churches  or  con- 
gregations, excluding  church  buildings,  par- 
sonages, schools  with  land  for  the  same,  and 
burying-places,  from  the  provisions  of  the 
Act,  hut  otherwise  conforming  to  the  earlier 
law. 

It  is  probable  that  such  limitations  of  the 
power  of  holding  property  will  become  ex- 
tensive through  the  states ;  owing  partly  to 
jealousy  of  Roman  Catholics,  partly  to  a  still 
less  defensible  jealousy  of  all  religious  or- 
ganized power,  and  partly  to  that  regard  for 
the  right  of  family  inheritance  which  has 
introduced  the  principle  of  the  Roman  quere- 
la  inofficiosi  testamenti  into  the  Jegislation  of 
France  and  Prussia. 

An  unjust  discrimination  is  made  or  was 
made  in  the  earlier  constitutions  of  ten 
states,  all  of  them  Southern,  against  clergy- 
men or  ministers  of  the  Gospel.  They  were 
incapacitated  for  serving  in  the  Legislature, 
on  the  ground  that  such  service  calls  them 
away  from  their  proper  duties.  This  dis- 
qualification, of  old  standing,  received  a 
sarcastic  rebuke  from  Dr.  Witherspoou, 
President  of  Nassau  Hall.  He  suggested 
an  amendment  to  the  constitution  of  Geor- 
gia, that  if  the  clergyman  should  be  de- 
prived of-  his  clerical  character  by  those 
who  invested  him  with  it,  ou  account, 
for  instance,  of  cursing  and  swearing, 
drunkenness  or  uucleanuess,  he  should 
thereupon  be  fully  restored  to  all  the  privi- 
leges of  a  free  citizen,  and  become  eligible  to 
the  Senate  or  House  of  Representatives,  and 
be  treated  with  all  the  respect  due  to  his 
brethren,  the  other  members  of  the  assem- 
bly.—  Works,  vol.  iv.,  p.  423. 

With  a  few  such,  for  the  most  part,  not 
unreasonable  restrictions,  the  states  by  their 
laws  and  courts  protect  the  outward  forms 
of  religion.  Churches  or  religious  societies 
cau  hold  property,  make  contracts  with  min- 
isters, exercise  discipline  according  to  the 
rules  of  the  denomination;  in  short,  do  every 
thing  necessary  for  the  purposes  for  which 
outward  and  associated  religion  is  necessary, 
and  for  which  it  actually  exists.  In  all  this 
the  courts  protect,  interpret,  restrain,  and  do 
all  acts  which  the  nature  of  such  corpora- 
tions requires.  They  will  enforce  the  pay- 
ment of  salaries,  prevent  the  members  of  a 
Church,  it  may  be,  from  transferring  the 
Church  property  to  another  denomination ; 
protect  the  right  of  inflicting  Church  cen- 
sures according  to  the  usages  of  the  sect; 
recognize  even  the  authority  of  Bishops  or 
of  Presbyteries  within  their  spheres,  and  the 
like.  It  is  unnecessary  to  enlarge  here,  al- 
though many  interesting  cases  have  come  np, 
since  the  general  theory  of  the  relations  of 
law  and  equity  to  cases  that  may  arise  in  the 
affairs  of  religious  bodies  seems  to  be  tolera- 
bly clear. 

V.  Having  looked  briefly  at  the  main  points 


of  our  subject,  we  close  with  the  inquiry 
whether  the  United  States  can  be  called  a 
Christian  nation.  Cau  a  state  or  constitution 
be  called  a  Christian  one,  which  separates 
religious  interests  as  far  as  possible  from 
civil  interests,  although  there  may  be  a  few 
vestiges  of  public  respect  for  religion,  such  as 
chaplains  of  Legislatures,  fasts,  and  thanks- 
givings appointed  by  public  authority,  re- 
ligious instruction  in  the  army,  navy,  public 
prisons,  hospitals,  and  the  like  !  Or,  in  other 
words,  when  a  community — believing  that 
religion,  in  an  independent  sphere,  becomes 
purer  and  more  pervasive  ;  that  perfect 
equality  between  denominations  is  the  only 
just  and  peaceful  policy ;  that  Christ's  king- 
dom will  grow  and  stand  in  its  true  quali- 
ties and  in  its  power  if  unfettered  by  State 
laws — provides  for  such  an  independent  rela- 
tion between  State  and  Church  or  Churches 
in  its  ground  law  or  constitution,  does  the 
instrument  of  government,  or  the  state  thus 
created,  give  origin  to  an  unchristian  state  ? 
Wo  deny  this.  It  is  no  more  unchristian  than 
an  academy  of  science  is  unchristian  with- 
out a  creed,  or  a  mercantile  firm  Avithout  dai- 
ly prayers  in  the'counting-house. 

In  what  sense  can  this  country  then  be 
called  a  Christian  country  ?  In  this  sense  cer- 
tainly, that  the  vast  majority  of  the  people 
believe  in  Christ  and  the  Gospel,  that  Chris- 
tian influences  are  universal,  that  our  civili- 
zation and  intellectual  culture  are  built  ou 
that  foundation,  and  that  the  institutions 
are  so  adjusted  as,  in  the  opinion  of  almost- 
all  Christians,  to  furnish  the  best  hope  for 
spreading  and  carrying  down  to  posterity 
our  faith  and  our  morality. 

But  can  Christianity  be  said  to  be  in  any 
sense  the  law  of  the  land  ?  So  Daniel  Web- 
ster argued  in  the  great  Girard  case  (1844). 
He  says,  "General,  tolerant  Christianity, 
Christianity  independent  of  sects  and  par- 
ties— that  Christianity  to  which  the  sword 
and  the  fagot  are  unkuoAvn — is  the  law  of  tho 
laud."  And  lie  refers  to  a  judgment  of  tho 
highest  court  of  Pennsylvania  —  the  state 
where  the  case  had  its  seat — that  general 
Christianity  is,  and  always  has  been,  tho 
common  law  of  that  government,  whether  in 
its  colonial  or  its  state  condition.  And  tho 
constitution  of  that  commonwealth,  framed 
in  1838,  declares  that  no  person,  acknowl- 
edging the  being  of  a  God  and  a  future 
state  of  rewards  and  punishments,  shall 
be  disqualified  from  office,  thereby  imply- 
ing that  they  who  do  thus  deny  may  be  dis- 
qualified. 

But  we  fail  to  see  the  cogency  of  the  great 
advocate's  argument.  At  the  most,  theism 
is  sanctioned  by  constitutional  provisions 
such  as  that  which  is  cited.  As  for  general, 
tolerant  Christianity,  it  is  protected  in  its 
outward  expression  or  worship;  its  morality 
—  except  in  the  matter  of  divorce,  whero 
most  of  the  states  are  exceedingly  loose— is 


528 


CHRISTIANITY  AND  CIVIL  GOVERNMENT. 


honored ;  some  few  customs  have  mingled 
themselves  up  with  public  life;  but  how  cau 
it  be  called  the  law  of  the  laud  f  What  points 
of  contact  arc  there  between  the  law  and  that 
abstract  conception  of  Christianity  which  the 
great  advocate  speaks  of,  unless  it  may  bo  in 
the  matter  of  laws  against  blasphemy,  where 
they  exist.  If  the  people  should  all  turn 
Mohammedans  or  Mormons,  what  material 
change  would  be  needed  in  the  laws,  except 


in  those  relating  to  the  marriage  union  aud 
to  the  division  of  estates?  The  true  state- 
ment, then,  MTIIIS  to  be  that  Christianity, 
being  the  religion  of  the  mass  of  the  people, 
its  usages  aud  ideas  can  not  be  separated 
from  legislation  by  a  mathematical  line; — 
Sunday,  for  instance,  must  differ  from  other 
days  in  the  eye  of  the  law — but  the  law  has 
as  little  to  do  with  Christianity  and  Chris- 
tianity with  the  law  as  possible. 


THE  CHUECH  AND  THE  NATION. 


BY  THE  KEY.  W.  H.  FREMANTLE,  M.A.,  LONDON. 


WHATEVER  our  convictions  may  be  as  to 
tbe  relations  of  the  Church  and  the  civil 
power  at  the  present  moment  in  particular 
countries,  I  presume  that  it  may  be  taken 
for  granted  that  the  Christian  ideal  blends 
all  the  functions  of  the  redeemed  humani- 
ty into  one  harmonious  whole.  I  take  the 
words  used  by  the  apostles  of  our  Lord  as 
expressing  their  ultimate  hopes  and  ours : 
"  The  kingdoms  of  this  world  are  become 
the  kingdoms  of  our  God  and  of  liis  Christ," 
and, "  To  the  name  of  Jesus  every  knee  shall 
bow,  and  every  tongue  confess ;"  and  I  in- 
terpret these  expressions  as  setting  before 
us  an  ideal  state  in  which  all  men  will  be 
united  in  spiritual  obedience  to  our  Lord, 
and  the  redeemed  nations  will  be  at  peace 
under  his  dominion.  In  such  a  state  of 
things,  each  separate  nation  must  be  a 
branch  of  the  universal  Church ;  and  its 
whole  life  must  be  at  one  with  itself.  Its 
organization  for  worship,  or  instruction,  or 
the  practical  good  of  its  members,  must  ex- 
press but  the  varying  attitudes  of  the  same 
body,  moving  under  the  same  impulse. 

We  are  very  far  from  this  ideal ;  but,  if  it 
is  the  Christian  ideal,  Christians  must  have 
it  constantly  before  their  minds,  and  steadi- 
ly work  toward  it.  The  object,  therefore, 
of  my  address  will  be  to  point  out  what 
signs  we  may  trace  of  an  approach  toward 
this  ideal,  and  what  is  the  pathway  along 
which  we  may  march  to  its  realization. 

There  are  three  assumptions  which  I  will 
make,  which  support  the  hope  of  a  national 
Christianity. 

1.  The  first  of  these  assumptions  will 
probably  seem  overbold.  It  is  that  Chris- 
tian principle,  so  far  from  being,  as  some 
assume,  in  a  waning  condition,  is  gaining 
an  empire  tfver  men's  minds  such  as  it  never 
had  before,  and  is  about  to  assume  far  more 
fully  than  in  past  ages  the  direction  of  hu- 
man affairs.  It  is  true  that  in  the  present 
day  wo  witness  in  many  quarters  a  revolt 
from  the  theology  of  the  past,  and  in  some 
a  revolt  from  theology  altogether.  But  it 
is  equally  true  that  we  very  rarely  witness 
moral  skepticism.  Many  of  those  who  can 
not  accept  Christian  doctrines  yet  rule  their 
lives  by  the  essential  Christian  principle  of 
self-renouncing  love ;  and  the  unconscious 
testimony  which  is  thus  borne  to  the  sover- 
eignty of  Christ  by  philosophers,  by  writers 
of  fiction,  by  popular  movements,  can  not 
34 


fail  to  strike  us.  And  how  much  of  the  re- 
volt from  theology  and  worship  among  seri- 
ous men  is  due  to  the  wrong  representations 
of  these  by  Christians,  especially  to  the  end- 
less controversies  into  which  they  have  fall- 
en, can  hardly  be  estimated  too  highly.  My 
conviction  is,  then,  that  Christian  principle 
is  destined  to  gain  a  much  firmer  hold  as 
time  goes  on  upon  the  minds  and  the  life  of 
men.  This  we  must  take  as  our  basis  in 
looking  on  to  the  future.  We  can  do  noth- 
ing without  hope.  Let  Christians  be  very 
hopeful. 

2.  I  notice  a  second  fact.  It  is  that  every- 
where Christians  are  becoming  ashamed  of 
the  sectarianism  which  has  so  long  divided 
them.  Never  was  the  cry  for  union  so  wide- 
ly raised ;  and  never  had  it  such  a  hold  on 
the  conscience  of  Christian  men.  It  is,  in- 
deed, considered  dangerous  to  wish  to  break 
down  the  barriers  which  divide  the  churches 
from  each  other ;  and  it  is  sometimes  thought 
a  mark  of  strong  religion  to  make  a  con- 
science of  every  peculiarity  of  the  Church 
to  which  a  man  belongs.  But  what  really 
makes  men  afraid  of  a  full  abandonment 
of  sectarianism  is  this :  they  do  not  know 
where  they  ought  to  stop.  They  wish  to 
sympathize  with  others,  but  do  not  know 
how  far  they  can  trust  themselves.  They 
get  puzzled,  and  conclude  that  it  is  safest  to 
stay  within  the  old  lines.  Yet  those  lines  do 
not  correspond  to  any  thing  in  the  Christian 
conscience  sufficiently  deep  to  warrant  their* 
perpetuation.  There  was  a  time,  no  doubt, 
when  Episcopalians,  Presbyterians,  and  In- 
dependents each  considered  their  own  meth- 
od of  Church  government  to  have  the  au- 
thority of  revelation,  and  the  others  to  be 
uuscriptural.  But  I  suppose  every  one  here 
is  convinced  that  the  Scriptures  leave  us 
quite  free  to  govern  the  Church  in  the  way 
most  accordant  to  our  convictions  and  cir- 
cumstances. And,  though  we  have  our  pref- 
erences, we  are  not  prepared  to  say  that  the 
system  to  which  we  belong  is  the  only  true 
system.  Everywhere  we  meet  with  testi- 
monies of  one  Church  to  the  benefits  con- 
ferred by  the  sister  churches,  and  those 
who  thus  speak  would  evidently  have  no 
conscientious  repugnance,  if  circumstances 
pointed  the  way,  to  joining  one  of  those 
other  communions.  This  feeling  is  express- 
ed very  frequently  by  the  ministers;  but 
among  the  laity,  except  in  the  case  of  some 


530 


CHRISTIANITY  AND  CIVIL  GOVERNMENT. 


few  who  are  identified  in  a  marked  way 
with  a  particular  organization,  the  differ- 
ence between  one  communion  and  another 
is  hardly  ever  felt  to  be  one  of  principle. 
Laymen  usually  choose  their  Church  with 
reference  to  quite  other  considerations, 
mostly  the  suitability  to  them  of  the  indi- 
vidual minister. 

The  question  then  arises :  Can  separation 
from  one  another  any  longer  be  justified 
where  conviction  has  reached  this  point? 
If  separation  is  an  evil  in  itself,  if  it  leads  to 
contention,  and  to  a  false  representation  of 
Christianity  to  the  world,  then  to  maintain 
separation  needlessly  and  without  a  positive 
obligation  of  the  conscience  is  to  contradict 
the  will  of  God. 

We  must  expect,  then,  that  the  tendency 
to  union  will  increase.  I  may  quote  an 
emphatic  testimony  from  the  New  Englamler 
(July,  1866;  No.  XCVL,  pp.  498,  499),  "To 
the  principle  that  Christ's  disciples  in  any 
one  place  are  in  fact,  and  ought  to  be  in 
form  and  manifestation,  one  Catholic  Church, 
instead  of  being  (as  they  too  often  are)  many 
sectarian  churches." 

It  is,  indeed,  vain  to  attempt  any  such 
manifestation  of  union  unless  the  convictions 
of  Christians  favor  it.  But  many  things 
tend  to  the  belief  that  men  are  becoming 
convinced  that  the  stress  laid  on  the  separa- 
ting points  is  contradictory  to  the  cardinal 
truth  that  we  are  saved  only  by  faith  in 
Christ,  that  they  are  therefore  as  injurious 
to  truth  as  to  love.  And  if  actual  union 
is  for  the  present  impossible,  yet  friendly 
intercourse  is  possible ;  and  through  inter- 
course union  may  be  approached. 

3.  A  third  tendency  which  I  would  signal- 
ize is  the  increasing  importance  attached  to 
Christian  morality,  feeling,  and  life,  and  the 
waning  importance  of  mere  dogma.  If  this 
be  put  boldly  it  may  give  rise  to  fear,  and 
well-grounded  fear.  But  put  it  thus,  that 
the  tendency  is  to  look  at  Christianity  not 
as  a  system  of  opinions  but  as  a  life,  and  I 
hardly  see  how  the  fact  can  be  disputed,  nor 
how  it  can  be  reckoned  as  other  than  a  good 
thing.  It  is  not  that  dogma  is  to  be  given 
lip,  and  that  it  does  not  matter  what  a  man 
thinks  about  God  and  Christ,  about  sin  and 
salvation ;  but  that  all  the  dogmas  which 
have  arisen  concerning  these  must  be  viewed 
in  connection  with  the  central  principle  of 
life  and  love.  The  chief  assertion  concern- 
ing God  is  not  the  mode  of  his  existence,  but 
his  essential  nature  of  love.  The  chief  as- 
sertion concerning  Christ  as  the  Son  of  God 
is  not  the  assertion  of  a  metaphysical  rela- 
tion, but  that  he  is  the  true  image,  the  act- 
ual representative  of  the  Divine  Love.  Sin 
comes  to  be  seen,  then,  not  abstractedly  as 
guilt, but  as  selfishness;  and  salvation  from 
sin  not  mere  escape  from  condemnation,  but 
as  a  life  of  love.  If  these  things  be  held 
fast  (and  theology  and  literature  are  gradu- 


ally coming  to  recognize  them),  then  all  the 
assertions  of  the  rival  churches  can  be  har- 
monized. The  dogmas  are  not  abrogated, 
but,  instead  of  clashing  in  the  realm  of  logic, 
they  harmonize  in  a  many-sided  Christian 
life. 

Observe,  then,  how  this  makes  for  the  na- 
tional aspect  of  Christianity.  While  relig- 
ion is  looked  upon  as  concerned  mainly  with 
abstract  opinion,  the  general  life  of  the  na- 
tion will  be  left  almost  out  of  sight  in  our 
churches.  But  when  it  is  found  to  be  a 
matter  which  chiefly  concerns  conduct,  then 
the  whole  national  life  comes  distinctly  with- 
in its  purview.  Add  to  this,  that  the  expau- 
siveness  of  Christian  love  must  make  men 
more  and  more  take  interest  in  the  general 
life,  not  alone  in  the  special  and  private  life; 
and  you  can  not  doubt  that  the  tendency  on 
which  I  am  dwelling  will  make  it  every  day 
more  impossible  to  exclude  public  acts  from 
our  religious  services,  or  the  thought  of  re- 
ligion from  all  public  occasions.  The  pulpit 
will  speak  more  frequently  of  national  inter- 
ests, and  acts,  and  even  of  laws  ;  the  legisla- 
tor will  feel  much  more  the  influence  of  relig- 
ion, and  take  into  account  the  bearing  of 
his  acts  on  the  spiritual  life  of  the  people. 

Now,  let  us  suppose  these  tendencies  to 
go  on  increasing.  The  condition  of  things 
will  be  this :  1st.  That  Christianity  is  rec- 
ognized as  a  moral  power,  the  function  of 
which  is  to  guide  the  whole  life  of  the  na- 
tion ;  2d.  That  the  churches  are  seeking  for 
j  union  on  grounds  of  conscience ;  3d.  That 
j  their  special  doctrines  are  explained  as  dif- 
ferent aspects  of  truth,  which  are  harmo- 
nized in  the  common  life  which  they  all  are 
leading  as  members  of  one  community.  Must 
this  not  lead  more  and  more,  not  to  a  mere 
union,  but  a  fusion  of  the  Church  and  the 
nation  ? 

I  am  surprised  at  finding  that  this  ques- 
tion is  always  discussed  as  if  this  fusion 
were  impossible ;  as  if  there  must  be  two 
communities  living  in  relation  to  each  other, 
but  separate ;  and  as  if  the  only  issue  must 
be  whether  one  should  dominate  the  other 
or  they  should  remain  in  isolation.  This 
was  not  the  view  of  our  best  writers  in  En- 
gland. The  well-known  passage  in  Hooker 
runs  as  follows  :  "  Let  it  stand  fftr  our  final 
conclusion  that,  in  a  free  Christian  state  or 
kingdom,  where  one  and  the  self-same  people 
are  the  Church  and  the  Commonwealth,  God 
through  Christ  directing  that  people  to  see 
it,  for  good  and  weighty  considerations,  ex- 
pedient that  their  sovereign  l6rd  and  gov- 
ernor in  causes  civil  have  also  in  ecclesias- 
tical affairs  a  supreme  power ;  forasmuch  as 
the  light  of  reason  doth  lead  them  into  it, 
and  against  it  God's  own  revealed  law  hath 
nothing;  surely  they  do  not,  in  submitting 
themselves  thereunto,  any  other  than  a  wise 
and  religious  people  ought  to  do." 

It  is  well  known  that  Burke,  the  great 


FREMANTLE :   THE  CHURCH  AND  THE  NATION. 


531 


philosophical  statesman,  held  the  same  view. 
He  says  (Works,  vol.  vi.,  p.  102,  "  Speech  on 
the  Petition  of  the  Unitarians"),  "An  alli- 
ance between  Church  and  State  in  a  Chris- 
tian commonwealth  is,  in  my  opiuion,  an 
idle  and  a  fanciful  speculation.  An  alli- 
ance is  between  two  things  that  are  in  their 
nature  distinct  and  independent,  such  as  be- 
tween two  sovereign  states.  But  in  a  Chris- 
tian commonwealth,  the  Church  and  the 
State  are  one  and  the  same  thing,  being 
different  integral  parts  of  the  same  whole. 
[For  the  Church  has  been  always  divided 
into  two  parts,  the  clergy  and  the  laity ;  of 
which  the  laity  is  as  much  an  essential  in- 
tegral part,  and  has  as  much  its  duties  and 
privileges,  as  the  clerical  members ;  and  iu 
the  rule,  order,  and  government  of  the  Church 
has  its  share.]  Religion  is  so  far,  in  my  opin- 
ion, from  being  out  of  the  province  or  the  duty 
of  a  Christian  magistrate,  that  it  is,  and  it 
ought  to  be,  the  principal  thing  in  his  «are." 

I  need  not  say  that  Dr.  Arnold,  the  great- 
est writer  on  these  subjects  in  the  present 
century,  regarded  the  Church  and  the  na- 
tion as  identical. 

Yet  I  find  that  the  only  alternative  ordi- 
narily put  before  us  to  the  complete  separa- 
tion of  the  two  powers  is  a  condition  of  things 
iu  which -the  State  as  an  extraneous  power 
interferes  with  the  convictions  of  the  Chris- 
tian community.  The  idea  seems  hardly 
ever  to  present  itself  to  men's  minds  of  a 
really  popular  church  government,  iu  which, 
the  liberties  of  all  being  guarded  as  efficient- 
ly as  they  are  in  the  most  democratic  com- 
munities, the  Christian  society  should  gov- 
ern itself  in  civil  and  ecclesiastical  matters 
alike. 

It  is  true  that  there  are  many  things 
which  a  government  is  not  fit  to  handle, 
and  which  are  best  left  to  private  enter- 
prise. This  statesmen  in  all  constitutional 
countries  have  long  ago  come  to  recognize. 
The  recognition  ought  to  be  carried  into  the 
sphere  of  religion,  and  applies  there  quite 
as  much  as  in  matters,  say,  of  commerce  or 
of  benefit  societies.  When  AVO  deal  with 
subjects  such  as  those  just  named,  we  see 
that  the  government  should  interfere  but 
little,  but  should  regulate  and  foster  their 
energy,  and  should  distinctly  frame  its  pol- 
icy for  their  advautage.  But,  when  men  ar- 
gue about  Church  and  State,  they  say  that 
either  the  State  must  impose  penalties  upon 
non-conformity,  and  tax  men  for  the  promo- 
tion of  a  religion  which  is  not  theirs,  and 
elevate  one  religious  system  over  others, 
and  force  articles  of  faith  upon  reluctant 
officers ;  or  else  that  it  must  declare  a  com- 
plete separation  between  the  secular  and  the 
ecclesiastical  spheres.  Even  De  Tocqueville 
falls  into  this  error.  The  idea  never  seems 
to  have  presented  itself  to  his  mind  of  a  na- 
tional Church  with  democratic  local  self-gov- 
ernment. 


There  is,  when  we  reflect  upon  it,  no  rea- 
son at  all  why  law  should  interfere  with 
liberty  in  spiritual  matters  more  than  in 
those  of  ordinary  government.  It  is  evi- 
dently impossible,  if  such  an  agreement  as 
I  have  contemplated  should  ever  come  to 
pass,  that  the  law  should  not  take  cogni- 
zance of  matters  relating  to  public  worship  ; 
but  it  would  do  so  under  the  full  under- 
standing that  it  must  not  go  beyond  the 
bounds  which  guard  the  spiritual  realm.  It 
must  allow  as  free  play  as  possible  to  the 
action  of  local  communities.  It  must  nev- 
er interfere  with  the  liberty  of  each  man  to 
worship  God  as  he  thinks  right.  It  must 
not  compel  men  to  contribute  toward  ob- 
jects which  they  conscientiously  disapprove. 
Above  all,  it  must  guard  the  right  of  every 
member  of  the  community  to  influence  the 
national  policy  in  all  matters  alike. 

If  it  be  said  that  under  such  a  system  as 
this  Christian  liberty  would  still  be  inter- 
fered with  to  this  extent,  that  those  who 
were  unable  to  join  with  their  brethren  in 
the  public  worship  agreed  upon  by  the  com- 
munity to  which  they  belonged  would  be 
placed  in  an  inferior  position  to  others  in 
public  esteem,  it  must  be  answered  that 
there  is  no  organization  in  which  large  bod- 
ies of  men  can  live  together  which  is  not 
open  to  the  same  objection.  But  it  must 
be  answered,  also,  that  unlimited  sectarian- 
ism leads  to  a  much  more  serious  breach 
of  Christian  liberty.  When  each  sect  takes 
up  some  portion  of  the  kingdom  of  Christ 
and  occupies  it  Avith  a  partial,  one-sided 
system,  and  when  that  sect  says  to  any  of 
its  members  who  long  for  a  wider  and  fuller 
Christian  life,  "  We  can  give  you  nothing 
but  our  own  narrow  terms,  and  any  thing 
more  you  must  seek  elsewhere,''  it  forces 
men  either  to  leave  their  dearest  associa- 
tions (and  then  where  can  they  go  ?)  or  to 
stunt  their  religious  life  (and  then  where  is 
their  liberty?).  But  a  national  system  of 
Church  government  affords  free  room  for 
all.  it  is  the  nearest  thing  on  earth  to  the 
Jerusalem  which  is  free,  which  is  the  moth- 
er of  us  all. 

The  assumption  is,  indeed,  sometimes  made 
that  the  Church,  or  the  organization  for  pub- 
lic worship,  is  a  divine  institution,  while  the 
State  is  an  invention  of  men.  But  the  truth 
is  that  in  Scripture  the  authority  of  the 
ruler  is  spoken  of  more  distinctly  as  an  or- 
dinance of  God  than  that  of  the  teacher. 
"He  is  a  minister  of  God  to  thee  for  good." 
And  further,  the  Church  is  never  a  mere  in- 
stitution for  worship.  It  has  government 
as  one  of  its  functions,  and  there  are  elders 
who  rule  as  well  as  elders  who  teach.  In 
many  of  the  churches  which  attempted  on 
the  soil  of  America  to  organize  themselves 
upon  the  model  which  they  found  in  the 
New  Testament,  the  force  of  this  fact  was 
so  clearly  seen  that  "ruling  elders"  wen- 


532 


CHRISTIANITY  AND  CIVIL  GOVERNMENT. 


considered  necessary  officers  of  a  scriptural 
congregation.  "Why  have  they  gradually 
ceased  T  Because  in  a  Christian  community 
the  only  efficient  discipline  is  that  exercised 
by  the  Christian  magistrate.  The  true  rul- 
ing elders  in  our  day  are  our  statesmen,  and 
judges,  and  officers,  who  bear  the  supremo 
mandate  of  the  whole  Christian  community. 

Let  me  put  this  in  another  light.  The 
Church — what  is  it  ?  It  is  none  of  our  hu- 
man organizations,  but  the  family  of  the  re- 
deemed gathered  together  "with  their  Lord. 
Our  present  organizations  are  tentative  in- 
stitutions, in  which  we  strive  to  realize  some 
part  of  the  true  ideal,  which  comprehends 
man's  whole  nature.  Now  I  maintain  that 
our  organizations  for  public  worship  are 
not  themselves  the  Church,  but  partial  ef- 
forts to  realize  the  idea  of  the  Church  ;  and 
I  maintain  the  same  thing  of  the  great  soci- 
ety of  the  Christian  nation.  When  men  are 
gathered  together  to  worship  God,  to  hear 
Christian  teaching,  or  to  partake  of  the 
Lord's  Supper,  I  see  in  their  gathering  some 
attempt  to  realize  their  true  relation  to  God 
as  members  of  the  redeemed  family.  When 
Christian  men  are  met  in  Christ's  name  in 
the  council-chamber  or  the  court  of  justice 
to  carry  into  practical  effect  the  principles 
of  Christian  equity  for  the  good  of  the  whole 
of  God's  children,  with  whom  the  Father  of 
all  has  bound  them  in  the  national  bond, 
am  I  to  say  that  is  not  the  Church?  I 
say,  on  the  contrary,  that  it  is,  as  much  as 
the  organizations  for  Christian  worship,  the 
Church  of  God.  That  is  a  church  which 
tries  to  realize  the  true  Christian  life  of  the 
redeemed  humanity.  The  Christian  con- 
gregation is  a  church.  The  Christian  fam- 
ily is  a  church.  But,  more  truly  than  all 
the  rest,  the  Christian  nation  is  a  church. 

But  I  shall  be  met,  perhaps,  by  the  objec- 
tion that  a  national  religion,  as  soon  as  it 
comes  to  express  itself  at  all  in  act,  is  lati- 
tudiuarian,  and  that  men  must  bo  admitted 
to  a  share  in  its  worship  and  government 
who  would  not  have  been  admitted  iflto  the 
primitive  churches.  I  submit,  in  general, 
that  the  conditions  of  the  question  are  alto- 
gether different  from  what  they  were  when 
the  Church  was  a  small  community  in  the 
midst  of  a  vast  heathen  empire.  We  can 
not  be  as  they  were ;  and  the  total  absence 
of  what  is  called  church  discipline  is  better 
than  its  exercise  in  the  petty  manner  which 
alone  is  possible  now.  But,  more  particu- 
larly, I  would  observe  that  we  must  look 
for  discipline  to  other  means  than  those  of 
formularies  or  of  formal  exclusions  in  the 
present  day.  In  the  first  place,  the  laws  of 
a  Christian  State  would  exclude  the  worst 
offenders — they  would  have  excluded  the 
only  person  whose  actual  excommunication 
aud  its  grounds  are  recorded  in  the  New  Tes- 
tament, the  incestuous  man  at  Corinth.  But, 
in  the  second  place,  the  sound  feeling  of  the 


community  acting  upon  the  consciences  of 
its  members  must,  in  a  national  system,  be 
much  stronger  than  the  discipline  of  a  small 
private  society.  In  a  sectarian  system,  each 
sect  is  apt  to  bid  against  the  others  for  mem- 
bers, and  there  is  a  strong  temptation  to  de- 
base the  standard;  also,  a  large  part  of  n 
man's  life  remains  out  of  the  purview  of  his 
Church ;  and,  if  a  man  feels  his  position  un- 
comfortable, he  can  go  to  some  other  sect, 
or  remain  untouched  by  them  all.  But  in 
a  condition  of  things  in  which  the  whole 
Christian  sense  and  feeling  of  the  communi- 
ty was  brought  to  bear  upon  its  members  in 
all  pails  of  their  lives,  the  power  of  Chris- 
tian influence  over  the  consciences  of  indi- 
viduals, even  if  not  upheld  by  formal  ex- 
clusion, would  be  exceedingly  great.  Of 
the  list  of  evil  men  with  whom  St.  Paul 
says  Christians  should  not  even  eat,  it  might 
not  necessarily  and  formally  touch  some 
whom  more  definite  exclusions  might  reach ; 
but  it  would  bear  upon  others,  such  as  the 
covetous,  the  extortioners,  the  railers,  where 
those  exclusions  are  powerless.  It  is  clear 
that  the  most  impressive  and  attractive  of 
all  things  is  love.  And  if  once  it  should  be 
found  that  in  religion  love  Avas  strong  enough 
to  surmount  the  barriers  of  sects,  the  Church 
which  would  result  from  this  would  be  the 
most  attractive  of  all.  We  should  have  dif- 
ferent opinions  still ;  but  they  would  be  nat- 
ural differences,  forming  schools  within  the 
Church;  modifying  one  another,  not  pre- 
tending to  draw  to  themselves  the  whole 
life  of  the  Church.  They  would  not  be,  as 
now,  the  fictitious  products  of  past  centu- 
ries, embittered  by  the  recollection  of  the 
wars  of  the  sixteenth  and  seventeenth  cen- 
turies, and  founding  the  whole  Christian  life 
on  special  points  of  difference.  A  still  great- 
er benefit,  I  think,  would  result  from  the 
whole  nation  being  conscious  that  it  was  in 
all  its  acts  moving  as  a  branch  of  Christ's 
Church,  feeling  that  in  all  public  matters 
it  was  engaged  not  in  satisfying  the  inter- 
ests of  conflicting  parties,  but  in  providing  . 
that  Christian  justice  and  love  should  reign 
among  all  sections  of  the  community.  Such 
a  tone  must  react  upon  the  character  of  the 
men  who  were  put  forward  in  public  life  ; 
and  it  must  react  also  upon  the  life  of  indi- 
viduals, as  I  have  already  pointed  out. 

As  regards  the  Church  catholic,  made  up 
of  many  nations,  the  relations  of  a  national 
Christianity  would  be  similar  to  those  of  a 
national  policy  in  common  life.  We  learn 
in  matters  of  trade  or  constitutional  liberty 
to  set  or  to  take  an  example  from  other  na- 
tions, while  we  are  independent  of  them ; 
and  we  acknowledge  the  solidarity  of  the 
whole  human  race  while  we  know  that  our 
national  life  can  not  be  made  subject  to  that 
of  others.  And  in  matters  of  worship  and 
Christian  instruction  it  might  be  the  same. 
We  could  look  upon  the  Christians  of  other 


FREMANTLE :  THE  CHURCH  AND  THE  NATION. 


533 


nations  as  members  of  the  great  Catholic 
Church,  and  could  learn  from  the  Christian- 
ity of  other  lands  some  of  our  most  useful 
lessons,  and  impart  similar  lessons  to  them, 
while  yet  we  should  feel  unhampered  (which 
we  hardly  do  at  present). by  the  conduct  of 
other  countries,  in  adapting  Christian  insti- 
tutions to  the  needs  of  our  own. 

And  as  regards  the  heathen,  surely  our 
national  intercourse  would  gain  very  great- 
ly from  a  national  system  of  religion.  We 
should  feel  that  from  the  first  landing  of  any 
of  our  countrymen  upon  the  shores  of  a 
heathen  state,  it  was  a  matter  of  national 
concern  that  their  dealings  should  be  just 
and  humane,  that  we  could  not  endure  the 
reproach  of  our  citizens  misrepresenting  our 
Christian  name  to  the  heathen ;  and  we 
should  forestall  and  prevent  those  deeds 
which  have  led  at  times  to  our  arms  being 
employed  to  sustain  unchristian  injustice. 
Christian  missions  Avould,  as  now,  be  con- 
ducted by  voluntary  agencies;  but  they 
would  gain  a  readier  access  wheu  they 
preached  justice  and  love  in  public  and  pri- 
vate relations  rather  than  the  special  dog- 
mas of  sects ;  and  they  could  without  com- 
promise of  principle  be  fostered  and  upheld 
in  their  work  by  the  government  of  a  Chris- 
tian country. 

I  do  not  like  to  close  this  paper  without 
guarding  against  the  reproach  of  vagueness 
by  showing  how  their  principles  should  af- 
fect the  actual  and  existing  life  of  the  pres- 
ent Christian  nations.  Yet  such  a  discus- 
sion would  be  far  too  long ;  and  I  must  bo 
contented  with  only  a  few  remarks. 

I  wish  to  point  out  that  the  mode  in  which 
national  Christianity  should  work  itself  out 
must  be  different  in  different  cases,  accord- 
ing to  the  circumstances,  the  education,  the 
traditions  of  each  country.  The  ordinary 
question  of  Church  Establishments  is  to  mo 
a  matter  not  of  principle,  but  of  Christian 
expediency.  I  was  in  favor  of  Disestablish- 
ment in  Ireland,  for  the  Episcopal  Church 
Avas  not  national  there,  but  am  against  it 
in  England,  where  the  Church  may  at  least 
be  made  national.  In  America,  where  there 
are  many  large  religious  organizations,  we 
can  not  think  of  any  public  provision  of 
Christian  worship  and  instruction  except  as 
a  remote  contingency.  You  have  indeed 
your  legislature  opened  with  prayer;  and 
prayer  and  the  reading  of  Scripture  in  many 
of  your  common  schools;  and  national  fasts 
or  thanksgivings  enjoined  by  public  procla- 
mation ;  and  laws  for  the  observance  of  the 
Sabbath.  It  appears  also  from  the  accounts 
of  village  communities  in  some  parts  that 
there  is  an  agreement  in  religion  sufficient 
to  unite  the  whole  of  the  inhabitants  under 
one  pastor.  I  see  also  that  efforts  are  made 
in  some  quarters  to  obtain  a  fuller  recogni- 
tion of  Christianity  by  the  legislature,  and 
a  newspaper  called  the  Christian  Statesman, 


representing  an  association  for  this  purpose, 
is  published  at  Philadelphia.  These  symp- 
toms must  grow  for  the  present  without  our 
being  able  precisely  to  anticipate  their  issue. 
It  is  not,  let  us  remember,  so  important  to 
have  a  formal  recognition  of  religion  as 
that  our  public  acts  should  bear  the  im- 
press of  Christian  justice  and  love.  To- 
ward this,  in  growing  unity,  let  all  your 
churches  strive. 

In  the  European  States  matters  are  very 
different.  There  we  have  the  traditions  of 
a  national  Christianity,  which,  though  it 
has  in  the  past  been  often  carried  into  ef- 
fect in  a  way  that  has  done  violence  to 
men's  consciences,  yet  has  been  an  effort  to 
reach  a  true  ideal.  If  in  some  cases  the  ef- 
fort must  be  given  up,  it  is  only  because  cir- 
cumstances do  not  admit  of  its  realization. 
The  ideal  must  still  be  maintained. 

I  would  point  out,  also,  that  in  countries 
like  Italy  and  Germany  the  legislative  pow- 
er is  not  to  be  regarded  as  an  extraneous 
body  imposing  its  will  upon  the  Church,  but 
rather  as  the  representative  of  the  whole 
community,  through  which  alone  the  laity 
can  act.  The  legislation  of  Prince  Bismarck, 
which  concerns  all  the  churches  alike,  has 
been,  on  the  whole,  approved  by  the  laity 
even  of  the  Roman  Catholic  Church ;  and  its 
tendency  is  to  correct  by  the  national  pow- 
er, expressing  the  full  sense  of  the  Christian 
community,  the  influence  of  the  really  ex- 
traneous power,  the  Curia  of  Rome.  This 
also  was,  I  believe,  the  object  of  Cavour  in 
Italy.  When  he  spoke  of  a  free  Church  in  a 
free  State,  his  meaning  was  that  the  Church 
should  be  free  in  the  same  sense  as  the  State, 
by  means  of  popular  government  within  it- 
self. His  successors  have  taken  his  words, 
but  have  interpreted  them  as  implying  that 
the  whole  spiritual  life  of  the  nation  should 
be  given  over,  tied  and  bound,  to  the  nation's 
worst  enemy. 

I  plead  that,  if  what  I  have  urged  as  to 
the  tendencies  of  religious  thought  be  true, 
the  sympathies  of  this  Conference  should 
not  be  thrown  into  the  scale  of  the  aboli- 
tion of  national  churches,  but  into  that  of 
their  right  direction  ;  that  we  should  desire 
that  they  should  be  reformed,  not  destroyed. 
Let  me  point  out  how  this  is  especially  the; 
case  with  the  Church  of  England.  There 
the  law  proceeds  on  the  assumption  that 
every  citizen  is  a  member  of  the  Church, 
and  has  free  influence  in  determining  its 
policy.  If  this  were  as  fully  carried  out  in 
matters  relating  to  Christian  worship  and 
instruction  as  in  the  general  goA~ernment  of 
the  country,  I  believe  that  we  should  soon 
be  a  long  way  forward  in  the  path  of  unity. 
Unhappily,  Avhile  the  State  constitution  has 
given  more  and  more  scope  for  free  action, 
the  Church  constitution  has  remained  what 
it  was  in  the  time  of  the  Tudors,  and  the  free 
action  in  religious  matters  has  been  forced 


534 


CHRISTIANITY  AND  CIVIL  GOVERNMENT. 


to  go  on  without,  instead  of  within.  The 
reforms  which  I,  in  common  with  other 
Church  reformers  in  England,  advocate  are 
these. 

We  desire  that  in  every  parish  a  Church 
council  should  be  elected  by  the  free  vote 
of  the  inhabitants,  without  the  consent  of 
which  no  changes  should  be  made,  and 
which  should  have  the  power,  subject  to 
the  bishop's  consent,  to  make  any  changes 
allowed  by  the  general  law.  This  being 
done,  we  desire  that  the  general  law  should 
be  progressively  relaxed  so  as  to  leave  as 
much  power  as  possible  to  the  free  action  of 
the  local  bodies,  -who  would  then  adapt  the 
Church  system  to  the  -wants  of  the  parish- 
ioners. We  desire  further  that  all  restric- 
tions which  tend  to  division  among  Chris- 
tians should  be  removed,  such  as  that  which 
prevents  all  but  persons  in  holy  orders  of 
the  Episcopal  Church  from  preaching  in  the 
national  pulpits,  or  the  requirement  of  the 
prayer-book  service  and  the  ministrations 


of  the  parish  incumbent  at  all  funerals  in 
the  national  grave-yards.  We  desire,  fur- 
ther, that  the  endowments  and  boundaries 
of  parishes  should  be  re-arranged,  so  as  to 
meet  the  altered  wants  of  the  population ; 
and  that  Church  patronage  should  be  placed 
in  the  hands  of  those  who  will  exercise  it 
solely  in  the  interest  of  the  people.  By 
these  means  we  believe  that  the  great  ad- 
vantage of  a  national  Church  may  be  main- 
tained without  injustice,  and  the  intelli- 
gence of  all  Christian  people  in  the  nation 
may  be  brought  to  bear  upon  the  conduct 
of  the  national  Church.  We  trust  that  thus 
the  Church  will  truly  express  the  Godward 
aspirations  of  its  members,  and  train  its 
children  in  active  holiness ;  and  that  it  will 
become  a  model  to  all  countries  of  national 
Christianity.  We  desire  that  each  nation 
should  be  truly  a  Church  of  God,  a  place 
where  every  citizen  may  find  his  spiritual 
home,  and  the  stimulus  to  constant  efforts 
toward  mutual  justice  ami  love. 


LEGISLATION  ON  MORAL  QUESTIONS. 


BY  JAMES  GIRDLESTONE,  ESQ.,  OF  LONDON, 


I  THINK  it  a  very  great  honor  to  be  allow- 
ed to  address  you,  among  whom  for  the  first 
time  I  now  come,  and  from  whom  I  have 
received  much  individual  kindness.  I  know 
that,  being  a  member  of  the  National  Church 
of  England,  my  views  can  not  wholly  ac- 
cord with  those  that  are  generally  predomi- 
nant in  this  country  on  ecclesiastical  ques- 
tions. I  am  here,  however,  to  ask,  not  for 
an  established  church,  but  for  a  religious 
state — a  very  different  article,  one  that  I 
love,  and  that  I  believe  every  intelligent 
American  loves. 

Legislation  is  law-making.  The  legisla- 
tion I  deal  with  here  is  not  the  legislation 
of  God,  for  that  is  his  work,  and  it  is  finish- 
ed. It  is  human  law-making  that  we  are 
to  study  to-day.  Not  what  set  of  men  shall 
make  laws — that  is  immaterial,  so  long  as 
the  laws  themselves  are  good.  I  am  here 
to  consider  laws  in  their  essence,  not  their 
technical  details,  but  their  substance  as  af- 
fecting morals,  and  morals  are  the  founda- 
tions of  society.  The  question  is  what 
laws  shall  be  made  by  men  for  the  gov- 
ernment of  one  another;  what  laws  any 
State  shall  make  for  the  government  of  all 
who  are  born  or  come  within  its  geograph- 
ical area.  And  the  State  must  be  very  ten- 
der in  such  matters,  for  every  man  who  is 
found  within  the  geographical  area  of  any 
State  is  necessarily  subject  to  the  laws  of 
that  State,  and  the  State  that  makes  unjust 
laws  is  certain  to  find  itself  obstructing  the 
individual  in  the  performance  of  his  duties, 
and  depriving  the  individual  of  his  rights. 
State  laws,  therefore,  being  of  such  impor- 
tance to  those  who  come  within  their  sphere, 
my  object  is  to  show  how  these  laws  must 
bo  framed  when  they  bear  upon  moral  ques- 
tions. 

Moral  questions  are  those  which  every- 
where and  always  affect  all  men,  considered 
as  creatures  responsible  to  a  Creator.  So  far 
as  relates  to  a  man's  purely  internal  trans- 
actions, human  legislation  has  no  concern 
with  these  questions ;  but  when  they  relate 
to  man  considered  relatively  to  his  fellow- 
creatures,  such  subjects  are  fit  for,  and  are 
necessary  objects  of,  human  legislation. 

The  object  of  Divine  legislation  is  to  fa- 
cilitate the  restoration  of  man  to  the  like- 
ness of  his  Maker.  -  From  the  day  of  the  fall 


of  Adam  all  the  race  is  fallen,  and  remains 
fallen,  from  the  image  of  God,  and  now  we 
all  come  into  the  world,  not  as  Adam  and 
Eve  came,  full  grown  and  perfect,  but  sin- 
gularly weak  and  in  need  of  help,  and  are  to 
the  end  of  life  largely  ignorant,  and  always 
selfish.  For  the  protection  of  such  a  race 
from  mutual  injury  and  neglect,  the  pres- 
ence of  a  Divine  law  without  the  sanction 
of  human  penalties  is  insufficient,  and  it  is 
necessary  that  man-made  laws  should  be 
called  in  that  shall  have  the  sanction  of 
human  support  and  human  penalties. 

Man  is  a  social  being,  and  the  first  social 
law  laid  upon  man  by  his  Creator  is  to  in- 
crease and  multiply.  That  involves  socie- 
ty, and  the  social  fabric  has  to  be  maintained 
by  means  of  laws  framed  upon  a  moral  ba- 
sis. Human  laws  aft'ecting  moral  questions 
touch  subjects  which  come  home  to  us  in  all 
relations  of  life  —  subjects,  therefore,  upon 
which  men  have  the  strongest  possible  feel- 
ings. The  principles  involved  in  such  laws 
are  worthy  of  this  International  Conference. 
The  art  of  making  such  laws  is  worthy  of 
study  by  those  who  are,  as  you  all  are,  call- 
ed to  be  heirs  of  a  kingdom,  an  eternal  king- 
dom. In  morals  no  law  can  be  made  by  man 
that  can  ever  deprive  me  of  my  right  to 
obey  God,  and,  if  I  am  forced  to  disobey 
God,  my  will  has  not  done  it,  and  the  State 
has  made  a  law  that  is  no  law. 

This  raises  the  problem  of  to-day :  How 
shall  fallen  man  make  just  laws  on  moral 
subjects  ? 

Every  State  needs  a  fixed  standard  of 
morals,  by  which  the  conduct  of  all,  whether 
rulers  or  ruled,  is  to  be  tried,  to  know  wheth- 
er it  is  right  or  whether  it  is  wrong.  There  is 
not  a  little  child  in  one  of  your  schools  that 
does  not  know  that  there  is  a  wide  difference 
between  what  is  right  and  what  is  wrong. 

But  then  comes  the  question,  what  is  the 
fixed  standard  by  which  morality  is  to  be 
tried  T  The  conscience  is  the  moral  eye  by 
which  we  discern  between  what  is  right 
and  wrong ;  but  the  conscience  of  a  fallen 
man  needs  an  infallible  standard  by  which 
to  correct  its  work.  A  man  builds  a  wall. 
If  he  build  high,  he  can  not  build  straight 
without  some  instrument  to  test  his  work. 
He  uses  the  plummet,  and  by  this  instru- 
ment, which  follows  an  infallible  law,  he 


536 


CHRISTIANITY  AND  CIVIL  GOVERNMENT. 


corrects  the  fallible  eye,  and  his  -work  is 
well  done.  My  moral  work  as  a  legislator 
is  just  the  same ;  I  must  not  only  test  it  by 
the  eye,  which  is  fallible,  but  by  some  stand- 
ard which  is  infallible ;  and  theu,  if  I  keep 
up  to  my  standard,  my  work  can  not  fail. 

To  carry  public  opinion,  the  common  stand- 
ard of  morals  must  be  authoritative  and  rea- 
sonable ;  and  it  must  be  a  precise  standard, 
adapted  to  make  clear  that  which  would 
otherwise  be  obscure.  Now  I  find  such  a 
standard  ready-made  to  hand,  and  I  scarce- 
ly ever  met  a  man  who  would  not  submit 
to  it.  It  is  the  Bible.  That  is  my  standard, 
not  the  Thirty-nine  Articles  of  the  Church 
of  England,  to  which  I  belong.  The  Bible 
is  the  standard  of  religion  and  of  morals  by 
which  a  State  is  made  sound  in  its  morals, 
and  by  which  the  State  is  kept  pure  in  its 
religion.  It  is  not  for  the  creature  to  say 
how  he  will  act  toward  the  Creator:  it  is 
for  the  Creator  to  tell  the  creature  how  to 
act ;  and  in  the  Bible  the  Creator  does  re- 
veal his  will  to  his  creatures.  Every  Church 
that  professes  to  be  Christian  attests  the 
Divine  authority  of  the  Bible.  Many  of 
you  will  assert  that  the  Church  of  Rome 
does  not  like  the  Bible.  But  that  Church 
witnesses  to  the  inspiration  of  the  Bible ;  it 
is  their  book,  as  well  as  ours ;  it  is  a  stand- 
ard of  morals  with  them  as  well  as  with 
us.  But,  you  will  say,  the  Jews  do  not 
assent  to  all  the  Bible  teaches.  Now,  if 
there  is  a  nation  in  the  world  to  whom,  un- 
der the  Divine  law,  special  honor  is  due 
from  all,  it  is  the  Jews ;  and  if  there  is  a 
nation  for  whom  I  feel  a  special  regard  al- 
most exceeding  that  which  I  feel  for  my 
own  countrymen,  it  is  for  that  race  through 
whom  I  received  the  Bible,  and  from  whom, 
according  to  the  flesh,  He  came  who  is  the 
Saviour  of  my  soul.  I  shall  urge  nothing 
here  that  is  not  reasonably  acceptable  to 
the  Jews,  for  though,  as  yet,  they,  generally 
speaking,  deny  the  inspiration  of  the  New 
Testament,  they  attest  the  Divine  inspira- 
tion of  the  Old  Testament,  and  I  shall  urge 
nothing  here  as  moral  save  what  is  recog- 
nized, not  only  in  the  New  Testament,  but 
also  in  the  law  and  the  prophets.  The  Bi- 
ble is,  therefore,  the  common  standard  for 
every  Church  that  adores  the  God  of  the 
Bible. 

Then  comes  the  rationalist,  the  man  who 
does  not  accept  the  Bible  as  of  Tiuiversal 
authority ;  but  the  rationalist  will  not  deny 
that  the  morality  of  the  Bible  is  pure,  and 
I  will  propound  no  proposition  to  which 
pure  reason  shall  not  be  compelled  to  give 
assent  before  any  jury  of  men  honored  in 
their  own  country.  My  jury  shall  not  be 
taken  from  the  United  States,  where  the  Bi- 
ble is  known,  but  shall  be  a  dozen  men  from 
any  heathen  city,  and  I  warrant  they  will 
come  to  the  conclusion  that  Bible  morality 
is  pure. 


Therefore,  I  claim  the  Bible  as  a  standard 
of  morals,  already  admitted  by  every  Church, 
and  to  be  admitted  by  every  reasonable  per- 
son. 

You  say,  "  Your  law  interferes  with  liber- 
ty;" I  reply.  "  My  law  does  not."  I  claim  the 
Bible  itself  for  my  law.  I  find  it  to  be  what 
it  expressly  claims  to  be,  a  perfect  law  of 
liberty.  The  object  of  Divine  law  is  love, 
and  the  object  of  State  legislation  should  be 
to  secure  to  every  man  perfect  liberty  to  fol- 
low out  his  duty  in  this  life,  as  loving  God 
and  as  loving  man. 

State  laws  affecting  moral  questions  must 
be  gravely  considered,  and  they  must  be  pre- 
cise, giving  a  clear  yes  or  an  unhesitating 
no,  and  they  must  be  well  known.  If  you 
have  got  a  good  thing,  take  care  and  don't 
change  it.  Some  legislatures  are  rushing 
into  laws  so  fast  and  in  such  a  headlong 
way  that  no  one  can  follow  their  move- 
ments. I  have  heard  it  is  so  even  here  in 
the  State  of  New  York.  Let  moral  legis- 
lation be  done  slowly.  There  should  be  no 
change  in  any  law  involving  a  moral  ques- 
tion without  my  best  vote  recorded  on  it, 
nor  with  my  consent  unless  I  had  a  thorough 
understanding  of  it.  Legislate  distinctly. 
Take  one  moral  point,  for  instance ;  there 
should  be  no  doubt  whether  a  man  and  his 
wife  are  married  or  not.  There  is  not  one 
man  or  woman  in  this  room  who  is  not  inter- 
ested in  this  question.  It  is  a  question  which 
rises  up  in  every  clime  and  at  every  time. 
I  say  that  legislation  on  sucb.  a  matter  should 
be  distinct  and  easily  intelligible.  Moreover, 
when  you  do  make  a  law  you  should  see 
that  it  is  substantially  obeyed.  If  you  don't 
want  it,  don't  make  it ;  and,  if  you  have  got 
any  law  and  don't  want  it,  repeal  it ;  but 
let  it  be  a  simple  yea  or  nay,  and  finally,  in 
moral  matters  pre-eminently  let  obedience 
be  secured. 

Having  laid  down  the  principles  upon 
which  human  legislation  has  necessarily  to 
be  conducted  when  morals  are  concerned,  I 
shall  try  to  apply  very  shortly  these  princi- 
ples to  practical  matters,  pursuing  here  the 
Divine  order  of  those  Ten  Commandments 
upon  which  God  rested  his  covenant  with 
his  own  people. 

And  first,  it  seems  to  follow,  from  ad- 
mitting the  Divine  inspiration  and  pure 
morality  of  the  Bible,  that  the  book  shall 
be  recognized  as  a  fixed  standard  of  com- 
mon law,  and  pre-eminently  that  this  shall 
be  the  case  in  regard  to  the  Ten  Command- 
ments. This  accords  with  English  law,  both 
ancient  and  modern.  I  have  read  that  the 
law  in  the  United  States  differs  from  ours 
in  England  in  that  our  laws  are  expressly 
founded,  on  the  Bible,  and  yours  are  not. 
I  stand  upon  the  English  rule,  and,  under 
cover  of  that  rule,  I  find  that  practically 
I  have  in  England  liberty,  so  long  as  I  don't 
interfere  with  the  rights  of  my  neighbor,  to 


GIRDLESTONE :  LEGISLATION  ON  MORAL  QUESTIONS. 


537 


tbiuk,  and  to  say,  and  to  do  what  I  please, 
and  that  is  true  liberty. 

The  Statutes  of  King  Alfred  hegin  thus : 

"  The  Lord  spake  these  words  to  Moses." 
(Here  follow  the  Ten  Commandments,  and 
sundry  other  laws  from  Moses,  of  a  moral 
character.)  The  49th  clause  proceeds  thus : 
"  These  are  the  dooms  which  the  Almighty 
God  himself  spake  unto  Moses,  and  com- 
manded him  to  keep ;  and  after  the  only- 
begotten  Son  of  the  Lord  our  God,  that  is, 
our  Saviour  Christ,  came  on  earth,  he  said 
that  he  came  not  to  break  nor  to  forbid 
these  commandments,  but  with  all  good  to 
increase  them ;  and  mercy  and  humility  he 
taught."  And  Alfred's  laws  close  thus : 

"I  then,  Alfred,  King,  gathered  those  to- 
gether and  commanded  many  of  those  to 
be  written  which  our  forefathers  held,  those 
which  to  me  seemed  good ;  and  rejected  the 
others.  I  then,  Alfred,  King  of  the  West 
Saxons,  shewed  these  to  all  my  witan,  and 
they  then  said  that  it  seemed  good  to  them 
all  to  be  holdeu." 

These  laws  of  King  Alfred  have  never 
been  repealed ;  on  the  contrary,  the  Sover- 
eign of  England  only  obtains  the  crown  of 
England  upon  a  solemn  oath  to  maintain 
the  laws  of  God  and  the  ancient  laws  of  the 
realm;  and  what  is  the  result?  King  Al- 
fred came  to  the  throne  of  England  more 
than  a  thousand  years  ago,  and  his  throne 
has  been  preserved  for  his  children  and 
greatly  enlarged;  and  counting  from  him 
in  direct  line,  King  Alfred's  lineal  descend- 
ant of  the  thirty-first  generation  now  fills 
King  Alfred's  throne.  This  descendant  is 
Victoria,  the  Queen. 

That  the  Bible  is  the  common  law  of  En- 
gland appears  from  the  various  decisions  of 
our  law  courts,  some  of  them  bearing  date 
anterior  to  the  Reformation.  The  follow- 
ing are  instances : 

In  the  reign  of  Henry  VI.,  "Ancient  Scrip- 
ture is  the  Common  Law  on  which  all  man- 
ner of  laws  are  founded."* 

In  the  reign  of  Henry  VII., "  Every  law  is, 
or  of  right  ought  to  be,  according  to  the  Law 
of  God."t 

In  the  reign  of  Henry  VIII.,  "  The  Law 
of  God  and  the  law  of  the  laud  are  all 
oue."t 

And,  "  Our  law  is  founded  on  the  Law  of 
God."§ 

In  1824  it  was  adjudged  in  the  Court  of 
King's  Bench  that  "  The  Law  of  England 
is  founded  upon  the  Law  of  Nature  and  the 
Revealed  Law  of  God.  If  the  right  sought 
to  be  enforced  is  inconsistent  with  either  of 
these,  the  English  Municipal  Courts  can  not 
recognize  it." 

In  1867  it  was  adjudged  in  the  Court  of 


*  Year-book,  34  Henry  VI.,  fol.  40. 

t  Year-book,  4  Heury  VII.,  fol.  5. 

t  Year-book,  12  Henry  VIII.,  fol.  2. 

§  Keilway's  Reports,  8  Henry  VIII. ,  fol.  191. 


Exchequer  that  "Christianity  is  part  arid 
parcel  of  the  law  of  the  land."* 

This  doctrine  is,  in  the  law-books,  carried 
to  its  logical  conclusion  thus : 

"  If  any  general  custom  were  opposed  to 
the  Divine  Law,  or  if  any  statute  were  pass- 
ed directly  contrary  thereto,  as  if  it  were 
enacted  generally  that  no  one  should  give 
alms  to  any  object,  in  ever  so  necessitous 
a  condition,  such  a  custom  or  such  an  act 
would  be  void."t 

If  you  want  your  people  to  obey  the  Bi- 
ble, you  must  teach  the  book  to  the  little 
ones ;  what  they  get  young  they  can  not 
forget,  and  are  likely  to  use  for  life ;  what  is 
not  attained  in  youth  is  rarely  learned  in  af- 
ter-life. Therefore,  let  the  Bible  be  taught 
in  the  common  schools,  and  fairly  taught, 
that  is,  with  a  view  to  getting  the  meaning 
of  the  Divine  words,  not  to  force  their  mean- 
ing to  suit  the  words  of  human  formularies. 
And  for  this  reason,  as  matters  stand,  I  would 
at  present  have  the  Bible  taught  in  the  na- 
tional schools  by  laymen  alone.  And  I  may 
here  remark  incidentally  that  the  mainte- 
nance of  teachers  who  read  out  the  Bible  (the 
book  common  to  all)  is  a  very  different  op- 
eration from  the  concurrent  endowment  of 
rival  teachings  that  are  generally  suspected 
to  be  false. 

The  first  and  second  of  the  Ten  Command- 
ments would  rarely  be  broken  if  bur  chil- 
dren learned  the  Bible,  and  opportunity  for 
keeping  up  acquaintance  with  the  book  were 
furnished  to  all.  "  How  shall  they  believe  in 
Him  of  whom  they  have  not  heard  I"  •  But 
if  the  Bible  is  taught  truly,  all  hear  of  Him. 
And  the  promise  is  found  to  have  vitality, 
"As  soon  as  they  hear  of  Me,  they  shall  obey 
Me."  In  such  a  State  there  is  little  occa- 
sion for  human  sanction  to  the  first  two 
commandments.  However  that  may  be,  it 
is  clear  that  the  State  has  no  right  to  set  up 
in  the  public  schools,  or  elsewhere,  the  wor- 
ship of  the  goddess  of  Reason,  or  of  Venus,  or 
of  her  whose  name  I  will  not  mention — she 
is  blessed,  although,  unfortunately,  some  men 
worship  her.  Nor  has  the  State  any  right 
to  set  up  idols,  whether  crucifixes  or  others, 
before  which  men  are  taught  to  bow  the 
knee.  If  human  laws  do  at  all  touch  the 
question  of  idols,  the  Bible  law  is  plain  and 
uniform.  I  give  one  sample  from  Numbers 
xxxiii.,  52:  "Destroy  all  their  pictures,  and 
destroy  all  their  molten  images,  and  quite 
pluck  down  all  their  high  places."  There 
is  a  Divine  law  to  follow ;  and  no  State  can 
prosper  in  the  breaking  of  that  moral  law. 

The  third  commandment  primarily  forbids 
any  resort  to  the  name  of  the  God  of  truth 
to  bolster  Tip  a  lie.  In  practice  human  laws 


*  2  Barn.  &  Cress.,  p.  471,  and  Law  Reports,  Excheq- 
uer, vol.  ii. 

t  Broom's  "  Legal  Maxims,"  1S4S,  p.  16,  citing  Doct. 
&  Stnd.,  18th  ed.,  15,  16 ;  Noy.  Max.,  9th  ed.,  p.  2 ;  2 
Dwarr.  Stats.,  642,  et  seq. ;  Finch's  "  Law,"  75,  76. 


538 


CHRISTIANITY  AND  CIVIL  GOVERNMENT. 


deal  with  this  offense,  under  the  ninth  com- 
mandment, as  perjury.  But  there  is  another 
offense  against  the  third  commandment. 
Openly  to  assail  the  ears  of  others  by  blas- 
pheming God,  or  openly  using  ribald  impre- 
cations of  the  Divine  name,  is  an  offense 
against  society,  and  necessarily  an  object  of 
restraint  under  just  human  laws. 

The  fourth  commandment  secures  the  Sab- 
bath. By  keeping  one  day  in  seven  holy  to 
himself,  God  has  from  the  beginning  of  this 
world  preserved  the  Sabbath-day  for  the 
working  man.  The  State  is  clearly  bound 
to  preserve  for  me  that  rest  which  is  my 
moral  right. 

The  fifth  commandment  is  necessarily  to 
be  sanctioned  by  human  legislation,  for,  if 
parental  authority  were  not  maintained, 
man  would  not  undergo  the  cares  involved 
in  obeying  the  original  command  to  increase 
and  multiply  and  replenish  the  earth.  The 
fifth  is  the  first  commandment  with  a  bless- 
ing, and  the  Chinese,  who  notably  obey  this 
law,  are  notable  possessors  of  the  territorial 
blessing  here  promised. 

The  sixth  commandment  preserves  man's 
first  right — his  life,  and  .this  law  must  be 
maintained  by  the  highest  sanctions  of 
State  law.  These  must  reach  not  only  to 
the  punishment  of  willful  murder  as  ordina- 
rily understood,  but  also  to  the  prevention, 
and,  if  needful,  to  the  punishment  of  man- 
slaying — such,  for  instance,  as  that  of  the 
sea-faring  men  which  Mr.  Plimsoll  has  lately 
brought  to  light — and  to  the  establishment 
of  sanitary  laws  in  general.  I  give  an  in- 
stance of  the  sanitary  laws  delivered  by 
Moses.  The  Jews  used  to  walk  and  sleep 
upon  their  flat  roofs,  aud  battlements  to  the 
roofs  were  compulsory.  We  do  not  use  flat 
roofs,  and  therefore  need  no  law  as  to  bat- 
tlements ;  but  the  principle  is  clear  that  hu- 
man penalties  must  be  relied  upon  to  meet 
the  special  dangers  of  local  cases,  so  that 
life  may  everywhere  be  preserved  and  pro- 
longed.* 

The  seventh  commandment  touches  the 


*  The  Divine  law  annexes  the  punishment  of  death 
to  the  crime  of  willful  murder— a  law  revealed  to  us  in 
connection  with  the  covenant  with  Noah,  but  that  ap- 
pears to  have  been  made  known  to  the  first  genera- 
tions of  men.  This  sentence  is  confirmed  in  the  law 
given  by  Moses  (Numb,  xxxv.,  31),  where  it  is  express- 
ly provided  that  satisfaction  is  not  to  be  taken  "  for 
the  life  of  a  murderer."  Some  would  have  us  abandon 
this  punishment,  pressing  the  Gospel  claims  of  mer- 
cy ;  but  this  seems  inadmissible  in  the  absence  of  any 
express  repeal  of  the  express  law  of  God.  And  on  the 
ground  of  mercy  alone,  who  is  to  be  benefited  f  Not 
society;  that  must  and  will  protect  itself,  if  not  by 
the  tardy  process  of  law,  then  by  swifter  remedies  of 
which  the  least  objectionable  would  be  a  restoration 
of  the  personal  office  of  the  avenger  of  blood :  nor 
even  the  criminal ;  for  he  may  never  again  have  such 
an  arousing  call  to  wait  upon  the  Divine  Saviour  as 
that  which  in  England  he  receives  from  the  judge 
who  passes  just  sentence  of  death.  The  reason  of 
this  centence  is  found  annexed  to  it:  "In  the  imnge 
of  God  made  he  man." 


whole  social  fabric  exactly  at  its  base.  The 
law  which  gives  one  wife  to  every  man,  and 
preserves  one  husband  to  every  wife,  is  as 
old  as  the  human  family,  aud  is  Divine. 
The  institution  of  marriage  is  to  be  protect- 
ed and  preserved  in  every  case,  and  the  au- 
thority of  the  man  over  his  wife  maintained 
intact.  You  smile,  so  I  will  give  you  an  illus- 
tration from  the  law  of  Moses  as  stated  in 
Numbers  xxx.  If  a  wife  made  a  vow,  and 
her  husband  on  hearing  of  it  disavowed 
it,  she  stood  free ;  but  if  he  knew  it  and 
omitted  a  prompt  disavowal,  she  was  to  be 
bound,  and  he  was  to  bear  her  iniquity ; 
and  the  law  was  the  same  in  the  case  of  an 
unmarried  daughter  who  lived  with  her  fa- 
ther. The  authority  of  the  man  was  in 
each  case  upheld  over  the  woman,  and  the 
man  was  held  responsible ;  and  this  is  in  the 
eternal  nature  of  things,  for  man  was  made 
in  the  image  of  God,  and  woman  was  made 
in  the  image  of  man,  and  is  responsible  to 
him  ;  and  this  statement  is  quite  consistent 
with  the  honor  that  I  owe  and  show  to  my 
wife  at  home.  Believing  that  breaking  the 
seventh  commandment  is  immoral,  I  think 
myself  that  adulterers,  both  male  and  fe- 
male, should  go  to  prison.  I  say  this  only 
because  bound  to  speak  the  truth  on  a  sub- 
ject where  many  remain  tongue-tied.  Is 
prison  the  proper  place  to  which  to  send 
criminals  ?  and  are  adulterers  criminals  f  If 
so,  they  should  be  sent  to  a  proper  place. 
There  is  here  a  question  of  great  moment. 
Ought  the  adulterers  to  be  allowed  to  marry 
each  other  ?  The  law  of  England,  I  am  sor- 
ry to  say,  permits  such  marriages ;  but,  ac- 
cording to  the  law  of  Moses,  adulterers  were 
to  be  killed.  I  do  not  ask  the  penalty  of 
death,  but  I  do  ask  that  the  marriage  of  the 
parties  who  have  proved  themselves  incom- 
petent to  keep  the  marriage  contract  may 
not  be  recognized  by  the  law,  and,  moreover, 
that  a  proper  punishment  be  meted  out  to 
them  as  criminals,  a  mere  money  fine  being 
quite  inadequate. 

Following  the  eighth  commandment;  the 
laws  of  the  State  must  protect  our  property, 
or  no  one  will  care  to  till  the  ground  and  sub- 
due it.  We  must  not  steal  any  of  the  prop- 
erty that  belongs  to  God.  To  take  property 
that  was  held  upon  trustto  provide  the  teach- 
ing of  the  Bible  and  hand  it,  as  I  consider  was 
recently  done  in  England,  to  those  who  with- 
hold the  Bible  from  the  people,  is  a  case  in 
point. 

The  ninth  commandment  protects  all  our 
rights,  our  property,  character,  and  even  our 
lives,  from  the  injury  that  is  done  by  false 
statements,  whether  under  the  sanction  of 
an  oath  or  otherwise.  The  laws  relative  to 
libel  and  perjury  come  in  here,  by  which  a 
man  gets  pecuniary  redress  for  his  personal 
loss,  and,  when  needful,  society  avenges  it- 
self upon  the  false  witness  punishing  him 
as  a  criminal. 


GIRDLESTONE :  LEGISLATION  ON  MORAL  QUESTIONS. 


539 


The  tenth  commandment  deals  with  mere 
motives,  and  so,  at  last,  does  the  law  of  man, 
in  this  sense,  that  although  an  accusation 
under  h-uman  law  can  only  reach  to  what 
is  overt,  yet  willful  malice  is  of  the  essence 
of  any  criminal  charge. 

Such,  in  my  view,  are  the  principles  upon 
which  every  State  can  safely  stand,  and 
which  no  State  can  safely  withstand,  when 
legislating  upon  moral  questions.  If  any 
now  remark,  You  have  relied  upon  the  law 
of  Moses  alone,  and  not  upon  the  Gospel,  my 
answer  is  that  the  principles  of  moral  gov- 
ernment laid  down  in  the  law  of  Moses 
hind  civil  governors  everywhere  and  al- 
ways. Christ  "came  not  to  destroy  the 
law ;"  and  the  canon  of  the  Old  Testament 
closes  with  the  injunction,  "  Remember  ye 
the  law  of  Moses  my  servant,  which  I  com- 
manded unto  him  in  Horeh  for  all  Israel, 
with  the  statutes  and  judgments"  (Mai.  iv., 
4). 

Finally,  let  me  commend  to  your  most 
careful  attention  the  words  of  one  who 
was  a  musician  and  a  poet,  who  filled  many 
posts  from  shepherd-boy  to  king,  and  who 
sinned  fearfully,  but  afterward  sincerely  re- 
pented. He  four  times  claims  to  be  inspired 
of  God  in  this,  his  final  utterance :  "  Now 


these  be  the  last  words  of  David.  David 
the  son  of  Jesse  said,  and  the  man  who  was 
raised  up  on  high,  the  anointed  of  the  God 
of  Jacob,  and  the  sweet  psalmist  of  Israel, 
said,  The  Spirit  of  the  Lord  spake  by  me, 
and  his  word  was  in  my  tongue.  The  God 
of  Israel  said,  the  Rock  of  Israel  spake  to 
me,  Ho  that  ruleth  over  men  must  be  just, 
ruling  in  the  fear  of  God.  And  he  shall  be 
as  the  light  of  the  morning,  when  the  sun 
riseth,  even  a  morning  without  clouds;  as 
the  tender  grass  springing  out  of  the  earth 
by  clear  shining  after  rain.  Although  my 
house  be  not  so  with  God ;  yet  he  hath  made 
with  me  an  everlasting  covenant,  ordered  in 
all  things,  and  sure :  for  this  is  all  my  salva- 
tion, and  all  my  desire,  although  he  make  it 
not  to  grow.  But  the  sons  of  Belial  shall  be 
all  of  them  as  thorns  thrust  away,  because 
they  can  not  bo  taken  with  hands :  but  the 
man  that  shall  touch  them  must  be  fenced 
with  iron  and  the  staff  of  a  spear ;  and  they 
shall  be  utterly  burned  with  fire  in  the  same 
place"  (2  Samuel  xxiii.,  1-7). 

Here  is  the  divine  pattern  of  the  legis- 
lator and  magistrate,  the  exercise  of  whose 
authority  occasions  universal  rejoicing.  He 
is  just  and  fears  God,  and  he  seeks  to  over- 
whelm the  wicked  and  to  uphold  the  good. 


SUNDAY  LEGISLATION. 


THE  SABBATH  MADE  FOR  MAN— HIS  CONSEQUENT  RIGHT  TO 
LEGISLATION  FOR  SERVING  ITS  ENDS. 

BY  THE  REV.  MARK  HOPKINS,  D.D.,  WILLIAMSTOWX,  MASSACHUSETTS, 

,  Lately  President  of  Williams  College. 


IF  wo  would  know  the  ground  on  which 
we  have  a  right  to  the  protection  of  the 
civil  law  in  the  enjoyment  of  the  Sabbath, 
we  must  know  the  ground  on  which  we 
have  a  right  to  such  protection  at  all. 

For  the  idea  of  rights,  or  of  a  right,  we  go 
back  to  our  primitive  constitution.  Under 
all  circumstances  man  has  a  right  to  what- 
ever may  be  necessary  to  the  attainment 
of  his  end  as  that  end  is  indicated  by 
his  whole  nature,  that  is,  by  his  necessities, 
his  active  principles,  and  his  capacities. 
Accordingly,  there  are  rights  that  corre- 
spond to  each  of  these ;  and  they  are  higher 
or  lower,  more  or  less  sacred  as  these  ne- 
cessities, and  active  principles,  and  capaci- 
ties are  higher  or  lower,  more  or  less  sa- 
cred. If  man  has  a  necessity  for  food,  or 
air,  or  light,  then,  iiuder  the  conditions  or- 
dained by  God,  he  has  a  right  to  them.  If 
man  has  constitutionally  as  active  princi- 
ples the  desires  of  property  and  of  power, 
then,  under  the  conditions  ordained  by  God, 
lie  has  a  right  to  property  and  power.  Or, 
if  man  has  the  capacity  of  love  or  of  en- 
joyment, whether  of  a  higher  or  a  lower 
kind,  then,  under  the  conditions  ordained  by 
God,  he  has  a  right  to  the  objects  of  such 
love  and  the  means  of  such  enjoyment.  In 
each  of  the  above  cases  it  will  be  found  that 
the  conditions  ordained  by  God  resolve  them- 
selves into  simply  a  non-interference  with 
the  rights  of  others,  or  with  a  higher  good. 

That  the  account  of  rights  now  given  is 
correct,  any  one  who  will  observe  the  phe- 
nomena may  satisfy  himself.  In  virtue  of 
our  moral  constitution  on  apprehending  the 
relation  between  our  necessities  and  the 
ineaus  of  supplying  them,  between  our  act- 
ive principles  and  their  objects,  between 
our  capacities  and  the  means  of  meeting 
them,  if  any  one  would  thwart  the  evident 
intention  of  God  in  regard  to  these,  we  im- 
mediately and  necessarily  have  the  idea  of  a 
right,  or  of  rights,  and  this  idea  becomes  one 
of  the  deepest  and  most  controlling  forces  in 
the  mind. 

Rights  having  been  thus  originated  and 
recognized,  it  is  the  great  object  of  civil 
society  to  protect  them.  How  far  govern- 
ments may  go  in  promoting  directly  and 


positively  human  welfare  it  may  be  difficult 
to  say ;  but  the  protection  of  rights  is  so  far 
their  object  that  it  may  be  questioned  wheth- 
er they  would  be  needed  or  would  exist  but 
for  that.  With  nothing  to  guard  against 
but  the  mistakes  of  ignorance,  with  no 
wrongs  to  fear  or  to  redress,  and  no  crimes 
to  punish,  with  each  individual  governing 
himself  by  the  law  of  love  or  being  govern- 
ed in  accordance  with  it,  all  necessities  would 
be  so  supplied,  each  active  principle  would 
so  find  its  proper  object  and  scope,  and  ev- 
ery capacity  would  be  so  met,  that  little 
would  seem  to  remain  that  might  not  be  best 
done  by  voluntary  associations  for  the  pro- 
motion of  objects  requiring  combined  effort. 
But  be  this  as  it  may,  it  is  conceded  by  all 
that  the  great  object  of  civil  government 
should  be,  and  is,  the  protection  of  rights. 

With  this  view  of  the  ground  of  rights 
and  of  the  object  of  government,  we  proceed 
to  inquire  whether  the  Sabbath  holds  such 
a  relation  to  the  necessities,  or  the  active 
principles,  or  the  capacities  of  man — to  ei- 
ther or  to  all  of  them — that  he  has  a  nat- 
ural right  to  the  protection  of  civil  society 
in  its  enjoyment.  Our  position  is  that  it 
does  hold  such  a  relation,  and  that  the  Sab- 
bath may  be  fairly  placed  in  this  respect  on 
the  same  basis  with  the  family  and  with 
property. 

In  saying  this,  it  may  be  supposed  by  some 
that  we  disregard  the  proper  basis  of  the 
Sabbath  as  resting  on  divine  authority,  and 
its  proper  nature  as  a  positive  institution. 

Originally  the  Sabbath  did  rest  wholly  on 
authority.  It  must  have  rested  on  that,  since 
the  division  of  time  it  establishes  is  not  a 
natural  division.  It  corresponds  with  no 
period  of  the  heavenly  bodies,  and  with  no 
changes -of  the  seasons.  If  man  had  been 
developed  from  an  ape,  such  a  division  of 
time  would  have  been  impossible.  By  no 
law  of  association  could  it  have  been  sug- 
gested to  him,  and  it  could  have  been  aped 
from  no  one  else.  In  any  case,  indeed,  this 
division  of  time  must  have  rested  not  only 
on  authority,  but  on  dirine  authority,  since 
the  reason  assigned  for  it  has  no  relation  to 
any  thing  done  by  man ;  since  no  human  au- 
thority could  be  competent  thus  to  separate 


HOPKINS :  SUNDAY  LEGISLATION. 


541 


a,  portion  of  undistinguished  time ;  and  since 
the  keeping  of  a  portion  of  time  holy  is  not 
an  object  in  which  any  human  government 
ever  took  the  least  interest,  or  which  it 
would  be  possible  for  it  to  enforce.  A  pe- 
riod of  rest  human  governments  might  en- 
force; but  the  conception  of  an  undistin- 
guished and  often-recurring  portion  of  time, 
to  be  set  apart  by  authority  and  to  be  kept 
as  holy,  could  have  originated  only  with  God. 

Originating  thus  wholly  by  authority,  the 
Sabbath  must  have  been  received  originally, 
both  as  to  the  division  of  time  and  the  man- 
ner of  its  observance,  wholly  as  a  positive 
institution.  So  it  was  received  generally 
under  the  Old  Testament,  and  so  it  is  re- 
ceived by  many  now. 

But  under  Christianity  all  this  is  changed. 
The  single  saying  of  our  Saviour  that  "  The 
Sabbath  was  made  for  man  "  puts  both  the 
institution  itself  as  originally  given  and  the 
mode  of  its  observance  on  a  new  basis  as 
they  are  related  to  our  minds.  It  gives  us 
the  reason  for  the  command,  and  so  the  prin- 
ciple for  tbe  regulation  of  its  observance. 
The  Sabbath  ceases  to  stand  before  us  as  a 
positive  institution  merely,  but  bases  its 
claims  upon  its  bearing  upon  human  wel- 
fare. It  is  implied  in  the  words  of  Christ 
that,  if  the.day  itself  rightly  observed  would 
not  promote  the  well-being  of  man,  then  it 
is  to  be  abrogated,  and  that  there  is  to  be 
nothing  in  the  mode  of  its  observance  that 
is  not  subservient  to  the  same  end.  But 
while  this  is  true,  it  is  also  true  that  Christ 
said  no  word  tending  to  abrogate  the  law 
of  the  Sabbath.  On  the  contrary,  his  words 
imply,  or  rather  directly  affirm,  that  the 
Sabbath  is  for  the  race — for  man  as  man — 
and  so  of  universal  and  perpetual  obliga- 
tion. What  he  did  was  to  give  ns  a  prin- 
ciple for  the  interpretation  and  application 
of  the  law,  limited  in  its  flexibility  only  by 
the  end  of  the  law.  Ho  gave  us  a  principle 
instead  of  a  rule.  In  this  view  of  it  the  law 
of  the  Sabbath  is  for  man,  just  as  the  law  of 
the  family  or  of  property  is;  and,  if  the  fourth 
commandment  is  to  hold  its  place  with  the 
others,  it  must  do  it  as  regulating,  as  each  of 
the  others  do,  one  of  the  great  elements  and 
relations  that  are  essential  to  human  well- 
being. 

And  this  is  precisely  what  we  say  it  does. 
The  fourth  commandment  is  God's  statute 
iu  regard  to  the  element  of  time,  as  the  fifth 
is  in  regard  to  the  family,  the  sixth  in  re- 
gard to  life,  the  seventh  in  regard  to  purity, 
the  eighth  in  regard  to  property,  and  the 
ninth  in  regard  to  truth.  Let  these  ele- 
ments be  rightly  adjusted,  and  give  us  in 
connection  with  them  the  worship  of  God 
and  freedom  from  a  covetous  disposition, 
which  are  provided  for  in  the  other  four 
commandments,  and  we  say  that  wo  have 
every  thing  required  for  the  best  condition 
of  the  individual  and  of  society.  "  The  law 


of  the  Lord  is  perfect."  Nothing  can  be 
omitted ;  nothing  need  be  added. 

Of  the  commandments  just  specified  as 
bearing  on  relative  duties,  if  we  except  the 
fourth,  it  is  conceded  by  all  that  each  re- 
spects an  element  of  human  well-being  that 
is  universal,  and  that  involves  rights  that 
require  legal  enactment  and  protection. 
Does  the  commandment  recognize  and  reg- 
ulate the  family!  So  does  the  civil  law. 
Dees  the  commandment  say,  "  Thou  shalt 
not  kill  ?"  So  does  the  law.  Does  the  com- 
mandment say,  "  Thou  shalt  not  commit 
adultery  ?"  So  does  the  law.  Does  the  com- 
mandment say, "  Thou  shalt  not  steal  ?"  So 
does  the  law.  Does  the  commandment  say, 
"Thou  shalt  not  bear  false  witness  I"  So 
does  the  law.  In  connection  with  each  of 
these  commandments  the  individual  has 
rights  that  need  to  be,  and  are,  secured  by 
the  civil  law,  and  what  we  affirm  is  that  the 
fourth  commandment  takes  its  place  with 
the  rest,  and  stands,  in  this  regard,  on  pre- 
cisely the  same  basis.  • 

That  the  law, "  Thou  shalt  not  steal,"  is 
for  the  race,  no  one  doubts,  because  the  rea- 
son for  it  is  universal.  Property  and  the 
mode  of  its  distribution  are  elements  related 
to  human  well-being  everywhere ;  and  the 
laws  on  our  statute-books  against  stealing 
are  not  there  simply,  or  perhaps  at  all,  be- 
cause stealing  is  forbidden  in  the  Decalogue, 
but  because  we  can  see  for  ourselves  that  it 
violates  a  natural  right  aud  must  be  injuri- 
ous to  society.  But  time  is  an  element  more 
universal  than  property ;  and  how  extensive- 
ly the  mode  of  its  division  aud  employment 
enters  into  all  that  pertains  to  human  well- 
being  few  of  us  realize.  Its  relations  to 
that  are  even  more  intimate  and  pervasive 
than  those  of  property.  Of  both  property 
and  time  God  is  the  Lord  paramount.  The 
eighth  commandment  is  the  statute  of  God 
to  regulate  by  its  spirit  for  the  good  of  man, 
and  for  that  only,  the  distribution  and  man- 
agement of  that  property  which  belongs  to 
him.  In  the  same  way  the  fourth  command- 
ment is  the  statute  of  God  to  regulate  for 
the  good  of  man,  and  for  that  only,  the  divi- 
sion and  employment  of  that  time  which  be- 
longs to  him. 

What  the  effect  upon  the  race  would  be 
if  the  fourth  commandment  were  obeyed  in 
full,  that  is,  in  its  law  of  labor  for  six  days, 
as  well  as  of  rest  for  the  seventh,  can  bo 
known  only  by  trial.  My  own  conviction 
is  that  this  would  give  a  division  and  em- 
ployment of  time  in  exact  accordance  with 
the  demands  of  the  constitution  of  man  in 
his  present  state,  whether  as  needing  alter- 
nate activity  and  rest,  or  a  diversity  of  em- 
ployment for  his  various  faculties ;  aud  that 
if  all  men  would  work  six  days,  and  spend 
the  seventh  iu  holy  rest,  the  ideal  point  in 
regard  to  the  division  and  employment  of 
time  would  be  reached. 


542 


CHRISTIANITY  AND  CIVIL  GOVERNMENT. 


And  if  this  be  so,  we  see  the  folly  of  those 
ultra-evangelicals  who  think  they  find  free- 
dom iu  destroying  the  law  of  the  Sabbath. 
No  law  not  merely  ceremonial  and  form- 
al, no  good  law  whoso  force  is  in  the  rea- 
son of  it,  cau  be  destroyed  in  the  interest  of 
freedom ;  for,  if  it  be  a  good  law,  the  ben- 
efits of  it  can  bo  had  only  through  obedi- 
ence, and  the  abrogation  of  a  law  conferring 
benefits  is  either  a  mistake  or  sheer  license. 
The  simple  question  is,  Is  there  a  reason  in 
the  nature  of  man  as  it  is  related  to  the  di- 
vision and  employment  of  time  both  for  the 
setting  apart  of  six  days  of  labor  with  spe- 
cial reference  to  the  interests  of  this  life,  and 
of  one  day  in  seven  as  a  day  of  holy  rest 
with  special  reference  to  the  interests  that 
lie  beyond  ? 

In  reference  to  this,  the  propositions  which 
wo  lay  down  are,  first,  That  the  nature  cf 
man,  whether  as  2)hysical,  intellectual,  or  spir- 
itual, whether  as  individual  or  social,  is  so  pre- 
conformed  to  that  division  and  employment 
of  time  which  the  Sabbath  contemplates, 
that  the  best  results  for  the  individual,  or 
for  society,  can  be  reached  only  through 
that.  And,  second,  That,  iu  connection  with 
this  division  and  employment  of  time,  there 
are  rights  which  may  properly  be,  and  ought 
to  be,  secured  by  legislation. 

First,  then,  there  is  what  may  be  called 
the  physical  Sabbath.  For  man,  physically, 
there  must  be  a  division  and  employment 
of  time,  as  there  is  of  food  and  exercise,  that 
will  work  out  the  best  results.  The  divis- 
ion required,  we  might  suppose,  would  be 
the  natural  division  into  day  and  night.  It 
is  so  in  part;  but  we  here  find  a  beautiful 
and  striking  proof  of  the  Sabbath  as  from 
God,  iu  that,  as  related  to  man  physically, 
it  is  based  on  a  natural  law  that  man  could 
not  have  originally  known,  and  probably 
would  never  have  discovered.  All  moral 
law  that  relates  to  physical  good  presup- 
poses natural  law,  and  must  be  framed  with 
reference  to  it,  and  that  the  law  of  the  Sab- 
bath is  so  framed  we  can  now  see. 

It  is  now  known  that  the  ordinary  rest 
of  sleep  does  not  suffice  for  the  constitution. 
It  is  ascertained  by  adequate  induction, 
through  observations  and  experiments  care- 
fully made  and  long  continued,  that  both 
men  and  animals  will  have  better  health,  and 
live  longer ;  will  do  more  work,  and  do  it  bet- 
ter, if  they  rest  one  day  in  seven,  than  if  they 
work  continuously.  If  this  be  so,  and  it  is 
now  unquestioned,  then  all  those  who  would 
otherwise  be  compelled  to  labor  will  have  a 
right  to  the  rest  which  their  constitution 
requires  on  the  same  ground  on  which  they 
have  a  right  to  sufficient  sleep,  and,  if  need 
be,  they  will  have  a  right  to  the  interpo- 
sition of  law  to  give  them  that  rest. 

This  is  a  point  iu  which  the  laboring 
classes  have  a  deep  interest.  They  have  a 
right  to  that  amount  of  time  for  rest  and 


recuperation  which  is  required  for  the  full 
health  and  vigor  of  their  constitutions,  and 
those  who  employ  them,  and  on  whom  they 
may  be  dependent,  have  no  right  to  make 
such  arrangements  for  pleasure  or  for  busi- 
ness as  will  deprive  them  of  that  time.  The 
time  belongs  to  God.  By  natural  law,  as 
well  as  by  express  statute,  he  gives  it  to 
them,  and  they  can  not  be  deprived  of  it 
without  injury  to  themselves,  and  wrong  on 
the  part  of  others.  The  blessing  physically 
of  the  weekly  Sabbath  to  the  toiling  mill- 
ions of  Christendom  no  man  can  estimate, 
and,  if  any  one  would  seek  to  wrest  it  from 
them,  there  would  be  an  imperative  call  for 
legislation  to  secure  them  their  right. 

But  on  the  right  to  legislate  respecting 
the  division  and  employment  of  time  in  fa- 
vor of  those  who  labor  we  need  not  dwell, 
at  least  in  this  country.  Those  who  call  so 
loudly  for  a  law  limiting  labor  to  ten,  and 
even  to  eight,  hours  a  day  will  not  question 
the  right  to  legislate  when  the  limitation  is 
called  for  by  a  natural  law.  The  Sabbath 
exists  now  by  the  common  as  well  as  by 
statute  law — a  great  provision  of  God  in  fa- 
vor of  the  laboring  classes ;  but  it  is  so  much 
a  matter  of  course  that  wo  often  fail  to  think 
of  it  as  by  law  at  all. 

In  its  relation  to  the  intellect,  the  Sab- 
bath is  a  provision  wholly  unique.  There 
is  nothing  like  it,  or  approaching  it,  under 
any  other  system.  Iu  looking  at  it  in  this 
aspect  we  must  judge  of  it,  as  we  must  of 
all  the  provisions  made  by  God,  not  by  its 
perversions  actual  or  possible,  but  by  its  tend- 
ency and  results  when  honestly  used  for 
the  ends  for  which  it  was  given.  By  those 
who  would  keep  the  people  in  ignorance 
and  consequent  subjection,  the  Sabbath  has 
been  perverted  into  a  day  of  mummeries, 
and  parades,  and  frivolities ;  but,  while  it  is 
needed  as  a  day  of  rest  for  those  who  toil 
intellectually,  one  great  end  of  it  is  the  in- 
struction of  the  people,  and  the  whole  peo- 
ple, not  in  science  or  general  education,  but 
on  all  subjects  pertaining  to  moral  and  re- 
ligious conduct.  Let  a  people  be  well  en- 
lightened in  these,  and  enlightenment  on 
other  subjects  will  be  sure  to  come.  On 
these  they  must  be  enlightened,  if  they  are 
to  be  free ;  and  whatever  conditions  for 
such  enlightenment  it  may  be  necessary  to 
provide  by  legislation  it  will  be  proper  for 
it  to  provide. 

But  the  Sabbath  is  for  man  chiefly  as  it  is 
related  to  his  spiritual  and  social  nature.  It 
is  in  the  relation  of  the  Sabbath  to  these,  in 
connection  with  the  Bible  as  a  book  requir- 
ing study,  that  we  find  the  highest  proof  of 
that  supreme  wisdom  that  everywhere  sets 
one  thing  over  against  another.  These  are 
man's  highest  endowments;  it  is  through 
them  that  he  has  his  most  sacred  rights ;  and, 
if  the  Sabbath  fail  to  elevate  him  in  respect 
to  these,  its  great  end  is  lost.  The  spiritual 


HOPKINS :  SUNDAY  LEGISLATION. 


543 


and  social  nature  I  mention  together,  be- 
cause, though  they  may  be  cultivated  apart 
in  some  measure,  yet  they  naturally  go  to- 
gether, and  can  reach,  their  highest  forms 
only  in  combination.  It  is  here,  in  the  so- 
cial affections  in  combination  with  moral 
purity  and  with  worship ;  in  the  union  of 
men  to  each  other  through  their  union  with 
God,  that  we  find  the  true  goal  of  humanity. 
Without  these  as  its  underlying  elements 
society  can  not  reach  its  highest  state  here, 
and  in  these  will  consist  its  perfection  here- 
after. But,  if  it  was  the  purpose  of  God  to 
educate  and  elevate  the  race  spiritually  and 
socially,  it  would  be  necessary  that  they 
should  be  brought  together  at  frequent  and 
stated  intervals  with  reference  to  this,  and 
we  do  not  see  how  it  would  have  been  pos- 
sible for  him  to  secure  these  ends  except 
by  some  such  arrangement  as  the  Sabbath. 
Left  to  themselves,  mankind  would  never 
have  come  together  for  religious  worship 
statedly,  or  in  such  a  way  as  to  cultivate 
the  higher  devotional  feelings  and  social  af- 
fections. With  no  regular  return  of  hal- 
lowed days,  or  opportunity  to  cultivate  so- 
cially the  devout  affections,  the  true  wor- 
ship of  God  would  soon  be  lost,  and  the  re- 
ligious nature  would  become  a  means  of 
degradation  through  some  form  of  idolatry 
or  superstition. 

But  what  relation,  it  may  be  asked,  has 
legislation  to  these  ends?  None  directly. 
It  is  not  the  province  of  legislation  to  en- 
force the  observance  of  the  Sabbath  in  its 
aspect  toward  God,  or  to  make  men  either 
moral  or  religious.  Men  can  not  be  made 
religious  by  legislation.  It  is  only  the  civil 
Sabbath  that  can  be  thus  enforced ;  and  by 
the  civil  Sabbath  we  mean  a  day  made  non- 
legal,  in  which  public  business  shall  be  sus- 
pended, and  in  which  labor  and  recreation 
shall  be  so  far  restrained  that  the  ends  of  a 
religious  Sabbath  may  be  secured  by  those 
who  wish  it.  To  this  it  is  that  we  say  that 
the  community  has  a  natural  right,  and  if 
this  can  be  secured  only  by  legislation,  then 
the  community  and  every  man  in  it  has  a 
natural  right  to  that  legislation. 

From  this  discussion  it  appears  that  the 
Sabbath  is  not,  as  some  seem  to  suppose,  an 
arbitrary  institution,  or  one  slightly  con- 


nected with  the  other  arrangements  of  God 
for  the  elevation  and  well-being  of  man. 
Like  the  air,  and  the  light,  and  the  water, 
in  the  simplicity  and  yet  variety  of  its  ap- 
plications and  uses,  it  bears  the  evident  im- 
press of  the  hand  of  God.  Kept  as  God  com- 
manded, it  would  improve  the  individual 
man  physically,  intellectually,  morally.  It 
would  unite  man  to  man,  and  all  men  to 
God.  Surely,  whatever  he  may  intend,  ho 
who  fights  agaiustthe  Sabbath,  fights  against 
the  best  interests  of  society ;  and  as  society, 
no  less  than  the  individual,  has  a  natural 
right  to  whatever  is  necessary  to  secure  its 
ends,  it  has  a  right  to  the  civil  Sabbath, 
and  to  any  legislation  that  may  be  necessa- 
ry to  secure  those  benefits  connected  with  it 
on  which  its  own  well-being  depends. 

I  close  by  presenting,  in  a  form  convenient 
for  discussion,  the  propositions  which  I  have 
endeavored  to  establish.  They  are : 

1.  That  man  has  a  right  to  whatever  is 
necessary  for  the  attainment  of  his  end,  as 
that  end  is  indicated  by  his  necessities,  his 
active  principles,  and  his  capacities. 

2.  That  the  chief  end  of  legislation  is  tho 
protection  of  rights. 

3.  That  under  Christianity  we  are  to  test 
the  Sabbath  by  its  relation  to  human  well- 
being,  and  to  use  it  for  that  end. 

4.  That  the  fourth  commandment  is  God's 
statute  in  regard  to  the  great  element  of  time, 
its  division  and  employment;  and  that  these 
have  a  relation  to  the  well-being  of  society 
even  more  intimate  than  that  of  property. 

5.  That  the  human  constitution  and  the 
constitution  of  society  is  so  preconformed  to 
that  division  and  employment  of  time  which 
the  Sabbath  contemplates,  that  neither  tho 
end  of  the  individual  nor  of  society  can  bo 
fully  reached  except  through  that. 

6.  That  hence  man  has  rights  in  connec- 
tion with  the  fourth  commandment,  as  in  con- 
nection with  the  others  that  relate  to  rela- 
tive duties,  and  that  these  rights  ought  to 
be  protected  by  law  on  the  same  ground. 

7.  That  it  is  not  the  province  of  legisla- 
tion to  enforce  the  fourth  commandment  in 
its  Godward  aspect,  or  to  promote  religion 
directly,  but  simply  to  protect  men  in  their 
rights  under  a  great  provision  made  by  God 
for  their  well-being. 


EVILS  OF  A  UNION  OF  CHURCH  AND  STATE. 


BY  THE  Hox.  J.  L.  M.  CURRY,  L.L.D.,  RICHMOND,  VIRGINIA. 


THE  subject  assigned  to  me  is  tho  expedi- 
ency or  rightfulness  of  alliance  between 
the  civil  and  ecclesiastical  power.  Without 
aiming  at  strict  verbal  accuracy,  the  ques- 
tion may  be  variously  stated.  Is  an  "  Es- 
tablishment" proper?  Can  civil  govern- 
ment rightfully  interfere  with  liberty  of 
conscience  ?  Has  uot  every  rational  being 
au  inalienable  right  to  worship  God,  free 
from  molestation  ?  Has  government  a  right 
to  discriminate  among  religions,  as  Mr.  Glad- 
stone phrases  it,  "  to  choose  the  national  re- 
ligion ?"  Should  religious  congregations  re- 
ceive the  salaries  of  pastors  from  the  State, 
and  be  consequently  placed  under  its  super- 
intendence ? 

It  ought  to  be  premised  that  liberty  is  not 
unrestrained  license,  nor  social  anarchy,  nor 
to  be  used  "  for  a  veil  of  wickedness."  Lib- 
erty implies  restraints  and  limitations,  and 
exists  where  each  person  is  guaranteed  the 
full  exercise  of  his  faculties  and  rights  so 
long  as  and  provided  that  he  does  not  inter- 
fere with  a  like  full  exercise  on  the  part  of 
others.  "Sic utere tuo ut non alienum laedas." 
In  the  assertion  of  the  rights  of  conscience, 
the  peace  or  the  existence  of  society  is  not 
to  be  disturbed.  The  legitimate  authority 
of  the  magistrate  is  not  to  be  impinged.  Lib- 
erty does  not  license  crimes  against  proper- 
ty, or  society,  or  government,  or  individuals. 
This  freedom  of  conscience,  this  right  and 
prerogative  of  man,  is  sacred.  It  is  correla- 
tive with  obligation  on  the  part  of  others. 
To  disregard  or  interfere  with  this  right  is 
to  be  false  to  duty,  to  violate  a  sacred  thing. 

Christianity  has  been  often  allied  with 
civil  government.  Since  the  third  century 
of  the  Christian  era,  such  a  connection  has 
been,  outside  of  the  United  States,  the  in- 
variable rule  in  Europe  and  America.  Such 
a  policy  was  induced,  in  part,  by  the  fact 
that  under  the  old  Covenant  a  theocracy 
existed,  and  the  civil  government  was  insti- 
tuted, in  large  degree,  to  maintain  and  fos- 
ter religion.  Civil  rulers,  for  self-aggran- 
dizement, subordinated  Christianity,  or  rath- 
er ecclesiastical  organizations,  to  their  cor- 
rupt purposes.  Good  but  deluded  men 
thought  it  a  duty  to  foster  by  political  sup- 
port the  Christian  religion;  When  the  pa- 
pal hierarchy  became  predominant,  it  subsi- 
dized the  civil  power  and  held  it  in  vassal- 
age. The  Reformation,  which,  in  some  re- 
spects, was  a  protest  rather  than  a  reform, 
by  a  fatal  blunder,  copied,  with  some  modi- 


fications, this  wrong  of  Popery.  Protestant 
governments,  to  resist  papacy  and  promote 
the  reformed  religion,  took  religion  nnder 
their  fostering  care.  Kings  and  emperors 
and  dukes  claimed  to  bo  the  head  of  the 
Church  in  their  dominions,  were  recognized 
as  such,  and  exercised  some  of  the  power 
that  had  been  withdrawn  from  the  Pope. 
In  England,  the  Oath  of  Supremacy,  required 
of  persons  taking  office,  distinctly  and  form- 
ally asserted  the  right  of  the  sovereign  to 
be  the  head  of  the  Church.  The  government 
claims  the  right  of  legislating  for  the  nation- 
al Church,  and  the  Parliament  is  as  supreme 
over  the  Church  as  over  property  and  life. 

When  Church  and  State  are  united,  the 
State  practically  assumes  infallibility,  arro- 
gates the  capability  and  the  right  to  sit  in 
judgment  upon  creeds,  and  to  determine 
what  is  a  Church,  what  is  the  Church,  what 
is  true,  and  what  is  false  religion.  An  es- 
tablishment prefers  one  denomination  to  an- 
other, and  throws  the  weight,  authority,  pow- 
er, and  influence  of  the  government  in  favor 
of  a  particular  sect  of  religionists.  From 
among  several  denominations,  government 
selects  one  to  receive  its  discriminating  fa- 
vor. It  takes  this  denomination  into  part- 
nership, establishes  it,  patronizes  it,  supports 
by  special  laws,  public  property,  exclusive 
privileges,  gives  it  power  as  such  State 
Church  in  the  State,  and  sometimes  uses  civ- 
il officers  to  enforce  ecclesiastical  discipline. 
The  government  thus  places  nearer  the  sov- 
ereign power  the  man  or  the  woman  who 
professes  a  particular  creed.  Such  a  one 
becomes  a  member  of  a  privileged  fraterni- 
ty, and  by  a  sovereign  digito  monstrari  is  held 
up  sis  a  more  proper  person  than  his  less  fa- 
vored fellow.  Ex  cathedra,  his  orthodoxy  is 
certified,  and  he  stands  before  the  communi- 
ty with  the  imprimatur  of  the  powers  that 
be. 

Separation  of  Church  and  State  is  tho  re- 
moval of  all  political  restraints  and  political 
supports  from  a  Christian  denomination.  It 
means  religious  equality  of  citizenship,  not 
the  placing  above  nor  below,  but  on  a  plat- 
form of  perfect  equality.  It  is  the  procla- 
mation that  a  citizen  shall  not  be  favored 
or  prejudiced  in  property,  reputation,  social 
or  official  position,  or  in  any  right  or  privi- 
lege whatsoever,  in  consequence  of  his  relig- 
ion. Divorce  of  Church  and  State  is  an  as- 
sertion of  the  wrong  of  civil  interference  in 
matters  of  worship  and  an  unmistakable 


CURRY:  EVILS  OF  A  UNION  OF  CHURCH  AND  STATE. 


545 


declaration  that  it  is  better  for  the  govern- 
ment and  better  for  religion  to  "  render  unto 
Caesar  the  things  that  are  Caesar's,  and  unto 
God  the  things  that  are  God's." 

The  distinction  between  what  is  civil  and 
what  is  religious  may  be  made  sufficiently 
clear  for  all  practical  purposes.  What  is 
civil  belongs  to  the  province  of  the  civil 
government  solely.  What  is  religious  is, 
from  grounds  of  expediency,  as  well  as  nec- 
essarily from  its  character,  outside  of  civil 
control.  Religion  rests  between  God  and 
the  conscience,  and  the  kingdoms  of  this 
world  have  no  right  nor  competency  to  pre- 
scribe or  control  it. 

The  people  of  the  United  States  in  Feder- 
al and  State  governments  deny  the  jurisdic- 
tion of  the  magistrate  in  matters  of  relig- 
ion, and  enjoy  "the  distinction  and  the 
blessedness"  of  an  entire  separation,  organ- 
ically, of  Church  and  State.  Religion  is 
neither  fettered  nor  endowed.  The  Federal 
Constitution,  in  Article  VI.,  Section  3,  de- 
clares that  no  ll  religious  test  shall  ever  be 
required  as  a  qualification  to  any  office  or 
public  trust  under  the  United  States."  When 
the  projet  of  the  Convention  of  1787  was  sub- 
mitted to  the  States  for  their  separate  rati- 
fication, three  of  them  proposed  additional 
guarantees-  of  freedom  of  conscience.  In  def- 
erence to  this  jealousy  of  interference  with 
the  most  sacred  personal  right,  the  first 
amendment  of  the  Constitution  provides 
that  "  Congress  shall  make  no  law  respect- 
ing an  establishment  of  religion,  or  prohibit- 
ing the  free  exercise  thereof."  These  arti- 
cles exclude  the  Federal  Government  from 
any  administration  of  religion,  and  from  all 
power  to  act  on  the  subject.  All  the  State 
constitutions  are  alike  emphatic  in  the  as- 
sertion of  absolute  religious  liberty.  This 
American  contribution  to  the  science  of  poli- 
tics did  not  spring  from  indifference  or  op- 
position to  the  Christian  religion.  It  pro- 
ceeded, to  quote  Judge  Story, "  from  a  sol- 
emn consciousness  of  the  dangers  from  ec- 
clesiastical ambition,  the  bigotry  of  spiritual 
pride,  and  the  intolerance  of  sects."  It  was 
incorporated  into  our  organic  laws  in  the  in- 
terest and  as  promotive  of  pure  spiritual  re- 
ligion. "  To  this  consideration,"  said  Gen- 
eral Washington,  "we  ought  to  ascribe  the 
absence  of  any  regulations  respecting  relig- 
ion from  the  Magna  Charta  of  our  country." 
Liberty  of  worship  was  not  regarded  by  the 
framers  of  our  Government  as  derivative 
from  civil  power,  nor  as  a  concession  or  boon 
of  political  generosity,  but  as  "  a  right  inher- 
ent in  the  personality  of  the  individual  con- 
science." Government  is  a  political  organ- 
ism, and  it  is  of  the  essence  of  American  lib- 
erty that  the  government  should  bo  entirely 
separate  from  churches  and  religious  denomi- 
nations. The  separation  is  no  longer  an  ex- 
periment. It  has  the  approval  of  every  evan- 
gelical denomination  and  of  every  political 
35 


party.  The  different  denominations  are  gen- 
erally prosperous,  enterprising,  and  widely 
influential.  Ministers,  in  the  aggregate,  are 
as  well  supported  as  elsewhere.  Churches 
are  as  numerous  and  as  efficient.  Christian 
activity  is  as  intelligent.  Sunday-schools 
are  as  numerous  and  as  well  conducted. 
Benefactions  for  Bible  publication  and  dis- 
tribution, for  missions,  church  buildings, 
education — for  all  benevolence — are  as  lib- 
eral. The  people  of  the  United  States  are 
as  well  supplied  with  the  means  of  religion 
as  any  like  population  in  the  world.  Church 
accommodations  are  as  ample  and  as  well 
distributed.  Infidelity  and  heresy  have  as 
few  perverts.  This  success  of  the  voluntary 
system,  amply  substantiated  by  the  census, 
has  been  accomplished  in  spite  of  disadvan- 
tages, and  yet  equals  what  has  been  done 
for  the  Christian  religion  in  countries  where 
millions  are  expended  to  uphold  establish- 
ments that  have  existed  for  centuries. 

Voluntaryism  finds  corroboration  in  coun- 
tries where  an  establishment  is  alleviated 
by  toleration.  A  comparison  of  Dissenters 
with  the  favored  sect  can  be  made  without 
prejudice  to  the  argument  of  the  inexpedi- 
ency of  the  reliance  upon  State  favor.  The 
non-conforming  churches  are  not  generally 
inferior  in  purity  of  doctrine,  unity  of  faith, 
harmony  of  purpose,  strictness  of  discipline, 
or  consistency  of  conduct,  to  the  endowed 
church.  Bible  and  Mission  and  Tract  So- 
cieties are  as  well  sustained  by  Dissenters 
proportionately  as  by  Churchmen.  The  poor 
and  destitute  are  often  compelled  to  rely 
upon  Dissenters  for  religions  instruction  and 
public  worship. 

It  would  be  uncandid  not  to  concede  that 
State  patronage  has  insured  superior  cul- 
ture to  a  portion  of  the  ministry,  and  has 
given  to  the  world  profound  scholars  and 
eminent  preachers.  In  spite  of  this  admis- 
sion, I  must  advance  a  step  and  place  the 
opposition  to  union  oil  grounds  more  im- 
pregnable than  mere  inexpediency  or  unne- 
cessity.  It  is  wrong  in  principle  and  inju- 
rious in  practical  operation. 

1.  It  is  an  injury  to  the  State.  When 
governments  undertake  impossibilities,  they 
frequently  do  intolerable  grievances  or  bring 
themselves  into  contempt.  Governments 
have  no  jurisdiction  over  the  conscience. 
This  is  extra-territorial.  Governments  can 
not  afford  to  lose  the  sympathy  or  encount- 
er the  just  prejudice  of  the  governed,  or  to 
do  palpable  injustice.  An  establishment  fos- 
ters notions  of  arbitrary  government,  culti- 
vates opposition  to  liberal  principles.  Its 
pulpit  often  reflects  the  caprice  and  will, 
and  espouses  the  cause  of  the  court.  The 
advocates  of  the  divine  right  of  kings,  of 
passive  obedience,  the  opponents  of  revolu- 
tion, of  civil  reform,  of  popular  liberty,  have 
uniformly  been  the  adherents  of  an  estab- 
lishment. The  Tightness  of  the  union  of 


545 


CHRISTIANITY  AND  CIVIL  GOVERNMENT. 


Church  and  State  by  an  inevitable  logic 
leads  to  the  Tightness  of  absolutism,  of  des- 
potism, to  the  denial  of  individual  liber- 
ty and  of  the  right  of  private  judgment,  to 
the  suppression  of  free  opinion  and  of  the 
largest  liberty  of  political  action.  English 
history  is  full  of  proofs  of  these  assertions. 
A  reference  to  the  troublous  condition  of 
political  affairs  in  Brazil,  Mexico,  France, 
Germany,  Austria,  Spain,  and  Italy  shows 
that  the  union  is  perplexing  governments, 
obstructing  reform,  fomenting  strife  and 
war.  State  religions  generated  the  Cru- 
sades, the  persecutions,  and  very  many  of 
the  outrages  of  Popery.  A  State  religion 
brings  Great  Britain  into  the  anomalous 
position  of  defending  the  Anglican  Church 
with  three  orders  of  ministry  in  England, 
Presbyterianism  with  one  in  Scotland,  and 
the  Maynooth  grants  in  Ireland.  Accord- 
ing to  Hooker,  a  national  church  is  founded 
on  the  fiction  of  making  every  subject  a 
member  of  said  church.  Arnold  of  Rugby 
was  not  able  to  free  himself  from  the  same 
hypothesis.  Two  corporate  powers,  with 
distinct  offices  and  ministries,  thus  enlist 
the  same  persons  as  subjects  and  communi- 
cants. Statesmen  and  Churchmen  are  thus 
united  for  mutual  help  and  defense.  The 
State  offers  a  premium  to  insincerity  and 
hypocrisy.  To  get  honors  and  emoluments, 
men  become  members  of  the  Established 
Church.  Moral  principle  is  eradicated  when 
men  affect  conversion  to  be  sheriffs,  magis- 
trates, and  judges,  and  when  a  petty  consta- 
ble is  forbidden  to  execute  process  until  he 
shall  have  received  the  sacrament  of  the 
Lord's  Supper  from  the  hands  of  a  regular- 
ly ordained  clergyman  as  a  part  of  the  pre- 
scribed induction  into  office. 

2.  It  is  a  wrong  to  other  denominations. 
Putting  out  of  view  the  hostile  decision  of 
the  government  as  between  denominations, 
composed  of  equally  worthy  and  patriotic 
citizens,  the  effect  of  governmental  endow- 
ment is  to  lower  the  rejected  party  in  the 
eyes  of  all  those  who  regard  the  govern- 
ment as  possessed  of  superior  wisdom.  What 
is  called  "  society  "  is  transferred  to  the  Es- 
tablishment, and  few  things  are  more  intol- 
erant and  despotic  than  that  profanum  vul- 
flus  which  "lives,  moves,  and  has  its  being" 
iu  the  accidents  of  birth,  wealth,  or  govern- 
mental favor.  Government  elects  a  portion 
of  its  citizens,  sometimes  the  majority,  and 
subjects  them  to  inferiority,  dishonors  them 
and  their  religion,  puts  a  penalty  on  their 
form  of  worship,  degrades  them  at  the  bar, 
in  the  college,  in  the  pulpit,  iu  Parliament, 
and  in  places  of  honor  and  trust.  Dissent- 
er is  a  term  of  reproach,  and  such  a  per- 
son is  under  a  stigma,  and  in  a  state  of  uni- 
form degradation.  This  vexatious,  prolong- 
ed, corroding  insult  is  not  relieved  by  acts 
of  toleration.  Toleration,  by  government, 
of  the  God-given,  indefeasible  right  of  wor- 


ship is  an  implication  of  the  right  to  with- 
hold liberty  of  conscience.  It  makes  wor- 
ship an  act  of  political  grace,  and  is  a  pal- 
pable contradiction,  a  license  to  neglect  duty 
and  run  in  the  teeth  of  the  constituted  civil 
authorities. 

3.  It  is  a  wrong  to  citizens  generally.     It 
proscribes  merit  and  makes  another  qualifi- 
cation than  fitness  for  office.     In  England, 
under  Henry  VIII.,  a  good  subject  "  accept- 
ed the  mass  without  the  Pope :  under  Ed- 
ward VI.  he  eschewed  both ;  under  Mary  he 
took  back  the  mass,  and  after  si  while  the 
Pope  to  boot ;  under  Elizabeth  he  gave  them 
both  up  again ;"  during  the  interregnum, 
Presbyterianism  was  established   and  the 
prayer-book    was    interdicted    in    private 
houses  as  well  as  in  churches;   after  the 
Restoration,  Parliament  reinstated  the  Epis- 
copal system ;  and  now,  in  Great  Britain,  the 
union  of  Church  and  State  makes  a  citizen 
a  turn-coat  if,  in  crossing  the  border,  he 
would  keep  pace  with  "  the  corporate  rea- 
son."    It  deprives  citizens  of  an  equal  par- 
ticipation in  rights  and  privileges,  because 
they  can  not  conform  to  a  religious  standard 
set  up  by  men  Avho  have  no  theological  ap- 
titudes and  who  were  not  selected  for  their 
piety.     It  makes  a  diploma  of  a  college,  a 
commission  in  the  army  or  navy,  a  foreign 
mission,  a  crown,  dependent  on  being  loyal 
to  the  sect  which  happens,  for  the  nonce,  to 
be  the  favorite  of  the  government.     It  com- 
pels support  of  a  denomination  Avhich  has 
not  the  approval  of  the  tax-payers.     It  robs 
of  property,  for  whenever  a  government  takes 
from  its  citizens  more  than  is  necessary  for 
a  just  and  economical  administration  of  its 
legitimate  affairs,  it  commits  robbery.     Gov- 
ernment may  thus  lead  its  own  people  into 
a  fatal  delusion,  cause  them  to  neglect  per- 
sonal regeneration,  and  lull  them  into  a  false 
security  by  their  membership  in  a  national 
church. 

4.  An  establishment  is  a  wrong  to  our 
holy  religion.     Much  of  what  has  been  said, 
especially  concerning  the  identity  of  citizen- 
ship and  church-membership,  has  equal  per- 
tinency to  this  point.     Public  profession  of 
a  State  religion  is  sometimes  conjoined  with 
private  incredulity.      Infidelity  has  taken 
refuge   under  cover  of  an  establishment, 
abounds  where  religion  is  enforced  by  law. 
Germany  and  France  with  their  skepticism 
are  not  persuasive  of  an  establishment.    All 
the  sovereigns  of  England,  from  Henry  VIII. 
to  James  II.,  during  a  period  of  one  hundred 
and  forty  years,  the  boy  Edward  VI.  except- 
ed,  employed  their  supremacy  to  extinguish 
vital  religion  (Noel's  "  Union  of  Church  and 
State,"  page  59).    Fronde  states  that  at  onu 
time  ordinations  were  bestowed  on  men  of 
lewd  life  and  corrupt  behavior.     Moral  de- 
fects were  accepted  in  consideration  of  spir- 
itual complacency.     The  CornJiill  Magazine, 
of  a  late  date,  says  (I  quote  not  to  indorse 


CUKRY:  EVILS  OF  A  UNION  OF  CHURCH  AND  STATE. 


547 


but  to  show  tendencies) :  "  The  Church  of 
England  is  broad  as  to  Rationalism,  high  as 
to  Romanism,  and  low  as  to  Dissent ;  feeds 
all  alike  -with  the  dew  of  her  fatness,  and 
decorates  each  indifferently  with  her  eccle- 
siastical honors."  Bishop  Coleuso  holds  offi- 
cial connection  with  a  national  church.  Un- 
ion of  Church  and  State  degrades  the  Chris- 
tian religion  by  making  it  dependent  on  civil 
power.  It  submits  questions  of  eternal  sig- 
nificance, involving  the  essence  of  Divine 
truth  and  man's  personal  relations  to  his 
Creator,  to  men  of  most  varied  characters. 
"  They  may  be  men  of  high  principle  or  of 
no  principle ;  religious  or  profane ;  young 
men  of  gayety  and  fashion,  or  old  men  of 
inveterate  immorality;  they  may  be  wealthy 
or  steeped  in  debt ;  absolutists  or  democrats ; 
sportsmen  ever  foremost  at  the  death  of  the 
fox,  or  keener  civic  hunters  after  gold ;  lov- 
ers of  pleasure,  whoso  employments  are  sel- 
dom more  serious  than  the  opera  or  the  race- 
track, or  lovers  of  party,  whose  highest  am- 
bition may  be  to  keep  one  minister  in  or  turn 
another  out."  It  dishonors  the  Holy  Spirit  by 
doubting  His  omnipotence.  It  calls  in  the 
sword  to  do  the  work  of  spiritual  weapons ; 
it  encourages  distrust  of  God  and  promotes 
weakness  of  faith ;  it  is  adverse  to  humility 
and  spirituality,  and  seeks  for  other  elements 
of  strength  than  righteousness,  peace,  and 
joy  in  the  Holy  Ghost. 

5.  It  is  injurious  to  the  denomination  in 
alliance.  If  the  strength  of  a  church  or  a 
denomination  be  in  its  spirituality,  what 
has  been  said  may  be  sufficient  to  demon- 
strate the  injuriousness  of  the  alliance.  An 
establishment  is  injustice  and  oppression. 
No  argument  is  needed  to  show  to  an  as- 
sembly of  Christians  that  injustice  and  op- 
pression injure  the  wrong-doer  as  much  as 
the  sufferer.  Unjust  discriminations  engen- 
der discontent,  irritation,  resentment,  hostil- 
ity, sometimes  aversion  and  hatred.  Patron- 
age is  invariably  a  source  of  corruption  ;  and 
the  history  of  State  religions  shows  that  re- 
ligious communities  are  not  exempt  from  its 
evil  consequences.  An  endowment  secular- 
izes a  denomination,  and  attracts  the  world- 
ly, the  selfish,  the  ambitious. 

The  system  of  presentation  to  benefices 
is  an  afflictive  malady.  Advowsous  are 
regular  articles  of  merchandise,  advertised 
iu  the  newspapers  and  sold  at  public  outcry 
or  private  sale.  From  this  legal  right  of 
presentment,  regardless  of  the  consent  of  the 
inhabitants  of  the  parish,  have  come  non- 
residence,  huge  salaries,  starving  incomes, 
sporting  and  dissolute  clergymen.  Men  of 
frivolous  characters,  of  infidel  principles, 
hold  livings  as  property,  and  bestow  them 
for  other  considerations  than  a  desire  to 
save  souls  or  promote  the  Redeemer's  king- 
dom. To  prevent  the  presentment  and  in- 
duction of  unworthy  persons  and  secure  a 
pious  ministry,  it  lias  been  found  necessary 


in  England  to  buy  up  livings  as  they  be- 
come vacant. 

State  favor  diverts  attention  from  things 
spiritual  to  things  secular,  and  by  creating 
a  sense  of  dependence  enervates.  To  make 
citizenship  and  church-membership  identic- 
al, begets  formality  and  worldliness,  and  in- 
troduces unworthy  elements  into  churches. 
"  Simon  Maguses  are  more  easily  fosterer! 
than  Simon  Peters."  Union  of  Church  and 
State  is  an  obstacle  to  reform  and  progress. 
"  In  England,  it  mutilated  the  Reformation ; 
in  France,  in  parts  of  Germany,  in  Spain  and 
Italy,  overcame  and  crushed  it.  It  alone 
gave  claws  and  teeth  to  the  Inquisitions, 
and  without  its  aid  the  powerful  confra- 
ternity of  Loyola  would  have  been  baffled. 
As  the  union  had  previously  corrupted  the 
churches,  so  at  the  Reformation  it  prevent- 
ed their  restoration  to  purity  of  discipline 
and  to  spiritual  life."  The  power  of  the 
civil  magistrate,  used  for  the  maintenance 
and  support  of  religion,  has  had  an  incalcu- 
lable influence  in  corrupting  Christianity, 
and  has  been  a  prolific  fountain  of  innumer- 
able evils.  The  members  of  a  State  Church 
have  their  hands  tied  and  labor  under  many 
disabilities  in  doing  good.  The  facilities  of 
the  pious  in  this  direction  are  lessened,  while 
many  members  are  indifferent  to  spiritual 
prosperity. 

6.  My  last  argument  is  that  the  union  of 
Church  and  State  is  unscriptural.  In  an  as- 
sembly where  such  contrariant  opinions  arc 
held,  I  am  embarrassed  by  my  own  individ- 
ual convictions.  A  scripturally  constituted 
church  of  regenerated  persons,  chosen  by 
Christ  out  of  the  world  and  not  made  up  of 
bad  and  good,  vicious  and  virtuous,  infidel 
and  believer — a  separate,  local,  visible,  in- 
dependent congregation  of  believers,  and  not 
a  particular  denomination  of  Christians,  a 
national  organization,  a  collective  corpora- 
tion overspreading  a  whole  land,  co-exten- 
sive territorially  with  political  boundaries 
— such  an  independent,  local  assembly  of 
saints,  in  my  opinion,  can  not  be  in  alliance 
with  the  State,  nor  be  fused  into  the  politi- 
cal power  without  losing  the  essential  marks 
of  an  apostolic  church.  I  am  forbidden  here 
by  common  Christian  courtesy  to  argue  the 
question  on  this  hypothesis.  I  therefore 
take  the  common  Protestant  view,  and  from 
that  stand-point  make  bold  to  assert  the  iin- 
scripturalncss  of  the  union. 

Religion,  man's  relation  to  his  God,  is 
personal  and  individual,  and  can  not  be  vi- 
carious nor  compulsory.  In  the  economy 
of  God's  grace,  a  national  religion,  strictly 
speaking,  is  a  solecism,  an  absurdity.  The 
Holy  Spirit  regenerates  by  units.  The  Holy 
Spirit's  work  upon  the  individual  heart  is 
indispensable  to  salvation.  To  love  God 
{  with  all  the  heart  and  soul  is  constrained 
only  by  the  antecedent  love  of  God.  State 
policy  may  establish  a  creed  and  enforce  its 


548 


CHRISTIANITY  AND  CIVIL  GOVERNMENT. 


outward  observance  by  penalties,  but  the 
mind,  the  heart,  and  the  conscience  can  not 
be  fettered. 

Christ's  kingdom  is  not  of  this  world,  and 
lie  is  the  supreme,  absolute,  single  Head. 
No  temporal  prince  can  be.  Before  Pilate, 
Jesus  asserted  his  kingship,  and  in  such  a 
manner  as  to  show  that  his  dominion  was 
compatible  with  the  rule  of  an  earthly  gov- 
ernor. His  kingdom  is  independent  of  civ- 
il authority.  Over  his  subjects  no  earthly 
potentate  has  spiritual  jurisdiction.  For  a 
State,  by  executive  or  legislative  power,  to 
give  law  to  Christian  churches,  to  prescribe 
creed  or  ministry,  to  determine  the  guests 
and  the  manner  of  their  gathering  at  the 
Lord's  table,  is  to  act  inconsistently  with 
the  character  of  Christ's  kingdom  and  in 
repugnance  to  the  teachings  of  the  Scrip- 
tures. 

Christ  and  his  disciples  proclaimed  and 
practically  asserted  soul  liberty,  preferring 
imprisonment  and  death  to  submission  to 
the  claim  to  control  their  worship. 

Christ  commissioned  his  disciples  to  preach 
the  Gospel  to  every  creature.  The  field  is 
the  world.  Union  has  barred,  until  lately, 
one-half  of  Europe  against  zealous  evangel- 
ists, and  States  even  yet  lay  off  their  terri- 
tory into  parishes  and  prohibit  Christ's  min- 
isters from  preaching  the  Gospel  therein. 

Church  and  State  have  different  functions 
and  different  ministers.  One  looks  to  the 
overt  act ;  the  other  includes  the  inner  life. 
The  early  churches  were  organized,  grew,  and 
prospered  under  the  principle  of  absolute 
separation  from  civil  authority.  Prior  to 
313,  governments  never  offered  assistance. 
"  In  many  countries,  through  many  ages,  the 


union  has  been  the  alliance  of  fraud  and 
force  to  degrade  the  nations ;  the  compact 
of  the  priest  and  the  potentate  to  crush 
the  rights  of  conscience ;  the  combination 
of  regal  and  prelatical  tyranny  to  repress 
true  religion." 

Inspiration  enjoins  giving  us  an  act  of 
worship.  Beneficence  in  support  of  church- 
es and  ministers  is  a  duty  and  a  privilege. 
The  contributions  are  to  bo  cheerful  and 
voluntary.  Christ  never  gave  to  civil  rul- 
ers the  right  to  make  assessments  and  col- 
lect money  for  his  kingdom.  To  patronize 
all  denominations  is  none  the  less  a  viola- 
tion of  the  New  Testament  than  to  patronize 
one. 

The  improvement  iu  public  opinion  on 
this  subject  has  been  •wonderful.  A  few 
days  ago,  in  the  Hungarian  Parliament,  <i 
course  of  legislation  was  proposed  to  bring 
about  the  same  relations  between  the  State 
and  religious  bodies  in  Hungary  as  exist  in 
the  United  States.  Much  of  reform  is  yet 
needed.  Disabilities  are  still  imposed  by 
many  governments,  which  undertake  to  pre- 
scribe and  regulate  and  support  religion. 
Russia  now  imprisons  Baptists.  The  sec- 
ond article  of  the  Constitution  declares  an 
object  of  the  Alliance  to  be  "to  assist  the 
cause  of  religious  freedom  everywhere;  to 
hold  up  the  supremo  authority  of  the  word 
of  God."  Religious  freedom  is  a  misnomer 
wli^le  an  unhallowed  union  exists  between 
Church  and  State.  The  longer  such  unions 
exist,  the  more  difficult  will  be  the  solution 
of  questions  growing  out  of  them,  and  the 
less  successful  will  be  the  labors  of  .this  Al- 
liance in  assisting  the  cause  of  religions  free- 
dom. 


THE  FKEE  CHURCHES  OF  THE  CONTINENT;   OB, 
AMERICAN  IDEAS  IN  EUROPE. 

BY  THE  REV.  J.  F.  ASTlfi, 

Professor  iu  the  Theological  Seminary  of  the  Free  Church,  Lausaime,  Switzerland. 


IT  is  probable  that  a  certain  number 
among  you  do  not  fully  understand  what  is 
meant  by  the  free  churches  of  Europe. 
Though  numerous,  and  differing  iu  many  re- 
spects, your  religious  denominations  have  a 
common  character;  they  are  composed  of 
persons  who  share  the  same  principles ;  they 
freely  govern  themselves  ;  their  financial  re- 
sources arise  from  the  voluntary  contribu- 
tions of  those  who  attend  religious  services. 
Liberty,  then,  can  not  be  the  characteristic 
and  distinguishing  feature  of  any  of  your 
churches. 

In  Europe  the  case  is  quite  different :  on 
the  one  hand  we  have  the  national  churches, 
governed  by  political  powers  and  sustained 
by  the  public  treasury ;  on  the  other,  free 
churches,  governing  themselves  and  appeal- 
ing for  support  to  the  system  of  voluntary 
contribution. 

Although  this  antagonism  has  been  but 
slowly  developed,  it  nevertheless  springs 
from  the  great  religious  movement  of  the 
sixteenth  century.  The  Reformation,  which, 
in  so  many  respects,  met  the  demands  of  the 
moment,  could  not  then  realize  the  notion  of 
a  truly  spiritual  Church.  The  necessity  of 
resisting  the  formidable  power  of  the  Rom- 
ish States,  the  entangled  relations  of  politic- 
al and  religious  questions,  and  other  causes, 
all  concurred  to  drive  the  nascent  Protestant 
Churches  to  enter  into  relations  so  intimate 
with  governments  that  almost  everywhere 
political  society  and  religious  society  were 
quite  mingled.  You  are  aware  of  the  fact 
that  the  venerated  founders  of  this  Great  Re- 
public, the  Pilgrim  Fathers  who  landed  on 
Plymouth  Rock,  were  not  in  this  respect  more 
enlightened  than  the  Protestants  of  Europe. 
They  consequently  established  the  New  Eng- 
land Theocracy,  which  was  distinguished 
from  the  State  Churches  of  Europe  only  by  a 
severer  morality  and  a  more  rigorous  logic. 

Every  one  of  you  equally  knows  that,  un- 
der the  influence  of  the  great  awakening  in- 
stigated by  Jonathan  Edwards,  the  American 
Churches  were  renovated  iu  their  internal 
constitutions,  broke  away  from  theocratic 
traditions,  and  were  led  to  realize  a  new  ec- 
clesiastical ideal,  claimed  by  the  Gospel  spir- 
ituality and  by  the  principles  of  Protestant- 
ism. 

Now  that  deep  ecclesiastical  revolution 


which  has  stamped  most  of  your  religious 
denominations  with  a  peculiar  character 
has  not  yet  been  accomplished  in  Europe. 
It  is  for  this  reason  that  our  ecclesiastical 
position  differs  iu  so  many  respects  from 
yours.  Our  national  churches  of  to-day  call 
to  mind  but  very  imperfectly  what  yours 
were  nuder  the  theocratic  regime,  and  our 
free  churches  are  yet  far  from  realizing,  ei- 
ther in  fact  or  in  theory,  the  ideal  reached 
by  those  of  the  United  States. 

In  almost  every  Protestant  country  of  Eu- 
rope, as  at  Plymouth  and  in  Massachusetts, 
the  State  began  by  being  strictly  denomi- 
national ;  that  is,  one  could  not  enjoy  civil 
and  political  rights  unless  ho  were  an  active 
church -member.  These  perfectly  logical 
consequences  of  the  theocratic  system  have 
disappeared  almost  everywhere.  Even 
where  it  has  made  great  efforts  to  remain  as 
denominational  as  possible,  the  State  has  to 
tolerate  different  churches  side  by  side  in 
the  official  establishment.  There  is  even  a 
certain  country  where  it  has  come  to  pass 
that  several  churches  are  recognized  as  na- 
tional, though  one  is  Roman  Catholic,  two 
are  Protestant,  and  the  other  is  a  synagogue. 
The  French  government  recognizes  and  pays 
the  ministers  of  these  different  denomina- 
tions, which,  if  they  are  faithful  to  their 
duty,  can  not  fail  to  come  into  conflict  with 
each  other.  From  this  state  of  things  has 
resulted  a  great  difference  between  official 
or  privileged  churches  on  the  one  hand,  and 
the  free  dissenting  churches  on  the  other. 
While  the  first  contend  for  favors  at  the 
hands  of  power,  the  second  do  not  always 
succeed  to  obtain  the  liberty  with  which 
they  would  be  satisfied. 

I.  But  it  is  especially  on  the  internal  con- 
stitution of  the  national  churches  that  this 
mode  of  existence  has  exercised  a  profound 
influence.  In  the  sixteenth  century  they  all 
had  a  confession  of  faith.  To-day  those 
symbols  have  fallen  in  disTise  where  they 
have  not  been  expressly  abolished.  As  all 
the  Protestants  of  a  country  belong  to  the 
official  church,  whatever  be  their  dogmatic 
principles,  their  faith,  or  their  infidelity, 
such  must  be  the  result.  In  the  United 
States,  every  dogmatic  or  ecclesiastical  dif- 
ference of  some  importance  betrays  itself  by 
a  special  denomination. 


550 


CHRISTIANITY  AND  CIVIL  GOVERNMENT. 


In  Europe,  on  the  contrary,  the  orthodox, 
the  Unitarians,  and  the  Universalists  con- 
tend for  preponderance  in  the  bosom  of  the 
national  Church.  It  is  not  unfreqnent  to 
hear  from  the  same  pulpit  on  the  following 
S. unlay,  or  on  the  evening  of  the  same  day, 
the  refutation  of  what  has  been  preached  in 
the  morning.  While  the  orthodox,  appeal- 
ing to  historic  rights,  advance  claims  to  the 
exclusive  possession  of  religions  establish- 
ments founded  in  the  sixteenth  century, 
their  adversaries  maintain  that  the  normal 
state  of  the  Church  requires  in  its  bosom 
the  co-existence  of  those  hostile  parties  which 
are  called  to  tolerate  each  other  and  to  bal- 
ance one  another.  In  consequence  they 
modify,  they  even  omit  at  their  convenience 
the  official  liturgies. 

There  is  a  church  in  Switzerland,  that  of 
Zurich,  which  has  officially  sanctioned  this 
mode  of  doing.  There  exist  two  liturgies 
equally  authorized  by  the  synod,  though 
contrary  to  each  other;  every  pastor  can 
choose  the  one  which  he  considers  more  in 
accordance  with  his  principles. 

The  distinction  between  the  Church  and 
the  congregation  is  an  elementary  principle 
at  the  basis  of  all  your  evangelical  denomi- 
nations; it  exists  in  none  of  our  natioTial 
establishments,  but  only  in  some  of  our  free 
churches  in  Europe. 

The  children  are  indiscriminately  bap- 
tized in  infancy,  be  their  parents  professors 
of  religion  or  not.  After  having  received  a 
more  or  less  systematic  religious  instruction, 
at  the  age  of  seventeen  they  are  admitted  to 
the  communion,  whether  they  possess  or  not 
what  you  call  a  personal  experience  of  re- 
ligion. 

For  a  few  years  past  the  established 
churches  have  witnessed  the  outcome  of  a 
last  consequence,  one  as  important  as  it  is 
unavoidable,  of  their  internal  constitution 
and  mode  of  recruiting.  While  formerly  they 
were  administered  by  the  clergy  or  by  the 
government,  of  late  they  have  had  to  reckon 
with  democratic  exigencies,  which  tend  to 
predominate  in  religion  as  well  as  in  politics. 
The  Protestant  Church  of  a  country,  accord- 
ing to  the  new  system,  is  composed  of  all  the 
citizens  arrived  at  the  age  of  majority  who 
are  neither  Catholics  nor  Jews  ;  they  all 
form  a  part  of  the  supreme  power  which,  un- 
der the  sanction  of  the  government,  regu- 
lates the  Church,  chooses  its  councilors  and 
its  pastors.  AH  the  established  churches  of 
the  Continent  have  not  yet  come  to  this, 
but  they  necessarily  gravitate  toward  this 
ideal,  which  depends  on  the  universal  suf- 
frage of  all  Protestants  of  age,  whether  pro- 
fessors of  religion  or  not. 

This  recent  mode  of  government  has  not 
everywhere  produced  the  pernicious  conse- 
quences which  one  -would  naturally  look  for. 
The  unbelieving  members  have  not  always 
availed  themselves  of  the  electoral  rights 


which  had  been  so  generously  conceded  to 
them ;  the  indifferent  have  generally  kept 
aloof.  The  administration  has  thus  remained 
in  the  hands  of  persons  more  or  less  pious, 
and  having  a  real  interest  in  the  matter. 
On  the  contrary,  in  establishments  where  op- 
posing parties  had  been  contending  for  pre- 
ponderance, it  has  been  necessary  more  than 
once  to  resort  to  electoral  proceedings  not 
unlike  those  of  political  parties.  Some  years 
ago  one  of  the  most  celebrated  of  the  estab- 
lished churches  of  the  Continent  witnessed, 
under  the  roof  of  her  ancient  cathedral, 
scenes  of  such  a  nature  as  to  grieve  all  who 
still  retain  respect  for  holy  things. 

The  polls  were  invaded  at  an  early  hour 
by  the  representatives  of  a  particular  party, 
who,  with  cigars  in  month,  took  possession 
of  the  ballot  boxes  and  held  them.  During 
all  the  operations,  messengers  were  busily 
engaged  running  to  and  from  drinking  sa- 
loons in  the  neighborhood  to  recruit  electors. 
It  is  even  asserted  that  wine  found  its  way 
into  the  church  itself.  Seeing  that  success 
did  not  crown  so  much  zeal,  those  strange 
ecclesiastical  electors  had  recourse  to  hiss- 
ing by  way  of  showing  their  disappointment 
when  the  candidate  of  the  other  party  was 
declared  to  be  elected. 

Finally,  let  us  add  that  the  minister  for 
whom  triumph  was  sought  by  such  means 
was  at  the  same  time  strongly  orthodox  and 
more  or  less  of  a  Socialist.  Happily,  scenes 
of  this  nature  are  not  of  frequent  occurrence, 
either  in  this  particular  national  church  or 
in  others. 

But  as  things  may  legally  come  to  pass  in 
this  manner  whenever,  drawn  by  considera- 
tions foreign  to  religion,  the  masses  choose 
to  make  use  of  their  electoral  rights,  this 
feature,  though  exceptional  and  rare,  may 
serve  to  give  an  idea  of  the  internal  consti- 
tution and  state  of  official  establishments. 
At  a  given  moment  they  may  legally  fall 
into  the  hands  of  the  avowed  enemies  of  all 
religion. 

With  such  a  state  of  things  in  progress, 
you  will  find  it  natural  enough  that  free 
churches  should  have  been  formed  in  the 
different  countries  of  Europe.  You  may  be 
surprised  that  they  are  not  more  numerous, 
and  that  they  have  not  acquired  a  greater 
importance.  What  has  everywhere  called 
them  into  existance  is  the  abnormal  state  of 
the  national  establishments,  which  for  a  long 
tune  have  been  deprived  of  the  advantages 
of  the  theocratical  regime  of  the  sixteenth 
century,  having  retained  to  this  day  only 
the  disadvantages  of  that  system. 

II.  The  number*  of  persons  attached  to 


*  It  will  be  understood  that  I  can  not  lay  claim  to 
absolute  exactness  as  to  number*.  In  the  first  place, 
scvernl  isolated  and  unimportant  congregations  will 
probably  have  remained  unknown  to  me ;  in  the  sec- 
ond place,  the  statistical  data  change  from  day  to 
day ;  finally,  a  few  churches  have  positively  refused 


ASTIE" :  THE  FREE  CHURCHES  OF  EUROPE. 


551 


the  free  churches  of  the  continent  of  Europe 
may  be  estimated  at  1,166,083  members. 

1.  Among  those  churches  we  may  class,  in 
the  first  place,  the  churches  of  foreign  ori- 
gin ;  namely,  those  which  are  the  fruit  of 
the  missionary  enterprises  of  American  and 
English  denominations.    Six  foreign  church- 
es have  founded  missions  in  Europe.     The 
American    Baptists    number    67    churches, 
16,778  members;    the   English  Methodists, 
4541  members,  15,993  hearers;   the  Ameri- 
can Methodists,  28  chapels,  5396  members  ; 
the  German  Methodists  of  North  America 
("Die  Evangelische  Gemeinschaft  von  Nord 
America"),  known  in  Switzerland  under  the 
name  of  Albrechts  Briider,  and  there  having 
7  churches,  15  stations,  198  members.     The 
Free  Church  of  Scotland  has  stations  at 
Pesth,  Breslau,  Prague,  Amsterdam ;  and  the 
Irish  Presbyterian  Church,  at  Bonn,  Vienna, 
Hamburg,  and  Altona. 

2.  Those  free  churches  which  owe  their 
existence  to  some  peculiar  state  of  things  on 
the  continent  of  Europe  may  be  divided  into 
two  principal  classes. 

a.  Those  that  never  were  national  church- 
es, like  the  congregations  of  the  Waldenses 
of  Piedmont,  and  the  Meimonites  that  are 
found  in  Holland  (60,000),  in  Germany,  and 
in  Russia.     They  reach  back  to  the  move- 
ment of  the  sixteenth  century.     Let  us, 
moreover,  mention  the  Lutherans  of  the 
States  of  Austria,  of  Hungary,  and  of  Tran- 
sylvania, which  number  1,000,000  of  mem- 
bers.    In  this  class  must  also  be  ranked 
the  French  Refugee  Churches,  scattered  in 
Germany,  Sweden,  and  Denmark,  which  have 
always  governed  themselves. 

b.  The  churches  which  have  become  free  in 
after-times  are  of  two  classes — those  which 
have  become  so  on  account  of  doctrinal  rea- 
sons, and  those  which  owe  their  origin  to 
the  need  of  a  more  internal  and  spiritual 
constitution. 

(1.)  The  congregations  of  the  former  group 
are  subdivided  into  three  very  distinct  class- 
es, (a.)  Some  have  broken  oft'  from  the  of- 
ficial Church  because  they  looked  upon  her 
as  too  strictly  orthodox.  This  is  the  case 
with  the  confederation  of  churches  which  is- 
sued from  the  movement  of  the  German  Cath- 
olics and  of  the  Friends  of  Light,  which  took 
place  in  Germany,  1845-1848.  This  confeder- 
ation numbers  144  [f  J  churches,  destitute 
of  any  profession  of  faith,  being  an  offshoot 
of  the  philosophical  evolution  of  modern 
times :  it  rejects  the  most  characteristic  doc- 


all  information,  intimating  that  they  did  not  feel  at 
liberty  to  count  their  numbers,  for  fear  of  the  griev- 
ous consequences  which  befell  King  David  on  account 
of  the  numbering  of  the  people  of  Israel.  Some  have 
even  laid  upon  me  the  dnty  of  remonstrating  with  the 
religious  public  of  America  concerning  the  too  ample 
space  they  give  to  statistical  details.  They  regard 
this  as  a  very  worldly  and  superficial  mode  of  esti- 
mating the  progress  of  the  kingdom  of  God. 


trines  not  only  of  traditional  orthodoxy, 
but  even  of  Deism  itself.  These  churches 
number  altogether  about  25,000  members. 
(6.)  The  Swedenborgians  profess,  on  the  con- 
trary, to  have  received  new  revelations ;  they 
are  not  numerous  in  Europe,  (c.)  In  the 
third  place,  we  have  churches  that  have  left 
the  State  Church  because  they  did  not  re- 
gard it  as  sufficiently  orthodox.  Much  more 
numerous  than  the  preceding  ones,  they  are 
scattered,  in  the  different  countries  of  Eu- 
rope, either  as  Reformed  or  as  Lutherans. 
The  most  important  of  all  these  denomi- 
nations is  the  Separatist  Reformed  Church 
of  Holland.  It  has  102,000  members,  338 
churches,  233  pastors,  and  a  theological  fac- 
ulty at  Kampen.  Besides  these,  there  are 
the  Eeformed  Churches  under  the  Cross,  and  a 
few  congregations  known  under  the  name  of 
Free  Evangelical  Communities,  less  strict  than 
the  foregoing,  in  the  maintenance  of  the  doc- 
trines of  the  Reformed  Churches. 

There  is  also  in  Holland  a  dissenting  Lu- 
theran Church,  consisting  of  12,000  members. 

We  shall  next  point  out  the  old  Lutheran 
Churches  of  Prussia,  having  40,976  members, 
55  parishes,  46  pastors ;  those  of  the  Duchy 
of  Baden,  with  600  to  700  members;  a  Lu- 
theran Church  at  Copenhagen  (Evangelist 
Lutherk  Fremenigh'), with  150  to  160  members ; 
and  the  Presbyterian  and  Reformed  Church 
of  Uster,  in  the  Canton  of  Zurich,  with  150 
communicants. 

In  French-speaking  countries,  there  are 
also  churches  Avhich  have  sprung  out  of  the 
felt  need  of  reviving  the  doctrines  of  the 
sixteenth  century.  For  instance,  the  Pres- 
byterian Church  of  Geneva,  with  1200  mem- 
bers and  as  many  hearers ;  that  of  Lyons, 
with  600  members  and  3000  hearers;  the 
group  of  the  Union  of  Free  Churches  of 
France  (45  churches,  67  places  of  worship, 
2962  church-members,  and  6088  hearers) ;  and 
the  Belgian  Missionary  Church  (66  church- 
es, 1700  communicants,  and  5000  hearers). 

(2.)  Among  the  churches  whose  birth  is 
due  to  ecclesiastical  reasons,  we  find,  in  the 
first  place,  the  Irvingites  and  the  Plymouth- 
ists,  or  Darbyists. 

These  two  denominations  have  precisely 
the  same  idea  of  the  Church  as  the  Roman 
Catholics ;  that  is  to  say,  Christianity  must 
constitute  one  single  external  body  of  be- 
lievers, hierarchically  organized.  But,  while 
Catholicism  prides  itself  on  being  the  per- 
fect realization  of  that  ideal,  the  Irving- 
ites, or  apostolic  churches,  mean  to  do  bet- 
ter, and  claim  to  renew  the  gift  of  miracles 
in  order  to  realize  their  mission.  The  Plym- 
outh Brethren,  on  the  contrary,  originally 
springing  from  the  Episcopal  Church  of 
England,  assert  that  that  ideal  is  at  present 
completely  unattainable,  in  consequence  of 
the  apostasy  of  the  Church  from  the  very 
time  of  the  apostles.  They  deny  to  all  de- 
nominations the  name  of  churches ;  they 


CHRISTIANITY  AND  CIVIL  GOVERNMENT. 


themselves  insist  on  being  looked  upou  only 
as  fragments  (Mbria)  among  other  remains. 
They  call  themselves  Brethren.  They  are 
but  few  in  numbers,  ami  are  scattered  pret- 
ty much  over  the  whole  coutineiit. 

A  small  religious  denomination  in  the 
South  of  France,  the  Evangelical  Church  of 
Cette,  also  aims,  it  seems,  to  realize  the  ideal 
of  the  Apostolic  Church.  It  has  33  congre- 
gations and  364  members. 

Among  the  denominations  which  have 
risen  from  a  desire  for  a  purer  internal  or- 
ganization, one  must  lirst  point  out  the  Mo- 
ravian Brethren  (Episcopalians,  7364  mem- 
bers) ;  the  Church  of  Koruthal,  in  Wiirtem- 
berg,  1200  members ;  the  community  of 
Miiunedorf,  in  Zurich. 

The  Free  Church  of  the  Canton  de  Vaud 
has  issued  from  an  ecclesiastical  conflict  with 
the  State.  This  Church  feels  herself  called 
to  proclaim  the  sovereignty  of  Jesus  Christ 
over  his  Church.  She  is  Presbyterian,  while 
allowing  within  her  bounds  considerable  dif- 
ferences of  opinion  on  dogmatical  and  eccle- 
siastical matters.  She  has  41  congregations, 
4068  members,  3500  hearers,  and  a  school  of 
theology.  One  of  the  characteristic  traits 
of  this  Ckurch  is  that  it  considers  the  Lord's 
Supper  as  a  simple  act  of  worship,  in  which 
all  the  hearers  cau  participate  as  well  as  in 
the  other  exercises. 

Finally,  let  us  mention  those  Free  Church- 
es of  the  Continent  which  more  especially 
remind  us  of  the  internal  constitution  of  the 
churches  of  the  United  States.  These  are 
the  Free  Churches  of  Neuchatel  (8  congre- 
gations, 250  members) ;  those  of  Berne  (4 
churches,  353  members)  ;  of  Elberfeld  and 
Barmen  (140  to  150  members);  a  few  con- 
gregations of  the  French  and  Vaudois  group ; 
and  a  small  church  in  St.  Gall.  These  con- 
gregations only  admit  to  the  Lord's  Supper 
such  persons  as  have  made  a  personal  pro- 
fession of  their  faith. 

This  rapid  glance  will  have  sufficed  to 
show  that,  though  not  numerous,  the  Free 
Churches  of  the  Continent  differ  very  much 
from  each  other  in  their  doctrine  and  con- 
stitution. Let  us  add  that,  for  several  of 
them,  it  is  quite  in  spite  of  their  will  that 
they  find  themselves  free ;  it  is  from  sheer 
inability  to  realize  the  national  and  theo- 
cratic ideal,  which  they  have  not  yet  given 
up.  But  this  very  vanity,  which  often 
amounts  to  opposition,  reveals  in  the  most 
manifest  manner  all  that  is  still  defective 
in  the  religious  and  ecclesiastical  state  of 
Europe. 

The  churches  which  date  from  the  six- 
teenth century  seem  no  longer  to  be  able  to 
meet  the  new  exigencies  of  the  times  without 
undergoingprofoundmodifications  which  are 
impracticable.  Finally,  let  us  not  forget  to 
say  that  the  men  who  in  these  free  congre- 
gations profess  in  principle  the  separation  of 
Church  and  State,  as  a  necessary  consequence 


of  a  spiritual  conception  of  Christianity  and 
of  the  Church,  form  only  an  imperceptible 
minority  within  that  minority  itself. 

Nevertheless,  what  they  have  done  for 
some  thirty  years  past  is  not  at  all  in  pro- 
portion with  the  sinallness  of  their  num- 
bers. It  is  owing  to  them  that  attention 
has  been  drawn  to  the  spiritual  nature  of 
religion,  and  to  the  serious  disadvantages 
of  the  union  of  Church  and  State,  to  such 
an  extent  that,  as  well  for  the  religious 
world  as  for  the  public  in  general,  the  ques- 
tion of  the  relations  of  the  temporal  and 
spiritual  is  now  one  of  the  most  urgent 
problems  of  the  day  in  almost  every  coun- 
try. The  principles  of  absolute  religious 
liberty  proclaimed  by  Roger  Williams,  the 
founder  of  Rhode  Island,  the  great  adver- 
sary of  theocracy  in  New  England,  and  the 
father  of  the  first  free  American  churches, 
have  found  in  Alexander  Viuet  a  represent- 
ative of  the  highest  order.  Friends  and 
enemies  agree  in  acknowledging  that  the 
future  belongs  to  them  in  Europe  as  well  as 
in  America,  although  this  fact  will  appear  to 
be  less  the  result  of  a  triumph  of  the  truth 
than  of  the  force  of  circumstances. 

III.  In  spite  of  the  defects  which  in  many 
respects  have  attended  the  free  and  evangelic- 
al churches,  in  their  developments  they  have, 
nevertheless,  attained  results  of  considera- 
ble importance.  In  the  midst  of  the  numer- 
ous disappointments  that  were  in  store  for 
them,  prophets  of  woe  announced  with  con- 
fidence that  they  would  never  succeed  in  at- 
taining to  self-support;  it  was  hoped  that 
they  would  surrender  by  famine.  These 
natural  apprehensions  were  but  too  strong- 
ly justified  by  the  fact  that  the  adherents 
of  these  churches,  always  few  in  numbers, 
were  seldom  drawn  from  among  the  wealth- 
ier classes ;  and  that  the  habit  of  depending 
on  the  public  treasury  for  the  support  of  re- 
ligious worship  had  been  strengthened  by 
the  lapse  of  centuries.  To-day  these  appre- 
hensions are  no  longer  to  be  entertained. 
Facts  have  succeeded  in  dispelling  the  fears 
of  friends,  and  in  overthrowing  the  hopes  of 
adversaries  of  the  new  order  of  things.  The 
financial  status  of  the  free  churches  is  cer- 
tainly not  a  brilliant  one ;  but,  after  all,  there 
are  found  pastors  willing  to  work  content- 
edly with  the  salaries  the  churches  are  able 
to  offer,  however  insufficient  to  meet  the 
requirements  of  our  times.  So  much  has 
already  been  accomplished  that  the  oppo- 
nents of  the  principle,  who  are  certainly 
competent  judges  in  the  matter,  seem  to  be 
more  impressed  with  the  results  already  at- 
tained than  with  the  difficulties  that  still  lie 
in  the  way  of  ultimate  success. 

A  second  objection,  frequently  raised,  was 
this  :  Once  separated  from  the  State,  it  was 
predicted  the  members  of  the  free  churches 
could  not  fail  to  go  on  splitting  up  endless- 
ly. Facts  have  equally  belied  these  prophe- 


ASTIE" :  THE  FREE  CHURCHES  OF  EUROPE. 


553 


cies.  A  broader  theological  and  ecclesiastic- 
al view  resulted  from  the  formation  of  the 
free  churches.  If  iu  America  every  religious 
conviction  cau  boldly  set  up  its  standard, 
certain  of  finding  partisans  in  a  numerous 
public  deeply  interested  in  matters  of  faith, 
it  is  not  so  in  Europe.  Consequently,  when 
among  the  members  of  the  free  churches, 
far  from  being  numerous,  some  were  already 
found  to  hold  Baptist  views  while  others  re- 
mained Paedobaptists,  no  one  thought  of  rais- 
ing the  question  of  separation,  to  constitute 
distinct  congregations  that  would  have  been 
painfully  small.  It  was  then  a  necessity  to 
live  together  in  the  same  flock,  and  to  bear 
with  one  another. 

It  is  not  rare  to  see  (I  speak  especially  of 
French -speaking  countries)  churches  the 
great  majority  of  whose  members  are  Paedo- 
baptists, having  a  Baptist  pastor.  The  mem- 
bers of  the  flock  wishing  to  have  their  chil- 
dren baptized  call  upon  a  neighboring  pas- 
tor to  do  it  for  them.  The  same  disposition 
to  unite  has  shown  itself  among  other  tend- 
encies. As  the  professions  of  faith  of  the 
free  churches  bear  more  on  religious  facts 
than  on  theological  principles,  as  they  imply 
more  or  less  consciously  the  fundamental  dis- 
tinction between  religion  and  theology,  the 
result  is  that  Lutherans  and  Zwinglians,  Ar- 
miuiaus  and  Calviuists,  may  be  found  iu  the 
same  Church.  Persons  of  the  strictest  or- 
thodoxy have  to  put  up  with  the  presence 
of  evangelical  men  who,  iu  many  respects, 
widely  differ  from  the  historic  theology  of 
the  sixteenth  century. 

It  must  be  acknowledged  that  this  state 
of  things  has  been  mainly  brought  about  by 
the  force  of  circumstances.  And  yet  many 
regard  it  as  constituting  an  important  step 
toward  spiritual  liberty  and  a  true  Chris- 
tian catholicity.  The  same  enlarged  views 
(which  iu  this  country  would  very  likely  be 
regarded  as  tending  to  latitudinariauism) 
have  prevailed  also  in  ecclesiastical  ques- 
tions. The  new  churches  are  neither  strict- 
ly Presbyterian  nor  rigidly  Congregational. 
It  was  thought  that  a  central  authority 
could  be  established  sufficiently  strong  to 
constitute  a  bond  of  union,  while  at  the 
same  time  the  liberty  of  particular  congre- 
gations would  be  respected. 

You  perceive,  gentlemen,  the  free  churches 
on  the  continent  of  Europe  differ  widely,  in 
many  respects,  from  yours.  Will  they  suc- 
ceed in  reconquering  for  Christianity  the 
place  which  it  once  occupied  in  our  ancient 
society  ?  Will  Europe  again  become  Chris- 
tian, as  it  was  in  the  sixteenth  and  seven- 
teenth centuries  T  Or  is  it  doomed  to  found- 
er amidst  the  overwhelming  difficulties  of 
a  political  and  social  nature — all  resulting 
from  the  fact  that  the  religious  problem  has 
not  yet  been  solved  ?  I  say,  gentlemen,  is 
Europe  destined  to  become  once  more  Chris- 
tian ?  This  is  indeed  the  real  question.  Our 


civilization  is  unquestionably  more  or  less 
derived  from  the  Gospel ;  but  personal  relig- 
ion, and  churches  founded  on  free  and  sin- 
cere individual  profession  of  faith,  these  are 
still  wanting.  There  lies  a  capital  differ- 
ence between  the  Old  and  the  New  World. 
In  your  happy  country  religion  is,  first  of 
all,  a  private  concern ;  it  has  no  official  po- 
sition ;  it'is  entirely  left  to  individual  choice. 
All  this  does  not  prevent  it  from  having  an 
incalculable  influence  on  society.  Iu  Eu- 
rope, on  the  contrary,  Christianity  reigns 
officially  everywhere — in  our  constitutions, 
in  our  courts  of  justice,  in  our  schools,  in 
our  churches ;  but,  notwithstanding  this  so- 
cial position,  or  perhaps  on  account  of  it,  the 
Gospel  occupies  but  a  small  place  in  indi- 
vidual preoccupation.  Among  you,  Relig- 
ion enjoys  a  general  favor,  which  she  owes 
to  her  intrinsic  power.  In  Europe,  on  the 
contrary,  though  apparently  deriving  great 
advantages  from  an  official  position  which 
she  owes  to  the  glorious  remembrances  of 
the  past,  in  reality  she  is  but  poorly  honor- 
ed, and  held  in  small  favor.  With  you,  the 
public  mind  leans  rather  to  the  side  of  re- 
ligion, as  it  Avas  the  case  on  the  continent 
of  Europe  before  the  eighteenth  century; 
public  opinion  is  rather  friendly  to  vital 
and  personal  piety,  while  with  us  the  ma- 
jority is  indifferent  or  hostile  to  it.  We 
are  all  officially  Christians;  there  are  but 
few  persons  who  have  not  been  baptized 
and  received  into  the  Church ;  but  if  one 
should  undertake  to  persuade  those  Chris- 
tians to  live  in  earnest  the  religion  Avhich 
they  are  supposed  to  profess,  the  kind  ad- 
viser would  be  in  danger  of  passing  for  a 
fanatic,  a  sectarian,  or  an  enthusiast. 

This  is  a  state  of  the  public  mind  which 
perhaps  the  many  Christian  friends  from 
the  United  States  who  travel  in  Europe 
may  not  have  sufficiently  noticed.  In  all 
the  churches  they  will  doubtless  have  met 
truly  pious  persons,  but  they  do  not  know 
what  an  insignificant  fraction  of  the  popu- 
lation those  persons  represent.  A  profound 
indifference,  which  has  often  cast  off  all  re- 
spect even  for  the  external  forms  of  religion, 
and  which  is  always  ready  to  assume  the 
attitude  of  open  hostility,  constitutes  the 
most  characteristic  feature  of  religious  Eu- 
rope. A  large  majority  of  our  population, 
whether  .Catholic  or  Protestant,  sustain 
scarcely  any  relation  to  the  Church,  except 
for  baptism,  marriages,  and  funerals. 

To  arouse  the  nations  of  Europe  from  this 
profound   indifference,  there   are  but   two 
strongly  organized  tendencies:  Infidelity  and 
Romanism.     Both  are  in  possession  of  an 
immense  advantage ;  they  have  already  de- 
duced and  are  deducing,  more  and  more, 
the  logical  consequences  of  their  principles. 
j  They  present  themselves  to  view  with  a  per- 
I  fectly  frank  and  positive  bearing.    For  years 
the   populations  have   fluctuated  between 


554 


CHRISTIANITY  AND  CIVIL  GOVERNMENT. 


these  two  schools,  unable  to  decide  final- 
ly to  accept  the  control  of  the  one  or  the 
other. 

Aa  for  Protestantism,  it  appears  nowhere 
as  a  power  to  bo  taken  seriously  into  ac- 
count. In  countries  where  it  is  looked 
upon  as  dominant,  it  finds  itself  paralyzed 
for  want  of  intelligence  to  draw  boldly  the 
logical  consequences  of  its  principles. 

The  national  churches,  which  have  suffer- 
ed the  peoples  to  slip  from  under  their  influ- 
ence, have  not  now  the  power  to  reconquer 
them ;  the  free  churches  are  as  yet  too  fee- 
ble and  too  few  to  exert  a  deep  and  general 
influence.  Hence  the  inability  of  evangel- 
ical Protestantism  to  aspire  to  take  the  lead 
of  European  society.  It  is  paralyzed ;  it 
hesitates  between  going  back  to  the  ecclesi- 
astical and  theological  past  of  the  sixteenth 
century,  which  is  unquestionably  on  the  de- 
cline, and  an  unknown  future  that  would 
enable  it  to  realize  its  principles  in  a  con- 
sistent manner  if  it  -would  only  assume  the 
championship  of  a  Christian  spiritualism. 

If  we  had  a  few  millions  of  the  stamp  of 
your  Pilgrim  Fathers,  or  of  our  old  Hugue- 
nots, we  would  speedily  come  out  of  our 
false  position.  The  question  would  be  to 
take  personal  religion  in  earnest,  and  the 
true  Church  idea  that  flows  from  it.  It 
would  have  to  be  admitted  that  those  only 
are  true  Christians  who  enter  into  living 
and  personal  communion  with  God  through 
Jesus  Christ ;  that  there  is  no  Church  wor- 
thy the  name  but  a  society  of  men  laboring 
to  realize  these  principles.  Mere  preten- 
sions and  divisions  would  then  disappear  as 
by  enchantment.  Either  Christians  would 
succeed  in  transforming  the  national  church- 
es, not  in  appearance  only,  but  in  reality, 
into  churches  consisting  of  professors  of  re- 
ligion ;  and  then,  the  free  churches  having 
fulfilled  their  mission,  there  would  no  long- 
er be  any  reason  for  their  existence;  all 
evangelical  Christians  would  once  more  be 
united ;  or,  what  is  more  probable,  I  must 
even  say  certain,  governments  would  never 
allow  national  churches  to  bo  transformed 
into  churches  of  professing  Christians  the 
moment  they  found  the  great  mass  of  the 
population  excluded  from  them.  In  that 
case,  evangelical  Christians,  faithful  to  the 
ideal  whicli  they  had  in  vain  tried  to  real- 
ize, would  be  forced  to  go  and  swell  the  free 
churches  already  existing,  and  which  would 
then  be  put  to  the  test  to  show  what  they 
could  do  for  the  salvation  of  society.  In 
either  case,  the  true  believers  would  be  once 
more  united  to  work  in  common. 

But  this  is  only  a  beautiful  dream ;  noth- 
ing justifies  ns  in  reckoning  on  a  solution 
of  this  kind.  Let  us  say  it  with  a  deep  hu- 
mility; in  this  case,  as  in  many  others  in 
the  course  of  history,  truth  will  owe  its  tri- 
umphs rather  to  its  adversaries  than  to  its 
friends.  Nothing  authorizes  ns  to  believe 


that  the  separation  of  Church  and  State, 
destined  to  put  au  end  to  the  distinction 
between  the  free  congregations  and  the  of- 
ficial establishments,  will  be  instigated  by 
the  general  movement  of  the  faithful,  desir- 
ous to  give  the  Church  a  truly  Christian 
and  spiritual  constitution.  The  need  of  ef- 
fecting financial  economies,  the  desire  to  es- 
cape from  the  inconveniences  which  result 
from  the  struggle  between  Romanism  and 
infidelity,  the  revolutionary  spirit  hostile  to 
the  Gospel — these  are  the  great  auxiliaries 
on  which  the  Church  seems  to  be  able  to 
depend  in  order  to  become  strong  enough 
some  day  to  reconquer  her  position  as  a 
spiritual  society.  A  great  social  crisis  alone 
will  be  able  to  place  infidelity,  Romanism, 
and  evangelical  Protestantism  in  a  position 
to  show  what  they  can  do  for  the  salvation 
of  the  individual  and  of  society.  Pending 
this  solemn  hour,  men  of  conviction  must  do 
their  duty,  and  emphatically  say  to  them- 
selves that  that  coming  crisis  will  be  but 
the  beginning  of  sorrow.  We  shall  then 
behold  re-enacted  a  great  struggle  that  will 
recall  the  first  centuries  of  our  era,  when 
Paganism  had  to  acknowledge  that  it  ran 
the  risk  of  being  supplanted  by  that  ob- 
scure sect  which  it  had  begun  by  despising. 
Only  in  our  day  the  parts  will  be  changed ; 
Paganism  will  take  the  offensive.  Relig- 
ion will  have  to  wrestle  with  the  numerous 
host  of  infidelity,  having  for  its  vanguard 
Socialism  eager  for  prey.  Religion  will  find 
itself  represented  by  a  Catholicism  treach- 
erous to  Christianity,  since  in  setting  up  its 
idol  at  the  Vatican  it  has,  in  a  manner,  al- 
ready passed  over  to  the  enemy,  and  by  an 
undecided  and  inconsistent  Protestantism. 
We  must  hope  it  is  true  that,  under  the 
pressure  of  circumstances  so  grave,  evangel- 
ical Christians  will  not  fail  to  unite.  But  it 
must  be  plainly  avowed,  even  united,  they 
will  not  be  numerous.  For  any  one  who 
knows  the  religious  'state  of  the  European 
continent,  no  kind  of  illusion  is  possible. 
When  ecclesiastical  fictions  have  disappear- 
ed ;  when  the  Church  is  divested  of  the  pres- 
tige of  tradition  and  of  official  forms;  when 
religion  is  deprived  of  all  external  help, 
when  called  upon  to  rely  exclusively  on 
herself,  the  number  of  those  will  be  small 
who,  relying  on  the  precepts  of  the  Gos- 
pel, and  determined  to  gain  victories  only 
through  the  intrinsic  power  of  the  truth, 
will  be  ready  to  march  on  to  a  second  con- 
quest of  our  old  European  society. 

IV.  And  here,  gentlemen,  allow  me  to  ex- 
press all  our  gratitude  to  the  generous  and 
enterprising  minds  who  have  had  the  happy 
idea  to  invite  so  many  Christians  from  Eu- 
rope to  see  what  can  be  accomplished  in 
America,  by  a  Church  free  from  any  connec- 
tion with  the  State,  and  moving  in  the  van- 
guard of  every  progress. 

We  tender  you  our  thanks,  gentlemen,  and 


ASTlfi :  THE  FREE  CHURCHES  OF  EUROPE. 


555 


dear  brethren,  for  the  offer  of  so  precious  an 
opportunity  to  see  for  ourselves  that,  if  the 
representatives  of  our  principles  are  in  Eu- 
rope but  an  unknown  and  uniuflueutial  mi- 
nority, here  they  form  a  respectable  majority. 
We  were  quite  decided  to  go  forward  by  faith ; 
but,  considering  the  weakness  of  human  na- 
ture, it  is  not  superfluous  that  we  should  for  a 
few  days  have  the  opportunity  to  walk  by 
sight. 

We  trust  that  when  we  shall  return,  to  be 
merged  again  in  the  dense  ranks  of  the  Old 
World's  populations,  hostile  or  indifferent  to 
our  principles,  we  shall  carry  back  with  us 
something  of  that  confidence  and  cheerful- 
ness with  which  you  carry  forward  so  tri- 
umphantly this  beautiful  motto:  "  The  Gos- 
pel and  Liberty,  inseparably  united."  And 
who  knows  ?  Some  of  your  guests  who  have 
landed  on  your  shores  still  doubting,  full 
of  prejudices,  wishing  to  see  for  themselves 
these  American  churches,  so  different  from 
those  of  Europe,  may  return  convinced,  and 
resolved  to  join  those  who  labor  to  secure  in 
the  Old  World  the  triumphs  of  the  principles 
which  prevail  in  the  New.  What  you  have 
already  done  for  us  makes  us  bold  to  ask  for 
more.  We  rely  on  a  still  more  efficacious 
and  general  co-operation.  When  the  great 
conflict  that  shall  decide  the  religious  future 
of  Europe  breaks  forth,  the  eyes  of  many 
Christians  will  naturally  look  toward  young 
America.  Our  expectation  will  certainly  not 
be  disappointed;  and. your  numerous  home 
and  foreign  missionary  societies  will  doubt- 
less be  disposed  to  add  a  new  institution  des- 
tined to  aid  those  who  in  Europe  consecrate 
themselves  to  the  cause  and  triumph  of  Chris- 
tianity and  liberty.  You  will  extend  to  us 
a  helping  hand  to  prevent  us  from  falling  to 
a  level  with  those  Oriental  countries  whose 
decayed  churches  your  missionaries  are  now 
trying  to  raise. 

Thus  it  is  that,  in  spite  of  distances,  the 
strongest  bond  of  solidarity  binds  us  to  you. 
At  the  end  of  the  last  century,  when  your 
Republic  was  still  in  the  cradle,  the  German 
philosopher  Kant  followed  its  first  steps  with 
the  most  lively  sympathy ;  he  was  in  the  hab- 
it of  saying  that  your  fathers  were  venturing 
upon  an  experiment  on  the  success  of  which 
the  salvation  of  mankind  was  depending. 
Thanks  be  to  God,  the  hopes  of  the  great 
thinker  have  been  realized,  the  experiment 
is  a  success.  The  whole  world  must  now 
profit  by  it.  In  the  day  of  peril  you  will 
certainly  not  abandon  those  who  elsewhere 
defend  your  principles. 

While  waiting  for  that  day,  do  not  re- 
main idle ;  say  to  yourselves  that  all  the  vic- 
tories you  gain  will  turn  to  our  profit,  and 
that  all  your  defeats  would  be  infinitely  hurt- 
ful to  us.  Indeed  it  obtains  in  Europe,  even 
among  religious  men,  that  the  imperfections 
of  your  piety  and  national  chai'acter  must 
not  be  attributed  to  the  inevitable  consc- 


'  quences  from  which  the  best  Christians  and 
I  the  most  spiritual  churches  never  complete- 
ly escape,  but  that  they  must  be  interpreted 
as  the  legitimate  results  of  the  separation 
of  Church  and  State.  If  slavery  existed  too 
long,  it  was  owing  to  the  fact  that  the  church- 
es separate  from  the  State  were  neither  inde- 
pendent enough  in  the  face  of  public  opinion, 
nor  powerful  enough  to  demand  and  obtain 
the  abolition  of  that  iniquity.  If  you  had 
failed  in  your  great  enterprise  of  emancipa- 
tion, the  want  of  success  would  have  been 
attributed  to  the  same  cause.  As  to  the 
good  you  accomplish,  and  that  can  not  be 
denied,  it  is  attributed  to  Christianity  in 
general  —  your  particular  forms  of  piety 
and  of  churches  must  not  be  taken  into  ac- 
count. 

You  see,  gentlemen,  great  is  your  respon- 
sibility. We  run  the  risk  of  suffering  from 
your  defects  without  benefiting  by  your  vic- 
tories. Make  these  victories  so  manifest 
that  no  one  may  be  able  to  call  them  in 
question,  and  that  all  will  be  obliged  to  at- 
tribute them  to  an  intimate  and  sincere  al- 
liance of  a  decided  and  positive  Christianity 
with  a  frank  and  open  freedom.  A  fatal  di- 
vorce between  liberty  and  religion  is  to  be 
found  at  the  very  bottom  of  the  antagonism 
which  so  deeply  shakes  European  society. 
The  most  effectual  means  to  come  to  our 
help  is  to  show  that  it  is  wholly  otherwise 
with  you. 

In  Europe  the  Church  is  the  natural  pro- 
tectress of  abuses,  of  privileges.  The  Gos- 
pel is  too  often  held  out  as  a  kind  of  indem- 
nification, of  consolation  for  the  use  of  men 
who,  on  account  of  social  inequalities,  can 
not  have  their  share  of  culture  and  well-be- 
ing. That  sincere  Christians  may  at  times 
have  been  led  to  present  religious  truths  in 
this  light  is  provoking  enough ;  but  what 
shall  we  say  when  men  who  no  longer  be- 
lieve in  the  Gospel  persist  in  representing  it 
as  the  resource  of  the  lowly  and  the  por- 
tionless of  this  world  T  In  the  name  of  a  so- 
cial hierarchy  revived  from  the  feudalism 
of  the  Middle  Ages,  M.  Re"nan  lately  de- 
clared that  it  is  not  possible  for  all  men  to 
have  enjoyments,  for  all  to  be  well  brought 
up,  to  be  delicate,  virtuous.  He  looks  back 
with  regret  to  the  good  old  time  "  when  the 
poor  enjoyed  the  wealth  of  the  rich,  the 
monk  the  enjoyments  of  worldly  men,  and 

worldly  men  the  prayers  of  the  monk 

It  belongs  to  religion,"  he  adds, "  to  explain 
those  mysteries,  and  to  present  in  the  ideal 
world  superabundant  consolations  to  all 
those  who  are  called  upon  to  live  a  life  of 
sacrifices  here  below.  Do  not,  then,  say  to 
the  poor  that  he  is  poor  through  his  own 
fault ;  do  not  entreat  him  to  get  rid  of  his 
poverty  as  of  a  shameful  thing ;  make  him 
love  poverty ;  show  him  the  ease,  the  charm, 
and  the  beauty  and  the  sweetness  of  it. 
Such  is  the  crowning  work  of  Jesus  ('La 


556 


CHRISTIANITY  AND  CIVIL  GOVERNMENT. 


est  le  chef-d'ceuvre  <le  J6sus ').  The  exalta- 
tion of  poverty  is  his  master-stroke."* 

la  the  name  of  free  and  Christian  Ameri- 
ca, we  can  repel  such  a  charge  as  a  crime 
of  high  treason  against  humanity  and 
against  the  Christian  religion.  Thanks  be 
to  God  that  in  your  happy  country,  where 
Protestant  civilization  is  in  a  fair  way  to 
bear  all  its  legitimate  fruits,  you  are  not 
dreaming  of  the  fantastic  restoration  of  the 
Middle  Ages.  Your  ideal  of  society  is  ahead, 
and  not  behind;  it  is  for  you  to  be  nobly 
bold,  sublimely  daring.  Under  the  great 
sun  of  American  liberty  there  is  room  for 
the  poor  emigrant  of  Europe,  and  for  the 
negro  Of  Africa,  and  very  soon  for  the  native 
of  the  Far  East.  To  all  you  offer  the  same 
rights  and  the  same  chances.  Very  far  from 
preaching  to  them  the  great  falsehood  of  the 
exaltation  of  poverty  by  the  Lord  Jesus 
Christ,  you  generously  admit  all  to  the  ad- 
vantages of  your  civilization ;  you  offer  them 
the  means  to  recover  for  themselves  in  ev- 
ery respect  the  obliterated  features  of  God's 
image.  While  Infidelity  is  inhuman,  and 
apologizes  for  social  sufferings  of'which  she 
makes  little  account,  because  she  feels  her- 
self powerless  to  heal  them,  you  show  suc- 
cessfully that  Christianity  is  eminently  hu- 
man, the  friend  of  all  kinds  of  progress,  and 
the  dispenser  of  temporal  and  spiritual  bless- 
ings for  the  benefit  of  all  the  children  of 
Adam.  In  order  that  the  Gospel  may  re- 
main a  social  and  a  civilizing  power,  it  must, 
in  the  first  place,  be  a  truth  on  which  the  in- 
dividual man  must  live.  It  must  not  be  de- 
based to  the  rank  of  a  mere  instrumentality, 
of  a  restraint  destined  to  insure  the  rest  and 
the  enjoyment  of  the  great  and  the  happy, 
by  keeping  the  small  and  the  disinherited  in 
resignation,  in  suffering  and  superstition. 
To  point  those  "  who  are  called  upon  to  live 
a  life  of  sacrifices  here  below  "  to  heaven 
and  to  eternal  hopes  for  their  portion,  lest 
men  should  be  disturbed  in  the  epicurean 
enjoyment  of  the  good  things  of  this  world, 
scarcely  hiding,  meanwhile,  the  smile  of 
transcendental  disdain  that  curls  their  lips, 
this  is  to  mock  God,  and  mankind,  and 
themselves.  To  pretend  to  commend  the 
Gospel  by  such  considerations  is  not  only  to 
be  guilty  of  a  cruel  irony,  but  it  is  to  justify 
the  heart-burnings  of  all  the  wretched  and 
forsaken  of  this  world.  Indeed,  one  of  their 
great  grievances  against  the  churches  is  that 
these  would  fain  persuade  them  to  waive 
their  legitimate  portion  of  this  world's  en- 
joyment, by  promising  them  spiritual  and 
eternal  treasures  no  longer  believed  in  by 
those  who  commend  them. 

Gentlemen,  such  is  the  leprosy  which  is 


'  "Priface  de  la  Vie  de  Josus,"  Edit,  illnstrde,  Le 
Temp*,  20  Fevrier,  1870;  "De  la  Monarchic  Constitu- 
tionelle  en  France  depnis  la  Evolution  de  Fevrier," 
Recite  des  Deux  Mondex,  1  Nov.,  1SG9. 


gnawing  us  in  Europe.  It  is  claimed  for  re- 
ligion that  it  shall  remain  a  social  force  when 
it  has  ceased  to  be  for  the  individual  a  re- 
generating power.  Every  body  wishes  to 
have  an  official  religion  for  the  people ;  no- 
body wishes  a  personal  religion  for  his  own 
use.  It  is  because  they  react  against  this 
evil  that  the  free  churches,  in  spite  of  their 
weakness,  have  a  high  historical  import. 

Congratulate  yourselves,  gentlemen,  that 
in  America  you  know  nothing  of  a  state  of 
things  in  which  the  greatest  inequalities  of 
human  fortune  receive  the  sanction  of  relig- 
ion. Away  from  us  the  boasted  conception 
of  a  system,  so-called  religious,  that  would 
grant  to  the  rich  infidel  all  the  enjoyments 
of  this  world,  while  reserving  eternal  bless- 
ings for  the  abandoned  of  the  earth!  The 
consequences  of  a  wild  and  irreligious  indi- 
vidualism are  doubtless  very  great ;  but  can 
they  be  compared  to  those  of  a  social  hie- 
rarchy that  would  cover  the  same  selfish 
schemes  with  the  varnish  of  an  arrant  hy- 
pocrisy ?  Bless  God  that,  in  the  American 
civilization,  religion  is  not  a  mere  police  con- 
trivance, but  an  honored  and  respected  pow- 
er— a  power  from  on  high — having  laws  to 
dictate  to  the  rich  as  well  as  to  the  poor. 
To  the  happy  man  of  this  selfish  world,  who 
has  no  feelings  of  sympathy  for  the  unhap- 
py, she  has  the  right,  and  is  bound  to  say  as 
to  Cain,  "What  hast  thou  done?  The  voice 
of  thy  brother's  blood  crieth  unto  me  from 
the  ground."  It  is  forbidden  a  Christian  to 
make  up  his  mind  to  ignore  the  suffering 
and  the  misery  of  his  brethren,  however  in- 
evitable they  may  appear,  for  he  believes  in 
the  power  of  the  Redeemer  to  destroy  here 
below  the  consequences  of  sin,  and  to  make 
all  things  new. 

Such,  gentlemen,  and  dear  brethren,  are 
the  principles  which  you  have  embraced  and 
carried  out  in  this  land  with  success,  with 
folat.  First  of  all,  we  are  full  of  gratitude 
to  God,  and  we  are  proud  of  your  work,  for 
the  credit  of  humanity,  and  of  the  Protest- 
ant Churches  of  the  sixteenth  century,  of 
which  you  are  still  the  most  faithful  expo- 
nents. A  thought  is  here  pressing  upon  my 
mind  for  utterance ;  I  must  not  silence  it : 
Will  the  future  be  worthy  of  the  past  ?  I 
must  confess  that  your  best  friends  in  Eu- 
rope are  not  always  without  anxiety  con- 
cerning you ;  they  understand  the  great- 
ness, the  immensity  of  your  task ;  they  ask 
themselves  whether,  in  the  United  States  as 
elsewhere,  evil  will  not  finally  succeed  in 
gaining  the  mastery  over  the  good.  But 
this  must  re-assure  us  in  the  days  of  faint- 
heartedness :  In  our  Christian  world  progress 
is  not  a  vain  word,  but  a  reality  ;  in  our  day 
we  can  not  go  forward  but  by  frankly  ac- 
cepting all  the  consequences  of  a  democracy 
made  moral  by  Christianity.  Were  the  ideal 
that  you  pursue  unattainable,  we  should  still 
say  to  ourselves  that  in  this  world  nothing 


ASTIE" :  THE  FREE  CHURCHES  OF  EUROPE. 


557 


but  the  impossible  is  worth  striving  after. 
Do  not  soon  forget  the  traditions  of  your 
glorious  past ;  remain  ever  faithful  to  them. 
Pursue  your  work — a  work  as  noble  as  it  is 
difficult — convinced  that  you  have  the  sym- 
pathies and  the  best  wishes  of  all  intelligent 
hearts  which  place  the  claims  of  humanity 
above  those  of  private  nationalities. 
May  God  bless  this  great  Christian  Repub- 


lic. May  he  preserve  her  from  the  dangers 
that  might  threaten  her.  By  increasingly 
blending  the  cause  of  Christianity  with  that 
of  liberty,  may  she  utter  the  most  earnest 
and  most  timely  of  all  preaching ;  remain  as 
a  city  set  upon  a  hill,  and  promoting  in  the 
world  the  kingdom  of  Him  who  hath  said, 
"  If  the  Son  shall  make  you  free,  ye  shall  be 
free  indeed." 


SECOND  SECTION.-CHRISTIANITY  AND  LIBERTY. 


THE  INFLUENCE  OF  CHRISTIANITY  ON  CIVIL  AND 
RELIGIOUS  LIBERTY. 

BY  THE  REV.  W.  H.  CAMPBELL,  D.D., 

President  of  Rntger's  College,  New  Brunswick,  New  Jersey. 


CHRISTIANITY  is  the  power  of  God  abiding 
in  his  Word,  in  his  people,  arid  in  his  super- 
natural Providence,  iu  order  to  save  men. 
Its  central  truth  is  the  worth  of  a  human 
soul,  and  the  purpose  of  God  to  save  it. 
The  human  soul  is  the  lost  sheep,  the  lost 
piece  of  silver,  the  lost  son  of  the  parables ; 
and  God  and  the  good  angels  rejoice  when 
the  lost  is  found,  and  the  dead  son  is  alive 
again.  And  to  save  a  lost  soul  is  to  free  it 
from  the  guilt  and  degradation  of  sin.  From 
the  guilt  of  sin  at  once,  and  upon  believing. 
From  the  degradation  of  sin  little  by  lit- 
tle, pedetentim  et  gradatim,  step  by  step,  yet 
surely ;  for  God  is  engaged  in  it,  and  it  must 
go  on.  Salvation  from  this  degradation  is, 
furthermore,  a  progress  in  which  the  lost 
one  is  made  able  and  willing  to  do  the  will 
of  God.  His  capacities  and  susceptibilities 
of  doing  and  delighting  in  the  true,  the  just, 
and  the  good  steadily  enlarge,  and  at  length 
he  shall  attain  to  the  measure  of  the  stature 
of  the  fullness  of  Christ. 

Now  just  in  proportion  as  this  gradual 
work  advances,  the  man  will  crave  the  right 
and  the  room  to  enjoy  all  that  may  be  help- 
ful to  his  highest  well-being,  and  to  bo  freed 
from  all  without  which  may  hinder  it.  And 
perfect  civil  and  religious  liberty  is  that 
state  of  society  in  which  each  one  is  allowed 
to  seek,  and  is  helped  to  seeking,  his  own 
highest  good.  We  are  very  far,  as  yet,  from 
having  attained  this  perfection.  As  to  the 
imperfect  manifestations  of  liberty  which 
Ave  do  see,  the  conviction  is  strong  that 
they  are  due  directly  to  Christianity,  and 
our  confident  expectation  of  far  better 
things  in  the  future  rests  upon  the  promise 
and  power  of  God  alone ;  for  we  can  not  find 
elsewhere  the  factors  capable  of  producing 
the  desired  result.  The  selfish  heart  of  the 
natural  man  says  :  "  It  is  not  from  me. 
From  me  comes  the  despot  and  the  iron- 
heeled  oligarchy,  and  the  murderous  army 
bearing  fire  and  sword.""  No,  no!  From 
the  selfish,  nnrenewed  heart,  uninfluenced 
by  Christianity,  comes  no  lifting  up  of  the 
down-trodden,  no  caring  for  the  individual, 


no  giving  him  room  and  help  for  his  good- 
ness. 

The  Christian,  however,  will  have  no  quar- 
rel with  the  historian,  who,  in  tracing  tho 
progress  of  the  peoples,  enumerates  the  pow- 
er of  the  sword,  the  power  of  wealth,  the 
power  of  learning,  and  the  power  of  adven- 
titious circumstances,  and  so  forth,  as  con- 
ducing to  this  progress.  It  may  all  so  be. 
But  if  this  progress  has  in  it  any  of  the  ele- 
ments of  civil  and  religious  liberty,  that  is,  a 
caring  for  the  individual  man,  it  will  be  dif- 
ficult to  remove  the  strong  conviction  of  the 
Christian  that  behind  the  sword,  and  the 
wealth,  and  the  learning  there  is  a  higher 
power  which  gives  these  all  their  force.  And 
that  is  the  truth  which  lies  imbedded  in 
Christianity,  and  nowhere  else,  of  the  worth 
of  the  individual  soul,  which  God  loved,  and 
Christ  died  to  save,  on  which  when  saved 
the  lesson  of  love  was  written  by  the  Holy 
Spirit,  "Thou  shalt  love  thy  neighbor  as 
thyself."  And  there,  too,  he  finds  imbedded 
that  other  truth,  that  God  takes  care  of  his 
rescued,  lost  ones,  who  seek  to  do  his  will. 
"  When  they  went  from  one  nation  to  an- 
other, from  one  kingdom  to  another  people, 
he  suffered  no  man  to  do  them  wrong  ;  yea, 
he  reproved  kings  for  their  sakes,  saying, 
Touch  not  mine  anointed,  and  do  my  proph- 
ets no  harm." 

And  so,  too,  behind  those  things  which  tho 
historian  calls  adventitious  circumstances 
the  Christian  will  discover  an  overruling 
Providence,  which  takes  off  the  chariot 
wheels  of  the  enemies,  and  makes  them 
drive  heavily  when  God's  time  of  overwhelm- 
ing comes  round,  and  he  is  about  to  remove 
the  outward  degradation  of  his  recovered 
lost  ones. 

You  remember  what  Bishop  Butler,  in  his 
"Analogy  of  Religion,"  says  about  the  tend- 
ency of  reason  to  prevail  over  brute  force 
when  time  and  place  for  counsel  and  con- 
certed action  have  been  afforded.  Now, 
Christianity  is  the  reason  that  is  iu  this 
world,  and  its  contest  is  with  all  else  here 
which  is  just  unreason  i:i  opposition  to  all 


CAMPBELL:  CHRISTIANITY  AND  CIVIL  AND  EELIGIOUS  LIBEETY.      559 


that  seeks  the  highest  good  of  man  as  a 
mail.  Now,  Christ  is  here  the  wisdom  of 
God  for  this  end.  The  Holy  Scriptures  are 
the  wisdom  of  God  for  the  same  end.  And 
all  who  do  the  will  of  Christ  are  the  children 
of  wisdom,  who  justify  it  by  their  words  and 
deeds,  and  help  to  make  it  prevalent  over 
the  folly  which  is  in  the  world.  And  all 
else  is  folly,  the  selfishness  of  sin  in  the  hu- 
man heart,  intensified  by  the  Spirit  that  now 
worketh  in  the  children  of  disobedience. 

But  the  wisdom  is  to  get  the  mastery,  not 
by  the  extermination  of  the  foolish,  but  by 
freeing  them  from  their  folly — by  convert- 
ing them  from  their  opposition  to  the  indi- 
vidual well-being  of  men  into  its  friends  and 
helpers.  To  effect  this  the  agency  of  Chris- 
tianity has  been  devised  and  set  in  operation 
by  God.  For  this  end  help  was  laid  upon 
him  who  is  mighty  to  save,  and  therefore 
Christ  becomes  the  Mediator.  Hence  he  is 
the  Prophet,  the  Light  of  the  world,  to  re- 
veal in  his  teachings  and  life  all  the  truth 
needed  to  free  the  earth  from  all  its  igno- 
rance, sins,  and  woe.  So,  too,  as  the  Priest, 
he  dies  a  sacrifice  for  the  sins  of  the  world ; 
his  atonement  being  finished,  he  lives  to  in- 
tercede, praying  to  the  Father  that,  for  his 
own  merits,  every  prayer  and  deed  of  faith 
may  be  effectual  for  the  saving  of  men.  And 
lastly,  he  becomes  the  king,  all  power  being 
intrusted  to  him  that  he  may  perfect  all 
that  coucerneth  his  work. 

But  while  the  efficient  agent  in  all  this  is 
God,  the  instrumental  agents  are  Christians. 
And  hence  Christ  makes  his  believing  peo- 
ple mediators  under  himself,  in  order  that 
they  may  do  his  work.  Hence,  as  proph- 
ets, they  too  are  the  light  of  the  world,  who 
are  to  have  Christ's  truths  so  written  on 
their  hearts,  and  so  living  in  their  thoughts, 
experiences,  and  actions,  that  there  shall  be 
in  them,  in  some  faint  degree,  that  won- 
drous speaking  by  authority  which-  was  in 
Christ,  the  Great  Prophet.  As  priests,  too, 
they  first  offer  themselves,  a  living  sacrifice 
of  consecration  to  the  service  of  God ;  and 
then,  as  intercessors,  they  plead  through  the 
merits  of  Christ,  that  all  the  benign  ends 
of  Christianity  may  be  gained  ;  and  lastly, 
as  kings,  they  have  a  real  authority  under 
Christ,  so  that  they  may  bruise  Satan  under 
their  feet,  and  have  power  to  prevent  many 
a  bad  man  and  many  a  bad  woman,  both 
kings  and  commoners,  from  doing  their  evil 
deeds.  Thus  Ambrose,  bishop  of  Milan,  fear- 
ing the  Lord  of  all  more  than  the  sovereign 
of  this  world,  excluded  Theodosius,  for  his 
acts  of  cruelty,  from  the  Church,  and  by  ap- 
peals to  his  conscience  had  power  over  him 
to  prevent  another  terrible  effusion  of  blood. 
And  so  had  John  Knox  power  over  Mary 
Queen  of  Scots  and  her  advisers,  stopping 
them  from  putting  to  death  the  confessors  of 
Christ  in  Scotland,  thus  furthering  in  an  emi- 
nent degree  the  Reformation  in  that  kingdom. 


Thus,  you  see,  the  whole  power  of  God  is 
brought  to  bear,  through  the  Divine  Word, 
the  people  of  God,  and  the  providence  of 
Christ,  to  overcome  evil.  There  is  an  agen- 
cy here  adequate  for  the  fullest  results  of 
civil  and  religious  liberty,  namely,  that  there 
shall  bo  nothing  to  hurt  or  destroy.  And 
the  declarations  of  the  Scriptures  are  full 
and  explicit  that  such  a  peaceful  state  shall 
be  enjoyed  not  only,  but  it  shall  be  the  prod- 
uct of  this  divinely  appointed  agency. 

But  are  we  able  to  show  that  Christianity 
has  had  any  such  direct  influence  in  causing 
civil  and  religious  liberty?  We  premise 
that,  since  the  instrumental  agents  of  Chris- 
tianity are  men,  we  must  expect  to  find  the 
same  marks  of  imperfection  about  this  re- 
formatory work  which  we  see  in  all  else 
man  has  had  committed  to  him.  And  this 
being  stated,  we  reply  that  from  the  begin- 
ning of  history  down  to  the  birth  of  Christ 
we  find  no  trace  of  civil  liberty  outside  of 
the  Jewish  theocracy.  Elsewhere  there  is 
no  recognition  of  the  rights  of  man  as  an 
individual,  no  caring  for  his  individual  in- 
terests. There  are  privileged  classes,  and  a 
caring  for  them.  But  the  machinery  of  so- 
ciety did  not  run  to  take  care  of  the  individ- 
ual. He  was  the  tool  of  the  society,  but  his 
well-being  was  nowhere  the  end  of  its  ac- 
tion. But  in  the  Jewish  theocracy  (which 
was  just  a  preparative  Christianity)  the 
fundamental  truth,  in  so  far  as  our  subject 
is  concerned,  was  the  love  of  one's  neighbor 
as  one's  self.  The  Government  was  formed 
for  the  well-being  of  the  individual,  and  he 
was  consequently  helped  and  protected  in 
all  his  civil  rights.  He  had  also,  in  one  as- 
pect of  it,  full  religious  liberty.  He  was 
protected  and  helped  in  the  exercise  of  the 
true  worship  of  God.  But  the  theocracy 
knew  nothing  of  religions  liberty  in  that 
other  and  most  important  aspect  of  it,  the 
toleration  of  those  who  did  not  receive  and 
practice  the  Mosaic  ritual.  The  theocracy 
seems  to  have  had  no  toleration  for  religions 
dissent. 

When  then  Christ  appears,  wo  find  his 
teaching,  on  all  points,  such  as  we  have  de- 
scribed it.  He  inculcates  all  that  in  which 
the  Mosaic  dispensation  had  anticipated 
Him ;  but  he  inculcates  more,  for  the  final 
revelation  of  love  will  bo  fuller  than  its 
beginnings.  His  law  of  toleration  of  relig- 
ious dissent,  for  example.  When  James  and 
John,  vexed  because  certain  Samaritans  did 
not  receive  Christ,  begged  the  Master,  say- 
ing, "  Lord,  wilt  thou  that  we  command  fire 
to  come  down  from  heaven  and  consume 
them,  as  Elias  did?"  he  turned  and  rebuked 
them,  saying,  "Ye  know  not  what  manner 
of  spirit  ye  are  of."  Christ  came  not  to  de- 
stroy, but  to  save.  And  he  rebuked  his  dis- 
ciples for  failing  to  appreciate  his  spirit  and 
the  purpose  of  his  coming.  All  that  he  pur- 
poses to  accomplish  on  earth  in  the  beno- 


560 


CHRISTIANITY  AND  CIVIL  GOVERNMENT. 


fiting  of  men  ho  will  effect  by  love  alone. 
His  spirit  is  love,  and  be  lias  no  other  -way 
of  winning  over  enemies  but  by  gentleness 
ami  forbearance.  And  the  life  and  power 
of  Christianity,  whenever  it  has  exhibited 
vitality,  has  consisted  in  the  possession  of 
this  spirit,  which  constitutes  the  very  be- 
ing of  Christ. 

And  now,  Christ  having  ascended  to  heav- 
en, Christianity  goes  forth  upon  its  mission, 
and  it  produced  wondrous  changes  in  many 
directions.  But  it  was  centuries  before  its 
influence  had  reached  the  State.  In  the  first 
three  centuries  the  State  was  heathenish, 
and  Christians  could  have  no  official  con- 
nection with  it.  But  when  the  Roman  em- 
pire had  become  a  so-called  Christian  em- 
pire, then  Christians  ruled.  But  the  inner- 
most spirit  of  the  Government  was  heathen- 
ish still,  and  Christian  influence  shows  itself 
only  here  and  there  and  now  and  then ;  but 
it  is  seen.  The  Christian  spirit  mitigates 
and  abolishes  slavery,  gives  women  and 
children  their  natural  rights,  opposes  the 
cruelty  of  the  emperors,  and  betters  the 
condition  of  the  poor,  the  degraded,  and  the 
prisoners  of  war.  In  a  word,  all  that  we  see 
here  of  a  better  and  a  less  despotic  state  of 
things  is  due  to  Christianity. 

Then  came  the  horrible  times  of  the  mi- 
gration of  the  nations.  And  it  was  Chris- 
tianity which  saved  the  world  from  falling 
into  barbarism.  By  doing  this,  as  was  very 
natural,  the  Church  became  a  kind  of  State 
in  the  State.  The  Church,  in  its  dealings 
with  men,  stood  so  high  above  the  ignorant, 
brutal  barbarians  that  nearly  every  thing 
good,  noble,  and  humane  was  found  in  the 
Church  alone.  This  being  kept  in  mind,  no 
one  will  wonder  that  the  Church  at  this  time 
formed  a  very  low  conception  of  the  State. 
It  was  regarded  as  nothing  but  the  bad  and 
worthless  part  of  the  social  existence  of 
humanity,  selfish  in  its  aims  and  selfish  in 
its  practices ;  and  if  in  the  Middle  Ages  the 
State  is  called  Sacra  Imperialis  Majestas,  it  is 
not  sacra  in  itself,  but  because  the  Pope  had 
so  named  it. 

But  the  Reformation  changed  all  this,  and 
much  for  the  better.  All  the  Reformers  and 
their  followers  recognized  the  State,  in  ac- 
cordance with  the  teaching  of  St.  Paul,  as 
an  ordinatio  Dei.  The  Protestant  concep- 
tion of  the  State,  and  its  rights  and  duties, 
thus  differs  entirely  from  that  of  the  Ro- 
manists. In  this  Luther,  Zwingle,  and  Cal- 
vin agree,  and,  if  their  followers  of  a  later 
period  go  in  somewhat  different  directions, 
the  reason  is  found  not  in  a  difference  of 
principles,  but  of  circumstances.  Circum- 
stances which  can  be  easily  explained  caused 
the  development  of  the  political  side  of  the 
Reformation  to  bo  soon  stopped  in  the  north 
of  Europe,  and  circumstances  caused  the  op- 
posite in  the  west  of  Europe.  In  France, 
for  example,  the  Huguenots  held  the  Paul- 


ine idea  of  the  Reformers  as  to  the  State 
and  its  duties.  Among  them,  also,  there 
were  scholars  eminent  in  political  science, 
whose  writings  even  now  are  in  high  esti- 
mation. And  the  views  of  all  were  that  the 
State  must  care  for  its  citizens,  that  civil 
liberty  is  the  right  of  the  citizen.  They, 
furthermore,  acted  on  these  principles,  and 
held  especially  that  the  State  must  have  no 
privileged  classes.  Thus,  in  1587,  just  before 
the  battle  at  Coutras,  De  Mornay  and  his 
chaplain,  Chaudieu,  compelled  the  Prince  of 
Navarre,  afterward  Henry  IV.  of  France,  to 
make  before  the  whole  army  a  public-  con- 
fession of  sorrow  for  the  gross  immoralities 
he  had  committed  at  La  Rochelle.  The 
hostility,  also,  of  these  Protestants  to  the 
absolutism  of  French  royalty  was  so  strong 
that  it  turned  the  seeming  friendship  of 
Francis  I.  into  bitter  hostility.  But  even 
here  amidst  these  advanced  opinions  and 
practices  about  civil  liberty  religious  tol- 
eration was  unknown. 

In  the  Low  Countries  the  contest  against 
the  civil  and  religious  tyranny  of  Spain  was 
just  the  upholding  of  these  principles  of  the 
Reformation.  It  was  a  demand  for  a  gov- 
ernment— an  ordinatio  Dei — which  respect- 
ed the  civil  and  religious  liberties  of  the  peo- 
ple. And  here  these  principles  triumphed — 
civil  liberty  triumphed,  religions  liberty  tri- 
umphed. The  Low  Countries  led  the  world 
in  adopting  in  some  measure  Christ's  law  of 
toleration.  Erasmus  of  Rotterdam  had  be- 
fore written  to  Sir  Thomas  More  that  a  bet- 
ter use  could  be  made  of  a  heretic  than  to 
burn  him.  With  his  weak  character  these 
truthful  words  were  nothing  but  a  senti- 
ment ;  but  with  his  countrymen  who  fought 
and  bled  for  freedom  they  were  a  holy  prin- 
ciple learned  from  Christ,  and,  by  practicing 
them  in  even  the  measure  they  did,  the  Hol- 
lander has  the  honor  of  leading  the  van  of 
the  army  of  Christ. 

And  so,  too,  in  England  and  Scotland  the 
real  progress  in  civil  liberty  and  toleration 
has  been  the  product  of  the  Reformation. 
Fronde  says  that  the  act  of  Henry  VIII., 
in  placing  an  open  Bible  in  all  the  churches 
of  England,  and  commandiug  the  clergy  to 
exhort  and  encourage  the  people  to  resort 
to  it  and  read  it,  was  laying  "  the  founda- 
tion-stone of  the  whole  later  history  of  En- 
gland, as  well  civil  as  ecclesiastical."  In 
like  manner  Revolution  has  every  where  bor- 
rowed the  force  of  its  political  ideas  from  the 
Protestants  of  the  sixteenth  century,  though 
it  has  nearly  always  perverted  them. 

In  conclusion,  permit  me  to  say  that,  as 
civil  and  religious  liberty  is  the  lesson  of 
Christianity,  so  it  can  be  fully  gained  and 
secured  by  Christianity  alone.  The  noble 
boon  gains  that  State  alone  whose  citizens 
first  become  the  freedmen  of  Christ,  and 
then  for  Christ's  sake  love  their  neighbor 
as  themselves.  No  form  of  government  af- 


CAMPBELL :  CHRISTIANITY  AND  CIVIL  AND  RELIGIOUS  LIBERTY.      561 


fords  an  absolute  guarantee  for  liberty,  and 
no  constitution  will  be  a  safeguard  against 
corruption.  That  State  alone  has  the  assur- 
ance of  permanence  whose  citizens,  Christ's 
freedmen,  are  consecrated  unto  the  mastery 
of  self  and  the  love  of  one's  neighbor.  We 
have  not  yet  attained  it.  With  more  of 
Christ's  spirit  in  the  heart,  wo  shall  see  a 
corresponding  love  of  man,  and  a  larger  and 
more  benign  development  of  civil  and  relig- 
36 


ious  liberty.  Without  that  we  shall  have 
no  advancement,  but  retrogression.  I  close 
with  the  words  of  Johann  von  Muller:  "The 
Gospel  is  the  fulfillment  of  all  hopes,  the  per- 
fection of  all  philosophy,  the  interpreter  of 
all  revolutions,  the  key  to  all  the  seeming 
contradictious  of  the  physical  and  moral 
world ;  it  is  life ;  it  is  immortality.  Since  I 
have  known  the  Saviour,  every  thing  is  clear 
— with  him  there  is  nothing  I  can  not  solve." 


THE  EFFECTS  OF  CIVIL  AND  KELIGIOUS  LIBERTY 
ON  CHRISTIANITY. 

BY  THE  REV.  DANIEL  R.  GOODWIN,  D.D., 

Professor  in  the  Divinity  School,  Philadelphia. 


BY  Christianity  we  understand,  no  eccle- 
siastical hierarchy  or  organization  ;  but  the 
religion  instituted  by  Christ,  promulgated 
by  his  apostles,  set  forth  in  the  Holy  Scrip- 
tures, propagated  and  preserved  in  the  world 
by  the  preaching  of  the  Gospel  and  the  pow- 
er of  the  Holy  Ghost.  By  liberty  we  un- 
derstand neither  lawlessness  nor  license  in 
Church  or  State.  While  the  end  of  civil 
government  is  to  secure  that  order  which  is 
necessary  to  the  largest  attainable  measure 
of  free  activity  for  all,  the  end  of  civil  liber- 
ty is  self-government;  and  it  implies  that 
the  civil  government  should  give  to  every 
man  as  full  an  opportunity  for  attaining 
and  enjoying  that  end  as  the  rights  of  oth- 
ers and  the  good  of  all  will  admit.  Civil 
liberty  may  exist  under  any  form  of  civil 
government;  but  it  seems  plain  that  it  is 
best  secured  where  a  popular  constitution 
can  be  permanently  and  quietly  maintain- 
ed. Religious  liberty  is  neither  Cfesarism, 
nor  secularism,  nor  individualism,  nor  indif- 
ferentism.  It  does  not  abate  one  jot  of  the 
claims,  the  absolute  claims,  of  God  and  his 
truth ;  but  it  leaves  those  claims  to  be  ad- 
dressed to  the  mind  and  heart  and  conscience 
of  every  man,  not  to  his  bodily  sensibilities 
or  to  his  temporal  interests.  It  relies  upon 
moral  and  spiritual  influence,  not  upon  phys- 
ical force.  It  is  consistent  with  the  profes- 
sion and  maintenance  of  the  most  minute 
and  prolix  creed,  but  is  most  fully  enjoyed 
Avhen  the  symbols  of  communion,  retaining 
all  that  is  essential  and  fundamental  to  true 
religion,  are  the  most  comprehensive  and  sim- 
ple. 

Christ's  religion  was  embodied  in  himself, 
in  his  character  and  work  and  teaching. 
Who,  then,  Avas  he,  and  what  did  he  teach  ? 
The  Son  of  God  was  born  in  a  stable  and 
died  on  the  cross.  He  was  known  by  his 
neighbors  as  the  carpenter  and  the  carpen- 
ter's sou.  His  daily  life  was  among  the  poor 
and  the  lowly.  He  gathered  a  company  of 
iishermen  as  his  bosom  friends  in  his  earth- 
ly ministry,  and  took  a  penitent  thief  as  his 
companion  to  Paradise.  He  taught  that  the 
poor  shall  possess  the  kingdom  of  heaven, 
and  the  meek  shall  inherit  the  earth ;  that 
God  watches  over  the  humblest  of  his  chil- 
dren with  more  than  paternal  care,  that  the 


angels,  who  always  behold  the  face  of  the 
Father,  minister  to  them,  and  that  woe  is 
to  him  that  despises  them.  "  The  princes 
of  the  Gentiles,"  said  he,  "  exercise  lordship 
over  them,  and  their  great  ones  exercise 
authority  upou  them ;  but  BO  shall  it  not 
be  among  you ;  but  whosoever  will  be  great 
among  you  shall  be  your  minister,  and  who- 
soever of  you  will  be  the  chiefest  shall  bo 
servant  of  all."  So  much  for  his  followers 
among  themselves.  To  them  he  directs  all 
his  precepts — not  to  kings,  or  rulers,  or  mag- 
istrates, or  any  in  authority ;  and  should  his 
followers  be  called  to  discharge  such  func- 
tions, he  has  left  the  spirit  of  these  same 
precepts,  and  these  only,  to  guide  them. 
Yet  he  never  utters  a  word  to  make  the 
poor  discontented  or  turbulent,  to  render 
them  jealous  or  envious  of  the  rich  and 
great,  or  hostile  to  them,  or  ambitious  to 
reach  their  places.  He  never  says  a  sylla- 
ble to  stir  up  a  spirit  of  sedition  against  the 
constituted  government,  even  though  it  was 
the  iron  despotism  of  Rome.  His  command 
is,  "  Render  to  Caesar  the  things  that  are 
Caesar's,"  as  well  as  "  to  God  the  things  that 
are  God's."  But  it  must  be  remembered 
that  Caesar  and  his  deputies  and  officials, 
and  all  the  machinery  of  the  Roman  gov- 
ernment, then  lay,  and  were  regarded  as  ly- 
ing, beyond  the  bounds  of  his  kingdom  — 
that  kingdom  of  the  truth  for  which  he  was 
giving  laws.  To  his  kingdom  that  govern- 
ment, as  a  system,  was  a  foreign  element. 

The  apostles  renew  and  re-echo  the  teach- 
ing of  their  Master.  They  declare  that  God 
is  no  respecter  of  persons,  but  that  whatso- 
ever any  man  doeth  the  same  shall  he  re- 
ceive from  the  Lord,  whether  he  be  bond  or 
free.  They  teach  that  all  Christians  are 
brethren,  as  children  of  a  common  Father 
and  redeemed  by  a  common  Saviour,  and 
that  by  love  they  should  serve  one  another. 
It  is  the  man,  and  not  his  accidents,  that 
fills  their  view ;  the  soul  for  which  Christ 
died,  and  not  its  external  circumstances  of 
worldly  dignity  or  of  worldly  insignifi- 
cance, that  measures  their  interest  and  re- 
gard. "  Let  the  poor,"  says  St.  James,  *'  re- 
joice in  that  he  is  exalted  ;  but  the  rich,  in 
that  he  is  made  low ;"  and  he  emphatical- 
ly condemns  the  contemptuous  treatment  of 


GOODWIN:  EFFECTS  OF  CIVIL  AND  EELIGIOUS  LIBERTY. 


563 


"  the  poor  man  in  vile  raiment."  "  Ye  see 
your  calling,  brethren,"  says  St.  Paul,  "  bow 
tbat  not  many  wise  men  after  the  flesh,  not 
many  mighty,  not  many  noble,  are  called ;" 
"We  are  all  one  in  Christ  Jesus;  where  there 
is  neither  Greek  nor  Jew,  Barbarian,  Scyth- 
ian, bond  nor  free :  but  Christ  is  all,  and  in 
all." 

Yet  the  apostles,  after  the  example  of 
their  Master,  taught  distinctly  that  "  every 
soul  should  be  subject  to  the  higher  pow- 
ers," to  the  lawful  government ;  that  Chris- 
tians should  "  submit  to  every  ordinance  of 
man  for  the  Lord's  sake ;  as  free,  and  not 
using  their  liberty  for  a  cloak  of  malicious- 
ness, but  as  the  servants  of  God."  They 
taught,  too,  that  there  should  be  orders  and 
government  in  the  Church  itself;  that  we 
are  members  in  one  body,  and  that  all  mem- 
bers have  not  the  same  office.  But  it  is  to 
be  observed  that,  though  "  God  hath  set  in 
the  Church  first  the  apostles,"  yet  St.  Paul 
says,  for  himself  and  his  colleagues  in  that 
office,  "  We  preach  not  ourselves,  but  Christ 
Jesus  the  Lord  ;  aud  ourselves  your  servants 
for  Jesus'  sake ;"  "  not  for  that  we  have  do- 
minion over  your  faith,  but  are  helpers  of 
your  joy."  And  St.  Peter  exhorts  presby- 
ters, as  being  himself  their  fellow-presby- 
ter, to  conduct  themselves  "  not  as  lords 
over  God's  heritage,  but  as  ensamples  to  the 
flock."  Indeed,  the  ministers  of  God  were 
approved  as  such  by  special  toils  and  priva- 
tions, abuse,  and  contempt.  "  For  I  think," 
says  St. Paul,  "that  God  hath  set  forth  us 
the  apostles  last,  as  it  were  appointed  unto 
death ;  for  we  are  made  a  spectacle  to  the 
world,  and  to  angels,  and  to  men.  Even 
unto  this  present  hour  we  both  hunger  and 
thirst,  and  are  naked,  and  are  buffeted,  and 
have  no  certain  dwelling-place ;  and  labor, 
working  with  our  own  hands:  being  reviled, 
we  bless ;  being  persecuted,  we  suffer  it ;  be- 
ing defamed,  we  entreat :  we  are  made  as  the 
filth  of  the  world,  and  are  the  offscouring 
of  all  things  unto  this  day."  Such  was  the 
highest  dignity  to  which  men  were  called  in 
the  Apostolic  Church. 

Such  was  the  religion  which  Christ  and 
his  apostles  established.     So  far  as  the  in- 
fluence and  spirit  of  such  a  religion  should 
leaven  human  society,  how  is  it  possible  that 
it  should  fail  to  promote  liberty,  brother- 
hood, and  equality  among  men ;  to  develop 
manhood,  to  relieve  the  oppressed,  to  ele- 
vate the  degraded, to  humble  the  proud;  to 
restrain  the  selfishness  of  ambition,  to  tem- 
per the  exercise  of  authority,  to  check  the 
insolence  of  power  and  the  domineering  of  ' 
despotism ;  and  to  make  both  the  high  and  • 
the  low  unspeakably  happier,  according  to  • 
the  noble  sentiment  of  St.  James,  in  their  ! 
mutual  approximation  ?     Christianity  lays  ! 
the  only  secure  foundation  for  permanent ' 
civil  liberty.     It  is  utterly  unlike  any  mere 
doctrine  of  the  "  Rights  of  Man."     It  incul- 


cates duties  rather  than  rights.  By  its  doc- 
trine and  spirit  of  meek  humility  and  broth- 
erly love,  it  is  quite  as  inconsistent  with  the 
coarse,  and  violent,  and  insolent  demands  of 
a  reckless  mob,  as  it  is  with  the  cool,  and 
cruel,  and  cunning  policy  of  an  aristocracy, 
or  the  ruthless  despotism  of  an  autocrat. 
Christianity  alone  effectually  represses  that 
spirit  of  human  pride  aud  selfishness  which 
tends  alike  to  crush  and  to  undermine  the 
rising  fabric  of  civil  freedom.  Christiani- 
ty is  popular  without  being  revolutionary ; 
submissive  to  wrong,  but  not  conservative 
of  evil. 

Doubtless,  as  there  always  have  been,  so 
there  always  will  be,  in  every  community, 
men  of  inferior  mental  capacities  and  moral 
character ;  but  while  these  may  need  to  be, 
in  various  degrees,  guided  and  restrained, 
Christianity  forbids  that  they  should  ever 
be  trampled  upon  or  used  merely  as  means 
for  the  exaltation  or  aggrandizement  of  oth- 
ers. Christianity  teaches  us  to  support  the 
Aveak,  and  not  to  make  them  support  us ;  to 
love  them  as  brethren,  to  be  pitiful,  to  be 
courteous,  honestly  to  desire  that  our  in- 
feriors should  become  our  equals,  to  respect 
their  humanity,  and  to  seek  by  all  possible 
means  their  speediest  elevation  aud  improve- 
ment. Christianity  is  hopeful.  She  does 
not  despair  of  the  elevation  of  the  masses 
of  mankind,  or  give  them  up  to  a  hopeless 
and  interminable  degradation.  "  But  they 
are  mere  children,"  it  is  said.  Be  it  so ;  and 
she  would  have  us  treat  them  as  children. 
But  children  are  guided  and  governed,  not 
that  they  may  be  kept  always  children  ;  not 
that  the  parents  may  enjoy  the  honor  and 
dignity  of  governing;  not  that  their  despot- 
ic spirit  may  be  gratified;  not  that  their 
wealth  and  consideration  maybe  increased  ; 
not  that  they  may  live  at  their  ease  on  the 
labors  of  their  children ;  not  that  their  pa- 
rental sway  may  bo  perpetuated ;  but  al- 
ways with  the  express  hope  and  aim  that 
these  children  may  soon  learn  to  guide  and 
govern  themselves,  and  eventually  to  guide 
and  govern  others  in  their  turn.  Such, 
Christianity  would  teach  us,  should  be  the 
treatment  of  all  inferior  classes  in  society. 
The  highest  ideal  of  the  Christian  State  is, 
"  A  government  of  the  people,  by  the  people, 
for  the  people." 

When  we  pass  from  theory  to  fact,  and  in- 
quire of  history  what  has  been  the  actual 
influence  of  Christianity  upon  civil  liberty 
and  civil  life,  it  is  necessary  to  remember 
that  this  divine  religion  exerts  its  influence 
through  human  agencies  and  organs,  aud 
that  its  proper  effects  are  liable  to  be  modi- 
fied or  obstructed,  aud  even  perverted  or  an- 
nulled, by  the  imperfection  or  reaction  of 
the  medium  through  which  it  is  transmitted. 
This  religion  is  pure  only  at  its  source;  and 
it  is  only  by  constantly  recurring  to  that 
source  that  its  lost  purity  is  to  be  restored. 


564 


CHRISTIANITY  AND  CIVIL  GOVERNMENT. 


Let  us  be  thankful  that  in  the  Holy  Scrip- 
tures we  have  the  means  of  thus  revisiting 
that  source,  and  making  fresh  draughts  from 
the  pure  waters  of  life  and  truth. 

Now  it  is  but  an  identical  proposition  to 
say  that,  wherever  the  tendencies  of  Chris- 
tianity are  most  effectually  reached,  its  prop- 
er results  most  thoroughly  worked  out,  there 
Christianity  will  exist  in  its  most  complete 
and  characteristic  form.  And  every  stage 
of  progress  toward  such  a  consummation 
must  be  so  much  vantage-ground  for  further 
advancement.  If  Christianity  tends  to  pro- 
mote civil  liberty,  or  naturally  to  coalesce 
with  it,  then  the  existence  of  civil  liberty 
must  react  advantageously  upon  Christiani- 
ty. Neither  can  be  the  friend  of  the  other, 
or  they  must  be  mutual  friends ;  and  that 
though  each  may  have  many  other  friends 
besides.  There  may  be  many  other  influ- 
ences favorable  to  civil  liberty  besides  Chris- 
tianity— and  among  them  may  even  be  some 
of  an  utterly  irreligious  and  Antichristian 
character — as,  on  the  other  hand,  there  cer- 
tainly are  many  influences  favorable  to 
Christianity  besides  civil  liberty.  The  same 
is  true  of  the  relation  of  Christianity  to  gen- 
eral light  and  knowledge,  to  civilization  and 
social  culture.  It  is  among  its  divine  cre- 
dentials that  it  falls  in  and  harmonizes  with 
whatever  tends  to  the  elevation  and  happi- 
ness of  man,  or  to  the  unfolding  and  enlarge- 
ment of  his  powers  —  to  the  perfecting  of 
humanity  in  any  of  its  aspects  or  relations. 
Christianity  has  its  proper  spiritual  pur- 
pose, which  is  no  other  than  to  lead  man  on 
to  the  attainment  and  accomplishment  of 
the  highest  end  of  his  being,  in  his  relation 
to  what  is  above  and  beyond  this  present 
world.  But  notwithstanding  this — or,  rath- 
er, precisely  because  of  this  —  it  is  in  con- 
scious harmony  with  all  that  is  true  and 
beautiful  and  good,  with  all  that  is  pure  and 
honest  and  virtuous,  with  all  that  is  lovely 
and  noble  and  manly.  The  more  perfectly 
man  is  developed  as  man,  in  all  his  normal 
faculties  and  relations,  the  better  vehicle  he 
becomes  for  the  manifestation  of  the  full 
power  and  glory  of  the  Christian  religion. 
Such  a  development,  from  whatever  causes 
proceeding,  is,  humanly  speaking,  a  prepara- 
tion for  Christianity ;  for,  if  this  religion 
comes  to  raise  the  fallen,  to  elevate  the  de- 
graded, to  guide  the  erring,  to  enlighten  the 
dark,  to  ennoble  the  mean,  to  reform  the 
vicious,  she  can  not  but  welcome  whatever 
will  help  her  in  her  benign  mission.  But 
light  and  liberty  and  love  can  not  but  help 
her.  Christ  did,  indeed,  once  say, "  He  that 
is  not  with  me  is  against  me,"  but  it  was  of 
Satan  he  then  spoke.  Again  he  said,  "  He 
that  is  not  against  us  is  on  our  part ;"  and 
then  it  was  of  well-intentioned  but  partial- 
ly enlightened  men  he  spoke. 

It  is  true,  man's  nature  is  radically  per- 
verted, and  the  best  things  may,  by  abuse, 


become  the  worst.  Without  the  aid  of  di- 
vine grace,  without  an  influence  from  on 
high,  without  the  leaven  of  Christ's  relig- 
ion, man  can  never  reach  his  highest  devel- 
opment in  relation  either  to  the  future  world 
or  to  this.  Every  right  and  good  tendency 
in  him  is,  in  its  normal  evolution,  ready  to 
welcome  and  embrace  Christianity.  Scien- 
tific superciliousness  and  philosophic  pride 
and  prejudice  are  no  part  of  man's  true  de- 
velopment. But  though  the  evil  of  man's 
nature  crops  out  everywhere,  yet,  on  the 
whole,  intellectual  light  and  culture  are 
more  favorable  to  Christianity  than  brutish 
darkness  and  ignorance.  Ignorance  may  be 
the  mother  of  superstitious  devotion,  but 
knowledge  is  the  foster-parent  of  true  relig- 
ion. Christianity  does  not  fear  knowledge 
or  frown  upon  it ;  rather  she  both  commends 
and  commands  it:  "Be  not  children  in  un- 
derstanding," is  her  injunction :  "  howbeit  in 
malice  be  ye  children,  but  in  understanding 
be  men" — be  men — men  is  what  Christiani- 
ty wants;  not  ignorant  children,  but  intel- 
ligent men.  All  souls  may  be,  in  the  sight 
of  God,  equally  precious,  yet  the  conversion 
of  one  St.  Paul  Avas  of  more  consequence  to 
the  advancement  of  the  Christian  religion — 
such  are  the  law  and  movement  of  Divine 
Providence — than  the  gathering  in  of  whole 
masses  of  ignorant  heathen  at  Laodicea,  at 
Sardis,  or  even  at  Rome.  And,  as  civil  lib- 
erty must  naturally  help  to  produce,  in  a 
given  community,  a  greater  number  of  men, 
of  real,  intelligent,  manly  men,  it  can  not  fail 
to  exert  a  favorable  reflex  influence  upon 
the  promotion  both  of  the  truth  and  of  the 
power  of  Christianity.  Moreover,  civil  lib- 
erty must  give  Christianity  a  freer  scope  for 
exerting  and  diffusing  its  own  benign  influ- 
ence. 

We  have  but  to  glance  at  the  history  and 
geography  of  Christendom  to  find  this  view 
abundantly  confirmed  by  facts.  We  shall 
find  that,  whenever  and  wherever  civil  lib- 
erty has  become  quietly  and  permanently 
established,  then  and  there  has  Christianity 
had  its  purest  and  noblest  realization  —  has 
exerted  most  widely  its  transforming  spir- 
itual influence — in  Germany,  in  Holland,  in 
Switzerland,  in  England  and  Scotland,  in 
America,  in  France.  The  old  French  Revo- 
lution is  often  thrown  back  upon  us  as  set- 
tling the  whole  question  against  us ;  but  it 
is  strangely  or  studiously  forgotten  that  all 
the  horrors  of  that  revolution  and  all  its 
atheistic  orgies  resulted  not  from  civil  liber- 
ty, but  were  the  natural  and  necessary  fruit 
of  the  preceding  ages  of  civil  and  religious 
despotism,  of  grinding  and  intolerable  op- 
pression. The  atheism  and  the  spirit  of  li- 
cense already  existed ;  they  caused  the  evils 
of  the  Revolution,  and  were  not  its  effects. 
Voltaire  was  already  on  the  scene,  and  had 
completed  his  career.  Meantime,  so  far  as 
civil  liberty  has  resulted  from  that  revolu- 


GOODWIN:  EFFECTS  OF  CIVIL  AND  RELIGIOUS  LIBERTY. 


565 


tion,  even  though  atheism  may  have  had  a 
hand  in  producing  it,  for  God  often  brings 
good  out  of  evil,  it  has  been  an  inestimable 
blessing  to  France  and  to  Europe.  Our 
greatest  temporal  benefits  commonly  pro- 
ceed from  a  variety  of  causes  ;  and  it  is 
sometimes  through  the  crisis  of  a  violent 
and  dangerous  disease  that  the  system  is 
most  thoroughly  purified  and  invigorated. 
Plad  not  men  perversely  insisted  upon  asso- 
ciating the  idea  of  infidelity  with  the  spirit 
of  liberty,  on  the  one  hand ;  and,  on  the  oth- 
er hand,  had  not  quite  too  much  of  the  old 
religious  and  civil  despotism  been  retained 
and  restored  in  the  conservative  reaction, 
the  blessing  resulting  from  that  revolution 
had  been  greater  still.  But  after  all,  at  this 
present  moment,  is  there  not  vastly  more  of 
intelligent  practical  Christianity  in  Hungary 
than  in  Austria,  in  France  than  in  Spain  or 
Italy,  or  in  any  country  of  Europe  where 
civil  liberty  has  always,  or  until  recently, 
been  suppressed?  Those  professed  friends 
of  Christianity,  who,  in  the  fanatical  zeal  of 
blind  conservatism,  insist  upon  identifying 
civil  liberty  with  infidelity  and  atheism,  and 
Christianity  with  despotism  and  oligarchies, 
inflict  upon  the  cause  of  true  religion  a  sorer 
wound  than  could  ever  have  been  inflicted 
by  infidelity  and  atheism  themselves.  They 
furnish  infidelity  and  atheism  with  their 
most  effective  weapons ;  they  put  the  great- 
est stumbling-block  in  the  way  of  religion ; 
they  make  zealous  infidels  and  atheists  of 
thousands,  who  would  otherwise,  by  God's 
grace,  be  as  zealous  Christians.  The  lovers 
of  freedom  will  be  infidels,  because  Chris- 
tians will  be  lovers  of  absolutism,  defenders 
of  slavery,  and  advocates  of  caste. 

But  after  all,  as,  since  the  Christian  era, 
civil  liberty  has  flourished  nowhere  outside 
of  Christendom  —  and  this  ia  a  significant 
fact  —  so  an  enlightened  and  living  Chris- 
tianity has  always  flourished  best,  if  not  ex- 
clusively, under  the  aegis  of  civil  liberty.  As 
Christianity  makes  the  best  freemen,  so  free 
men  make  the  best  Christians. 

That  religious  liberty  reacts  advanta- 
geously on  Christianity  needs  no  further 
argument  but  the  simple  appeal  to  history 
and  facts.  The  religious  despotism  of  Ro- 
man Catholic  countries  serves  merely  to 
keep  out  the  light  and  truth  which  might 
lead  to  a  reformation  of  old  and  festering 
corruptions,  and  to  educate,  or  rather  to 
leave  uneducated,  masses  of  men  semi-athe- 
istic, semi -heathen,  superstitiously  devout, 
but  morally  and  intellectually  weak  and 
childish.  And  in  Protestant  countries  re- 
ligious intolerance  has  uniformly  resulted 
in  dwarfing  and  paralyzing  the  religion  it 
was  designed  to  protect.  This  is  abundant- 
ly illustrated  in  the  religious  history  of  En- 
gland and  of  America.  Intolerance  has  al- 
ways been  followed  by  religious  declension 
and  doctrinal  superficiality.  To  pass  at 


once  to  the  present  time,  compare  the  ener- 
getic, intelligent,  aggressive  spirit  of  Prot- 
estantism in  England,  or  Switzerland,  or 
America,  with  the  cold  and  torpid  condition 
which  the  same  religion  has,  at  least  until 
very  recently,  manifested  under  the  prohib- 
itive system  of  Denmark  and  Sweden.  Er- 
ror, corruption,  conscious  weakness,  may  be 
intolerant ;  but  Truth  needs  no  such  protec- 
tion ;  she  rejoices  in  her  own  strength,  and 
in  her  perfect  adaptation  to  man's  nature 
and  wants.  She  does  not  treat  man  as  a 
maniac  who  must  be  laced  in  a  strait-jacket 
in  order  to  be  kept  in  the  true  religion. 

Had  Christianity  needed  the  protection 
of  an  intolerant  religious  despotism,  what 
would  have  become  of  her  in  the  earliest 
and  purest  periods  of  her  history,  when  all 
the  powers  of  the  world,  both  civil  and 
religious,  were  arrayed  in  deadly  hostility 
against  her  ?  And  how  can  she  now  hope 
to  subdue  the  world  which  still  lieth  in 
wickedness — to  prevail  over  the  Brahman- 
ism,  and  Buddhism,  and  Confucianism  which 
hold  possession  of  India  and  China  and  Ja- 
pan, containing  about  half  the  population  of 
the  globe  ?  When  she  asks  of  the  Chinese 
and  Japanese  a  free  entrance  among  them, 
shall  she  plainly  tell  them  that,  so  soon  as 
she  gets  the  upper  hand  there,  she  will  strip 
of  their  goods  and  banish  from  their  homes, 
or  consign  to  prison,  torture,  and  death,  all 
who  refuse  to  receive  her  teaching  and  con- 
form to  her  rites  ?  Surely,  if  she  prefers  her 
petition  with  such  an  intention,  she  ought,  in 
honesty  and  fairness,  to  announce  it  before- 
hand. In  no  such  spirit  did  Jesus  and  his 
apostles  preach  the  Gospel  of  the  kingdom 
of  God;  iu  no  such  spirit  did  he  open  his 
great  commission  iu  the  synagogue  at  Naz- 
areth ;  and  in  no  such  spirit  is  the  world  to 
be  subdued  to  his  obedience.  When  James 
and  Jolm  would  have  called  down  fire  from 
heaven  to  consume  those  who  refused  to  re- 
ceive him,  he  meekly  rebuked  them,  saying, 
Ye  know  not  what  manner  of  spirit  ye  are 
of;  for  the  Son  of  man  is  not  come  to  destroy 
men's  lives,  but  to  save  them."  Christianity 
is  not  to  convert  man  as  Charlemagne  con- 
verted the  Saxons,  and  Philip  II.  the  Mo- 
riscoes ;  her  festivals  are  no  longer  to  be  St. 
Bartholomew's  Eves*  and  Sicilian  Vespers; 
her  Easters  are  not  to  be  made  more  joyous 
and  solemn  by  holocausts  of  hundreds  of 
human  beings  in  autos-de-fe ;  her  heroes 
and  champions  are  not  to  be  Torqnemadas, 
and  Philips,  and  bloody  Marys,  and  Dukes 
of  Alva;  her  tender  mercies  are  not  to  be 


It  is  little  to  the  purpose  to  apologize  for  the  Pope 
—the  infallible  Pope— who  ordered  a  Te  Deum  to  be 
sung  upon  hearing  of  this  massacre,  by  saying  that 
probably  he  had  been  misinformed  in  regard  to  the 
nature  of  the  facts.  Had  his  Infallibility  expressly 
made  the  apology  for  himself  when  he  was  better  in- 
formed, the  case  might  be  otherwise.  Did  he  ever 
make  it  ? 


566 


CHRISTIANITY  AND  CIVIL  GOVERNMENT. 


exhibited  iu  Albigensian  and  Waldensian 
crusades,  iu  Dutch  massacres,  iu  Huguenot 
expatriations,  iu  inquisitorial  tortures,  and 
Smithfield  fires.  No;  turning  away  from 
such  scenes,  let  us  listen  to  the  words  of 
Jesus:  "Come  unto  me,  all  ye  that  labor 
and  are  heavy  laden,  and  I  will  give  you 
rest.  Take  my  yoke  upon  you,  and  learn  of 
me ;  for  I  am  meek  and  lowly  in  heart :  and 
ye  shall  find  rest  unto  your  souls."  And 
hear  the  Apostle  saying,  "  By  the  gentleness 
and  meekness  of  Christ  I  beseech  you." 
Such  is  the  spirit  in  which  Christianity  is 
to  go  forth  to  her  future  and  final  victories. 
Such  is  the  spirit  in  which  she  is  to  grap- 
ple with  the  free  thought  and  the  free  and 
vigorous  activities  of  the  present  and  the 
coming  age.  The  weapons  of  her  warfare 
are  not  carnal,  but  mighty  through  God  to 
the  pulling  down  of  strongholds.  Civil  and 
religious  freedom  are  the  conditions  of  her 
real  and  complete  success. 

By  religious  freedom  we  mean  that  there 
should  be,  under  the  law  of  the  laud,  free- 
dom of  thought,  of  speech,  and  of  the  press, 
for  all  kinds  and  modes  of  religion,  includ- 
ing not  only  all  denominations  of  Chris- 
tians, but  Judaism,  Mohammedanism,  Pagan- 
ism, Pantheism,  and  Atheism.  Of  course, 
the  State  may  have  its  own  religion,  while 
it  tolerates  all  others;  and  malicious  blas- 
phemy, or  immoral  practices,  or  foul  and 
reckless  assaults  upon  Christianity,  how- 
ever they  may  seek  to  clothe  themselves  in 
the  guise  of  religion,  may  be  restrained  by 
law  as  being  offensive  to  the  moral  sense 
and  the  well-being  of  the  community.  Pre- 
cisely at  this  point  nice  questions  may  be 
raised ;  and  here,  as  in  all  complex  practical 
matters,  it  may  be  difficult  so  to  frame  the 
rule  as  definitely  to  provide  for  all  real  or 
supposable  cases.  But  the  principle  should 
be  universal  religious  freedom.*  Some  may 
think  so  broad  a  toleration  inconsistent  with 
earnest  loyalty  to  Christian  truth.  But  sup- 
pose Christ  to  have  told  the  Scribes  and 
Pharisees,  and  Herod  and  Pilate,  that  he  pro- 
posed, as  soon  as  he  and  his  followers  should 


*  This  should  be  the  spirit  of  the  laws  both  of 
Church  and  State. 


be  able  so  to  do,  to  put  them  all  down  by 
force  and  crush  them  with  the  strong  hand ! 
(But  then,  what  of  the  "more  than  twelve 
legions  of  angels?")  And  suppose  Peter  to 
have  told  Simon  Magus  that,  if  the  law  al- 
lowed it,  he  would  send  him  forthwith  to 
torture  and  the  flames!  Or  Paul  to  have 
told  the  magistrates  at  Philippi  that,  if  he 
had  the  power,  he  would  scourge  them,  and, 
instead  of  thrusting  their  feet  into  the  stocks, 
would  bind  them  to  the  stake  and  burn  them 
upon  the  spot !  Or  to  have  announced  to  the 
Athenians  on  Mars  Hill  that,  as  soon  as  the 
Christians  should  grow  strong  enough,  they 
would  drive  them  out  of  their  temples,  throw 
down  their  altars,  and  compel  them  to  wor- 
ship in  Christian  churches,  or  strip  them  of 
their  goods,  and  banish  or  immolate  them 
all! 

No;  Cortez  and  Pizarro  are  not  the  rep- 
resentatives of  the  apostles,  nor  the  models 
of  Christian  missionaries.  Such  was  not 
the  spirit  in  which  the  Gospel  was  preach- 
ed at  the  first,  and  such  ought  not  to  be 
the  spirit  in  which  it  is  to  be  professed  and 
propagated  now.  Surely  it  has  greater  ad- 
vantages for  preserving  itself  and  making 
progress  now  than  it  had  then.  If  it  suc- 
ceeded then  without  the  protection  and  aid 
of  intolerance,  still  more  may  it  succeed  with- 
out such  aid  and  protection  now  ;  for  it  will 
hardly  be  suggested  that  the  fires  of  intol- 
erance are  intended  by  Divine  Providence 
as  the  appropriate  modern  substitute  for  the 
primitive  miracles ;  or  that  what  the  suffer- 
ing of  persecution  did  for  the  purity  of  the 
early  Church  the  exercise  of  persecution  is 
to  accomplish  for  the  later  Church. 

Christianity  needs  only  a  fair  and  open 
field,  with  really  earnest  and  faithful  adher- 
ents who  believe  in  their  Lord  with  all  their 
hearts,  who  love  his  blessed  name  as  St.  Paul 
loved  it,  and  who  love  the  souls  of  men  even 
as  He  loved  them  who  died  for  their  redemp- 
tion. Going  forth  in  such  a  spirit,  there  is  no 
danger  of  defeat,  no  doubt  of  success.  Our 
help  is  in  the  name  of  the  Lord,  and  a  strong 
tower  is  our  God.  Our  hope  and  confidence 
are  in  the  truth,  in  the  presence  of  Christ,  and 
in  the  power  of  the  Holy  Ghost.  "And  where 
the  Spirit  of  the  Lord  is,  there  is  liberty." 


THIRD  SECTION.-MINISTERIAL  SUPPORT. 


NEED  OF  LIBEEAL  SUPPORT  FOR  THE  GOSPEL  MIN- 
ISTRY. 

BY  THE  EEV.  JOHN  HALL,  D.D.,  OF  NEW  YOKK. 


WHY  should  we,  at  the  present  time,  talk 
of  this  subject  of  ministerial  support  I  Not 
because  of  any  decay  of  the  ministry,  or  any 
present  decline  in  the  popular  interest  in  that 
body;  but  because,  on  account  of  the  growth 
of  the  army  every  year  in  numbers,  it  is  con- 
tinually made  more  incumbent  upon  us  to 
look  well  to  the  commissariat,  to  see  that  the 
supplies  be  adequate  to  the  necessities  of  this 
ever-increasing  band  of  Christian  laborers. 

Much  discussion  has  been  had  upon  this 
matter  in  years  that  are  passed,  and  from 
time  to  time  efforts  have  been  made,  with 
more  or  less  of  system  and  organization,  to 
supply  the  deficiencies  that  have  been  felt 
to  exist.  We  propose,  however,  a  somewhat 
different  method  of  proceeding  in  our  time. 
We  propose  to  agitate  this  question  among 
the  people  themselves,  and  to  go  to  those 
who  have  responsibility  in  the  matter,  and 
who  have  the  whole  thing  in  their  hands ; 
and,  instead  of  originating  auxiliary  agen- 
cies to  supplement  deficient  supplies,  we 
propose  to  increase  the  supplies  themselves 
by  instructing  the  people,  and  creating  upon 
the  subject  a  sound  and  healthy  public  opin- 
ion. 

The  difference  between  this  policy  and 
that  which  has  been  heretofore  pursued, 
you  can  easily  realize.  Suppose  the  reser- 
voir in  the  Park  were  sending  insufficient 
supplies  of  water  through  the  pipes  in  the 
city.  Various  good  men,  at  various  points, 
might  set  themselves,  with  some  pains  and 
labor,  to  open  pumps  in  their  yards,  and  so 
to  eke  out  the  deficient  supplies  in  the  reser- 
voir. But  the  wiser  policy  would  sm-ely  be 
to  combine  these  various  private  and  indi- 
vidual energies  in  such  a  way  as  to  bring 
water  enough  into  the  reservoir  to  fill  all 
the  channels  and  supply  all  the  wants  of 
the  city.  And  upon  this  principle  we  pro- 
pose to  carry  the  discussion  of  this  thing  to 
the  people  themselves.  We  have  confidence 
in  the  conscience  of  the  Christian  people,  that 
when  they  understand  this  matter  they  will 
supply  that  which  is  lacking  in  the  premises. 

Nor  do  we  talk  of  this  thing  now  and  here 
because  there  is  any  special  necessity  for 
discussing  the  topic  in  America  as  distinct 


from  those  countries  where  the  State  takes 
charge,  hi  whole  or  in  part,  of  the  mainte- 
nance and  support  of  the  Church.  There  is 
no  peculiar  need  to  discuss  this  question  in 
America  any  more  than  to  discuss  it  in  the 
countries  where  the  Church  and  State  are 
closely  allied  through  the  bond  of  mainte- 
nance from  the  State  to  the  ministry  of  the 
Word.  Having  lived  in  such  countries,  and 
under  this  particular  system,  I  am  able  to 
say  that  the  proportion  of  under-supported 
ministers  in  those  countries  is,  in  my  judg- 
ment, quite  as  great  as  it  is  in  this  country, 
and  the  arguments  that  we  use  here  I  have 
found  it  necessary  to  use  in  the  Old  World, 
and  the  ground  I  take  here  I  found  it  neces- 
sary to  take  there,  and  the  appeals  that  it  is 
proper  to  make  here  are  precisely  the  same 
kind  of  appeals  that  it  is  proper  and  neces- 
sary to  make  in  the  Old  World. 

Why  is  there  need  to  discuss  this  matter  ? 
In  the  first  place,  because  of  the  nature  of 
the  case  itself.  Our  natural  wants  come 
under  the  laws  of  demand  and  supply — our 
food,  our  clothing,  our  comforts,  and  our 
homes.  We  naturally  feel  that  we  need, 
and  we  are  naturally  prompted  to  seek,  the 
supply  of  them.  But  it  is  not  so,  as  you 
know,  with  spiritual  matters.  Men  have 
to  be  taught  their  need  of  spiritual  things. 
They  naturally  know  not,  according  to  Bi- 
ble statement,  that  they  are  poor  and  mis- 
erable, and  blind,  and  naked,  and  in  need 
of  all  things.  Let  there  be  a  deficient  sup- 
ply of  bread  in  a  particular  district,  and  very 
soon,  by  the  ordinary  laws  of  life,  there  will 
be  a  baker  on  the  spot ;  but  not  so  promptly 
and  not  upon  the  same  principles  will  there 
be  a  supply  of  the  bread  of  life  and  the  wa- 
ter of  life.  It  is  necessary,  therefore,  from 
the  nature  of  the  case,  to  discuss  this  mat- 
ter, to  call  men's  attention  to  that  which 
they  need  in  the  spiritual  department. 

There  is  necessity  for  this,  in  the  second 
case,  because  of  the  deficient  sense  of  respon- 
sibility on  the  part  of  great  numbers  of  the 
Christian  people.  And  yet  they  are  not  whol- 
ly to  be  blamed,  as  if  they  were  doing  wrong 
knowing  it  to  bo  wrong.  They  have  not 
thought  much  about  the  matter,  and  "evil 


568 


CHRISTIANITY  AND  CIVIL  GOVERNMENT. 


is  -wrought  for  want  of  thought  as  well  as 
want  of  will."  I  beg  you  to  witness  that  a 
very  large  proportion  of  the  people  in  our 
congregations — even  heads  of  families  and 
excellent  people — do  not  trouble  themselves 
very  much  with  the  question,  "  What  in- 
come has  our  pastor,  and  is  it  adequate  for 
the  supply  of  all  his  wants  ?"  They  are  apt 
to  say  to  themselves, "  The  trustees  of  our 
church  are  excellent  men;  they  have  this 
thing  in  hand  ;  no  doubt  they  look  after  it 
sufficiently,  and  I  dare  say  there  is  abundant 
provision  for  our  minister ;"  and  so  they  let 
the  matter  go.  They  are  not  very  much  to 
be  blamed,  perhaps,  for  not  looking  at  that 
to  which  their  attention  has  not  been  called ; 
and  there  is  besides  some  considerable  diffi- 
culty (although  that  difficulty  is  not  so  great 
as  in  other  lands ;  nor  is  this  deficient  sense 
of  responsibility,  in  my  judgment,  so  great 
here  as  it  is  elsewhere ;  but  there  is  some 
difficulty)  on  the  part  of  many  excellent 
Christian  people  in  forming  a  just  idea  on 
that  matter,  more  particularly  in  the  coun- 
try districts,  with  which  we  have  also  to 
deal. 

A  farmer  who  receives  his  money  in  com- 
paratively small  sums  and  deals  it  out  in 
the  same  way  will  be  strongly  tempted  to 
think  that  one  thousand  dollars  a  year  is  a 
considerable  sum  for  a  family  to  get  through 
with  in  the  course  of  a  year.  He  is  strong- 
ly tempted  to  forget  how  much  of  the  sup- 
plies for  his  household  he  raises  within  him- 
self, and  he  only  begins  to  realize  the  exact 
parallel  position  of  the  minister  if  he  has  to 
use  a  sum  of  money  put  into  his  hands  at 
the  beginning  of  the  year,  and  has  to  pay  it 
out  from  day  to  day  for  absolutely  every 
thing  needed  for  the  comfort  of  his  family. 
In  the  nature  of  the  case  a  large  proportion 
of  the  Christian  population  have  some  diffi- 
culty in  forming  a  just  idea  of  this  matter. 
We  propose  to  help  these  brethren  to  a  just 
estimate  of  the  case,  that  they  may  know 
what  is  their  duty  in  the  premises. 

I  think,  in  the  third  place,  that  there  is 
necessity  of  an  agitation  of  this  matter,  be- 
cause of  a  very  natural  but  somewhat  cul- 
pable procedure  on  the  part  of  the  ministers 
themselves.  I  repeat  this  statement,  because 
of  a  very  natural  tut  somewhat  culpable  proced- 
ure on  the  part  of  my  brother  ministers.  They 
do  not  like  to  plead  their  own  cause,  and 
tell  the  people  what  ought  to  be  done  for  their 
own  maintenance.  I  call  that  natural,  but 
I  call  it  somewhat  culpable ;  for  a  salary 
grab  is  never  a  popular  measure.  But  at 
the  same  time  I  do  not  think  that  we  are 
quite  free  from  blame  in  that  particular. 
There  are  three  chapters  in  the  Epistle  to 
the  Corinthians  that  bear  directly  on  this 
very  subject,  and  we  are  just,  as  ministers, 
as  much  bound  to  explain  to  the  people 
these  three  chapters  as  any  other  three  chap- 
ters in  the  New  Testament.  Wo  have  no 


right  to  ignore  what  the  Spirit  of  God  says 
on  this  subject,  and,  if  we  sin  in  that  partic- 
ular, a  sin  of  omission,  it  can  not  but  be  that 
we  shall  pay  the  penalty  and  be  punished 
for  our  sins. 

There  is  a  good  "  ox "  sermon,  as  it  has 
been  called.  "  For  it  is  written  in  the  law 
of  Moses,  Thou  shalt  not  muzzle  the  month 
of  the  ox  that  treadeth  out  the  corn.  Doth 
God  take  care  for  oxen  ?  Or  saith  he  it  al- 
together for  our  sakes  f  For  our  sakes,  no 
doubt,  this  is  written :  that  he  that  ploweth 
should  plow  in  hope ;  and  that  he  that  thresh- 
eth  in  hope  should  be  partaker  of  his  hope. 
If  we  have  sown  unto  you  spiritual  things, 
is  it  a  great  thing  if  we  shall  reap  your  car- 
nal things?"  (1  Cor.  ix., 9-11).  How  many 
ministers  are  there  in  this  audience  that 
can  lay  their  hands  on  their  hearts  and  say, 
"  I  have  faithfully  and  plainly  told  my  peo- 
ple out  and  out  their  duty  in  this  matter, 
as  I  have  done  upon  the  subject  of  belief  in 
Christ  and  repentance  toward  God?"  My 
brethren  of  the  ministry,  bear  with  me  if  I 
ask  you  that,  if  not  for  your  own  sakes,  for 
the  sake  of  your  families,  for  the  sake  of 
your  people,  and  for  the  sake  of  your  suc- 
cessors, and  for  the  sake  of  your  respective 
churches,  ye  be  as  faithful  here  as  in  declar- 
ing upon  other  topics  the  counsel  of  our 
Father.  And  in  that  connection  it  seems  to 
me  that  ministers — and  I  am  thankful  to  be 
one  of  them  who  are  well  taken  care  of  by 
their  people,  and  who  will  not  lie  under  the 
suspicion  of  pleading  their  own  cause — and 
I  do  not  hesitate  to  say,  that  ministers  who 
are  generously  dealt  with  owe  a  special 
duty  to  their  brethren  who  are  less  favored. 
They  of  all  others,  by  the  law  of  Christian 
magnanimity,  chivalry,  and  brotherly  love, 
are  bound  to  do  their  utmost  for  their  less 
happily  situated  brethren. 

There  is  another  reasou,  perhaps,  why  we 
should  talk  about  this  thing.  I  complain 
of  the  standard  so  frequently  sought  to  be 
set  up  as  to  ministers'  incomes.  My  dear 
brethren,  when  you  apply  to  a  conveyancer 
or  any  other  professional  man,  when  you  come 
to  pay  his  bill,  do  you  find  yourself  raising 
this  question,  "How  many  children  has  he? 
How  much  will  it  take  to  support  him?" 
And  by  what  law  of  justice  or  common  sense 
should  men  deal  so  with  the  laborers  in  the 
pulpit  ? 

Why  should  there  be  a  different  standard 
of  judging  applied  to  us  as  professional  la- 
borers in  one  department  from  that  which 
is  applied  to  our  brethren  in  other  depart- 
ments ?  We  met  these  men  in  school,  and 
were  not  deficient  in  brains  as  compared 
with  them.  We  met  the  same  men  in  col- 
lege, and  we  stood  as  well  as  they  did.  They 
go  to  medicine,  or  they  go  to  the  merchant's 
desk,  and  by  honorable  effort  they  reach  af- 
fluence. We  go  to  the  sacred  desk,  we  go 
to  deal  with  men's  souls,  we  go  to  speak  for 


HALL:   NEED  OF  LIBERAL  SUPPORT  FOR  THE  MINISTRY. 


569 


Christ  and  his  truth ;  and  the  maintenance 
that  is  doled  out  to  us  as  a  class  is  too  often 
placed  amoug  the  charities  of  the  givers; 
and  we  are  reduced  as  a  profession  to  a  po- 
sition to  which  we  have  no  right  voluntarily 
to  descend.  I  complain  of  this,  and  hold  it 
to  be  a  just  and  laudable  object  of  ministe- 
rial ambition  to  lift  up  the  whole  class  in 
the  judgment  of  the  community,  and  place 
that  class  where  it  has  a  right  to  stand. 

Now,  you  may  say,  What  is  wanted  in 
this  particular  matter  ?  It  seems  to  me 
that  the  thing  that  is  mainly  wanted  is  in- 
formation aud  instruction  on  the  part  of  the 
people.  I  feel  no  doubt  that  they  will  do 
what  is  right  in  the  case.  When  they  be- 
gin to  understand  the  necessity  for  a  min- 
ister thoroughly  educated,  the  necessity  for 
his  having  a  proper  supply  of  books  so  that 
he  can  study  the  literature  of  his  profession, 
of  his  having  such  a  position  among  his  peo- 
ple that  his  mind  will  be,  as  we  are  accus- 
tome,d  to  call  it  in  the  invitations  given  to 
ministers  by  congregations,  "  free  of  care," 
I  have  no  doubt  about  the  issue.  At  the 
present  moment  there  is  a  kind  of  irony,  al- 
most mockery,  in  the  form  of  some  of  our 
calls.  Ask  the  Rev.  Mr.  Smith,  who  has  a 
wife  aud  five  children,  to  come  and  labor 
in  the  work  of  the  ministry,  give  his  whole 
time,  strength,  aud  energy  to  it,  precluded 
by  his  work  from  any  other  occupation, 
"  and  that  you  may  be  free  of  care  we  prom- 
ise you  the  sum  of  $600  annually,  in  four 
quarterly  payments !"  I  say,  while  expenses 
remain  as  they  are  at  present  in  America, 
you  can  not  make  ordinary  ministers  free  of 
care  in  that  way,  no  matter  how  you  try  to 
fix  it. 

I  am  sensible  there  are  some  objections 
that  may  be  raised  to  this  whole  plan ;  and, 
in  conclusion,  because  I  am  unwilling  to  oc- 
cupy too  much  time,  I  shall  venture  to  men- 
tion one  or  two  of  those  objections. 

In  the  first  place,  it  may  be  said,  "  Why 
should  the  people  be  called  upon  to  lift  up 
the  ministers  in  things  pecuniary  to  this 
particular  standard  ?  Ministers  may  fix  the 
scale  as  high  as  they  please :  are  we  under 
obligation  to  come  up  to  it?"  There  you, 
the  people,  make  the  fatal  mistake.  It  is 
not  the  minister  that  fixes  the  standard  at 
all.  It  is  you.  I  want  you  to  use  your  own 
judgment  in  the  matter,  and  see  how  that  is 
the  case.  It  is  you,  the  Christian  people,  that 
determine  the  standard  of  our  expenditure. 
A  minister  settles  in  a  particular  neighbor- 
hood, town  or  country,  city  or  village.  Have 
not  the  people  beforehand  a  certain  very 
definite  idea  of  the  kind  of  house  that  he 
ought  to  take,  of  his  establishment  gener- 
ally, even  of  the  very  clothes  in  which  he 
ought  to  appear  among  them  f  And  if  his 
house  be  notably  below  their  conception, 
if  he  turn  out  in  the  village  or  town  in  a 
"shocking  bad  bat,"  is  not  there  a  general 


!  feeling  among  his  people  that  somehow  he 
is  degrading  or  belittling  them  ?  You  fix 
the  standard  up  to  which  we  must  try  to 
live,  and  below  which  if  we  notably  sink 
we  sacrifice  that  which  the  true  minister 
holds  dearer  than  life,  his  ministerial  posi- 
tion, and  his  power  to  do  good  in  his  Mas- 
ter's service. 

I  hope  the  practice  will  become  more  and 
more  popular  of  finding  residences  for  the 
ministers*  on  the  part  of  the  people.  It 
saves  a  world  of  embarrassment.  When  a 
pastor  finds  a  house  provided  fqr  him,  he 
knows  perfectly  well,  if  it  is  a  showy  house, 
that  he  is  not  to  blame.  If  it  is  a  shabby 
house,  he  is  equally  blameless ;  and  I  should 
be  very  glad  if,  in  the  country  towns  and 
villages,  this  method  of  finding  parsonages 
should  become  universal. 

It  may  be  objected,  again,  that  the  apos- 
tles, for  example,  did  not  find  such  comfort- 
able arrangements  made  for  them  as  the 
clergymen  in  this  city  do  in  the  nineteenth 
century.  That  may  be  to  a  superficial  per- 
son a  very  plausible  objection ;  but  yon  must 
remember  the  difference  between  the  Chris- 
tian communities  of  that  day  and  of  this. 
Then,  I  have  no  doubt,  the  Christian  people 
did  as  they  were  able  and  as  they  had  op- 
portunity. That  is  all  that  is  wanted  at  the 
present  time.  If  the  members  of  the  congre- 
gations in  New  York  to  which  we  minister 
were  to  be  seen  wandering  about  in  sheep- 
skins and  goat-skins;  if  the  happy  and  com- 
fortable inhabitants  of  those  brown -stone 
houses  on  Fifth  Avenue  were  compelled  to 
resort  to  caves  and  dens  of  the  earth,  being  af- 
flicted and  desolate,  I  hope  I,  for  one,  should 
have  grace  to  stand  by  them  and  to  wear  the 
sheep-skin  and  the  goat-skin,  and  to  live  in 
the  caves  aud  dens.  But  you  know  that  is 
not  your  position  just  now.  Therefore  we 
say  there  is  no  parallel  in  the  case,  and  any 
argument  founded  upon  any  supposed  paral- 
lel is  an  insult  to  the  human  understanding. 

I  set  up  this  positive  plea  on  behalf  of 
ministers.  We  are  among  the  best  popular 
educators  :  we  are  among  the  cheapest. 
There  are  thousands  of  families  AV!JO  owe 
more  of  their  intellectual  development  (not 
to  speak  of  moral  and  spiritual)  to  the  min- 
ister than  to  any  other  agency  whatever.  I 
maintain  that  we  are  among  the  best  moral 
reformers.  We  do  ten  times  more  than  the 
best  organized  police.  I  allege,  again,  that 
we  promote  the  happiest  and  best  influences 
in  the  community ;  for,  if  the  ministry  is 
successful,  aud  if  the  grace  of  God  is  in- 
strumental in  turning  men  from  darkness  to 
light,  and  from  the  power  of  Satan  unto 
God,  directing  them  into  the  paths  of  pu- 
rity, gentleness,  honesty,  honor,  integrity, 
righteousness,  such  men  and  Christians  in 
their  turn  become  the  benefactors  of  their 
race  and  blessings  in  their  neighborhood. 

We  have  rights,  therefore,  founded  upon 


570 


CHRISTIANITY  AND  CIVIL  GOVERNMENT. 


the  New  Testament ;  upon  the  Master's  ap- 
pointment, upon  the  nature  of  things.  "We 
have  claims  upon  you  as  patriots,  as  human 
beings,  as  Christians,  and  all  we  ask  of  you 
is  that  you  will  examine  your  New  Testa- 
ment, and  in  the  light  of  its  teachings  con- 
sider what  is  due  in  this  matter,  and  do 
good  as  you  have  opportunity,  as  being  ac- 
countable to  the  Chief  Shepherd  and  Bishop 
of  your  souls. 

I  will  not  sit  down  until  I  have  said  one 
word  more  of  the  deepest  truth  of  which  I 
am  conscious.  My  brethren  who  have  not 
yet  come  into  living  connection  with  the 
Church  of  Jesus  Christ,  that  is  to  say,  who 


have  not  yet  come  into  believing  union 
with  Jesus  Christ,  the  Prophet,  the  Priest, 
the  King,  the  Saviour,  the  Son  of  God,  and 
the  Sou  of  Man,  I  implore  you  to  come  as  he 
invites  yon  into  the  loving  and  blessed  con- 
nection, and  then,  as  a  child  of  God,  ransom- 
ed, liberated,  free,  with  the  burden  of  guilt 
off  your  conscience  and  the  burden  of  dread 
off  your  spirit,  ask  the  Maker,  "  Lord,  what 
wilt  Thou  have  me  to  do  f"  and  wait  for  His 
answer :  and  I  do  not  doubt  that  then  yon 
will  bo  earnest,  humble,  patient,  and  effect- 
ive in  the  doing  of  this  and  of  every  other 
Christian  duty  to  which  your  New  Testa- 
ment calls  you. 


MINISTERIAL  SUPPORT  IN  THE  IRISH  EPISCOPAL 
AND  PRESBYTERIAN  CHURCHES. 

BY  THE  REV.  T.  Y.  KILLEN,  OF  BELFAST,  IRELAND. 


I  HAVE  been  asked,  not  so  much  to  speak 
on  the  general  subject  of  "  Ministerial  Sup- 
port," as  to  give  you  a  brief  description  of 
the  methods  adopted  by  the  Irish  Episcopal 
and  Presbyterian  churches  to  promote  it,  es- 
pecially since  their  disestablishment  and  dis- 
endowment.  The  Irish  Church  Act  of  1869 
severed  the  connection  of  these  churches 
with  the  State,  and  withdrew  the  endow- 
ments they  had  enjoyed,  preserving,  how- 
ever, the  life  interests  of  existing  ministers. 
A  provision  was  made  by  which  ministers 
might  commute  their  annuities  for  a  capital 
sum,  and  throw  the  whole  into  a  common 
fund,  the  interest  of  which  should  go  to  the 
permanent  endowment  of  their  churches. 
In  the  case  of  the  Episcopal  Church,  power 
was  also  given  to  clergymen  to  compound, 
as  it  is  called — that  is,  to  receive  at  once 
a  certain  proportion  of  their  commutation 
money,  give  the  remainder  to  the  Church, 
and  then  be  relieved  from  all  obligation  to 
further  service.  Almost  all  the  Episcopal 
clergy  have  commuted ;  and  as  the  incomes 
of  many  of  their  dignitaries  were  very  large, 
a  great  fund  has  thus  been  created.  As  the 
act  did  not,  in  their  case,  come  into  operation 
for  a  year  and  a  half,  they  ordained  some  five 
hundred  additional  curates  in  the  interval, 
who  were  declared  by  the  commissioners  to 
be  entitled  to  annuities,  and  who  have  com- 
muted their  life  interests.  Many  of  them 
had  not  completed  their  education,  or  re- 
ceived almost  any  theological  training,  so 
that  they  are  very  likely,  in  the  end,  to  bo 
rather  an  incubus  on  the  Church  ;  but  some 
of  them  have  compounded,  and  retired  from 
active  duty,  leaving  a  large  sum  for  the  en- 
dowment of  the  parishes  to  which  they  had 
been  appointed,  but  where  curates  were  real- 
ly not  required.  To  supplement  the  inter- 
est of  the  commutation  money,  a  snstentation 
fund  has  been  originated;  but  it  seems  to 
me  unfortunate  that,  instead  of  having  mere- 
ly one  general  fund  for  all  Ireland,  every  di- 
ocese has  its  own  snstentation  fund,  so  that 
the  wealthier  dioceses  are  likely  to  be  much 
better  off  than  their  poorer  neighbors ;  and 
in  the  latter  it  is  greatly  to  be  feared  the 
number  of  ministers  must  be  very  much  di- 
minished. The  Sustentation  Fund  of  the 
Episcopal  Church  has  not  been  so  successful 
as  might  reasonably  have  been  expected, 
consideriug  that  the  great  majority  of  our 


nobility,  laud-owners,  and  wealthier  classes 
are  to  be  found  in  her  communion.  Her 
people,  having  had  every  thing  in  the  way 
of  church-building  and  the  support  of  their 
ministers  provided  for  them  by  the  State, 
except  in  the  case  of  a  few  proprietary 
churches,  had  not  been  well  trained  iu  the 
exercise  of  Christian  liberality.  The  great 
majority  of  her  laity,  being  soundly  Protest- 
ant, desired  to  take  advantage  of  their  new- 
born freedom  to  purge  their  Prayer-book 
from  every  thing  which  seemed  to  counte- 
nance Romish  error,  and  thus  prevent  the 
possibility  of  the  spread  of  Ritualism.  But 
the  bishops  were  opposed  to  revision,  and 
have  thus  far  been  able  to  prevent  any  impor- 
tant alterations  of  the  formularies.  Many 
make  an  excuse  of  this,  and  withhold  their 
subscriptions  on  the  plea  that  they  must 
see  what  the  doctrine  of  the  Church  is  to 
be  before  they  will  give  their  money  for  its 
support.  The  consequence  is  that  nothing 
like  what  would  be  sufficient  to  supplement 
the  interest  of  the  commutation  fund,  so  as 
to  provide  an  annual  sum  equal  to  the  in- 
comes of  the  clergy  before  disestablishment, 
has  yet  been  raised ;  and,  unless  a  strenu- 
ous and  united  effort  is  speedily  made,  it  is 
feared  that,  as  existing  ministers  are  re- 
moved by  death  or  translation,  a  large  num- 
ber of  parishes  must  be  left  vacant  or  uni- 
ted to  neighboring  cures. 

In  the  Presbyterian  Church  the  case  has 
been  different.  Before  1869  our  ministers 
had  two  sources  of  income — the  Itegium  Do- 
num,  which  gave  to  each  minister  £69  4». 
8d.,  or  about  $350  of  your  money,  and  the 
stipend  which  was  derived  from  seat-rents 
or  the  voluntary  contributions  of  the  peo- 
ple. It  ranged  from  £20  to  £400  for  each 
minister,  i.  e.,  from  $100  to  $2000.  The  aver- 
age income  of  our  ministers  from  botli  sources 
was  from  £120  to  £130,  or  above  $600 ;  and 
you  must  remember  that  money  goes  much 
further  with  us  than  on  this  side  the  At- 
lantic. When  our  licgiiim  Donum  was  with- 
drawn, many  feared  that  our  Church  would 
suffer,  and  that,  as  our  people  are  generally 
poor,  it  would  bo  impossible  to  support  the 
same  number  of  ministers,  and  keep  our 
mission  schemes  iu  active  operation.  These 
fears  have  proved  utterly  groundless.  Our 
laity  offered  that,  if  wo  ministers  would  com- 
mute our  life  annuities  and  throw  the  sums 


572 


CHRISTIANITY  AND  CIVIL  GOVERNMENT. 


received  into  a  common  fund  for  the  perma- 
nent endowment  of  our  congregations,  they 
would  do  tbeir  best  not  only  to  keep  us  from 
loss,  but  to  give  us  £100  a  year  instead  of 
tbe  old  £69  4s.  8d.  All  our  ministers  ex- 
cept about  twenty  have  commuted.  Tbe 
money  lias  been  advantageously  invested, 
and  produces  about  £25,000  a  year,  instead 
of  tbe  £40,000  we  used  to  receive  from  tbe 
State.  Our  people  bad  been  better  trained 
to  giving  tban  tbeir  Episcopalian  brethren. 
In  the  providence  of  God  we  had  been  led  to 
establish  one  mission  after  another,  till  we 
had  six  in  operation.  The  members  of  our 
congregations  had  always  been  required  to 
pay  a  stipend  to  their  ministers,  as  the  Ee- 
gium  Donum  was  utterly  insufficient  for  tbeir 
support.  About  twenty  years  ago,  the  in- 
comes of  many  of  our  ministers  were  so  mis- 
erable that  an  agitation  for  the  increase  of 
stipends  was  commenced,  and  has  been  car- 
ried on  ever  since,  with  a  considerable  meas- 
ure of  success.  We  had  thus  been  providen- 
tially led  to  consider  and  expound  to  our 
people  the  Scripture  principles  of  systematic 
beneficence.  We  had  been  led  to  teach  them 
that  it  is  the  duty  of  Christians  to  dedicate 
an  adequate  proportion  of  their  incomes  to 
the  cause  of  God,  and  to  give  an  offering  to 
him  every  Lord's  day  when  they  come  into 
his  courts.  Our  leading  laymen  threw  them- 
selves heartily  into  the  work  of  raising  a  sus- 
tentation  fund,  from  which  all  our  ministers 
whose  congregations,  rich  or  poor,  contribu- 
ted, should  receive  an  equal  dividend.  The 
fund  has  now  been  three  years  in  operation ; 
and  instead  of  our  ministers  receiving  less 
than  when  we  were  in  connection  with  the 
State,  or  any  of  our  congregations  having 
to  be  broken  up,  our  trustees  were  able  to 
pay  each  of  us  the  first  year  £  10,  the  second 
£16,  and  the  third  £20  more  than  we  had 
received  from  Government.  None  of  our 
missionary  enterprises  have  been  given  up 
or  have  suffered.  Last  year  they  received 
more  than  ever  before.  Our  congregational 
stipends  have  not  been  reduced.  We  have 
given  £25,000,  or  $125,000,  to  our  Sustenta- 
tiou  Fund  over  and  above  all  our  other  con- 
tributions. And  the  greater  part  of  this  sum 
is  brought  to  the  church  on  the  Lord's  day 
in  envelopes,  once  a  month,  and  put  into 
boxes  which  are  provided  for  the  purpose. 
Lest  any  congregation  should  try  to  shirk 
its  duty,  and  throw  the  burden  upon  others, 
we  require  that  each  should  contribute  at 
least  at  the  rate  of  a  penny  per  week  for 
each  communicant ;  and  if  any  fall  short  of 
this,  their  ministers  do  not  receive  the  full 
benefit  from  the  fund. 

We  have  thus  two  sources  of  income  for 
our  ministers :  the  stipend,  the  amount  of 
which  varies  with  the  congregation;  and 
the  Sustentation  Fund,  from  which  every 
commuting  minister  whose  congregation 
pays  the  minimum  qualification  receives  an 


equal  dividend.  We  think  it  well  that  we 
should  have  both.  The  stipend  appeals  to 
the  principle  of  individuality.  A  congrega- 
tion is  more  likely  to  give  freely  and  liber- 
ally for  the  support  of  its  own  minister,  who 
goes  out  and  in  among  its  members,  and  la- 
bors for  their  good,  than  for  the  mainte- 
nance of  a  general  fund.  And  we  try  to  in- 
duce our  congregations  to  give  the  whole  of 
their  seat-rents  as  stipend  to  the  minister, 
and  thus  have  a  distinct  and  separate  source 
of  income  for  bis  support.  In  order  to  do 
this,  we  ask  them  to  provide  for  all  their 
ordinary  church  expenses — rent,  payment 
of  precentor  and  sexton,  light,  beating,  etc. — 
by  a  collection,  or  weekly  offering,  in  the 
church  every  Sabbath.  We  believe  that, 
when  Paul  directed  the  Corinthians  to  lay 
by  in  store  every  first  day  of  the  week  for 
the  poor  saints,  he  not  only  provided  for  a 
particular  emergency,  but,  as  is  customary 
in  Scripture,  he  took  occasion  to  lay  down  a 
great  principle  which  should  regulate  Chris- 
tian finance  in  all  churches  and  in  all  ages. 

In  our  Sustentation  Fund  we  act  upon  the 
Scriptural  principle,  that  the  strong  should 
help  the  weak,  and  that  we  should  bear  one 
another's  burdens.  Our  rich  and  wealthy 
congregations  have  thus  an  opportunity  of 
contributing  to  the  support  of  the  feeble 
and  struggling  in  distant  and  backward  lo- 
calities, where  our  people  are  poor  and 
sparsely  scattered;  and  yet  the  ministers 
are  saved  from  that  feeling  of  dependence 
which  is  sometimes  produced  by  receiving 
from  a  mission  fund  expressly  for  weak 
congregations,  because  all  receive  equally 
out  of  tbe  same  fund ;  so  that,  while  the 
minister  of  a  congregation  able  to  pay  only 
£10  or  £12  into  the  fund  receives  his  £90, 
the  minister  of  one  which  pays  in  £1000  re- 
ceives just  the  same. 

This  is  the  plan  we  have  adopted  for  the 
support  of  our  ministry.  We  believe  it  to 
be  Scriptural.  We  find  it  works  well.  But 
whatever  plan  may  be  adopted  in  different 
churches  and  countries,  we  are  satisfied  that 
we  are  only  discharging  an  incumbent  duty 
in  pleading  for  the  adequate  support  of  the 
Christian  ministry.  We  do  so  not  because 
we  have  any  idea  that  the  Church  has  been 
organized  for  the  purpose  of  enriching  or 
decently  supporting  ministers.  Ministers 
are  appointed  for  the  sake  and  service  of  the 
Church.  But  they  are  only  men,  and  their 
work  is  great,  and  tremendously  responsi- 
ble ;  and  we  desire  to  see  them  placed  above 
the  fear  of  want,  and  set  free  from  carking, 
worldly  cares  about  provision  for  their  fam- 
ilies, that  they  may  devote  all  their  time 
and  energies,  freely,  and  vigorously,  and 
cheerfully,  to  their  great  work.  Has  it  ever 
occurred  to  you  to  inquire  why  God  did  not 
employ  angels  to  preach  his  Gospel,  but  men 
who  require  a  temporal  support  ?  Liberal- 
ity is  a  Christian  grace,  and  one  of  the  most 


KILLEN:  MINISTERIAL  SUPPORT  IN  THE  IRISH  CHURCHES. 


573 


God-like,  Christ-like  graces.  God  is  ever 
giving,  freely,  bountifully,  to  us.  And  we 
attain  the  highest  dignity  of  which  our  na- 
ture is  capable  only  when  we  become  God- 
like in  this  and  in  every  thing.  No  grace 
will  grow  unless  it  is  constantly  exercised. 
God  casts  his  people  into  the  furnace  of  af- 
fliction, not  because  he  has  any  pleasure  in 
their  sufferings,  but  because  it  is  necessary 
for  the  production  and  cultivation  in  them 
of  patience  and  resignation,  and  complete 
conformity  to  his  will.  And  he  requires 
them  to  give  their  money  to  his  cause,  not 
because  he  is  enriched  thereby,  or  could  not 


carry  on  his  work  without  them,  but  for 
their  good — that  the  God-like  grace  of  lib- 
erality may  be  cultivated  and  invigorated. 
Giving  is  a  means  of  grace,  just  as  much  as 
public  worship  or  the  sacraments.  And  if 
you  complain  that  the  calls  are  so  frequent 
as  to  become  wearisome,  I  answer  that  I  can 
imagine  a  time  when  we  would  have  reason 
to  complain ;  but  it  is  only  when  God  re- 
quires us  to  give  to  his  cause  more  frequent- 
ly than  he  gives  to  us,  or  asks  us  to  give 
more  largely  than  he  has  given,  who  gave 
his  only-begotten  and  well-beloved  Son,  even, 
to  the  death,  for  us. 


SUPPORT  OF  THE  CHEISTIAN  MINISTRY. 


BY  THE  REV.  M.  W.  JACOBUS,  D.D.,  LL.D., 

Professor  in  the  Theological  Seminary,  Allegheny,  Pennsylvania. 


IT  was  jocosely  said  by  a  city  paper  last 
week  that  "the  ministers  of  religion  in 
America  are  not  as  "well  paid  as  are  profes- 
sional base  -  ball  players."  "  But,"  it  was 
added,  "  religion  is  not  the  national  game." 

Herein  is  the  urgent  call  for  the  agitation 
of  this  subject,  the  lamentable  fact  that  in 
our  evangelical  denominations  the  average 
salary  of  the  minister  is  from  four  hundred 
to  seven  hundred  dollars. 

How  shall  this  class  of  men  be  supported? 
The  natural  answer  is :  "  Each  man  for  him- 
self, as  in  other  professions.  Let  him  enter 
the  market  and  live  by  his  profession.  A 
man  will  commonly  fetch  what  it  is  worth." 
"  Brains  will  command  a  salary.  Valuable 
services  will  find  fair  compensation."  But 
what  is  the  standard  of  value?  A  man  in 
ill  health  will  pay  the  physician  his  price 
for  professional  counsel,  because  he  values 
his  life  and  health.  But  here,  the  more  the 
man  is  under  the  power  of  disease  the  less 
he  cares  for  the  cure.  One  will  pay  his  law- 
yer well  for  counsel  in  saving  his  property. 
But,  alas!  this  lawyer  who  will  aid  him  to 
save  his  soul  is  undervalued  and  underpaid. 

What  then  ?  Who  are  these  men  ?  What 
is  their  function  and  vocation?  They  are 
guardians  of  the  public  weal ;  conservators 
of  the  public  morality ;  pillars  of  society ; 
promoters  of  law  and  order ;  needful,  indis- 
pensable to  the  State  as  well  as  to  the 
Church.  Silence  the  ministers  of  Christian- 
ity in  the  land,  and  what  hope  is  left  for 
the  commonwealth  ?  But  how  shall  they  be 
supported  ? 

I.  Shall  we  demand  of  the  State  to  sup- 
port them  ?     No.     For  the  grant  would  be 
cumbered  with  conditions  which  we  could 
not  accept. 

II.  Shall  they  be  left  to  support  them- 
selves by  outside  and  secular  avocations  ? 
That  would  be  a  diversion  from  a  work  to 
which  they  should  be  wholly  devoted.    And 
when  they  are  called  to  the  work  in  any 
congregation  it  is  commonly  with  the  for- 
mula :  "  In  order  that  you  may  be  free  from 
worldly  cares  and  avocations,  we  promise  to 
pay  you  the  sum  of  —  —  dollars." 

But,  alas!  So  large  an  object,  and  so 
small  a  provision !  How  ridiculous  it  seems, 
when  the  sum  promised  for  such  effectual 
relief  from  worldly  cares  and  business  is 
four,  five,  or  six  hundred  dollars!  No! 


You  ask  them  to  be  non-secular,  aud  yet 
they  are  driven  to  secularities  to  eke  out  a 
subsistence.  They  are  charged  to  provide 
for  their  own  house,  and  often  they  have 
large  households  to  provide  for.  Aud  the 
Scripture  warns  them  that  "  he  who  pro- 
vides not  for  his  own,  especially  for  those  of 
his  own  house,  hath  denied  the  faith"  (hor- 
rible for  a  minister),  "  and  is  worse  than  au 
infidel ;"  and  what  can  be  worse  than  that 
for  a  minister  of  Jesus  Christ?  What  then? 

III.  Shall  they  be  left  to  the  individual 
church  which  they  serve  to  support  them  ? 
But  what  if  the  church  is  feeble  in  re- 
sources and  unable  to  pay  a  living  support  ? 
Or  what  if  the  church  is  indifferent  to  the 
Gospel  ?     Do  you  say  they  do  not  deserve  to 
be  ministered  to  ?     But  they  most  need  these 
very  Gospel  ministrations  to  instruct,  and 
arouse,  and  save  them.     We  seud  the  Gospel 
to  the  heathen  on  this  principle,  aud  we  pay 
a  living  salary  to  our  foreign  missionaries, 
in  order  that  the  people  may  be  brought  to 
value  the  Gospel  enough  to  pay  for  it,  and 
to  aid  others  who  are  unable  to  pay  for  it. 
And  only  so  can  our  blessed  Christianity 
make  progress  against  sin  and  mammon. 
To  say  to  the  feeble  districts  and  the  front- 
ier communities,  "  If  you  want  the  Gospel, 
pay  for  it  as  you  pay  for  any  thing  else." 
This  is  the  bare  commercial  principle  that 
hires  the  minister,  and  counts  him  a  hire- 
ling— bargains  with  a  servant  of  Christ  as 
with  a  coachman,  or  a  foreman  in  the  facto- 
ry, or  a  field-hand  on  the  farm ;  and  on  no 
higher  principle  than  to  get  the  service  at 
the  least  cost. 

"  You  are  the  minister  we  hired  last 
night,"  said  one  of  the  congregation  to  the 
new  preacher.  "  No !  I  am  not."  "But  you 
certainly  are  the  same  man  that  we  hired  at 
so  much,  for  I  was  there,  and  voted  on  the 
salary."  "You  are  mistaken,  sir."  "How 
— why  ?"  "  I  am  the  man  whom  you  called 
to  be  your  pastor,  and  a  salary  belongs  to 
the  office,  else  I  could  not  serve.  Do  you 
hire  General  Grant  to  be  President,  or  Gen- 
eral Hartrauft  to  be  Governor.  No;  but 
you  elect  them  to  those  responsible  offices, 
and  they  receive  the  salary  which  belongs 
to  the  office." 

IV.  But  if  the  minister's  salary  is  wholly 
inadequate,  what  then?      It  only  remains 
that  the  Church  at  large,  in  the  respective 


JACOBUS :   SUPPORT  OF  THE  CHRISTIAN  MINISTRY. 


575 


denominations,  shall  see  to  the  support  of 
its  own  ministry. 

Jesus  Christ  has  enunciated  the  great 
truth,  "  The  laborer  is  worthy  of  his  hire  " — 
ought  to  have  it.  And  with  his  heart  of 
sympathy  for  all  laborers — in  the  mines,  and 
mills,  and  factories,  and  streets  —  he  said, 
"  Come  unto  me,  all  ye  that  labor."  But  he 
emphasized  the  doctrine  in  reference  to  his 
own  laborers  in  the  ministry  when  he  said, 
"  The  workman  is  worthy  of  his  meat,"  and 
then  plainly,  "  The  Lord  hath  ordained  that 
they  who  preach  the  Gospel  should  live  of 
the  Gospel."  As  they  who  of  old  minister- 
ed at  the  altar  partook  of  the  things  of  the 
altar,  so  in  Christian  times  the  minister  in 
spiritual  things  shall  be  sharer  in  your  tem- 
poral things.  This  is  God's  ordinance  as 
much  as  the  Church  or  the  ministry  is  his 
ordinance. 

And  then  it  is  that  in  the  unity  of  the 
Church  as  one  body  there  is  found  the  fun- 
damental principle,  the  key  and  clue  to  this 
whole  matter.  The  stronger  should  help 
the  weaker.  "We,  then,  that  are  strong 
ought  to  bear  the  infirmities  of  the  weak, 
and  not  to  please  ourselves;"  not  to  plan 
merely  for  our  own  individual  church  inter- 
est and  comfort.  "Bear  ye  one  another's 
burdens,  and  so  fulfill  the  law  of  Christ,"  as 
you  can  not  otherwise  do.  While  "  every 
man  shall  bear  his  own  pack,"  bear  ye  the 
burdens  of  one  another  in  which  they  re- 
quire your  help  (Gal.  vi.,  2, 5). 

And  this  is  the  interest  of  the  Church  which 
is  served.  The  Roman  Catholic  Church  sends 
out  her  ministers  and  says,  "  Go  work,  and 
we  will  sustain  you."  Beyond  the  right 
which  the  ministry  has  to  the  support  of 
the  Church  whose  ministers  they  are;  be- 
yond the  simple  justice  which  is  claimed,  as 
between  man  and  man,  that,  in  giving  their 
whole  selves  to  the  work,  they  should  be 
decently  supported,  it  is  plain  that  in  order 
to  be  efficient  in  their  work  they  must  be 
maintained  at  it.  They  need  the  tools  ; 
books  are  costly.  It  needs  money  to  buy 
them.  You  require  the  minister  to  be  versed 
in  learning,  and  you  must  furnish  him  the 
means. 

They  must  not  be  distracted  with  secular 
cares  and  callings,  else  they  can  not  work 
to  advantage.  You  require  them  not  to  be 
secularized,  and  yon  drive  them  into  secular- 
itics  by  the  necessity  of  a  livelihood.  You 
prevent  their  efficient  labor,  and  condemn 
them  for  inefficiency — withhold  the  means 
of  purchasing  books,  and  condemn  them  for 
ignorance.  "Who  goeth  a  warfare  at  his 
own  charges  ?"  What  is  an  army  without  ra- 
tions ?  What  is  all  the  equipment  of  war — 
ammunition,  discipline,  and  men — without 
a  commissary  department  ?  Starving  bat- 
talions must  give  up  the  field.  Cut  off  the 
enemy's  supplies  if  you  would  cripple  and 
capture  him. 


What  now,  it  may  be  asked,  are  some  of 
the  hinderances  in  so  fair  a  work  as  the  sup- 
port of  the  Christian  ministry  ? 

1.  The  Apathy  that  prevails  from  Want  of 
Consideration  and  Examination.  —  The  facts 
are  not  known,  or  not  regarded.     How  sad- 
ly the  ministerial  force  in  the  Church  is  re- 
duced and  paralyzed  by  such  a  state  of 
things.    Many  leaving  the  ministry  for  lack 
of  support ;   many   only  half  serving  the 
Church  for  the  same  reason.     These,  at  best, 
have  little  of  permanency  in  the  ministerial 
relations.     Shifting  from  place  to  place  for 
a  better  settlement,  and  so  losing,  at  every 
shift,  so  much  of  the  solid  benefits :  caudi- 
dating,  to  the  disgrace  of  the  ministry,  when 
it  is  really  the  disgrace  of  the  Church,  whose 
ordained  servants  they  are.     The  Church 
has  educated  the  minister,  and  has  commis- 
sioned him  and  sent  him  forth  to  shift  for 
himself  and  to  sustain  himself,  to  seek  a 
market  for  his  education  and  his  gifts,  and 
for  her  wares.    And  see  the  men  fall  prema- 
turely, breaking  down  under  the  discourage- 
ments, and  becoming  prematurely  disabled 
for  life,  just  because  they  were  not  properly 
enabled  by  church  aid  to  do  the  work  of  the 
Church. 

2.  False  Views  of  tltc  Subject — as  that  "  the 
matter  will  regulate  itself."   "  Good  men  will 
not  be  left  to  starve."     Ah !  but  they  come 
very  near  to  starvation,  and  never  make  it 
known,  and  die  of  cold  neglect.     Or  it  may 
be  thought,  if  not  said,  "  that  somehow  it 
was  meant  that  ministers  should  be  poor,  and 
that  poverty  is  to  them  a  necessary  means 
of  grace."     How  would  the  people  like  this 
for  themselves?     Or  "that  the  Levites  had 
no  inheritance."    No  real  estate  indeed.    But 
a  plenty  of  personal  estate  ;  that  which  they 
could  eat,  and  live  upon  better  than  upon 
unproductive  acres.     In  one  of  the  leading 
denominations,  the   young   ministers  have 
even  been  advised  by  eminent  Authority  not 
to  marry,  but  "to  wait  for  connubial  felici- 
ties until  they  are  properly  established  "- 
which  is  equivalent  to  counseling  thousands 
of  our  young  ministers  to  postpone  marriage 
indefinitely  on  account  of  the  meagreness  of 
their  support.     Shall  we,  then,  be  driven  to 
a  system  of  Protestant  monkery,  rather  than 
that  the  Church  should  do  justice  to  her 
ministers  for  their  mere  support  f    A  church 
is  only  half  served  which  has  not  a  shep- 
herdess of  the  flock  along  with  the  shep- 
herd.    But  you  pajr  her  no  salary.     Yet  she 
deserves  one,  if  she  is  a  true-hearted  wife 
of  the  minister ;  and  these  women  are  suf- 
ferers in  our  new  and  feeble  districts  quite 
beyond  the  women  who  go  to  the  distant 
heathen. 

But  the  faithful  wife  of  the  young  min- 
ister might  well  command  for  her  husband 
an  additional  salary  for  her  support  and  for 
her  service.  I  undertake  to  say  that  the 
women  in  our  wealthy  churches  ought  to 


576 


CHRISTIANITY  AND  CIVIL  GOVERNMENT. 


be  moved  with  sympathy  and  pity  toward 
these  toiling  wives  of  our  missionaries  and 
pastors  in  the  feeble  districts — women  oft- 
en of  the  highest  culture  and  of  delicate 
living  hitherto,  who  have  gone  out  from 
the  most  comfortable  Eastern  homes,  and 
are  drudging  in  the  kitchen,  and  coming  to 
premature  graves  by  overwork,  for  the  help 
they  are  zealous  to  give  to  their  husbands  as 
ministers  of  Christ  Jesus.  "  Woman's  work 
for  woman  "  ought  to  include  this  great  field 
— can  not  fairly  omit  it  without  a  burning 
shame.  The  Rebeccas  and  the  Rachels  who 
go  out  to  water  the  flocks,  and  who  do  so 
much  of  the  hard  work  in  the  social  appoint- 
ments of  the  Church — visiting,  begging,  min- 
istering at  sick-beds,  and  keeping  up  the 
sociabilities  of  the  congregation  by  toilsome 
attentions,  often  rigorously  exacted  of  them 
— these  are  the  women  who  labor  with  us 
in  the  Gospel,  and  who  ought  to  be  helped 
(Phil,  iv.,  3).  And  nothing  will  so  directly 
and  effectively  reach  the  case  as  to  secure 
to  the  pastor  something  like  a  decent  sup- 
port, that  he  may  not  be  broken  down  by 
the  care  and  distraction  of  poverty  and 
debt.  And  if  the  Church  at  large  in  the 
soveral  denominations  is  bound  to  look  af- 
ter the  support  of  her  own  miuistry,  how  is 
this  to  be  done  ? 

1.  There  is  the  parish  endowment  system  of 
the  Established  Kirk  of  Scotland,  instituted 
by  the  able  efforts  of  Professor  Robertson. 
It  maintains  the  principle  of  endowed  territo- 
rial icork  and  erecting  parishes  in  certain  dis- 
tricts where  otherwise  the  ordinances  could 
not  be  maintained,  or  raising  mission  sta- 
tions into  settled  parishes  by  providing  an 
endowment  of  £3000 — equal  to  $15,000  of 
our  money,  yielding  a  minimum  stipend  of 
£120,  or  $600. 

This  method  has  succeeded  in  endowing 
181  new  parishes  in  the  course  of  twenty 
years.  The  excellent  results  have  been  that, 
besides  thus  planting  the  Church,  with  its 
ordinances,  as  a  permanency,  the  liberality 
of  the  district  thus  aided  has  been  culti- 
vated. "  The  newly  endowed  parishes  in  the 
course  of  the  last  year  contributed  an  aver- 
age of  £34  to  the  missionary  schemes  of  the 
Church,  besides  the  large  sums  they  were 
forced  to  contribute  to  the  other  mission- 
ary operations  in  their  own  neighborhood — 
amounts  largely  in  advance  of  their  contri- 
butions in  the  old  parishes."  At  the  same 
time,  and  during  these  twenty  years,  up- 
ward of  two  hundred  churches  have  been 
built  by  the  voluntary  contributions  of  the 
members  of  the  Church,  and  in  connection 
with  this  scheme. 

This  is  the  scheme  to  which  James  Baird, 
of  Auckmedden,  has  recently  donated  the 
munificent  sum  of  £500,000,  or  two  and  a  lialf 
millions  of  dollars.  And  in  the  interest  of 
this  scheme  au  enthusiastic  meeting  was 
lately  held  at  Helensburg,  presided  over  and 


addressed  by  the  Duke  of  Argyll.     (See  Re- 
port in  Glasgow  News,  Oct.  2, 1873.) 

2.  There  is  the  Sustentation  Scheme  of  the 
Free  Kirk  of  Scotland,  instituted  by  Dr.  Chal- 
mers.   This  proceeds  upon  the  plan  of  a  com- 
mon fund,  to  be  distributed  equally  among 
all  the  churches,  excepting  only  a  few,  which 
are  mission  stations.     It  was  the  exigency 
of  the  disruption  which  led  to  this  expedi- 
ent for  providing  support  for  the  ministers 
who  had  relinquished  their  living  by  throw- 
ing off  their  connection  with  the  State.     All 
the  contributing  churches,  however  little 
they  may  give,  are  entitled  to  the  appor- 
tionment, share  and  share  alike.     But  this 
contemplates  only  a  minimum  of  salary, 
which  is  supplemented  by  the  wealthier 
churches  as  they  may  be  able  and  willing — 
each  for  its  own  pastor.      The  minimum 
reached  has  steadily  advanced,  until  now  it 
is  worth  about  $1000  of  our  money. 

Dr.  Chalmers,  who  was  the  leader  in  de- 
vising and  carrying  out  the  scheme,  came 
soon  to  believe  that  some  conditions  of  self- 
help  should  be  insisted  on,  in  order  to  avoid 
imposition  on  the  part  of  such  as  would 
willingly  receive,  but  would  not  willingly 
give.  He  proposed,  therefore,  and  urged  the 
plan  of  what  was  called  the  one-half  more 
supplementing,  according  to  the  amount 
contributed.  And  it  was  a  sore  regret  and 
disappointment  to  him  to  be  defeated  in 
this  feature  of  his  plan.  (Life  of  Chalmers, 
by  Dr.  Hanna.) 

Under  the  able  administration  of  Dr.  Bu- 
chanan, assisted  also  by  Dr.  Candlish,  the 
Sustentation  Fund  has  steadily  increased 
beyond  the  most  sanguine  expectations. 

3.  The  Sustentation  Fund  in  the  Presbyterian 
Church  of  Ireland,  now  three  years  in  prog- 
ress, proceeds  upon  the  same  general  princi- 
ple of  share  and  share  alike,  but  emphasizes 
the  supplementing  by  the  individual  church. 
It  is  planned  and  urged  to  have  the  pew- 
rents  applied  to  this  object  of  adding  to  the 
pastor's  dividend,  while  the  other  church 
expenses  shall  be  provided  for  by  the  (en- 
velope)  weekly  offering.      This  has  been 
found  to  work  admirably,  so  that  the  pas- 
tors have  received  during  these  three  years 
£10,  £15,  and  £20  more  than  under  the  Gov- 
ernment pay.     But  as  a  check  upon  the  par- 
simony of  churches  that  would  receive  free- 
ly, and  care  little  to  give,  it  is  required  that 
the  contribution  to  the  fund,  as  a  condition 
of  aid,  shall  be  at  least  a  penny  per  week  for 
each  member,  as  the  average,  equal  to  our 
two  cents,  or  about  one  dollar  per  annum ; 
and  that  the  Church  shall  have  so  contrib- 
uted during  a  term  of  three  years  before  be- 
ing admitted  to  the  benefits.     The  ruling 
eldership  and  laity  in  general,  led  by  such 
men  as  Thomas  Sinclair,  Esq.,  of  Belfast, 
have  greatly  furthered  this  noble  work. 

4.  The  Sustentation  Scheme  of  the  General 
Assembly  of  the  Presbyterian  Church  in  the 


JACOBUS :   SUPPORT  OF  THE  CHRISTIAN  MINISTRY. 


577 


United  States.  —  This  is  the  supplementary 
method,  upon  fixed  conditions  of  aid.  These 
conditions  are  as  follows  : 

1.  Actual  installation  of  the  pastor. 

2.  Salary  of  at  least  $500,  and  as  much  more  as  pos- 

sible. 

3.  Average  of  at  least  $7.30  per  member,  exclusive  of 

manse.  lu  case  of  two  or  more  churches,  united 
under  one  pastorate,  each  church  must  pay  the 
average  per  member. 

4.  Indorsement  of  Presbyterial  Committee,  and  of 

Presbytery  also. 

5.  No  reduction  of  salary  from  preceding  year. 

C.  Church's  salary  to  be  flrst  paid,  and  reported  quar- 
terly in  full. 

7.  Advance  contribution  to  our  Committee  of  at  least 

one-twentieth  of  church  salary. 

8.  Systematic  giving  (by  envelope  or  collectors)  to  all 

the  Boards. 

9.  No  aid  where  aid-receiving  churches  are  contigu- 

ous, and  should  consolidate  under  one  pastor. 
Grant  to  date  from  actual  fulfillment  of  above  con- 
ditions. Pastor  to  bear  no  part  of  the  $7.30  or 
of  the  one-twentieth  payment.  Salary  supple- 
mented to  $1000.  Payments  are  made  at  close 
of  the  quarter. 

FOR  SECOND  YEAR. 

1.  New  application  re-indorsed  and  conditioned  as 

above. 

2.  Evidence  of  advance  toward  self-susteutation. 

It  "will  be  observed  that  this  scheme  is,  in 
its  details,  quite  different  from  either  of  the 
foreign  systems,  though  proceeding  upon  the 
same  great  principles.  The  aid  from  the 
central  fund  is  distributed,  not  share  and 
share  alike,  but  on  conditions  applicable  to 
the  several  cases,  and  which  graduate  the 
amount  of  aid.  The  individual  church  must 
iirst  do  its  utmost  for  the  pastor,  and  the 
supplementing  comes  from  the  central  fund, 
on  the  basis  of  the  home  salary. 

The  method  in  the  United  Presbyterian 
Church  of  Scotland  is  somewhat  similar  to 
this. 

1.  As  regards  the  several "  Conditions."  In 
the  Presbyterian  Church,  of  over  four  thou- 
sand ministers,  it  was  found  that  only  about 
sixteen  hundred  were  actual  pastors,  nearly 
one  thousand  being  "  without  charge,"  an- 
other one  thousand  being  "stated  supplies" 
— that  is,  supplying  vacant  churches  stated- 
ly, but  not  regularly  inducted  as  pastors — 
and  besides  these,  six  hundred  or  more  were 
enrolled  as  having  divers  occupations,  as 
professor,  editor,  teacher,  etc. 

The  pastoral  relation  having  thus  come 
so  seriously  into  disuse,  it  was  judged  of  the 
highest  importance  to  insist  upon  the  actu- 
al installment  of  the  minister  as  a  condition 
of  aid,  in  order  to  a  more  permanent  and 
more  effective  service.  And,  inasmuch  as 
the  loose,  shifting,  and  unsettled  method  of 
stated  supply  had  arisen  very  much  out  of 
the  inadequate  support,  it  was  made  a  prime 
condition  and  object  of  the  better  support 
to  promote  the  pastoral  relation,  especially 
in  the  older  districts.  The  scheme  distin- 
guishes, therefore,  between  full  pastorates 
37 


(fulfilling  these  conditions)  and  mission  sta- 
tions, or  church  extension  charges,  which  come 
short  of  these  conditions,  more  or  less.  Not 
that  the  committee  make  pastorates,  only 
that  they  designate  a  class  of  churches  in 
relation  to  this  scheme  as  full  pastorates  or 
not. 

2.  A  second  condition  is  the  actual  pay- 
ment by  the  Church  of  at  least  $500  as  sala- 
ry to  the  pastors.    Churches  falling  short  of 
this  are  designated  as  mission  stations.    These 
are  such  as  have  been  lately  planted  by  the 
Home  Mission  Board,  which  may  or  may  not 
live  and  thrive,  or  such  as,  after  years  of 
aid  from  that  Board,  are  not  yet  able  to  pay 
so  much  of  themselves.     The  scheme  appeals 
here  to  the  voluntary  principle,  and  demands 
that  this  principle  shall  not  be  abused  so  as 
to  allow  the  churches  thus  aided  to  do  as 
little  as  they  please,  but  that  they  shall  be  en- 
couraged rather  to  do  as  much  as  they  will, 
and  as  much  as  they  fairly  can.     The  mission 
stations  doing  less  than  this  may  or  may 
not  attain  to  this.    But  so  much  as  this  may 
soon  be  expected  of  them  if  they  have  the 
elements  of  vitality  and  thrift  that  look  to- 
ward speedy  self-support.     And  here  also 
the  church,  by  thus  responding  to  the  de- 
mand for  self-help,  escapes  the  humiliating 
sense  of  dependence — feels  that  the  grant  is 
not  a  pension,  but  is  rather  earned  as  a  rec- 
ognition of  their  own  successful  effort  toward 
self-support.     In  many  cases  the  home  sala- 
ry paid  by  the  church  is  $600,  $700,  or  $800. 
And  whatever  it  may  be  (not  less  than  $500), 
it  is  supplemented  so  as  to  reach  $1000  on 
the  fulfillment  of  all  the  conditions.     Here 
it  is  held  that  the  sum  of  $1000  is  little 
enough  for  the  support  of  a  pastor  devoting 
himself  wholly  to  his  work.      As  he  is  re- 
quired to  relinquish  outside  pursuits  for  sup- 
plementing his  salary,  so  the  $1000  is  regard- 
ed as  a  minimum  of  living  support.     At  the 
same  time,  it  is  the  maximum  to  which  the 
supplementary  aid  extends.     It  is  not  dis- 
puted that  many  will  require  more  than  this 
amount  for  support  in  certain  more  expen- 
sive circumstances.     But  all  the  cases  can 
not  as  yet  be  reached  by  the  scheme ;  and, 
meanwhile,  the  Home  Board  can  meet  such 
exceptions  with  their  more  flexible  aid. 

Prior  to  the  operation  of  this  scheme  it 
was  estimated  that  nearly  two-thirds  of  our 
ministers  received  less  than  $1000,  and  one- 
third  of  them  less  than  $600,  and  that  the 
average  salary  was  less  than  $700. 

3.  But  it  is  also  required,  as  a  standard  of 
individual  responsibility,  that  the  home  sal- 
ary shall  amount  to  a  minimum  average  of 
$7.30  per  member — that  is,  that  the  salary 
paid  by  the  congregation  shall  equal  an  av- 
erage of  two  cents  per  diem,  or  $7.30  per  year, 
for  each  member  of  the  church.    Not  that 
each  member  shall  pay  this  amount,  but  that 
the  total  shall  equal  this  average.     In  some 
cases  the  average  paid  is  two  or  three  times 


578 


CHRISTIANITY  AND  CIVIL  GOVERNMENT. 


more  than  this  miiiimnm.  This  is  a  further 
appeal  to  self-help,  -which  also  individual- 
izes the  obligation,  and  iu  churches  of  large 
membership  brings  home  iu  detail  the  pecun- 
iary responsibility,  so  as  often  to  reach  the 
maximum  without  the  aid  of  the  fund.  It 
is  found  to  be  a  valuable  and  productive  fea- 
ture of  the  scheme.  In  the  actual  working 
it  plainly  appears  that  the  voluntary  prin- 
ciple may  be  gently  and  genially  compelled 
to  a  beneficence  not  otherwise  attainable, 
and  that  the  requirement  is  a  means  of  grace 
quite  necessary  to  realize  the  grace  of  means 
as  against  the  disgrace  of  meanness. 

4.  The  fullest  indorsement  of  the  partic- 
ular case  by  the  church  court  near  at  hand, 
and  having  ecclesiastical  supervision,  is  req- 
uisite. 

5.  And,  to  prevent  all  abuse,  no  church  ap- 
plying for  aid  can  fall  back  from  the  salary 
of  the  preceding  year,  so  as  to  take  advan- 
tage of  the  scheme  to  ease  their  own  burdens. 

6.  And  in  order  to  promote  promptness  in 
dealing  with  the  pastor,  the  church  must 
first  pay  their  quarter's  salary  actually  aud 
in  full,  as  a  condition  of  the  quarter's  in- 
stallment from  the  Committee.     The  work- 
ing of  this  feature  has  been  most  salutary. 
And  further, 

7.  To  induce  a  proper  reciprocity,  and  to 
cultivate  the  grace  of  giving,  the  aid-receiv- 
ing church  is  required  to  give  somewhat  to 
the  fund,  in  order  to  receive  more.   A  church 
contribution  is  to  be  made  to  the  Commit- 
tee's funds,  which  shall  be  paid  in  advance 
— not  in  whole  or  in  part  by  the  pastor — and 
shall  not  be  less  in  amount  than  the  one- 
twentieth  of  the  home  salary.     This  is  not 
as  a  bargain,  but  as  an  expedient  to  insti- 
tute the  systematic  giving  which  is  required, 
and  to  put  this  requirement  prominently  for- 
ward as  a  stimulant  to  their  beneficence. 

8.  And  this  is  further  to  be  carried  out  by 
a  systematic  giving  to  each  of  the  schemes 
of  the  Church.     The  aid-receiving  church  is 
to  be  trained  thus  to  systematic  beneficence. 
The  method  of  envelopes,  or  of  collectors,  is 
insisted  upon  so  far  as  is  practicable,  in  or- 
der that  weekly  offerings  may  be  encouraged, 
according  to  1  Cor.  xvi.,  1,  and  in  order  that 
the  giving  may  extend  to  each  member  and 
stated  worshiper. 

RESULtS. 

Last  year  (1872-73)  was  the  first  full  year 
of  operation  under  this  scheme.  Over  three 
hundred  ministers  were  taken  iu  charge  by 
the  Committee,  and,  with  various  home  sala- 
ries from  five  hundred  to  nine  hundred  dol- 
lars, were  put  upon  the  income  of  one  thou- 
sand dollars,  as  pastors  of  their  several  flocks. 
Some  of  these  have  two,  three,  or  four 
churches.  Two  hundred  out  of  this  three 
hundred — those  who  had  been  the  longest 
time  under  the  scheme — sent  in  reports  of 
the  comparative  results.  And  it  was  found 


that,  as  compared  with  the  corresponding 
terra  under  any  former  system,  there  hatl 
been  a  clear  gain  in  the  gifts  of  these  churches — 
in  advanced  salaries,  and  in  increased  con- 
tributions to  the  Board — of  an  amount  equal 
nearly  to  the  whole  sum  expended  on  them.  The 
substantial  aid,  upon  honorable  conditions 
fixing  the  pastor's  support,  served  to  stim- 
ulate the  liberality  of  the  churches  receiving 
the  aid,  bringing  the  people  to  do  much  more 
for  the  pastor  and  for  the  Church  at  large 
than  they  had  supposed  to  be  possible,  and 
more  than  could  ever  else  have  been  reached. 

Herein  a  discovery  seems  to  have  been 
made — that  the  way  to  develop  the  benefi- 
cence of  the  weak  churches  is  to  give  them 
timely  and  assuring  aid,  instead  of  leaving 
them  to  struggle  on  under  discouragement, 
and  thus  sacrifice  the  toil  and  treasure  ex- 
pended on  them ;  and  that  for  any  denomi- 
nation this  is  the  method  for  making  the 
weak  churches  a  power  iu  the  community, 
and  for  bringing  them  soon  to  become  self- 
sustaining  and  aid -giving  in  their  turn. 
Thus  it  becomes  most  blessed  to  give.  This 
is  where  "there  is  that  scattereth  and  yet 
increaseth,"  a  sowing  for  a  crop.  Already 
the  other  denominations  are  moving  toward 
something  of  the  same  sort. 

The  Congregational  Convention  of  Ver- 
mont has  adopted  the  scheme  in  almost  ev- 
ery particular.  The  State  Congregational 
Convention  of  New  York  has  also  adopted 
it,  but  requiring  $600  instead  of  $500  as  the 
minimum  home  salary,  aud  $10  instead  of 
$7.30  as  the  minimum  average  per  member. 

The  documents  have  been  asked  for  by 
leading  members  of  almost  all  the  other  de- 
nominations— Episcopal,  Baptist,  Methodist, 
Congregational,  Reformed  (German),  and 
Lutheran.  It  may  be  said,  indeed,  that  the 
movement  for  a  better  support  of  the  min- 
istry is  general  in  all  the  leading  evangel- 
ical churches  at  home  and  abroad.  And  it 
is  found  that  the  column  of  ministers'  salaries 
in  the  "  Minutes  of  the  Presbyterian  Church  " 
for  the  last  year,  1873,  shows  an  increase  of 
more  than  half  a  million  of  dollars,  with  an 
addition  of  one  hundred  and  sixty-four  in- 
stallations during  the  two  years  from  the 
start. 

The  Congregational  Churches  of  Vermont 
report  this  year  as  follows.  Only  about 
one-third  of  the  churches  pay  their  minis- 
ters promptly ;  sixty-five  pay  from  $400  to 
$650 ;  thirty-eight  pay  $1000  or  more ;  thir- 
teen pay  not  more  than  $500 ;  twenty-five  pay 
$600  or  less ;  forty-three  pay  less  than  $800. 

The  Marquis  of  Lome  and  his  wife,  the 
Princess  Louise,  have  written  to  the  Arch- 
bishop of  Canterbury,  proposing  that  the 
laity  of  the  Church  be  asked  to  raise  a  sum 
large  enough  to  provide  for  each  curate  in 
the  Church  of  England  a  living  of  at  least 
$1000  per  annum. 

Of  the  curates  iu  England  and  Wales, 


JACOBUS :  SUPPORT  OF  THE  CHRISTIAN  MINISTRY. 


579 


2363  receive  not  over  $1500;  and  1782  re- 
ceive not  over  $1000 ;  1854  receive  not  over 
$750 ;  and  1585  receive  not  over  $500.  Is  it 
not  a  sarcasm  to  call  the  positions  held  by 
these  men  "  livings  ?" 

The  ministers  of  Christ  as  a  class  are  the 
workmen  who,  of  all  men,  could  most  rea- 
sonably strike  for  wages.  Yet  they  are  the 
men  above  all  who  are  the  most  laborious 
and  uncomplaining  under  the  gross  injus- 
tice of  inadequate  support.  They  say  to 
their  people, "  Wo  seek  not  yours,  but  you." 
And,  alas !  too  many  of  the  people  are  will- 
ing enough  to  receive  and  rest  in  this  doc- 
trine, as  itself  a  Gospel.  The  laity  ought 
to  perceive  the  delicacy  of  this  claim  and 
its  loud  demand,  in  all  righteousness,  as  be- 
tween man  and  man,  as  between  miuisters 
of  Christ  aud  the  Church  to  which  they  be- 
long as  her  servants  in  all  the  laud ;  and 
for  the  honor  of  Christ,  and  for  the  advance- 
ment of  his  Church,  and  for  the  safety  of 
the  nation,  they  ought  to  strengthen  the 
position  of  these  men  by  securing  to  them 
a  fair  support.  And  thus  the  wealthier 
churches  ought  to  see  to  it  that  the  toiling 
pastors  on  the  frontier  or  in  the  country 
districts,  where  the  means  are  small,  shall 
bo  sustained,  along  with  their  own  pastors, 
in  their  most  important  work.  The  Chris- 
tianity whose  agents  and  promoters  they  are 
comprises  in  itself  all  good,  all  social  order, 
and  moral  progress,  and  salutary  reform; 
all  civil,  political,  and  social  blessings ;  all 
conservation  of  law  and  justice.  It  is  the 
only  salvation  of  the  land,  as  it  is  the  only 
salvation  of  the  individual.  Aud  it  can  be 
sustained  only  by  a  body  of  faithful  men 
well  sustained  to  promulgate  it.  The  alter- 
native is  plain.  Support  the  ministers  of 
Christ,  or  vice  will  flourish,  law  will  be  set 
at  naught,  property  will  lose  its  value,  life 
and  liberty  will  be  insecure. 

And  beyond  all  this,  Jesus  himself  hath 
said,  "He  that  receiveth  you,  receiveth  me; 
and  he  that  receiveth  me,  receiveth  him 
that  sent  me."  And,  "Inasmuch  as  ye  have 
done  it  unto  one  of  the  least  of  these  my 
brethren,  ye  have  done  it  unto  me." 

What  wonder  if,  under  the  prevalent  dis- 
regard of  this  claim  for  a  living  support, 
the  average  ministerial  talent  should  dete- 
riorate, and  if  the  young  men  who  have  all 
the  ability,  but  no  money,  should  bo  per- 
suaded by  friends  to  seek  some  better  means 
of  livelihood  as  their  Christian  duty  ?  Shall 
we  demand  of  them  to  take  the  vows  of  pov- 
erty, as  a  mendicant  order  ?  What  is  still 
worse,  the  small  salary  is  itself  a  reflection, 
aud  becomes  the  ground  of  suspicion  that 
the  man  is  rated  according  to  his  worth ; 
while  the  $600  salary,  iu  the  same  column 
with  the  $6000,  suggests  the  very  unequal 
burdens  and  rewards  of  the  work.  The  con- 
ditions of  the  problem  are  simple  aud  clear. 


Some  think  of  the  Scriptural  times — of  the 
Seventy  and  of  Paul.  If  these  men  were 
exceptionally  called,  as  Paul  was,  commis- 
sioned by  a  poor,  infant ,  persecuted  Church, 
then  they  could  "  work  with  labor  and  trav- 
ail, night  aud  day,  that  they  might  not  be 
chargeable "  to  any  people.  But  is  this 
their  case  ?  Does  the  Church  in  our  day 
call  for  an.  unpaid  ministry,  living  by  their 
secular  trade  ?  And  was  not  Paul  aided  by 
the  churches?  Could  we  ask  Paul  in  our 
laud  of  great  church  organizations  and 
church  resources  to  spend  his  best  hours  at 
tent-making,  so  as  to  preach  without  pay  in 
the  fragments  of  his  time  ?  If  Simon  Peter 
might  go  a-fishiug  after  the  Resurrection,  it 
was  for  sheer  discouragement ;  and  yet  he 
should  learn  how  he  was  called  rather  to  be 
a  fisher  of  men,  and  how  at  the  command 
of  Jesus  he  should  cast  the  net  on  the  right 
side  of  the  Gospel  ship  aud  gather  a  multi- 
tude to  land,  and  yet  the  net  should  not  be 
broken.  And  so  these  men  are  willing  and 
forward  to  labor  on  the  scantiest  pay,  among 
poor  flocks  and  on  new  fields.  But  the  great 
and  wealthy  Church  which  ordains  them  to 
service  owes  them  a  living  support.  And 
the  sympathy  of  the  stronger  churches  and 
of  the  better- supported  ministers  is  their 
righteous  claim.  Yet  it  can  not  be  denied 
that  many  of  our  people,  both  officers  aud 
members,  have  very  confused  aud  unfair- 
views  of  the  whole  subject.  They  will  talk 
of  a  minister  going  into  the  market,  as  any 
other  man  to  seek  his  living  by  his  calling 
• — as  though  there  were  any  such  market 
for  the  Gospel  as  there  is  for  any  thing 
else.  They  will  even  speak  of  the  Master — 
that  "he  had  not  where  to  lay  his  head." 
And  is  this,  then,  to  be  the  standard  of  obli- 
gation for  the  Church — the  rejection  which 
Jesus  suffered  when  he  came  to  his  own,  and 
his  own  received  him  not  ?  They  will  quote 
his  direction  to  the  Seventy :  "  Into  whatso- 
ever city  or  town  ye  enter,  and  they  receive 
you  not,  shake  off  the  dust  of  your  feet,  for 
a  testimony  against  them." 

And  this  very  thing,  of  going  from  town 
to  town,  in  discouragement  and  with  loss  in 
the  work,  is  what  so  many  are  doing.  But 
shaking  off  the  dust  docs  not  shake  off  the, 
poverty  nor  buy  the  needed  bread.  It  is 
solid  loss  to  minister  and  people,  for  lack  of 
adequate  support  by  the  Church  at  large. 
And  this  age  of  the  Church  is  not  an  age  of 
miracles.  And  God  will  never  work  a  mir- 
acle to  confirm  the  Church  in  parsimony,  nor 
to  encourage  the  Church  in  denying  to  the 
laborer  his  hire.  He  that  walks  among  the 
seven  golden  candlesticks,  while  he  holds  the 
stars  in  his  right  hand — all  of  them — de- 
mands, as  a  condition  of  keeping  the  caudle- 
stick  iti  its  place,  "He  that  hath  an  car, 
let  him  hear  what  the  Spirit  saith  uuto  the 
Churches." 


VII. 

CHRISTIAN   MISSIONS: 

FOREIGN  AND  DOMESTIC. 

Friday,  October  lOth,  1873. 


DIVISION  VII-CONTENTS, 


FIRST  SECTION.— PRINCIPLES  OF  MISSIONARY  WORK 

PAGE 

1.  AXGUS  :   Duty  of  the  Churches  to  Missions 583 

2.  ANDERSON:  Division  of  Fields  of  Labor — Missionary  Courtesy....  588 

3.  GRUNDEMA.NN:   Protestant,  Catholic,  and  Greek  Missions 591 

4.  EDDY  :    Obligations  of  Literature,  Science,  and  Commerce. 594 

5.  STUART  :    Lay  Preaching 598 

6.  BERNSTORFF  :  Lay  Preaching 601 

SECOND  SECTION.— PARTICULAR  MISSIONARY  FIELDS. 

1.  SHESHADRI  :    Christianity  among  the  Hindoos 605 

2.  WOODSIDE  :    Woman's  Work  in  India 612 

3.  SCHWEINITZ  :    The  Lowest  of  the  Heathen 619 

4.  HOGE  :    The  Mission  Field  of  the  South 623 

5.  BRUNOT  :    The  Indians  in  the  United  States 630 

6.  JESSUP  :  Missions  to  the  Oriental  Churches 634 

7.  LELIEVRE  :   Evangelical  Home  Mission  of  France 643 

8.  KNOX  :    City  Missions 647 

9.  NOEL  :   Missions  among   German  Protestants  Abroad 650 


FIRST  SECTION-PRINCIPLES  OF  MISSION  WORK. 


DUTY  OF  THE  CHUKCHES  IN  RELATION  TO 

MISSIONS. 

BY  THE  REV.  JOSEPH  ANGUS,  D.D., 

Principal  of  Regent's  Park  College,  London. 


IN  these  closing  days  of  a  most  memora- 
ble gathering,  we  come  very  fittingly  to  the 
subject  of  Christian  -work,  and  pre-eminent- 
ly of  Christian  missions.  The  last  command 
of  our  Lord — the  commaud  he  gave  after 
providing  by  the  Spirit  to  guide  the  disci- 
ples into  all  the  truth,  and  after  praying 
that  they  might  bo  one,  and  after  settling 
the  relation  of  his  kingdom  to  this  world — 
the  commaud  he  connected  with  the  prom- 
ise of  his  perpetual  presence,  the  command 
he  embalmed  in  the  tenderest  feelings  of  his 
followers,  bade  them  to  preach  the  Gospel 
to  all  creation.  Truth  and  unity  and  a  spir- 
itual kingdom  are  blessings  in  themselves ; 
but  it  is  no  small  part  of  their  glory  that 
through  them  the  world  is  to  believe. 

On  this  command  our  Lord  himself  acted. 
In  the  three  years  of  his  public  life,  he  trav- 
eled three  times  over  Galilee,  announcing 
the  glad  tidings  of  his  kingdom.  Three 
times  he  visited  Jerusalem.  For  weeks  to- 
gether he  preached  at  Capernaum,  a  border 
town  where  many  were  coming  and  going. 
Six  months  he  labored  beyond  Jordan ;  and 
twice  he  sent  out  disciples  to  extend  his 
work.  It  was  thus  our  Lord  sought  to 
spread  his  Gospel.  He  came  not  mainly  to 
teach,  and  yet  in  those  years  he  labored  as 
an  itinerant  home-missionary — among,  per- 
haps, three  millions  of  people. 

His  followers  caught  his  spirit.  Andrew 
found  Peter  (as  Philip  found  Nathanael),  and, 
though  not  yet  an  apostle,  he  preached 
Christ  to  him,  and  brought  him  to  Jesus. 
In  the  same  spirit  the  woman  of  Sychar 
went  and  told  in  the  fullness  of  her  heart  of 
him  who  seemed  "  the  Christ,"  and  on  her 
talk  multitudes  believed.  It  was  in  obedi- 
ence to  this  spirit  that  the  members  of  the 
Church  at  Jerusalem,  when  scattered  by  per- 
secution, all  except  the  apostles,  "went  ev- 
erywhere preaching  the  Word."  lu  five-and- 
twenty  years  Paul  traveled  three  times  over 
a  great  part  of  Asia  and  Europe.  Twice  he 
spent  two  years  as  a  prisoner,  preaching  to 
all  who  came  to  him,  as  well  as  to  successive 
soldiers  to  whom  ho  was  chained.  At  one 


place  ho  wintered;  at  another  he  spent  a 
year  and  a  half;  at  a  third  two  whole  years 
— so  preaching  "that  all  they  that  dwelt 
in  Asia  heard  the  word  of  the  Lord  Jesus." 
All  fellow-helpers,  men  and  women,  he  wel- 
comed, and,  when  he  heard  of  a  church  that 
sounded  out  the  Word  of  the  Lord  through 
the  regions  beyond  them,  he  honored  that 
church  as  an  "ensample,"  a  model  to  be 
copied  by  all  that  believed. 

Christianity  is  a  universal  philanthropist. 
It  trains  the  young ;  it  feeds  the  hungry ;  it 
heals  the  sick.  It  rejoices  in  the  increase 
of  all  the  elements  of  material  civilization. 
But  it  maintains  that  all  these  agencies  are 
subordinate.  The  divine  method  of  hu- 
man improvement  begins  in  human  hearts 
through  evangelic  truth,  and  it  spreads  from 
within  outwardly  till  all  is  renewed.  There 
are,  wo  may  feel  assured,  profound  reasons, 
as  there  is  a  divine  commaud,  to  justify  the 
announcement  that  the  preaching  of  the 
Gospel  is  the  first  business  of  the  Christian 
Church. 

THE  WORK  DEFINED. 

The  Gospel!  What  is  itf  and  can  wo 
agree  in  defining  it?  In  one  sense,  it  is  as 
old  as  the  first  promise.  •  For,  from  the  be- 
ginning, man's  sinfulness,  atonement  through 
vicarious  suffering,  God's  free  and  righteouo 
mercy,  the  efficacy  of  prayer,  the  necessity 
of  holiness — all  were  revealed.  But  now 
these  truths  are  set  forth  with  new  proofs, 
are  enforced  by  new  motives,  amidst  strong- 
er light  and  for  a  wider  audience.  The  Gos- 
pel !  We  agree  in  saying  that  it  is  a  TIIREE- 
fold  message  —  of  forgiveness  through  our 
Lord,  of  personal  holiness  through  the  re- 
newing and  ever-gracious  help  of  the  Spirit, 
of  blessedness,  amidst  all  earthly  changes,  for 
those  who  love  and  serve  God.  Forgive- 
ness, holiness,  blessedness !  What  more  can 
we  need  f  The  Gospel !  We  agree  in  call- 
ing it  a  Two-fold  message — Christ's  work 
for  us,  in  living,  and  dying,  and  pleading, 
and  reigning;  and  Christ's  work  f»  us,  be- 
ginning in  grace  and  ending  in  glory.  The 


584 


CHRISTIAN  MISSIONS. 


Gospel!  A  SINGLE  message — of  Christ  as 
crucified — the  concentrated  revelation  of 
the  Divine  holiness  and  love,  the  Redeem- 
er and  Comforter,  the  pattern  and  the  sanc- 
tifier  of  us  all.  This  Gospel— threefold,  two- 
fold, single — Christ  came  to  found,  even  more 
than  to  teach.  Yet  it  is  the  Gospel  he  taught, 
as  it  is  the  Gospel  his  apostles  taught.  And 
so  mighty  did  it  prove  that  the  most  success- 
ful preacher  of  the  apostolic  age  resolved, 
from  experience  as  well  as  from  direct  in- 
spiration, to  know  nothing  among  men  save 
Jesus  Christ  and  Jesus  Christ  as  crucified. 
The  Jews  deemed  it  no  "sign,"  no  embodi- 
ment  of  power,  and  the  Greeks  deemed  it 
foolishness;  but  he  found  it  to  be  power 
and  wisdom ;  nay,  more,  the  power  of  God 
and  the  wisdom  of  God. 

And  this  Gospel  we  are  to  preach.  What 
is  this  pi-caching  f  Are  we  agreed  in  defin- 
ing it?  Let  us  mark  the  words  that  de- 
scribe it.  One  of  the  commonest  means 
that  we  are  to  proclaim  it  as  heralds,  with 
boldness  and  authority.  Sixty  times  in  the 
New  Testament  is  this  word  found.  Every- 
where it  describes  the  bearing  of  men  who 
feel  that  they  are  speaking  in  God's  name. 
A  second  word,  translated  in  the  same  way, 
means  "  to  talk."  It  is  applied  to  the  easy 
conversational  method  adopted  by  our  Lord, 
and  to  the  somewhat  exaggerated  sayings 
of  the  woman  of  Samaria.  It  describes  a 
gift  of  priceless  value — the  power  of  readi- 
ly introducing  and  speaking  of  religious 
themes.  A  third  word  means  "to  reason," 
"to  discuss."  It  is  the  word  used  to  de- 
scribe Paul's  discourses ;  and  it  was  preach- 
ing of  this  kind  that  he  continued  at  Troas 
till  midnight,  as  it  was  under  such  preach- 
ing Felix  trembled.  The  fourth,  and  one 
of  the  commonest  words  of  all,  translated 
"preach,"  means  to  announce  "glad  ti- 
dings." More  than  fifty  times  this  word  is 
used.  It  forms  the  glory  of  the  new  dis- 
pensation, that  "  the  poor  have  the  Gospel 
preached  to  them."  This  is  the  thought 
that  justifies  the  outburst  of  the  Prophet, 
"How  beautiful  upon  the  mountains  are 
the  feet  of  them  that  preach  the  Gospel  of 
peace."  "Blessed  (happy)  are  the  poor  in 
spirit,"  is  the  first  word  of  our  Saviour's 
longest  discourse,  and  it  is  the  word  that  is 
found  oftenest  there. 

We  are  to  be  "heralds,"  and  "talkers," 
and  "reasouers,"  and  "publishers  of  good 
things." 

Constantly  connected  with  these  terms 
which  are  all  translated  "  preach  "  are  oth- 
er three.  One  means  to  "  testify,  or  bear 
witness"  —  from  Scripture,  and  especially 
from  our  own  experience ;  another  means 
"  to  teach ;"  and  a  third,  "  to  exhort,  or  en- 
treat." Thus,  at  Pentecost,  Peter  testified 
and  exhorted, saying, "Save  yourselves  from 
this  untoward  generation  ;"  thus  Christ  sent 
his  disciples  to  teach  all  nations ;  thus  the 


apostles  ceased  not  to  teach  and  preach  Je- 
sus Christ :  the  word  suggesting  that  the 
truths  which  we  announce  we  are  also  to 
explain  and  apply.  Thus,  also,  wherever 
Paul  went,  he  exhorted  and  entreated :  his 
own  summary  of  his  ministry  is,  "As  we  go, 
we  beseech  men  in  Christ's  stead,  Be  yo 
reconciled  unto  God." 

Another  fact  deserves  to  be  named.  From 
the  promise  given  in  Matthew  in  connection 
with  this  command,  it  may  be  gathered  that 
the  work  of  preaching  the  Gospel  to  all  crea- 
tion belongs  to  each  age.  It  is  not  a  thing 
done  once  for  all.  It  has  to  be  done  again 
and  again  and  again.  The  Christian  men 
and  women  and  children  of  each  generation, 
redeemed  by  the  same  blood,  renewed  and 
enriched  by  the  same  Spirit,  have  the  same 
honors  and  responsibilities.  It  is  their  glo- 
ry that  they  have  to  make  known  to  the 
world  of  each  generation  the  love  and  the 
wisdom  of  God ! 

One  fact  more,  and  this  part  of  my  state- 
ment will  be  complete.  The  first  teachers 
of  the  Gospel  took  pains,  under  the  direction 
of  their  Lord,  to  put  the  substance  of  their 
teaching  into  a  permanent  form,  and  to  sup- 
ply further  instruction  in  writing  as  it  was 
needed.  Hence  the  evangelists  wrote  their 
gospels,  the  records  of  "all  that  Jesus  be- 
gan to  do  and  to  teach."  Hence  the  apos- 
tles wrote  their  letters  to  put  the  churches 
in  remembrance  of  what  they  had  taught,  to 
preserve  the  uucorrupted  truth  for  after- 
generations,  and  to  settle  questions  which 
sprang  up  in  the  progress  of  Christian  and 
ecclesiastical  life.  The  written  Word  sup- 
plements the  living  voice,  and  is  essential 
to  the  completeness  of  our  work :  a  holy,  de- 
voted ministry  carried  on  by  all  saints,  and 
an  open  Bible. 

These  statements,  which  embody  the  in- 
spired description  of  our  duty,  are  familiar 
to  us  all.  They  contain  nothing  new,  and 
yet  they  rebuke  theories  and  practices  which 
are  found  on  all  sides.  They  tell  us  it  is 
the  Gospel  we  are  to  preach,  not  science  or 
education  or  ethical  duty ;  not  what  we 
think  on  public  questions  or  even  on  lesser 
points  of  theology,  but  what  we  know  of 
essential  truth.  We  are  to  send  evangelists, 
not  pastors.  We  are  to  preach  the  Gospel 
with  the  authority  of  ambassadors  and  in 
God's  name;  we  are  to  announce  it  in  quiet 
talk;  we  are  to  enforce  it  by  argument, by 
explanations,  by  appeals  to  what  we  our- 
selves have  felt,  by  earnest  entreaty.  There 
is  a  preaching  that  doubts  of  every  thing, 
and  never  speaks  with  authority ;  there  is 
a  preaching  that  will  not  reason,  but  is  al- 
ways dogmatic  or  emotional;  there  is  a 
preaching  that  never  condescends  to  "  talk," 
but  is  ever  formal  and  stilted ;  and  there 
is  a  preaching  that  is  cold  discussion  or 
bald  announcement,  never  caring  to  en- 
treat. Apostolic  preaching  was  authority 


ANGUS :  DUTY  OF  CHURCHES  TO  MISSIONS. 


585 


and  argument,  talk  and  testimony ;  a  com- 
bination of  them  all,  saturated  with  prayers 
and  tears. 

There  is  a  ministry  that  only  preaches, 
giving  no  Bihle,  as  in  the  Jesuit  Missions  of 
China  and  Japan ;  and  there  the  Gospel  dies 
out  in  a  generation,  or  becomes  thoroughly 
corrupt.  And  there  is  a  ministry  that  gives 
only  the  Bible,  leaving  it  without  the  wit- 
ness of  a  loving  heart  and  a  holy  life.  God's 
method  combines  the  two,  and  bids  men 
"freely  give"  the  Gospel,  spoken  and  writ- 
ten, to  every  creature. 

THE  GOSPEL  FOR  EVERY  CREATURE. 

To  every  creature.  Is  this  possible?  and 
is  it  therefore  our  duty?  The  Christians 
of  each  age  are  to  give  the  Gospel  to  the 
people  of  that  age.  Every  Christian  is  to 
tell  the  good  news  to  as  many  as  he  can 
reach:  Christians  are  collectively  to  tell  it, 
if  they  can,  to  the  world.  What  is  the  limit 
of  our  ability  and  duty  ?  In  ten  or  twenty 
years  can  repentance  and  remission  of  sins 
be  preached  through  Christ  to  all  nations. 
I  believe  they  can.  The  Christians  of  the 
nineteenth  century  are  more  able  to  preach 
the  Gospel  to  the  whole  world  than  the 
Christians  of  the  first  century  were  to 
preach  it  to  the  world  of  their  day.  If  so, 
the  duty  is  binding,  and  the  last  command 
of  our  Lord  is  a  summons  claiming  a  literal 
obedience  from  us  all. 

OUR  RESOURCES. 

We  can  do  it.  Remember  how  largely 
our  material  facilities  are  increased.  When 
Franklin,  printer  and  statesman,  wished  to 
marry,  his  wife's  mother  objected  to  the 
marriage  because  there  were  then  two  press- 
es in  America,  and  she  thought  there  was  not 
room  for  a  third.  It  is  not  a  hundred  years 
since,  and  there  are  now  some  eight  thou- 
sand printing-offices  in  this  country  alone; 
a  tithe  of  them  could  print  New  Testaments 
for  the  world.  Only  ten  years  ago  to  cross 
from  the  Atlantic  to  the  Pacific  was  a  six 
months'  journey,  perilous  and  toilsome  in 
the  extreme  ;  now  it  is  pleasantly  done  be- 
tween Monday  morning  and  Saturday  night. 
Any  man  who  has  to  travel  much  will  save 
eight  weeks  in  every  ten ;  and,  if  he  spend 
his  life  in  traveling,  the  facilities  of  travel 
would  practically  multiply  his  years  five- 
fold. In  half  a  century  of  travel  a  mis- 
sionary can  now  effect  as  much  as  he  could 
have  done  in  two  centuries  and  a  half  a 
hundred  years  ago !  The  yearly  income  of 
England  is  five  or  six  times  larger  than  at 
the  beginning  of  the  century,  and  has  dou- 
bled within  thirty  years.  The  income  of 
the  United  States  doubles,  it  is  said,  every 
five-and-twenty  years.  In  printing  power, 
in  facilities  of  travel,  in  material  wealth,  the 
Church  is  incomparably  stronger  than  it  has 
ever  been. 


FIFTY  THOUSAND  MISSIONARIES. 


But  what  is  it  we  need  to  fulfill  this  duty  ? 
With  50,000  missionaries  at  work  for  ten 
years,  and  with  £15,000,000  a  year  for  ten 
years  to  support  them,  it  is  demonstrable 
that  the  Gospel  might  be  preached,  and 
preached  repeatedly,  to  every  man  and  wom- 
an and  child  on  earth. 

It  seems  a  great  company — 50,000  preach- 
ers ;  and  yet  the  number  is  ^iot  one  per 
cent,  of  the  members  of  evangelical  church- 
es in  Christendom.  There  are  three  or  four 
denominations  in  America,  any  one  of  which 
could  supply  all  the  preachers  we  need. 
England  sent  as  many  men  to  the  Crimea  to 
take  a  single  fortress,  and  to  keep  up  for  a 
few  years  a  Mohammedan  despotism.  Ten 
times  the  number  of  men  fell  on  each  side 
in  the  great  American  war.  Five  hundred 
years  ago  the  Crusades  had  cost  more  lives, 
and  they  sought  to  win  from  men  well-nigh 
as  chivalrous  as  the  invaders  an  earthly  Je- 
rusalem and  a  temporal  sovereignty.  And 
can  not  50,000  redeemed  men  be  found  to 
win  back  the  world  to  Jesus  Christ  ?  Have 
our  hymns  no  meaning  ? 

"Oh  send  ten  thousand  heralds  forth, 
From  east  to  west,  from  south  to  north, 
To  blow  the  trump  of  Jubilee, 
And  peace  proclaim  from  sea  to  sea  1" 

FIFTEEN  MILLIONS  A  YEAR. 

It  seems  a  great  sum — £150,000,000 sterling 
in  ten  years ;  yet  it  is  less  than  £3  a  year — $15 
— from  each  member  of  evangelical  church- 
es in  Europe  and  America.  England  alone 
spends  as  much  as  the  whole  £150,000,000 
every  two  years  on  intoxicating  drinks. 
The  Crimean  war  cost  £100,000,000;  the 
American  war,  ten  times  as  much.  An  an- 
nual tax  of  sevenpence  in  the  pound  on  the 
income  of  Great  Britain  would  yield  the 
£15,000,000  we  need.  Nay,  more.  It  would 
not  be  difficult  to  name  ten  thousand  pro- 
fessing Christians  who  could  give  it  all ! 

Looking  only  at  men  and  money,  is  it  not 
self-evident  that  it  can  be  done  ? 

I  have  not  forgotten  the  difficulties  of  all 
kinds  that  surround  this  enterprise — travel, 
sickness, new  tongues,  unknown  regions,  bar- 
barous tribes,  the  great  wrath  of  one  who 
would  soon  perceive  that  his  time  is  short. 
I  know,  or  can  imagine  them  all.  But  I  ven- 
ture to  say  that,  whatever  these  difficulties, 
they  would  be  overcome  if  English  national 
honor,  or  American  progress,  or  the  German 
Fatherland,  or  Swiss  liberties  were  at  stake ; 
if  diamond-beds  or  gold-fields  had  been  dis- 
covered ;  nay,  if  even  a  Nile  were  to  be 
traced  and  mapped.  Is  there  a  part  of  the 
earth  that  English  or  German  speaking  peo- 
ple could  not  penetrate  for  a  consideration  f 
And  shall  Christ's  commands  and  the  world's 
needs  fail  to  move  ?  I  repeat  it,  It  can  be 
done  ! 


588 


CHRISTIAN  MISSIONS. 


SUCCESS  OF  MISSIONS. 


But  onre  is  a  practical  age.  Charity  be- 
gins at  home.  We  work  for  present  results. 
We  want  them  told  upon  the  palm.  The 
field  of  missions  is  distant;  the  process  cost- 
ly ;  the  success  small.  Is  it  not  truer  econ- 
omy and  wiser  philanthropy  to  work  hi 
our  respective  countries  till  they  are  evan- 
gelized and  saved  f  My  reply  is,  I  plead 
for  home  alio.  Wherever  men  are  found 
who  have  not  heard  the  Gospel  often  and 
earnestly  proclaimed,  there  we  are  to  preach 
it,  as  at  first  "  in  Jerusalem,  and  in  Judea, 
in  Samaria,  and  to  the  very  ends  of  the 
earth."  Such  is  the  Divine  order.  Already, 
however,  we  have  more  devout  men  labor- 
ing for  the  evangelization  of  London  than 
all  Christians  send  for  the  evangelization 
of  the  world.  In  New  York  there  is  a  larger 
evangelical  agency  sustained  by  Christian 
people  than  all  the  missionaries  of  all  the 
foreign  evangelical  societies  of  America. 
Begin  at  home,  by  all  means,  but  do  not  end 
there.  If  the  world  is  to  wait  for  the  Gos- 
pel till  London  and  New  York  are  converted, 
till  nothing  more  is  needed  here,  the  world 
will  never  get  the  Gospel  at  all. 

And  as  to  the  smallness  of  the  success  of 
missions,!  entirely  deny  the  accuracy  of  the 
assertion.  It  is  demonstrable  that  the  suc- 
cess of  the  Gospel  in  the  last  one  hundred 
years  is  greater  than  the  STiccess  it  achieved 
in  any  preceding  hundred  years ;  I  may 
even  say,  in  any  preceding  two  hundred 
and  fifty  years.  We  look  back  fondly  on  the 
first  ages,  and  sigh  for  the  gift  of  tongues 
and  for  Pentecostal  blessing ;  and  yet,  in 
the  last  century,  more  has  been  done  to 
give  the  Bible  to  the  world  than  was  done 
in  the  first  ten  centuries  of  our  era.  Twen- 
ty versions  at  most  were  made  in  the  first 
one  thousand  years ;  in  the  last  one  hun- 
dred years,  a  hundred  and  twenty  have  been 
made,  in  languages  spoken  by  more  than 
half  the  globe !  There  are  more  conversions 
to  Christianity  from  heathenism,  in  propor- 
tion to  the  number  of  our  preachers,  than 
there  are  at  home.  It  costs  more  per  man 
to  make  a  Christian  in  London  or  in  New 
York  than  it  costs  in  heathendom. 

Even  when  Constantino  proclaimed  Chris- 
tianity as  the  religion  of  the  Roman  empire, 
the  nominal  Christians  of  the  empire  were 
fewer  than  one-fifteenth  of  the  population ; 
and,  when  the  Christians  were  most  numer- 
ous in  those  ages,  they  never  exceeded  one- 
hundredth  part  of  the  population  of  the  en- 
tire globe.  Nominal  Christians  are  now  one- 
fifth.  Each  generation  of  the  modern  world 
consists  of  30,000,000  of  children,  and  they 
have  to  be  christianized  individually,  one 
by  one.  Of  these  30,000,000,  one-fifth,  or 
6,000,000,  become  nominally  Christians;  and  a 
considerable  proportion  of  them  really  Chris- 
tians. In  the  old  Roman  empire,  there  were 


not  3,000,000  of  nominal  Christians  out  of. 
every  30,000,000 ;  while  for  the  whole  world 
the  nominal  Christians  were  only  about  half 
a  million  out  of  every  30,000,000.  If  any  one 
wish  for  these  facts  in  detail,  he  may  find 
them  in  a  sermon  preached  years  ago  by  the 
Rev.  Henry  Venn,  and  in  a  recent  address  de- 
1  ivered  by  Canon  Lightfoot.  Had  the  results 
been  different,  there  still  stands  the  Master's 
command,  the  marchingordersof  the  Church ! 
But  in  fact  our  obedience  to  that  command 
is  enforced  by  prophecy  —  the  promise  of 
final  victory,  as  it  is  also  by  victories  al- 
ready achieved !  We  can  do  it;  and  God  has 
encouraged  us  to  proceed. 

ADVANTAGE  OF  SUCH  WORK. 

The  recommendations  of  some  such  effort, 
so  simple  and  so  comprehensive — the  preach- 
ing of  the  Gospel  and  nothing  more,  to  every 
creature  and  nothing  less — are  clear  and  de- 
cisive. 

First  of  all,  it  is  God's  own  ordinance :  the 
Divine  method  of  man's  amelioration.  The 
contempt  of  the  foolishness  of  preaching  has 
not  yet  died  out.  Signs,  miracles,  sensation- 
alism, are  still  deemed  by  some  to  be  essen- 
tial wisdom.  Culture — educational,  aesthet- 
ic, political — is  still  sought  for  as  the  precur- 
sor of  the  Gospel,  or  as  its  substitute.  But 
God's  power  and  wisdom  is  still  the  story  of 
the  Cross,  delivered,  as  it  ought  to  be,  with 
prayer  and  tears.  Some  will  not  believe, 
but  multitudes  will ;  and  we  shall  have  dis- 
charged our  conscience,  and  have  obeyed 
our  Lord ! 

And  how  our  work  would  simplify  and 
extend  if  we  confined  it  to  this  business  of 
preaching  the  Gospel!  Many  men  would  be 
found,  of  every  class  and  of  various  social 
positions,  competent  to  do  this  work,  but 
not  competent  to  become  pastors,  and  not 
caring  to  take  upon  them  the  business  la- 
bors of  many  modern  missionaries — good 
plain  men,  full  of  faith  and  of  the  Holy 
Ghost.  Nay,  might  not  our  best  men — our 
laymen  aud  pastors — whether  young  or  old, 
be  prepared  to  give  five  years  or  ten,  or 
parts  of  every  year,  to  this  specific  work, 
who  are  not  prepared  to  become  missiona- 
ries for  life,  in  the  common  meaning  of  the 
term. 

What  enormous  anxieties  would  be  spared 
us  in  connection  with  mission-buildings,  and 
churches,  and  schools — the  dead-weight  of 
many  existing  agencies!  All  these  things 
would  come  in  time,  but  they  would  come 
independently  of  those  who  make  it  their 
business  to  preach  the  Gospel.  Churches 
would  bo  formed  by  thousands;  but  they 
would  be  left  to  their  New  Testament,  and 
to  native  pastors,  being  commended,  not 
selfishly,  but  from  enlightened  conviction, 
"  to  God  and  to  the  word  of  his  grace."  A 
freer  Christian  life  might  be  the  result  of 
such  an  arrangement ;  but  the  life  would  be 


ANGUS :   DUTY  OF  CHURCHES  TO  MISSIONS. 


587 


more  true,  more  natural,  and,  I  believe,  more 
abiding. 

Is  not  some  sucb  comprehensive  plan 
needed,  moreover,  to  strengthen  the  faith 
of  the  Church,  and  to  prove  to  the  world 
that  we  believe  what  we  profess  ?  We  say, 
indeed,  that  the  Gospel  is  God's  remedy  for 
man's  sinfulness  and  misery ;  we  say,  besides, 
that  it  is  the  honor  and  the  business  of  the 
Church  to  make  it  known.  Every  one  sees, 
however,  that  our  present  agencies,  with 
only  their  million  and  a  half  a  year  for  the 
evangelization  of  800,000,000  of  people,  do 
not  mean  business;  and  there  is,  in  conse- 
quence, wide-spread  infidelity  in  relation  to 
the  Gospel,  and  in  relation  to  the  sincerity  of 
the  Christian  Church.  If  Evangelical  Chris- 
tendom were  to  resolve,  in  God's  strength, 
to  do  as  Christ  bids  her — give  the  Gospel 
right  away  to  every  creature — it  would  be 
a  confirmation  of  our  faith  and  the  com- 
pletest  answer  that  could  be  given  to  Papal 
Infallibility  and  to  rationalistic  unbelief. 

THE  DUTY  OF  THE  ALLIANCE. 

Fathers  and  brethren !  We  shall  hear  to- 
day how  God  is  gathering  from  among  the 
heathen  a  people  to  his  praise.  You  your- 
selves know  how  large  and  self-denying  are 
the  offerings  placed  on  the  altar  of  evangel- 
ic work.  We  give  twenty  times  as  much  as 


was  given  one  hundred  years  ago.  I  thank 
God  that  all  these  assertions  can  be  truth- 
fully made.  Only  I  maintain  that  as  yet  we 
are  playing  with  our  duty,  not  earnestly  dis- 
charging it.  In  a  generation  we  could  preach 
the  Gospel,  and  give  the  New  Testament  to 
every  creature.  Our  plans  are  less  than  our 
abilities,  as  they  are  less  than  the  needs  of 
the  world  and  the  claims  of  our  Lord.  This 
Alliance  has  some  important  practical  work. 
It  shows  how  essential  truth  may  be  sepa- 
rated from  what  is  subordinate,  and  is  there- 
fore a  proof  to  the  world  of  a  common  Chris- 
tianity. It  avows  our  unity,  and  aims  to 
deepen  our  mutual  love.  These  two  are 
important  ends.  But  a  third  is  wanting; 
and  if  the  Alliance  will  take  up  the  cry, 
"  The  Gospel  for  the  world,  and  the  world 
for  Jesus  Christ,"  if  it  will  urge  this  cry  till 
all  existing  agencies  are  doing  their  duty, 
and,  if  necessary,  till  other  agencies  are  add- 
ed— simple  and  evangelical — for  carrying 
the  Gospel,  oral  and  written,  to  every  crea- 
ture, we  shall  then  have  a  threefold  cord — 
the  maintenance  of  essential  truths,  the  deep- 
ening of  brotherly  love,  the  universal  diffu- 
sion of  the  Gospel — a  threefold  cord  that 
can  not  be  broken!  Lest  we  die  of  mere 
sentiment,  precious  as  it  is,  let  us  accept  as 
our  work — the  world  must  have  the  Gospel, 
that  it  may  be  won  for  our  Lord. 


DIVISIONS  OF  MISSIONAKY  FIELDS  OF  LABOR- 
MISSIONARY  COURTESY. 

BY  THE  REV.  RUFTJS  ANDERSON,  D.D.,  LL.D.,  BOSTON,  MASS., 
Lately  Foreign  Secretary  of  the  American  Board  of  Commissioners  for  Foreign  Missions. 


THIS  subject  is  of  great  and  growing  im- 
portance. The  two  parts  are  intimately  re- 
lated, the  "  missionary  courtesy  "  having  re- 
spect to  the  "  territorial  divisions." 

There  are  over  fifty  Protestant  Missionary 
Societies  now  at  work  in  the  unevangelized 
world,  spending  annually  more  than  five 
millions  of  dollars,  and  employing  not  less 
than  two  thousand  ordained  missionaries, 
and  more  than  four  times  that  number  of  na- 
tive helpers.  The  missionaries  are  from  all 
the  evangelical  denominations  in  Christen- 
dom— Presbyterian,  Congregational,  Episco- 
pal, Methodist,  Baptist,  Moravian,  Luther- 
an, and  Reformed — and  have  selected  their 
fields,  mastered  the  languages  in  use,  and 
made  good  progress  in  establishing  self-sup- 
portiug  Christian  communities. 

They  will  all  encounter  formidable  oppo- 
sition from  a  quarter  which  does  not  come 
necessarily  within  the  range  of  our  present 
discussion ; — I  mean  the  Papal  power,  which, 
though  it  had  marvelously  failed  in  its  previ- 
ous missions,  has  been  roused  by  the  efforts 
of  Protestant  Churches,  and  is  again  aiming 
to  make  its  influence  felt  throughout  the 
world.  Yet  the  influence  of  Papal  mission- 
aries among  the  heathen  is  not  to  be  very 
greatly  feared,  since  the  native  Protestants 
soon  learn  to  think  of  them  as  of  a  differ- 
ent religion,  and  their  hostile  encampments 
serve  as  incentives  both  to  vigilance  and 
activity. 

The  invasions  from  without,  that  are  most 
to  be  dreaded  in  Protestant  missions  among 
the  heathen,  are  not  those  of  the  Papal 
Church.  They  are  such  as  advance  under 
sectarian  Protestant  colors.  The  missions 
instituted  early  in  the  present  century  prop- 
erly chose  what  then  seemed  the  most  eligi- 
ble fields ;  and  their  successes  "were  an  in- 
ducement to  others  to  enter  upon  the  same 
ground.  Experience  of  the  unhappy  conse- 
quences of  so  doing  has  considerably  modi- 
fied this  tendency,  and  most  of  the  non-pre- 
latic  denominations  have  come  to  a  frater- 
nal understanding  on  the  subject.  And  it 
has  greatly  promoted  the  work  that  the  no- 
ble Church  Missionary  Society  of  Great  Brit- 
ain has,  from  the  first,  refused  to  go  into  ter- 
ritories occupied  by  other  societies. 

The  recent  conference  in  India,  of  the  va- 


rious Missionary  Societies  engaged  in  the 
evangelization  of  that  country,  was  perhaps 
the  finest  illustration  of  Christian  unity  the 
world  had  ever  witnessed  prior  to  this  meet- 
ing of  the  Evangelical  Alliance. 

Perhaps  it  is  yet  too  soon  to  expect  entire 
harmony  in  the  missionary  movements  of 
the  churches.  Though  eighteen  hundred 
years  have  passed  since  our  blessed  Lord  is- 
sued his  great  command,  the  difficulties  in 
the  way  have  been  such,  till  near  the  pres- 
ent century,  as  to  prevent  the  Evangelical 
Church  from  clearly  discerning  its  obliga- 
tion. India  was  not  open  until  the  year 
1813 ;  nor  indeed  can  it  be  said  to  have  been 
fully  opened  until  the  recent  completion  of 
its  five  thousand  miles  of  railway  had  made 
every  part  of  its  territory  accessible  to  the 
missionary.  And  it  is  only  a  few  years 
since  the  hundreds  of  millions  of  China  and 
Japan  became  even  partially  accessible. 

We  should  not  deem  it  strange,  therefore, 
nor  discouraging,  that  so  large  a  portion  of 
the  Christian  Church  is  yet  singularly  un- 
impressed with  its  duty  to  these  millions; 
and  that  there  are  yet  errors  with  regard  to 
the  nature  of  the  work,  and  clashings  of  ap- 
parent interests  in  its  prosecution. 

A  new  mission  can  not  be  established  on 
ground  already  occupied  by  another  society, 
without  creating  more  or  less  rivalry  and 
antagonism.  The  well-known  invasion  of 
the  mission  at  the  Sandwich  Islands,  a  few 
years  since,  by  another  body,  is  a  case  in 
point.  Had  that  rival  mission  proved  a  suc- 
cess, it  would  have  prevented  the  organiza- 
tion of  an  independent  Christian  communi- 
ty, and  the  exhibition  to  the  Christian  world 
of  a  nation  raised  from  the  lowest  heathen- 
ism, with  as  large  a  proportion  of  its  people 
giving  credible  evidence  of  piety  as  can  be 
found  even  in  New  England,  and  that,  too, 
within  the  space  of  fifty  years. 

Another  mission  which  is  now  somewhat 
endangered  by  a  similar  invasion  is  in  West- 
ern India,  with  the  city  of  Ahmednuggur  for 
its  centre.  In  the  forty  years  of  its  exist- 
ence, it  has  expended  hundreds  of  thousands 
of  dollars,  organized  churches  in  the  central 
villages  of  its  territory,  with  native  pastors 
and  teachers,  aud  made  a  hopeful  advance 
in  the  difficult  process  of  transferring  the 


ANDERSON:  DIVISIONS  OF  MISSIONARY  LABOR,  ETC. 


589 


management  of  the  -work  to  the  native  Chris- 
tian community. 

In  this  crisis,  the  Bishop  of  Bombay  sends 
a  missionary  of  another  denomination,  and 
a  native  teacher,  to  Ahmednuggur — already 
sufficiently  manned,  and  surrounded  by  a 
vast  extent  of  unoccupied  ground.  He 
pledges  double  the  salaries  for  native  teach- 
ers and  helpers  which  the  resident  mission- 
aries have  paid  or  deem  it  wise  to  pay.  Add 
to  this  the  very  easy  conditions  required  for 
admission  to  the  Church,  and  no  wonder  that 
a  Congregational  and  Presbyterian  mission 
is  apprehensive  of  being  seriously  embar- 
rassed in  its  work. 

But  the  most  remarkable  instance  of  fail- 
ure to  observe  a  true  missionary  courtesy 
has  recently  occurred  in  the  mission  of  the 
London  Society,  established  fifty  years  ago, 
on  the  island  of  Madagascar. 

That  mission  has  a  wonderful  history. 
As  soon  as  the  seeds  of  the  Gospel  began  to 
bear  fruit,  a  pagan  queen  banished  the  mis- 
sionaries; and  for  twenty-five  years,  until 
her  death,  the  Christians  were  subjected  to 
a  persecution  as  fierce  and  bloody  as  any 
suffered  by  the  early  Church.  The  son  of 
the  persecuting  queen,  on  succeeding  to  the 
throne,  invited  the  missionaries  to  return. 
And  now,  after  the  lapse  of  a  few  years,  as 
stated  by  the  Secretary  of  the  Society,  there 
are  four  hundred  thousand  nominal  Chris- 
tians connected  with  the  mission,  and  thir- 
ty-eight thousand  church  -  members  —  of 
whom  the  present  queen  is  one — and  thirty 
thousand  children  in  the  schools. 

One  can  not  fail  to  see  how  difficult  must 
bo  the  practical  solution  of  the  vast  social 
problems  thus  suddenly  devolved,  by  the 
Head  of  the  Church,  directly  upon  the  thir- 
ty missionaries  of  the  London  Society;  and 
how  desirable  it  is  that  nothing  be  allowed 
to  complicate  their  agency,  and  add  to  bur- 
dens already  so  great.  Nor  can  we  easily 
conceive  any  thing  more  likely  to  do  this — 
Congregationalists  as  they  all  are — than 
placing  an  Episcopal  bishop  and  missionary 
in  the  very  centre  of  the  mission.  Such  a 
missionary  as  we  learn  from  the  official  cor- 
respondence has  been  sent  to  the  capital 
of  Madagascar ;  and  persistent  efforts  were 
made  to  send  also  a  bishop  in  full  connection 
with  the  Established  Church  of  England. 
Well  did  the  London  Missionary  Society 
urge,  in  its  correspondence  with  the  civil 
and  ecclesiastical  authorities  of  the  Nation- 
al Church,  and  with  the  Propagation  So- 
ciety, that  such  a  measure  would  produce 
alienation  among  the  natives,  increase  the 
difficulty  of  maintaining  church  discipline, 
and  hinder  the  native  Christian  community 
from  becoming  self-supporting,  and  thus  in- 
dependent of  foreign  aid. 

The  bishop  first  selected,  on  learning  the 
nature  and  probable  effect  of  his  duties,  de- 
clined to  serve;  and  before  a  second  had 


been  secured,  the  London  Society  earnestly 
requested  Her  Majesty's  Government,  as  an 
act  of  justice  to  a  large  portion  of  her  sub- 
jects, to  withhold  from  the  proposed  bish- 
opric the  sanction  of  the  Crown ;  which  was 
accordingly  done.  We  do  not  yet  know 
whether  the  attempt  will  be  prosecuted  fur- 
ther, but  we  are  permitted  to  hope  and  to 
pray  that  it  may  not  be. 

Dr.  Mullens,  the  Foreign  Secretary  of  the 
London  Society,  was  to  have  attended  this 
meeting  of  our  Alliance,  but  has  gone  to 
Madagascar  for  a  year  to  assist  his  brethren 
in  their  distress. 

I  turn,  now,  to  the  Oriental  churches.  A 
leading  object  of  the  missions  to  these 
churches  is  to  educate  the  native  evangelic- 
al Christians  in  the  practice  of  supporting 
their  own  religious  institutions,  that  they 
may  thus  become  independent,  at  the  earli- 
est day,  of  all  foreign  aid  and  control.  Un- 
til this  is  done,  they  will  continue  to  need 
the  presence  and  aid  of  missionaries.  Situ- 
ated as  they  have  been  for  ages  past,  this  is 
a  hard  lesson  for  them  to  learn,  especially 
considering  their  poverty  and  the  oppres- 
sion of  their  governments.  Hence  the  na- 
tive pastors  and  their  people  are  peculiarly 
open  to  temptation  where  there  is  the  pros- 
pect of  pecuniary  aid,  and  hence  their  resort 
for  assistance  to  England,  Scotland,  and  even 
to  the  United  States,  seldom  if  ever  with 
the  approval  of  their  missionary  fathers  and 
brethren. 

These  illustrations,  though  stated  con- 
cisely and  in  their  mildest  form,  will  suffice 
to  call  forth  the  prayers  of  the  Evangelical 
Alliance,  that  God  will  be  pleased  gracious- 
ly to  arrest  an  evil  that  threatens  the  peace 
and  prosperity  of  some  of  the  great  mission- 
ary enterprises  of  our  times. 

We  would  gladly  call  attention  to  the  ac- 
tion of  the  General  Missionary  Conference 
at  Allahabad,  in  India,  which  finished  its 
sittings  with  the  opening  of  the  present 
year.  It  enrolled  over  a  hundred  members, 
representing  twenty  missionary  societies, 
attached  to  the  Episcopalian,  Presbyteri- 
an, Congregational,  Methodist,  and  Baptist 
churches.  The  following  resolution  was 
adopted  by  the  Conference,  as  setting  forth 
the  views  of  that  body  on  the  subject  now 
under  consideration,  viz. : 

"  The  Conference  desire  to  put  on  record 
their  sense  of  the  grave  importance  of  the 
principle  of  the  mutual  non-interference  of 
missionary  societies.  They  are  of  opinion 
that,  with  certain  well-recognized  exceptions, 
such  as  the  large  centres  of  population,  it  is 
expedient  that  the  agents  of  different  mis- 
sionary societies  should  occupy  different 
fields  of  labor.  Without  calling  in  question 
the  right  of  every  missionary  to  exercise 
his  ministry  wherever  God  may  give  him 
opportunity,  it  is  their  solemn  conviction 
that  the  progress  of  the  Gospel  in  a  heathen 


590 


CHRISTIAN  MISSIONS. 


land  can  only  bo  retarded  by  the  mission- 
aries of  one  communion  receiving  the  con- 
verts of  another  church,  who  are  as  yet  im- 
perfectly acquainted  with  divine  truth,  and 
unable  to  enter  intelligently  into  questions 
•which  separate  the  minor  sections  of  Chris- 
tendom—  especially  those  who  are  under 
discipline." 

The  principle  to  which  we  have  called 
the  attention  of  the  Alliance  appears  to  be 
none  other  than  our  Saviour's  golden  rule, 
of  doing  to  others  as  we  might  reasonably 
desire  them  to  do  to  ourselves.  This  is 
true  missionary  courtesy.  No  sacrifice  is 
required  of  denominational  peculiarities; 


only  that  every  Church  have  fields  of  its 
own,  and  restrict  its  labors  accordingly. 
This  being  done,  experience  shows  that  Bap- 
tists may  construct  their  churches  among 
the  heathen,  and  Episcopalians  theirs,  and 
Presbyterians  and  Congregationalists  theirs, 
and  so  on  to  the  end  of  the  list  of  those 
who  are  united  in  Christ  the  Head.  At  the 
same  time,  it  assumes  the  oneness  of  Christ's 
spiritual  body  on  earth,  and  that  the  grand 
object  of  missions,  as  prescribed  by  the 
Lord  Jesus  in  his  last  command,  is  not 
the  extension  of  particular  denominations, 
but  of  his  glorious  kingdom  over  all  the 
earth. 


PROTESTANT,  CATHOLIC,  AND  GREEK  MISSIONS, 

COMPARED   AS   TO   PRINCIPLE,  METHOD,  AND    RESULTS. 
BY  THE  REV.  R.  GRUNDEMANN,  Pn.D.,  OF  MOERZ,  NEAR  POTSDAM,  PRUSSIA. 


I.  The  Principle. — The  principle  of  Chris- 
tian missions  is  the  spread  of  the  Gospel 
nnioug  the  nations  of  the  earth,  in  order 
that  members  may  be  won  for  the  kingdom 
of  God. 

We  may  not  say  that  any  one  of  the 
branches  of  Christian  missions  is  devoid  of 
this  principle.  It  is  modified,  however,  by 
the  particular  view  which  this  or  that  branch 
may  have  of  the  idea  of  the  Gospel  and  of 
the  kingdom  of  God. 

The  Greek  Catholic  (Russian)  missions 
confine  the  Gospel  to  the  simplest  principles 
of  Christian  doctrine  in  inseparable  connec- 
tion with  the  Greek  ritual,  through  which 
the  Gospel  is  in  some  degree  exposed  to  dan- 
gerous disfigurement.  Still  I  do  not  ven- 
ture to  deny  that  also  by  these  missions  the 
nations  receive  germs  of  the  salvation  in 
Christ. 

The  Roman  Catholic  missions  look  upon 
the  Gospel  as  consisting  of  the  whole  Rom- 
ish doctrine,  with  all  the  disfiguring  addi- 
tions which  it  has  received  in  that  church 
down  to  the  blasphemous  dogma  of  Infalli- 
bility. However,  it  can  not  be  denied  that 
the  Gospel  truth,  still  mingled  with  these 
errors,  but  destined  at  last  to  triumph  over 
all  human  error,  is  brought  to  the  heathen 
nations  by  the  Roman  Catholic  missions  also. 

The  Evangelical  missions  seek  to  bear  to 
the  nations  the  Gospel  in  its  purity.  At 
least,  it  should  bo  so,  theoretically  speaking. 
By  many  of  our  missions  this  ideal  is  striven 
after  with  success.  Still  I  dare  not  conceal 
the  fact  that  here  also,  to  a  great  degree,  a 
sharply  dogmatical  and  often  strongly  de- 
nominational instruction  has  taken  the  place 
of  the  simple  Gospel,  and  that  peculiarities 
of  ritual  and  government  are  often  brought 
into  unjustifiable  connection  with  the  lat- 
ter. The  transfer  which  is  thus  made  of 
denominational  differences,  with  their  dis- 
ruptive tendency,  over  into  nations  who  are 
yet  to  be  won  for  the  kingdom  of  God,  is 
highly  disadvantageous  to  the  mission  work. 
The  Evangelical  Alliance  should  direct  its 
influence  to  a  clearer  recognition  of  the 
above-mentioned  ideal,  and  to  a  determina- 
tion to  make  the  simple  Gospel,  apart  from 
doctrinal  developments  gradually  reached 
and  from  denominational  peculiarities  which 
divide  the  Evangelical  Church,  the  object 
of  mission  preaching. 


The  mission  principle  is,  however,  further 
modified  by  different  views  of  the  kingdom 
of  Christ,  which  is  the  ultimate  object  of 
missions. 

The  Greek  Catholic  (Russian)  missions  do 
not  merely  regard  the  kingdom  of  Christ  as 
synonymous  with  the  so-called  Orthodox 
Church;  but,  wherever  it  is  practicable, 
they  view  it  as  identical  with  the  Russian 
Empire.  We  may  state  the  case  somewhat 
strongly,  thus :  "  These  missions  aim  at  Rus- 
sianizing the  nations  among  whom  they  la- 
bor." The  thought  that  if  they  become  good 
Russian  subjects  they  become,  eo  ipso,  good 
Christians,  is  one  which  will  find  little  sym- 
pathy among  us.  Still  I  venture  even  here 
to  draw  attention  to  a  spark  of  truth  among 
the  ashes  of  error,  i.  e.,  that  savage  nations 
by  amalgamation  with  Christian  peoples 
are  really  started  toward  the  kingdom  of 
Christ. 

The  Roman  Catholic  missions  regard  the 
kingdom  of  Christ  as  absolutely  identical 
with  the  Romish  Church.  However  repul- 
sive this  arrogance  may  be,  especially  un- 
der the  present  sway  of  Jesuitism,  I  can  not 
here, either,  condemn  their  view  absolutely; 
but  am  constrained  by  the  force  of  history 
to  recognize  the  fact  that  for  heathen  na- 
tions there  is  a  way  to  the  kingdom  of 
heaven  by  the  circuitous  path  which  leads 
through  Rome. 

Nor  are  evangelical  missions  entirely  to 
be  acquitted  of  the  error  of  confounding  the 
true,  invisible  Church  with  some  one  of  the 
visible  churches,  developed  under  temporal 
and  earthly  circumstances.  According  to 
our  principle,  the  Baptist  missionary  should 
not  make  out  of  the  heathen  Baptists,  nor 
the  Lutheran  Lutherans;  but  every  evan- 
gelical missionary  should  only  seek  to  make 
Christians.  The  necessary  self-denial  where- 
in the  narrow  circle  of  one's  own  denomina- 
tion is  lost  in  the  kingdom  of  Christ  is,  alas ! 
not  unfrequently  wanting  among  the  repre- 
sentatives of  evangelical  missions.  Thence 
arise  the  encroachments  of  the  one  upon  the 
territory  of  others,  and  the  rivalry  which 
often  endangers  the  holy  work ;  against 
which  evils  the  Evangelical  Alliance  should 
make  its  influence  felt  with  growing  power. 

The  objection  that  the  demand  just  made 
is  impracticable,  since  the  kingdom  of  God 
can  not  but  take  some  visible  form  if  it  is 


592 


CHRISTIAN  MISSIONS. 


to  appear  amidst  earthly  relations,  is  not 
relevant.  The  visible  form  of  the  churches 
gathered  from  among  the  heathen  does  not 
need  to  agree  with  that  of  churches  already 
existing.  The  Gospel,  where  it  becomes  act- 
ive in  the  life  of  a  people,  has  the  capacity 
of  creating  forms  which  correspond  to  the 
existing  circumstances ;  while  forms  already 
extant  are  sometimes  hardly  reconcilable 
with  the  latter. 

II.  The  Method. — The  methods  which  are 
applied  in  the  Christian  missions  are  so  va- 
rious that  only  the  principal  outlines  can 
here  be  designated.  They  depend  on  the 
view  which  is  taken  of  the  object  of  the 
mission.  If  this  is  to  win  entire  nations, 
then  the  missionary  activity  is  a  slow  sow- 
ing of  seed  in  hope  of  the  future.  The  con- 
version of  individuals  is  only  a  step  in  the 
preparation  and  development  of  a  Christian 
national  life. 

According  to  the  other  view,  individual 
souls,  withdrawn  more  or  less  from  their 
connection  with  the  national  life,  are  the 
object  of  mission  work.  In  them  it  is  to 
reach  its  end,  without  regard  to  the  further 
purpose  of  christianizing  the  whole  people. 

The  former  view  exercises  most  influence, 
often  an  exceedingly  one-sided  influence,  on 
the  Romish  missions.  These  desire,  above 
all  else,  to  bring  great  masses  into  the  bosom 
of  the  Roman  Catholic  Church.  The  con- 
version of  individuals  is  here  only  a  means 
to  the  end.  This  is  often  produced  in  a 
very  superficial  manner,  to  which  the  no- 
tion of  the  mechanical  effects  of  the  sacra- 
ments contributes  not  a  little.  Union  with 
the  Roman  Catholic  Church  and  attachment 
to  it  are  regarded  as  conversion,  and  are 
often  brought  about  through  application  of 
external  motives.*  Moreover,  those  gained 
from  among  the  heathen  are  introduced  by 
external  exercises  into  the  church  life,  so 
that  one  might  not  without  some  justice 
speak  of  a  "drilling"  method.  The  con- 
verts then  continue  in  lasting  dependence, 
without  attaining  to  evangelical  liberty. 

Over  against  this  view  stands  the  method 
which  endeavors,  by  awakening  inner  life, 
to  lead  to  the  free  and  independent  develop- 
ment and  formation  of  Christian  character. 
This  method  we  find  in  most  of  the  evan- 
gelical missions ;  but,  again,  with  the  most 
manifold  modifications.  It  appears,  alas! 
here  and  there,  in  a  very  one-sided  way,  and 
even  carried  to  such  an  extreme  that,  with- 
out regard  to  the  stage  of  culture  and  the 
whole  previous  development  of  a  heathen 
people,  the  effort  is  made  to  convert  the  in- 
dividual in  the  same  manner  in  which  this 
must  be  done  by  the  halieutic  activity  among 
the  nominal  Christians  of  Christian  lands. 

Out  of  efforts  of  this  sort  very  brilliant 


*  Here  I  must  pass  the  Greek  Chnrch  by,  as  in  this 
respect  we  have  too  little  documentary  evidence. 


results  have  at  first  been  obtained,  which 
have,  however,  afterward  been  found  total 
failures. 

The  method  which  best  corresponds  to 
the  idea  of  evangelical  missions  keeps  the 
golden  mean  between  the  extremes  just  des- 
ignated. It  is  no  slavish  "  drilling  "  system, 
on  the  one  hand,  nor,  on  the  other,  does  it, 
under  the  false  supposition  of  an  immediate 
independence,  venture  at  the  very  outset  to 
reach  the  highest  aims  of  the  Christian  life. 
It  deals,  on  the  contrary,  in  a  pedagogic 
manner.  It  treats  those  who  have  been 
won  from  among  the  heathen  not  merely  as 
little  children,  who  can  only  attain  a  very 
gradual  spiritual  growth;  but,  paying  also 
due  regard  to  the  condition  of  the  whole  peo- 
ple,it  recognizes  the  first  generationsbrought 
under  Christian  influences  as  the  necessary 
lower  grades  of  development,  which  can  only 
very  gradually  be  led  toward  those  ends 
which,  even  after  a  development  of  many 
centuries,  have  not  as  yet  been  nearly  reach- 
ed among  the  Christian  nations  of  Europe. 

Although,  according  to  this  view,  the  na- 
tions appear  as  the  final  object  of  mission 
labor,  the  internal  influence  upon  individ- 
uals is  not  underestimated,  in  whose  con- 
version the  renewal  of  the  national  life  has 
its  beginning  and  its  progress. 

III.  The  Results. — In  the  first  place,  as  re- 
gards numerical  results,  it  is  as  yet  an  en- 
tire impossibility  to  give  even  a  compara- 
tively correct  statement  of  them.  Apart 
from  the  difficulties  connected  with  the  re- 
ception of  the  respective  figures  even  of  the 
evangelical  missions,  we  have  the  further 
difficulty  that  these  figures,  to  a  great  ex- 
tent, represent  unknown  quantities.  The 
different  missions  have  such  widely  differ- 
ing ideas  of  the  proper  headings  in  tabular 
statements  that  an  addition  of  the  figures 
standing  at  the  foot  of  these  columns  would 
give  an  entirely  erroneous  sum  total.  For 
example/ our  evangelical  missions  sometimes 
count  among  their  converts  sven  those  Eu- 
ropeans who  in  heathen  lands  unite  with 
the  respective  denominations.  Safe  estimates 
with  regard  to  the  Roman  Catholic  missions 
are  still  more  impossible,  as  the  value  of 
their  figures,  on  account  of  the  multitude 
of  secretly  baptized  children,  for  instance, 
becomes  highly  problematical. 

We  can,  however,  disregard  the  figures, 
as  these  have,  on  the  whole,  a  different  sig- 
nificance in  the  kingdom  of  God  from  that 
which  they  possess  in  worldly  affairs. 

As  far  as  the  qualitative  results  are  con- 
cerned, there  are  also  many  difficulties  in 
the  way  of  a  more  exact  valuation.  They 
arise  from  the  fact  that  the  deepest  basis 
and  the  best  part  of  these  results  are  more 
or  less  withdrawn  from  observation.  It 
must,  at  all  events,  be  admitted  that  the 
accusation  of  ill  success  in  mission  work  is 
fully  disposed  of  by  the  difference  between 


GRUNDEMANN:  PROTESTANT,  CATHOLIC,  AND  GREEK  MISSIONS.       593 


the  converts  in  their  several  Christian  con- 
gregations and  their  heathen  countrymen. 

This  difference  is  most  apparent  in  the 
evangelical  missions.  Among  their  con- 
verts are  to  be  found  those  who,  by  their 
spiritually  perfected  personality,  stand  in 
the  sharpest  contrast  with  the  heathen  life 
around  them.  Also  among  these  congrega- 
tions we  meet  with  many  in  which  the  la- 
bor of  the  Word  of  God  has  in  a  few  decen- 
niums  produced  the  same  state  of  things 
which  in  old  Christian  lauds  has  only  been 
attained  in  the  course  of  centuries. 

The  condition  of  Christianity  among  the 
converts  and  congregations  of  Roman  Cath- 
olic missions  is,  without  doubt,  a  far  lower 
one.  Indeed,  examples  are  not  wanting  in 
which  the  transition  from  idolatry  to  Rom- 
ish worship  of  pictures  appears  to  be  the 
only  result  attained.  Still  we  must  grant 
that  through  the  average  Catholic  mission 
also  a  sharp  difi'erence  is  developed  between 
the  adherents  whom  they  have  gained  and 
their  heathen  surroundings,  and  that  in 
these  congregations  evident  traces  of  Chris- 
tian life,  though  on  a  somewhat  lower  stage 
of  development,  are  brought  to  light. 

It  can  not  be  denied  that  the  missions 
have  labored  here  and  there  without  any 
result  apparent  to  human  eyes.  This  has 
been  most  prominently  the  case  with  the 
Roman  Catholic  missions.  A  number  of 
their  large  mission  fields,  once  reported  to 
have  been  flourishing,  have  gradually  re- 
38 


lapsed  into  complete  heathenism,  retaining 
only  a  few  Christian  ceremonies. 

There  are,  however,  not  wanting  a  num- 
ber of  fields  occupied  by  evangelical  mis- 
sions with  regard  to  which  the  mission  jour- 
nals were  once  filled  with  accounts  of  suc- 
cessful results,  but  whose  very  names  art; 
now  no  longer  mentioned.  When,  after  a 
vain  search  for  news  in  the  mission  jour- 
nals, inquiry  is  made  as  to  the  progress  of 
these  missions,  the  only  answer  received  is 
that  they  were  "  a  failure." 

If  I  have  already  pointed  to  the  crowning 
results,  especially  among  evangelical  mis- 
sions, I  dare  not  omit  the  remark  that  the 
total  result  can  not  be  measured  by  these. 
Among  evangelical  converts,  also,  are  found 
many  in  whom,  perhaps,  single  Christian 
characteristics  are  very  plainly  developed, 
while  other  phases  of  their  life  are  still  per- 
meated by  the  old  heathen  leaven. 

This  can"  be  generally  stated  with  more 
or  less  truth  of  those  gathered  by  our  mis- 
sions even  in  territories  where  the  mission 
work  seems  to  have  solved  its  problem  by  a 
completed  christianization,  as  in  Hawaii  and 
Sierra  Leone.  In  fact,  the  christiauization 
of  these  lands  is  not  yet  complete.  The  re- 
sults of  evangelical  missions  thus  far  attain- 
ed are  not  yet  final  results,  but  presuppose 
a  continuous  development,  even  as  all  the 
results  of  Roman  Catholic  missions  in  a  far 
higher  degree  presuppose  a  future  reforma- 
tion. 


THE  OBLIGATIONS  OF  LITERATURE,  SCIENCE,  AND 
COMMERCE  TO  CHRISTIAN  MISSIONS. 

BY  THE  REV.  THOMAS  M.  EDDY,  D.D.,  NEW  Youi:, 

Corresponding  Secretary  of  the  Missionary  Society  of  the  Methodist  Episcopal  Church. 


IN  discussing  the  comparatively  secular 
topic  assigned  me,  I  ask  you  to  consider 

MISSIONS  AS  FACTORS  OF  CHRISTIAN  CIVILI- 
ZATION. 

There  is,  alas !  no  really  Christian  nation ; 
but  there  is  a  well-defined  Christian  civili- 
zation, so  different  from  other  types  that 
you  can  easily  mark  its  metes  and  bounda- 
ries on  the  atlas,  and  trace  its  lines  through 
the  nations. 

Christianity  is  the  least  Materialistic  of  all 
Religions.  It  persistently  asserts  a  high 
spirituality;  nay,  makes  the  Spiritual  the 
Real,  subordinates  the  Seen  to  the  Unseen, 
Sense  to  Faith,  Body  to  Soul,  Eeasou  to  Spir- 
it. But  no  other  religion  is  so  swiftly  fol- 
lowed by  material  results.  It  comes  crying 
only,  "  Repent,  and  believe  the  Gospel,"  but 
the  "signs  following"  are,  many  of  them, 
physical.  It  begins  with  the  ground,  and 
the  barbaric  plow  disappears ;  for  Christian 
civilization  means  a  shining  plowshare,  and 
long  furrows,  gracefully  turned  from  a  shin- 
ing mould-board.  It  means  implemental  ag- 
riculture. The  Bible  and  Sacraments  come, 
and  in  their  train  wheels  revolve,  anvils 
ring,  black  funnels  pour  out  blacker  smoke, 
the  white  sails  of  commerce  are  bent,  spin- 
dles hum,  aud  around  separate  homesteads 
vines  are  trained  and  roses  bloom. 

Christianity  holds  that  man  was  original- 
ly lord  of  material  forces,  but  that  in  his 
fall  his  mastery  was  broken,  only  to  be  fully 
restored  through  the  second  Adam,  the  Lord 
from  heaven.  Where  it  comes  not,  manhood 
is  incapable  of  handling  pnissantly  the  be- 
neficent forces  of  nature,  which,  defying  his 
feeble  craft,  maintain  successful  rebellion. 
Man  bears  heavy  burdens,  not  knowing  of 
his  appointed  servitors.  He  grinds  in  weary 
mills,  unconscious  that  God  has  stationed 
motors  wherein  the  waters  are  brewed,  the 
veins  of  carbon  stored,  the  caldron  hisses, 
the  winds  blow,  or  the  electric  currents 
tremble. 

At  the  coming  of  Christian  civilization, 
with  its  new  life,  rebellious  forces  return  to 
allegiance;  recusant  forces  haste  to  obey 
their  primal  master ;  the  dignity  of  Work 
is  asserted  in  the  ears  of  drowsy  indolence, 
bnt  the  slavery  of  Toil  is  broken.  Soul 


enfranchised  demands  emancipated  muscle, 
and  Reason  aud  Faith  allied  compel  nature 
to  pristine  servitude.  The  work  of  missions 
is  the  propagation  of  this  emancipating,  po- 
tential civilization. 

THEIR  WORKERS. 

Christian  missions  place  the  most  intense 
aud  progressive  life  in  contact  with  the  de- 
cayed and  effete ;  they  throw  the  rugged, 
iconoclastic  activity  of  the  Occident  into  the 
dreamy  quiet  and  among  the  dumb  shrines 
of  the  Orient.  Their  agents  are  originally 
young,  daring,  ad  venturous  men  and  women, 
fresh  from  school,  familiar  with  the  phases 
of  modern  doubt  aud  the  assumptions  of 
modern  science.  Their  vigorous  vitality  is 
placed  in  the  mausoleum  of  Oriental  death, 
in  the  stagnant  pool  of  pagan  wretchedness, 
aud  their  defiant,  self-asserting  freedom  in 
antagonism  with  the  serfdom  of  custom, 
caste,  aud  superstition. 

Thousands  of  such  have  missions  placed 
under  almost  unmapped  skies,  and  among 
unknown  people.  Where  the  silence  of  ig- 
norance was  unbroken,  they  went  to  see,  to 
question,  and  to  record.  And  is  it  not  true 
that,  avoiding  the  known,  they  have  gone 
to  the  centres  toward  which  myriad  eyes 
have  been  turned  most  curiously  f 

THEIR  APPEAL  TO  SCIENCE  AND  REASON. 

They  are,  at  the  outset  of  their  work,  un- 
der the  necessity  of  asserting  the  regnancy 
of  reason  and  the  certainty  of  science.  They 
must  appeal  to  reason,  for  only  thus  can  they 
assert  private  judgment.  Arouse  individual 
conscience,  and  lead  those  whom  they  teach 
to  disown  error  and  forsake  vice.  Against 
hoary  tradition  and  priestly  assumption 
they  appeal  to  science.  Among  Polytheists 
they  assert  Divine  unity,  and  invoke  scien- 
tific testimony  to  establish  oneness  of  plan 
and  workmanship  throughout  the  universe. 
They  find  extravagance  aud  absurdity  in 
tradition  or  sacred  books,  and  denounce 
them  by  authority  of  telescope,  crucible, 
microscope,  and  spectrum  analysis.  They 
confront  the  scowling  priest  who  assumes 
superior  sanctity  because  he  holds  life  so 
sacred  as  to  refuse  to  destroy  its  minutest 
form.  Their  answer  is  the  microscopic  rev- 


EDDY:  OBLIGATIONS  OF  LITERATURE,  SCIENCE,  AND  COMMERCE.      595 


elation  of  myriads  in  the  water  he  drinks, ' 
and  from  his  slain  hecatombs  he  flies  in  baf- 
fled rage.  In  very  truth,  Protestant  mis- 
sions are  the  true  exalters  of  reason,  and 
they  summon  each  art,  each  science  as  wit- 
ness and  co-laborer,  and  by  so  much  enthrone 
it  in  regal  state. 

INDIRECT   SERVICE. 

Remember  that  much  of  the  service  mis- 
sions render  literature  is  incidental.  Mission- 
aries are  neither  scientists,  litterateurs,  nor 
commercial  agents,  but  preachers  and  teach- 
ers of  Christian  faith  and  ethics.  But  they 
observe  and  record.  In  letters  to  friends  or 
the  Press,  they  describe  mountains  and  seas, 
metals  and  grains,  flora  and  fauna.  These 
fragments  are  not  books,  but  they  are  the 
seed  which  home  writers  plant  with  leisure- 
ly authorcraft,  and  from  which  stately  books 
are  grown.  They  make  an  itinerary,  and 
the  journal  records  not  only  song  and  ser- 
mon, but  also  word-paintiiig,  of  bird  and 
beast,  rock  and  reptile,  hut  and  temple,  rites 
and  customs,  men  and  things.  They  bring 
their  faithful  observations  as  contributions 
to  the  sum  of  human  knowledge,  and  thus, 
though  they  mean  it  not,  they  are  among 
the  educators  of  secular  thought. 

DIRECT  RESULTS. 

They  add  directly  to  the  stores  of  litera- 
ture and  science. 

1.  They  have  increased,  very  greatly,  the 
sum  of  geographical  knowledge.    They  were 
seekers  of  men :  the  men  were  somewhere, 
and  must  be  found.     They  were  men,  cre- 
ated in  the  Divine  image,  redeemed  by  the 
Divine  blood,  the  objects  of  Divine  care. 
They  must  be  found.     But  hunting  them, 
the  searchers  went  with  open  eyes;  they 
mapped  the  leagues  over  which  they  walk- 
ed ;  the  unknown  rivers  they  crossed  or  down 
which  they  floated,  and  took  the  altitude 
of  unmeasured  mountains,  calculating  their 
latitude  and  longitude,  that  they  might  be 
guide-posts  and  inih>stones  for  their  follow- 
ers. 

Would  Interior  Africa  bo  to-day  even  par- 
tially known  but  for  the  missionary  explora- 
tions of  Kropf,  Vanderkemp,  Kramer,  Shaw, 
Threlfal,  Freeman,  MofFat,  and  his  renown- 
ed son-in-law,  Livingstone,  whose  early  fame 
was  won  in  mission  service,  whose  zeal  as 
an  explorer  was  kindled  at  the  altar  of  evan- 
gelism ?  These  men  went  in  search  of  lost 
souls,  and  told  the  world  of  the  wilderness 
into  which  they  had  wandered,  and  so  un- 
sealed a  quarter  of  the  globe. 

2.  In  Language. — They  did  not  go  as  phi- 
lologists, but  became  such  by  an  evangelical 
necessity.      Having   found  the    lost   men, 
they  must  teach  them.     A  man  and  a  book 
are  essential  to  missions.     The  book  de- 
mands a  written  language.     Out  of  the  jar- 
gon of  disconnected  syllabic  sounds  the  mis- 


sionary must  organize  it.  An  alphabet  must 
be  invented,  and  he  becomes  Cadmus.  Out 
of  the  alphabet  an  orthography,  and  so  a 
grammar,  and  a  lexicon.  This  was  done  to 
give  the  lost  people  THE  BOOK,  but  out  of 
this  work,  done  for  Christ's  sake,  literature 
gathers  weird  traditions,  ancient  legends, 
quaint  stories,  wonderful  mythologies,  and 
rare  fragments  of  rude  poetry.  It  gathers, 
vaunts  its  wares,  and  too  often  makes  no 
note  of  its  obligations. 

3.  Ethnic  Knmcledge. — Their  great  study 
has  been  manhood.     They  have  observed  it 
in  all  phases.     They  were  compelled  to  do 
so.     They  went  to  save  the  people ;  they 
must  measure  the  difficulties ;  what  cus- 
toms helped  or  hindered  f  what  faiths  were 
held  sacred  ?  what  errors  must  be  exploded  ? 
what  superstitions  dislodged?  what  tribal 
or  congenital  influences  were   barriers  to 
success  f     For  their  own  safety  and  success 
they  could  not  afford  to  be  deceived.     Er- 
ror written  and  sent  home  would  somehow 
return  to  plague  them.     They  must  observe 
accurately,  and  record  correctly.     So,  care- 
fully noting,  they  have  written,  and  so  have 
added  hundreds  of  volumes  to  literature — 
volumes  on  the  character,  customs,  social 
usages,  religious  perils  and  possibilities  of 
the  races.    They  have  invoked  the  pencil  to 
aid  the  pen.     They  have,  within  the  past 
fifty  years,  placed   in    Christian    cabinets 
richer  and  more  varied  illustrations  of  na- 
tional and  race  peculiarities  than  were  pre- 
viously in  all  the  museums  of  the  world. 

4.  Human   Unity. — If  demonstration  had 
been  wanting  to  the  oneness  of  humanity, 
they  have  given  it.     They  have  studied  it 
under  all  skies,  beside  all  waters,  in  all  lati- 
tudes.    They  have  noted  the  influence  of 
climate  and  surroundings,  and  have  critic- 
ally observed  the  modifications  of  zone,  an- 
cestry, color,  habits. 

We  take  the  synthesis  of  their  observa- 
tions, and  so  our  creed  includes  the  brother- 
hood of  man.  We  affirm  anew  the  Pauline 
dogma,  that  "  God  hath  made  of  one  blood 
all  nations  for  to  dwell  on  the  face  of  the 
earth."  That  all  are  related  at  once  to  the 
first  and  the  Second  Adam. 

Missions  prove  manhood  everywhere  un- 
der the  same  essential  conditions.  Nowhere 
"evolved,"  nowhere  "developed,"e  very  where 
born.  It  is  subject  to  the  same  laws  of 
growth,  maturity,  and  decay.  It  is  corrupt- 
ed by  the  same  agencies,  cursed  by  the  same 
vices,  smitten  by  the  same  griefs,  broken  by 
the  same  or  by  similar  sorrows,  and  tending 
to  the  same  inevitable  end. 

Missions  have  found,  under  all  superim- 
posed errors  and  traditions,  the  primitive 
formation  of  revealed  Truth  cropping  out 
with  variable  distinctness :  matter  created 
by  conscious  and  intelligent  power ;  out  of 
primal  elements  the  world  emerging ;  a 
commenced  humanity ;  the  lapse  from  good 


596 


CHRISTIAN  MISSIONS. 


and  the  temporary  triumph  of  evil ;  a  com- 
ing or  accomplished  redemption,  and  at  the 
last  some  mode  of  retribution. 

And,  under  all  phases,  they  find  this 
many-tongned  manhood  answering  to  the 
great  facts  of  Christianity.  At  the  first,  the 
creation  groaning  and  travailing  together  in 
pain — sad  unity  of  sin  and  sorrow.  Then 
that  creation  —  through  malign  conquest 
made  subject  unto  vanity,  yet  through  grace 
capable  of  accepting  the  Saviour,  and, 
through  him,  salvation.  They  trace  the 
weary  furlongs  of  sin  and  curse,  but  they 
prove  that,  by  one  way  of  faith,  men  of  all 
nations  and  latitudes  come  to  one  redemp- 
tion through  incarnation  and  atonement, 
and,  rejoicing  in  one  experience,  gather 
around  the  Elder  Brother,  one  holy,  undi- 
vided, indivisible  Catholic  Church,  the  ecu- 
menical new  creation ! 

Protestant  missions  are  the  world's  frater- 
ni/ers.  They  are  based  on  the  ideas  of  the 
brotherhood  of  blood;  the  brotherhood  of 
the  fall ;  the  brotherhood  of  atonement,  and 
the  priesthood  of  believers.  They  hold  that 
a  man — any  man — is  more  precious  than 
fine  gold ;  yea,  a  man — any  man — than  the 
golden  wedge  of  Ophir. 

COMMERCE. 

Its  obligations  to  Christian  missions  are 
simply  past  computation. 

Missions  demand  the  Transportation  of  a 
Multitude  of  Laborers  to  remote  Countries,  often 
across,  sometimes  around  the  World. — In  Prot- 
estant missions  it  is  held  that  Christian  fam- 
ilies are  the  good  seed  of  the  kingdom,  and 
that  some  of  them  must  be  taken  abroad  for 
the  redemption  of  the  world.  These — and 
they  have  been  a  great  number — has  com- 
merce carried  to,  and  sometimes  from,  far- 
off  povts,  and  with  them  some  of  the  needed 
comforts  of  civilization.  Has  all  this  been 
nothing  ?  Has  it  not  crowded  many  a  keel 
and  thronged  many  a  deck?  Has  it  meant 
nothing  to  dealers  in  exchange  and  credits  ? 
Extinguish  missions  and  you  jar  the  cir- 
cumference of  trade. 

The  .Gospel  creates  new  Wants. — Preached 
among  barbarians,  they  hear  its  voice,  and 
are  ashamed.  It  is  the  Evangel  at  once  of 
salvation  and  decency.  Conversion  is  fol- 
lowed by  a  demand  for  clothing — clean  at 
that.  Clothing  means  wool,  and  flax,  and 
cot-ton ;  means  spindles  and  looms,  and 
needles  and  shears ;  means  leather  and  lasts, 
and  they  mean  the  iron  and  steel  of  England 
and  Pennsylvania,  of  Russia  and  Ohio,  the 
anthracite,  the  block,  and  bituminous  coals 
of  the  Alleghanies  and  the  prairies;  mean  the 
carrying  barks  of  Christian  nations.  The 
smallest  mission  station  among  the  Hima- 
layas, beside  the  Zambesi,  or  in  "Far 
Cathay,"  means  a  new  belt  slipped  on  the 
great  drum  of  Christian  civilization. 

Conversion  calls  for  a  .Home.— The  Church 


of  the  congregation  must  grow  out  of  the 
churches  of  the  household.-  A  HOME:  it 
means  a  house,  doors,  windows,  floor,  and 
ceiling.  It  means  washing  and  cooking — 
means  a  nursery  and  family  altar.  Com- 
pute the  material  agencies  entering  into  its 
production.  What  saw  -  mills  rasp  their 
coarse  music?  What  nails  drop  in  fiery 
haste ;  what  burdens  of  sand  carted  into 
glass-works;  what  kilns  set  ablaze;  what 
quarries  opened?  The  humblest  home  in 
Europe  or  America  levies  contributions  on 
cosmopolitan  invention  and  industry,  and  is 
as  marvelous  an  exposition  of  universal  in- 
dustry as  that  one  at  Vienna  under  the  pat- 
ronage of  the  imperial  Francis  Joseph. 

Missions  demand  Schools. — Their  founders 
may  only  intend  to  cry,  "  Behold  the  Lamb 
of  God,"  but  the  logic  of  events  reminds  them 
that  pastors  and  teachers  are  joined  togeth- 
er by  God,  and  can  not  be  put  asunder. 
Commerce  must  carry  the  machinery,  the 
appliances  of  instruction,  and  each  mission- 
planted  school  abroad  means  a  freighted  ar- 
gosy from  home. 

"Missions  cause  Discontent."  —  Certainly 
they  do ;  they  are  meant  to.  Their  teach- 
ing excites  revolt  agaiust  ignorance  and 
squalor  as  well  as  against  sin ;  stirs  men  in 
the  dark  to  cry  out  for  light ;  stirs  discon- 
tent until  soul,  body,  and  spirit  are  wholly 
sanctified.  It  means  to  sound  the  tocsin  of 
revolution  until  the  day  of  universal  disen- 
thrallment. 

And,  if  we  read  aright,  our  FATHER  means 
that  each  man  shall  somehow  aid  in  the  up- 
lifting of  every  other  man,  and  that  travel, 
trade,  industry,  and  commerce  shall  be  fac- 
tors in  the  equation  of  our  infinite  content. 

Missions  are  avant-  couriers  of  commerce. 
They  have  brought  Hindoostan  to  us  to-day ; 
and  our  mission  bills  of  exchange  are  large- 
ly the  medium  of  its  foreign  remittances. 
They  have  opened  the  hidden  treasures  of 
China  and  Japan. 

They  are  the  inspiration  of  travel.  They 
are  the  hostelries  of  tourists,  the  signal  sta- 
tions of  observers,  the  sanatariums  of  sick 
and  outworn  sojourners,  and  within  their 
compounds  are  the  cemeteries  within  which, 
with  solemn  rites  and  reverential  words,  the 
sacred  dust  of  such  as  fall  by  the  wayside 
is  tenderly  laid  to  rest. 

Are  missions  promotive  of  travel  ?  Why, 
the  missions  of  one  American  denomination 
are,  this  very  year,  the  travel-posts  by  which 
a  bishop  and  seven  traveling  companions 
make  the  circuit  of  the  world.  From  this 
city  they  journeyed  westward,  halting  for  a 
brief  space  among  the  Mongolians,  whom 
mission  industry  is  training  on  the  Pacific 
coast ;  thence  to  Japan,  lingering  for  rest 
and  labor  with  the  missions  in  Yokohama 
and  Jeddo;  westward  thence  to  China,  vis- 
iting Foo  Chow,  Kukiang,  and  Peking,  and 
giving  cheer  to  the  brethren;  westward  still 


EDDY:  OBLIGATIONS  OF  LITERATURE,  SCIENCE,  AND  COMMERCE.      597 


to  India,  thence  to  Turkey,  thence  home- 
ward, still  facing  the  setting  sun,  journey- 
ing by  the  signal -fires  of  mission  stations 
and  to  the  minstrelsy  of  mission  songs. 

They  give  tourists  a  sense  of  security. 
They  have  already  manifolded  travel  in 
China,  and  are  causing  Japan  to  be  consid- 
ered a  pleasant  neighborhood  for  the  sum- 
mer vacation  of  such  American  clergymen 
as  have  no  leisure  for  an  extended  trip. 
They  have  made  islands,  once  repugnant 
and  perilous  from  their  cannibalism,  to  be 
delightful  halting  places.  They  have  end- 
ed national  isolation,  and  made  solitude  im- 
possible. They  have  multiplied  arguments 
for  peace.  The  great  Protestant  powers  can 
nowhere  go  to  war  without  putting  in  peril 
their  own  citizens.  They  have  given  em- 
phasis to  human  unity,  and  helped  the  race 
onward  toward  the  glad  jubilee  of  universal 
brotherhood. 


Then  let  literature  return  its  graceful  ac- 
knowledgments for  their  multifold  materiel 
and  grand  inspirations. 

Let  science  —  the  true  science,  not  the 
arrogant  or  frivolous ;  the  science  which  is 
honest  enough  to  be  candid ;  the  science 
which  sincerely  waits  on  facts  —  let  this 
genuine  science  confess  how  much  it  owes 
them  for  opened  fields,  for  antecedent  ex- 
plorations, for  recovered  observations,  for 
important  confirmations,  for  stores  unlock- 
ed, cabinets  filled,  for  countless  facts,  classi- 
fied and  unclassified. 

Let  commerce  gracefully  dip  her  flaunting 
colors  before  her  adventurous  path-finders, 
her  faithful  station-keepers,  her  brave  coast- 
guards and  generous  purveyors. 

And  let  these  three,  LITERATUTE,  SCIENCE, 
and  COMMERCE,  reverently  worship  Him 
who  said,  "  Go  ye,  therefore,  and  teach  all 
nations." 


LAY  PREACHING. 


BY  THE  HON.  GEORGE  H.  STUART,  OF  PHILADELPHIA,  PA., 

Member  of  the  United  States  Board  of  Indian  Commissioners. 


THE  subject  which  has  been  assigned  to 
me  this  afternoon,  namely,  "Lay  Preach- 
ing," is,  in  my  humble  opinion,  second  in 
practical  importance  to  no  other  subject 
which  has  been  before  this  distinguished 
body,  and  my  only  regret  is  that  the  condi- 
tion of  my  own  health  and  other  circum- 
stances prevent  me  from  presenting  that 
subject,  or  opening  up  its  discussion  in  a 
Avay  which  its  importance  demands. 

In  the  first  place,  I  would  ask  this  Confer- 
ence to  glance  at  ihe  field.  "The  field  is  the 
world."  It  has  in  it  1,300,000,000  of  immor- 
tal souls,  destined  to  meet  ns  at  the  judg- 
ment bar  of  God.  Of  these  1,300,000,000, 
some  800,000,000  are  bowing  down  to  stocks 
and  to  stones,  the  workmanship  of  their 
own  hands.  Besides  these  800,000,000  hea- 
then, there  are  160,000,000  Mohammedans, 
240,000,000  adherents  to  other  false  systems 
of  religion,  leaving  only  100,000,000  of  nom- 
inal Protestants.  It  is  not  for  us  to  say  how 
many  of  these  100,000,000  are  true  disciples 
of  our  risen  and  exalted  Lord  and  Saviour 
Jesus  Christ.  We  know  from  well-authen- 
ticated statistics  that  with  every  stroke  of 
the  pendulum  one  immortal  soul  passes  from 
time  into  eternity;  with  every  revolution 
of  the  sun  86,400  immortal  souls  go  to  appear 
before  the  judgment  bar  of  Christ.  I  would 
have  yon  pause  just  here,  and  consider  the 
value  of  a  single  soul,  for  whom  Christ  died 
upon  the  cross  on  Calvary.  It  was  but  a 
few  weeks  ago  that  I  was  visiting  the  Tower 
in  London.  We  were  shown  through  its  va- 
rious rooms,  and  called  to  examine  all  those 
historic  mementoes  of  by-gone  ages  that  are 
there  preserved,  and  as  we  were  passing  out 
the  guide  asked  us  if  we  would  not  like  to 
visit  the  jewel-room.  We  told  him  yes,  and 
Avere  conducted  thither.  There  we  saw  the 
crown  with  which  Queen  Victoria — God 
bless  her!  was  crowned.  We  saw  all  the 
royal  plate,  and,  with  Yankee  inqnisitiveness, 
we  asked  the  person  in  attendance  its  value. 
He  said  that  the  present  value  of  those  jew- 
els and  that  plate  was  £4,000,000  sterling, 
$20,000,000  gold.  The  next  day,  in  compa- 
ny with  two  beloved  ministers,  I  visited  the 
Field  Lane  Ragged  Sabbath -school,  where 
were  gathered  1000  children  from  the  worst 
dens  of  vice  in  London  ;  and  as  I  stood  by  the 
desk  of  the  superintendent,  there  sat  before 
me  a  little  girl — she  may  have  been  thirteen 


years  of  age — barefooted,  bare-headed,  with 
uncombed  hair  and  unwashed  face,  and  1 
looked  down  in  her  bright  eyes  and  thought 
of  the  jewels  in  Queen  Victoria's  crown,  and 
said  to  myself,  "That  little  girl  is  the  pos- 
sessor of  that  which  is  of  more  value  than 
all  the  crown  jewels  in  the  world ;"  because 
she  possessed  an  immortal  soul,  that  will  live 
either  in  bliss  or  in  misery  throughout  the 
unceasing  ages  of  eternity. 

Looking  out  over  this  vast  field  of  human 
souls,  in  which  Christ's  Church  is  called  to 
labor,  I  would  ask  you  to  pause  and  consid- 
er one  of  the  most  highly  favored  portions 
of  the  field,  as  an  evidence  of  the  need  of  Lay 
Preaching  to  aid  in  accomplishing  the  great 
work  of  the  world's  evangelization.  The 
field  to  which  I  refer  is  the  United  States  of 
America,  in  which,  according  to  the  last  cen- 
sus taken  in  1870,  the  population  is  38,5f>5,753 ; 
and  the  number  of  evangelical  churches 
54,773,  with  sittings  for  19,066,000.  From 
a  careful  estimate  which  I  have  made,  the 
average  attendance  on  the  Sabbath  will  not 
exceed  thirteen  and  a  half  millions,  and  after 
making  allowance  of  five  and  a  half  millions, 
for  children  under  five  years  of  age,  for  the 
sick,  and  those  that  are  called  upon  to  wait 
on  them,  there  remain  some  nineteen  mill- 
ions, in  this  land  of  Bibles,  churches,  and 
Sabbaths,  unreached  and  unblessed  by  the 
saving  influence  of  the  Gospel  of  Christ. 

If  further  evidence  is  wanted  to  confirm 
this  appalling  statement,  that  so  many  of  our 
sons  and  daughters  absent  themselves  from 
the  stated  means  of  grace,  I  point  you, 
then,  to  the  carefully  prepared  statistics  of 
a  city  having  a  population  of  about  250,000, 
and  with  sittings  in  evangelical  churches 
for  only  23,339  of  its  inhabitants.  On  a 
Sabbath  morning  in  October,  these  same 
churches  by  actual  count  contained  12,052 
worshipers,  and  on  the  afternoon  of  the  same 
day  this  number  was  reduced  to  8,376. 

Such,  niy  brethren,  is  the  field  and  its  des- 
titution. How,  then,  can  the  regular  or- 
dained ministry  ever  possibly  occupy  it  to 
the  full  ?  Should  they  not,  then, encourage 
and  seek  to  develop  all  the  lay  talent  at  the 
church's  disposal  ? 

Having  spoken  of  the  field,  let  us,  in  the 
second  place,  glance  briefly  at  the  seed  to  be 
sown  in  this  field.  "  The  seed  is  the  Word 
of  God,"  "  the  incorruptible  seed  of  the  king- 


STUART:  LAY  PREACHING. 


599 


dora,"  which  God  has  given ;  this  seed  is  free, 
abundant,  living,  freely  received  by  us,  and 
should  be  freely  given,  until  the  whole  earth 
be  full  of  the  glory  of  God.  The  Divine 
promise  is  that  that  seed  shall  multiply, 
sometimes  thirty,  sometimes  sixty,  sometimes 
a  hundred  fold,  spreading  on  from  heart  to 
heart  through  all  the  various  generations 
that  in  faith  receive  and  cherish  it.  It  is 
the  very  nature  of  that  seed  thus  to  spread 
in  whatever  soil  it  be  sown,  whether  in  the 
hearts  of  Christ's  faithful  ministers  or  in 
those  of  his  believing  people. 

Let  us,  then,  consider,  in  the  third  place, 
Who  shall  sow  this  seed  f  We  believe  and  hold 
fast  to  the  doctrine  of  a  holy  ministry,  called 
by  the  Holy  Ghost,  aud  set  apart  to  this  sa- 
cred office.  We  believe  also  that  all  who  have 
been  born  of  the  Spirit  should  help  in  some 
way  to  sow  the  seed  of  the  kiugdom.  Bad 
men,  in  thousands  of  ways,  sow  bad  seed, 
scattering  firebrands,  arrows,  and  death  with 
free  hand.  Good  men  should  sow  good  seed 
wherever  they  go,  seed  that  shall  produce 
grand  results  here,  aud  results  yet  more  glo- 
rious in  the  world  to  come. 

No  congregation  of  Christ's  disciples 
should  rest  satisfied  until  they  have  devel- 
oped and  brought  into  the  Masters  service 
all  the  lay  talent  which  they  possess :  and  es- 
pecially should  they  seek  to  find  a  band  of 
earnest,  intelligent,  soul- loving  men  to  act 
as  lay  preachers,  not  to  dispense  the  ordi- 
nances, but  to  "  go  out  into  the  highways 
aud  hedges,  aud  to  compel  the  people  to 
come  in,"  by  telling  in  plain  and  loving 
words  "the  old, old  story  of  Jesus  and  his 
love."  Some  there  may  be  whose  gifts  may 
qualify  them  to  devote  their  whole  time  to 
the  service  of  the  Master  as  lay  evangelists, 
like  Brownlow  North,  Varley,  aud  others 
in  England ;  Moody,  Bnrnell,  and  others  in 
America.  You  have  only  to  read  the  lives 
of  such  lay  preachers  as  Bunyan,  the  Hal- 
danes,  Matheson,  Annan,  and  men  of  like 
spirit,  to  learn  what  the  spirit  of  God  has 
accomplished  through  such  workers. 

Let  us  now,  in  the  fourth  place,  speak  of 
some  of  those  places  where  the  seed  of  the 
kiugdom  may  be  sown  by  laymen. 

All  can  and  should  speak  of  Christ  in 
their  own  families  and  in  the  daily  avoca- 
tions of  life.  How  many  that  stand  idle  in 
the  market-place  might  find  an  open  door 
of  usefulness  in  the  Sabbath-school,  either 
in  teaching  or,  at  least,  in  gathering  in  the 
neglected,  untaught  children  of  our  crowd- 
ed cities  and  towns,  or  in  distributing  tracts 
to  those  who  never  enter  the  house  of  God ! 
The  social  prayer-meeting  will  also  afford 
ample  opportunity  of  employment  for  lay 
talent.  I  would  speak,  however,  more  par- 
ticularly of  the  great  field  of  labor  for  lay- 
men which  is  to  be  found  in  the  open-air 
preaching,  Avhether  in  the  public  street,  the 
crowded  thoroughfare,  the  vacant  lot,  the 


public  park,  the  road-side,  or  the  \vay-side 
field  in  the  quiet  country.  These  places, 
no  less  than  the  consecrated  sanctuary,  have 
been  all  more  or  less  witnesses  of  the  faith- 
ful presentation  of  the  message  of  Gospel 
truth,  and  often  the  birthplace  of  many  pre- 
cious souls.  I  have  myself  been  privileged 
to  speak  a  word  for  the  Master  ou  the  streets 
of  my  owu  and  other  cities,  and  have  seen 
the  tear  of  penitence  as  it  has  flowed  down 
the  faces  of  the  hardy  sons  of  toil  as  they 
listened  to  the  words  of  Jesus. 

During  the  past  summer,  while  traveling 
in  Europe,  I  have  had  the  same  blessed  op- 
portunity of  speaking  for  Christ  in  the 
crowded  thoroughfares  of  Belfast,  Edin- 
burgh, and  London,  where  large  congrega- 
tions were  quickly  gathered,  while  a  few 
verses  of  a  familiar  hymn  were  sung.  These 
congregations,  which  I  have  seen  convened 
on  the  public  thoroughfares  of  both  the  Old 
and  the  New  World,  were  largely  made  up 
of  those  whose  general  appearance  indicated 
that  they  seldom  or  never  darkened  the 
doors  of  the  regular  places  of  public  wor- 
ship. 

If  ever  these  masses  are  to  be  brought 
under  the  influence  of  the- Gospel,  every  lay- 
man must  unite  with  the  miuistry,  and  "  go 
out  quickly  into  the  streets  and  lanes  of  the 
city,  and  bring  in  hither  the  poor,  and  the 
maimed,  and  the  halt,  and  the  blind."  He 
who  laid  that  injunction  upon  all  his  serv- 
ants was  an  opeu-air  preacher:  as  were  all 
the  prophets  whom  He  had  sent  to  the  house 
of  Israel.  It  was  by  the  way-side,  on  the 
sea-shore,  from  the  mountain,  and  among  the 
corn-fields  that  He  spake  as  never  man 
spake,  and  the  common  people  heard  Him 
gladly. 

Let  us,  in  the  fifth  and  last  place,  view 
the  extent  of  the  obligation  ;  and  here,  what 
more  is  required  than,  "Let  him  that  hear- 
eth  say,  Come.  Aud  let  him  that  is  athirst, 
Come.  Aud  whosoever  will,  let  him  take 
the  water  of  life  freely." 

Every  one  who  loves  Jesus  should  be  an 
earnest  worker  in  the  kingdom.  Were  ev- 
ery Christian  privileged  to  bring  only  one 
sinner  to  Christ  each  year,  then  in  three 
years  all  in  this  land  would  be  brought  into 
the  Ark  of  Safety,  and  in  six  years  the  world 
would  be  evangelized.  The  sainted  mission- 
ary, Kni  11,  once  said  that,  if  there  remained 
but  one  soul  on  the  globe  unconverted,  and 
if  that  soul  lived  in  the  wilds  of  Siberia, 
and  if,  in  order  to  its  conversion,  it  were 
necessary  for  every  Christian  to  make  a  pil- 
grimage there,  it  were  labor  well  spent. 

A  poor  Hindoo  was  dying  on  the  plains 
of  India,  and  sent  for  a  Brahmin,  who  told 
him,  in  answer  to  his  dying  inquiry,  that 
when  he  died  he  would  pass  iuto  another 
body.  "Aud  where  next?"  anxiously  in- 
quired the  dying  man.  "  Into  still  another 
body,"  exclaimed  the  Brahmin.  In  imagi- 


600 


CHRISTIAN  MISSIONS. 


nation  the  poor  dying  Hindoo  passed  through 
scores  and  hundreds  of  animals,  and  in  the 
agony  of  the  dying  moment  exclaimed, "  But, 
oh !  sir,  can  you  tell  me,  where  shall  I  go 
last  of  all  t"  He  passed  away  with  the  ques- 
tion of  all  questions  on  his  dying  lips  still 
unanswered  by  his  priest.  Multitudes  with- 
in the  sound  of  our  sanctuaries  are  passing 
daily  to  the  Judgment-seat,  with  the  same 
question  upon  their  lips,  unanswered. 

Years  ago,  when  a  passenger  on  board  of 
one  of  our  largest  ocean  steamers  then  afloat, 
the  cry  came  from  the  deck  that  startled  the 
captain  and  passengers,  who  were  seated  at 
their  dinner-table ;  the  two  startling  words, 
"  Stop  her  !  Stop  her !"  were  quickly  repeated, 
and  in  a  moment  our  gallant  captain  was  on 
the  quarter-deck  to  ascertain  the  cause  of 
the  alarming  order  of  the  first  officers ;  the 
wind  was  blowing  a  hurricane  at  the  time, 
and.  the  sudden  announcement,  not  "  slow- 
er," or  "  half  speed,"  but  "  stop  her !"  quick- 
ly repeated  caused  no  little  consternation. 
As  the  captain  stepped  upon  the  deck,  the 
officer  who  had  given  the  order  pointed  over 


the  larboard  quarter  to  six  men  overboard, 
and,  without  waiting  to  inquire  how  they 
got  there,  or  to  what  country  they  belonged, 
he  instantly  gave  the  order,  "Lower  away  the 
life-boat!  lower  away  the  life-boat!"  which  was 
quickly  done ;  and  while  it  was  being  done, 
he  called  for  volunteers  to  man  the  boat. 
Over  thirty  men  promptly  obeyed  the  sum- 
mons, each  one  anxious  to  be  among  the 
chosen  ten  who  should  be  privileged  to  aid 
in  saving  those  who  were  struggling  with 
the  surging  waves  of  the  ocean ;  they  went 
on  their  perilous  voyage,  and  succeeded  iu 
saving  four,  two  having  found  a  watery 
grave. 

Brethren  of  the  Convention,  multitudes 
in  all  lands  are  "  overboard,"  exposed  to  the 
dangers  of  a  more  tempestuous  sea ;  and 
while  their  cry  comes  up  to  us  for  help,  let 
the  response  of  the  Church  be, "  Lower  away 
the  life-boat "  of  saving  knowledge,  until  ev- 
ery soul  shall  be  brought  into  the  ark  of 
safety,  and  the  shout  go  up  from  every  land 
that "  the  kingdoms  of  this  world  had  become 
the  kingdoms  of  our  Lord  and  of  his  Christ." 


LAY  PREACHING. 


BY  COUNT  ANDREAS  BERNSTORFF,  OF  BERLIN,  PRUSSIA. 


ALL  Christians  at  the  present  time  agree 
that  there  is  a  vast  field  of  labor  before  us, 
one  for  which  the  existing  laborers  have  long 
ago  been  found  insufficient.  The  command 
of  the  Master,  "  Pray  ye  the  Lord  of  the 
harvest,  that  he  will  send  forth  laborers  into 
his  harvest,"  not  only  obliges  us  to  pray  for 
faithful  ministers,  for  missionaries,  who  car- 
ry the  glad  tidings  of  the  Gospel  to  the  re- 
motest countries;  it  also  urges  us  to  con- 
sider how  the  masses  of  nominally  Christian 
countries  can  be  permeated  with  a  Christian 
spirit.  In  some  places  an  increase  of  min- 
isters would  be  useful ;  but,  aside  from  the 
fact  that  it  is  difficult  at  present  to  find  suf- 
ficient men  for  the  existing  number  of  par- 
ishes, experience  in  Roman  Catholic  coun- 
tries shows  us  that  too  great  an  increase  of 
the  clergy  does  not  of  itself  promote  spirit- 
ual life.  The  desire  is  more  and  more  felt 
to  have  other  helpers  besides  those  in  the 
clerical  office — men  in  all  classes  of  society 
and  of  all  professions,  who  in  their  respect- 
ive circles  may  strive  to  win  souls  for  Christ. 
We  are  convinced  that  it  would  be  a  great 
blessing  for  the  Church  if  many  of  her  mem- 
bers, while  remaining  in  their  secular  call- 
ings, were  to  take  an  active  share  in  her 
works.  It  is,  there  fore,  just  that  we  should 
carefully  examine  into  our  authority  for  such 
working. 

Let  us  first  consult  the  Scriptures.  The 
Bible  gives  us  no  distinct  precepts  for  the 
constitution  and  organization  of  the  Church. 
It  only  teaches  us  the  great  facts  on  which 
our  faith  rests,  and  the  doctrines  derived 
from  them.  When  the  foundation  of  the 
Church  had  to  bo  laid,  the  Lord  sent  out 
his  twelve  apostles,  men  endowed  with  par- 
ticular gifts  and  an  especial  calling,  so  that 
they  might  as  chosen  vessels  preach  to  Jews 
and  Gentiles  the  great  facts  of  Redemption. 
But  when  the  apostles  abandoned  the  office 
of  serving  tables  so  as  to  give  themselves 
continually  to  the  ministry  of  the  Word, 
seven  men  were  appointed  to  attend  to  the 
daily  ministration  ;  and  these  men  also  be- 
gan to  preach  Christ,  and  with  how  great 
success!  The  same  thing  happened  with 
Apollos,  who  spake  and  taught  diligently, 
and  mightily  convinced  the  Jews ;  and  with 
Aquila  and  Priscilla. 

The  most  important  example  for  us  is  the 
foundation  of  the  Church  at  Antioch,  the 
first  flourishing  Church  among  the  heathen, 
and  the  one  in  which  the  disciples  were  first 


called  Christians.  Not  apostles,  not  evan- 
gelists, but  simple  Christians,  whom  the  per- 
secution had  scattered  abroad,  founded  this 
Church.  While  Peter  very  reluctantly  made 
up  his  mind  to  go  .to  the  Gentiles,  these  men 
of  Cyprus  and  Gyrene  "  spake  unto  the  Gre- 
cians, preaching  the  Lord  Jesus."  When  the 
tidings  of  these  things  came  to  the  ears  of 
the  apostles,  they  sent  Barnabas,  who, "  when 
he  had  seen  the  grace  of  God,  was  glad,  and 
exhorted  them  all  with  purpose  of  heart  that 
they  would  cleave  unto  the  Lord,"  for,  as  we 
read  further,  he  was  a  good  man.  He  knew, 
therefore,  how  to  recognize  the  fruits  of  the 
Spirit,  even  where  he  had  done  none  of  the 
work  himself. 

Very  instructive  for  our  subject  is  the  oth- 
erwise-difficult 14th  chapter  of  St.  Paul's  First 
Epistle  to  the  Corinthians.  I  take  for  grant- 
ed that  prophesying  means  preaching  the 
Word  of  God,  while  speaking  with  tongues 
means  speaking  in  unknown  languages  — 
a  gift  which,  like  the  apostles  at  Pentecost 
— the  first  Christians  often  received,  and  to 
which,  as  a  miraculous  gift,  they  attached 
great  value.  We  are  told  in  the  first  verse 
that  we  may  all  desire  this  gift  of  prophe- 
sying, and  in  the  fifth  verse  the  apostle  dis- 
tinctly says:  "I  would  that  ye  all  spake 
with  tongues,  but  rather  that  ye  prophe- 
sied." The  rest  of  this  chapter  teaches  us 
that  this  gift  does  not  necessarily  belong  to 
every  Christian,  but  that  all  may  desire  it, 
and  that  those  who  obtain  it  should  make 
use  of  it.  In  the  old  form  of  Divine  Service 
described  to  us  in  that  wonderful  chapter 
several  persons  could.speak  during  the  serv- 
ice, and  the  revelation  of  God,  the  impulse 
from  the  Spirit  to  preach  the  Word  of  God, 
was  not  bound  to  any  office.  Only  women 
were  not  allowed  to  preach  in  the  Church ; 
and  even  from  this  precept  it  follows  that 
all  men  without  distinction  had  the  permis- 
sion to  do  so.  St.  Paul  expects  a  great  bless- 
ing from  it,  because  he  says  that,  if  an  unbe- 
liever came  in,  he  would  be  "  convinced  of 
all." 

Let  mo  here  quote  three  very  remarkable 
passages  of  Scripture,  which,  though  they 
do  not  exclusively  refer  to  our  subject,  yet 
teach  us  that  every  testimony  for  Christ 
ought  to  be  welcome  to  us.  There  have  al- 
ways been  men  who,  with  false  zeal,  would 
hinder  and  suppress  the  preaching  of  the 
Word  of  God,  if  it  did  not  take  place  quite 
in  the  way  approved  by  them.  What  says 


602 


CHRISTIAN  MISSIONS. 


to  this  the  lawgiver  of  tbo  Old  Testament  f 
When  it  was  announced  that  Eldad  and 
M i'il: nl  had  remained  in  the  camp  and  proph- 
esied, Joshua  addressed  Moses,  asking  him, 
"  My  lord  Moses,  forbid  them ;"  hut  Moses 
answered, "  En viest  thou  for  my  sake  f  would 
God  that  all  the  Lord's  people  were  proph- 
ets, and  that  the  Lord  would  put  his  Spirit 
upon  them  "  (Numb,  xi.,  27-30).  And  what 
says  the  great  apostle  of  the  Gentiles  ?  St. 
Paul,  iu  his  Epistle  to  the  Philippians  (i., 
15-18),  writes :  "  Some  indeed  preach  Christ 
even  of  envy  and  strife ;  and  some  also  of 
good-will :  the  one  preach  Christ  of  conten- 
tion, not  sincerely,  supposing  to  add  afflic- 
tion to  my  bonds :  but  the  other  of  love, 
knowing  that  I  am  set  for  the  defense  of 
the  Gospel.  What  theuf  notwithstanding, 
every  way,  whether  iu  pretense,  or  iu  truth, 
Christ  is  preached ;  and  I  therein  do  rejoice, 
yea,  and  will  rejoice."  And  what,  finally, 
says  our  Lord  and  Master  to  such  proceed- 
ings ?  His  apostles  told  him  that  they  had 
seen  somebody  casting  out  devils  in  his  name, 
who  followed  them  not,  and  that  they  had 
forbidden  him  for  that  reason.  But  Jesus 
said :  "  Forbid  him  not :  for  there  is  no  man 
which  shall  do  a  miracle  iu  my  name,  that 
can  lightly  speak  evil  of  me  "  (Mark  ix.,  38, 
39). 

We  now  pass  to  the  history  of  the  ancient 
Church.  Unfortunately  the  accounts  of  that 
period  are  very  scarce.  Yet  we  can  take  for 
granted  that  the  primitive  form  of  divine 
service  maintained  itself  till  about  the  mid- 
dle of  the  second  century.  Ouly  at  that 
time  a  sharper  distinction  began  to  be  made 
between  the  office  of  a  bishop  and  that 
of  an  elder,  and  between  clergy  and  laity. 
This  and  the  expansion  of  the  churches  by 
the  addition  of  weak  and  impure  elements 
gradually  lessened  the  participation  of  the 
congregation.  But  this  change  only  took 
place  very  gradually.  Tertullian,  who  min- 
istered toward  the  end  of  the  second  and  the 
beginning  of  the  third  century,  still  very  de- 
cidedly maintained  that  all  Christians  are 
priests.  Yea,  even  later,  some  of  the  most 
eminent  fathers  of  the  Church  iusisted  upon 
this.  Chrysostom,  who  worked  under  di- 
vine blessing  as  Bishop  of  Coustantiuople 
since  397,  says  how  blessed  a  thing  it  is  to 
bring  others  to  Christ :  "  I  wish  and  pray," 
said  he,  "  that  ye  might  all  be  among  the 
number  of  teachers,  and  not  only  listen  to 
our  sermons,  but  also  teach  others  the  things 
we  present  unto  you,  and  convince  the  err- 
ing ;  then  God  will  increase  the  number  of 
believers,  and  the  more  you  care  for  your 
brethren  the  richer  grace  you  will  receive 
yourselves."  At  another  place  he  says,  "Let 
one  take  his  Bible,  and  call  his  friends  and 
neighbors." 

Clearer  and  more  distinctly  these  princi- 
ples came  forward  in  the  Reformation.  Un- 
fortunately our  Evangelical  Church  has  also 


had  times  of  dead  orthodoxy,  when  the  mem- 
bers of  the  congregation  gladly  left  to  him 
"  who  had  the  office  for  it"  what  they  had 
no  desire  to  do  themselves.  Still  the  prin- 
ciple of  the  priesthood  of  all  believers  was 
1  maintained  in  the  Swiss  as  well  as  in  the  Ger- 
I  man  Reformation.  As  the  Refonned  (Cal- 
j  vinist)  churches  generally  leave  more  room 
for  lay  influence,  I  shall  only  quote  hen; 
some  very  interesting  passages  from  Luther's 
writings.  "  Faith  must  do  every  thing. 
Faith  alone  is  the  true  priestly  office.  There- 
fore all  Christians  are  parsons.  There  is 
no  difference,  except  the  faith  be  unequal." 
"This  threefold  office  God  has  given  to  us  all. 
All  Christians  have  the  power  to  preach,  to 
pray  for  each  other,  to  sacrifice  themselves 
unto  the  Lord."  "  The  first  and  highest 
duty  of  the  Christian  is  to  teach  the  Word 
of  God.  That  this  is  common  to  all  is  taught 
by  the  verse :  '  Ye  are  a  royal  priesthood, 
that  ye  should  show  forth  the  praises  of 
him,  who  hath  called  you  out  of  darkness 
into  his  marvelous  light.'  Peter  not  only 
gives  them  the  right,  but  even  the  command- 
ment, that  they  shall  show  forth  the  praises 
of  God,  which,  indeed,  is  nothing  else  than 
to  preach  the  Gospel.  Paul  also  confirms 
it  when  ho  speaks  to  the  whole  congrega- 
tion, and  to  every  menajjer  individually : 
'  Every  one  of  you  hath  a  psalm,  hath  a  doc- 
trine, hath  a  tongue,  hath  a  revelation,  hath 
an  interpretation;'  and  then:  'for  ye  may 
all  prophesy  one  by  one,  that  all  may  learn 
and  all  may  be  comforted.'  What  does  he 
mean  when  he  says  every  one  ?  What  means 
the  word  all  f  With  these  verses  it  is  most 
strongly  and  clearly  asserted  that  the  high- 
est ministry  of  the  Word  of  God  is  common 
to  all  who  are  Christians,  and  not  only  as  a 
right,  but  as  a  commandment."  "  We  have 
Apollos,  of  whom  we  read  that  he  went 
to  Ephesus  without  any  other  calling,  and 
preached  there  only  out  of  burning  love, 
and  mightily  convinced  the  Jews.  So  ev- 
ery Christian  is  bound  to  do  when  he  sees 
that  there  is  want  of  the  Word  of  God,  and 
when  he  is  able  to  do  so.  We  have  another 
example  in  Stephen  and  Philip,  who  were 
only  called  to  the  office  of  serving  tables." 
"  If  it  be  so,  that  every  Christian  has  the 
Word  of  God,  he  is  also  bound  to  confess, 
teach,  and  propagate  it ;  as  the  prophet  says, 
Psalm  cxvi.,  10, '  I  believed,  therefore  have 
I  spoken;'  and  in  Psalm  li.,  he  says  of  all 
believers :  '  I  will  teach  transgressors  thy 
ways;  and  sinners  shall  be  converted  unto 
thee.'  When  a  Christian  is  at  a  place  where 
there  are  no  other  Christians,  he  wants  no 
other  calling  but  that  he  is  a  Christian,  call- 
ed and  anointed  by  God,  and  he  is  bound  to 
preach  to  the  erring  heathen  and  unbeliev- 
ers. In  such  a  case,  a  Christian  in  brother- 
ly love  contemplates  the  sad  state  of  a  lost 
soul,  and  does  not  wait  till  he  has  received 
orders  or  letters  from  princes  or  bishops." 


BERNSTORFF:  LAY  PREACHING. 


603 


"  St.  Paul  makes  the  miiiistry  common  to  all 
Christians  when  he  says,  '  teaching  and  ad- 
monishing one  another.'  The  question  is 
asked  whether  a  layman  may  also  preach, 
since  St.  Stephen  was  appointed  for  the  dai- 
ly ministration  and  not  for  preaching;  al- 
though, when  he  came  to  the  market,  he  im- 
mediately created  a  sensation  by  signs  and 
miracles.  But  St.  Stephen  stands  firm,  and 
by  his  example  gives  power  to  every  one  to 
preach,  wherever  he  may  be,  in  the  house  or 
in  the  market,  and  does  not  suffer  God's  Word 
to  be  limited  to  shaven  heads  and  long 
coats."  We  see  from  these  quotations  that 
Luther  is  very  explicit  on  the  subject. 

I  might  add  a  number  of  similar  expres- 
sions from  divines  in  the  time  of  the  Refor- 
mation and  later ;  but  that  would  lead  us  too 
far.  Let  it  suffice  to  mention  that  men  like 
Martin  Chemnitz,  John  Arnd,  John  Gerhard, 
and  with  them  a  great  number  of  witnesses, 
in  the  sixteenth  and  seventeenth  century 
stood  up  for  these  views.  Toward  the  end 
of  the  seventeenth  century  it  was  particu- 
larly Spener,  who  brought  to  light  again  the 
doctrine  of  the  priesthood  of  believers  after 
it  had  been  forgotten  for  some  time. 

An  active  participation  of  the  laity  in  the 
work  of  the  Church  has  always  been  on  the 
one  side  the  cause,  on  the  other  the  conse- 
quence, of  new  religious  life.  As  soon  as 
Christianity  began  to  be  a  real  power  in 
some  men,  they  felt  the  desire  to  bring  to 
others  the  precious  truths  they  had  received 
themselves.  On  the  other  side,  when  a  great 
number  of  Christians  attended  to  the  spirit- 
ual welfare  of  their  brethren,  the  number  of 
Christians  quickly  increased.  Spener  tried 
to  awake  this  desire  through  his  sermons, 
and  the  small  meetings  for  edification  ("  con- 
ventikel")  inaugurated  by  him  very  much 
contributed  to  bring  new  life  into  the 
Church. 

The  same  thing  happened  everywhere. 
Who  in  England  does  not  think  of  John 
Wesley,  Whitefield,  Rowland  Hill,  and  oth- 
ers, who  wanted  to  bring  life  into  the  cold 
forms  of  the  Church  I  Only  when  the  Church 
of  England  proved  too  narrow  to  suffer  such 
workmen  in  her  pale,  they  were  driven  into 
dissent.  Their  intention  was  only  to  assist 
the  work  of  the  Church  by  testimonies  of 
burning  love  from  living  members  of  the 
congregations.  And  what  then  took  place 
in  England  still  takes  place  now.  Lay  evan- 
gelists without  number  pass  through  the 
country,  men  of  high  rank  preach  to  men 
of  their  own  class,  .and  flourishing  churches 
and  rich  development  of  religious  life  are 
the  results. 

And  in  the  United  States  ?  Is  it  not  the 
same  here!  Does  not  a  Christian  here  be- 
gin to  work  as  Sunday-school  teacher,  ad- 
vancing afterward  to  the  charge  of  a  class 
of  adults,  and  then  to  all  manner  of  Christian 
work  ?  We  can  not  leave  nnmentioned  in 


|  this  connection  the  work  done  by  the  Young 
Men's  Christian  Associations. 

We  have  similar  testimony   from  some 

|  countries  of  Continental  Europe.  When  the 
old  republic  of  Geneva  had  still  the  forms 
of  Calvin's  legislation,  but  possessed  no  long- 
er his  spirit,  it  was  through  the  agency  of  a 
few  men,  some  of  them  laymen,  that  life  was 
again  restored.  When  the  revival  spread, 
numerous  evangelists  were  sent  out.  The 
Free  Church  of  Geneva  even  tried  to  return 
to  the  apostolic  form  of  divine  service  by 
arranging  after  the  sermon  a  second  part  of 
the  service  in  which  the  congregation  could 
take  part.  Rich  blessing  attended  these 
services.  And  jn  WUrtemberg  ?  It  is  that 
part  of  Germany  which  has  given  birth  to 
the  greatest  number  of  missionaries.  Why 
is  Christian  life  most  flourishing  there,  al- 
though just  there  the  cold  blast  of  rational- 
ism has  blown  so  strongly  that,  at  the  begin- 
ning of  this  century,  it  was  the  intention  to 
expel  the  "  Pietists  "entirely  out  of  the  coun- 

j  try,  had  not  a  refuge  been  offered  to  them  at 

I  Kornthal  ?  Through  small  gatherings,  chief- 
ly conducted  by  laymen,  Christianity  has 
deeply  rooted,  itself  into  the  people.  Tho 
conductors  of  these  meetings,  often  peasants, 
are  sometimes  very  venerable  characters. 

j  Until  this  day  there  is  a  service  in  the  Church 
of  Kornthal  every  Sunday  evening,  where 
the  members  of  the  congregation  taka  an 
active  part. 

We  can  affirm  with  confidence  that,  by 
the  blessing  God  has  laid  upon  lay  agency 
in  this  century,  he  has  impressed  upon  it  the 
seal  of  his  sanction.  Therefore  we  have  also 
the  right  to  assert  that  the  general  recogni- 
tion of  this  principle  would  contribute  much 
to  increase  Christian  life.  We  can  easily 
see  why  it  is  so. 

In  the  first  instance,  the  clergyman  must 
often  hear  the  reply :  "  Yon  are  obliged  to 
speak  so!"  Of  course,  this  objection  does 
not  destroy  the  power  of  the  Word  of  God, 
yet  many  a  person  is  more  easily  accessible 
when  addressed  by  a  layman.  The  volun- 
tary testimony  of  laymen  is  in  itself  a  prac- 
tical proof  of  the  change  wrought  in  them, 
a  proof  that  Christianity  is  a  real  power  in 
them.  So  their  very  word  bears  the  power 
of  an  example.  Then,  as  the  promise  that 
God's  Word  shall  not  return  void  refers  to 
the  Word  of  God  that  is  preached,  and  not 
to  him  who  preaches  it,  the  mere  numerical 
increase  of  sincere  preachers  must  be  ben- 
eficial to  the  propagation  of  the  truth.  Be- 
sides, the  Church  also  gains  inward  power 
by  it.  The  blessing  of  the  work,  to  a  great 
extent,  returns  to  him  who  does  it,  and  so 
the  spiritual  life  in  the  Church  is  increased. 
A  Christian  who  sets  himself  to  preach  the 
great  truths  of  redemption  must  enter  more 
deeply  into  the  Holy  Scriptures,being  obliged 
to  study  them  carefully.  It  also  obliges  him 
to  pray.  His  work  increases  the  number  of 


604 


CHRISTIAN  MISSIONS. 


petitions  he  has  to  bring  before  the  throne  of 
God,  and  he  will  be  convinced  by  his  work 
that  he  can  not  get  on  without  the  daily 
help  of  God.  He  is  finally  obliged  to  watch 
closer  over  his  own  life,  because  a  contra- 
diction between  his  preaching  and  his  life 
would  injure  the  efficiency  of  the  former. 

The  dangers  of  lay  preaching  are  gener- 
ally very  much  exaggerated.  It  is  possible 
that  this  privilege  may  also  be  claimed  for 
preaching  infidelity.  But  does  not  the  same 
thing  happen  in  our  pulpits  ?  And  yet,  be- 
cause some  clergymen  preach  errors  and  un- 
belief, we  do  not  abolish  the  clergy.  Prac- 
tically, only  those  who  really  love  the  Lord 
will  offer  themselves  for  a  w,ork  which,  like 
this,  involves  sacrifice.  Neither  infidelity 
nor  a  dead  faith  creates  such  a  desire.  Per- 
haps there  is  greater  danger  that  the  teach- 
ing will  be  unsound;  but  this  danger  can 
surely  be  diminished  very  much,  if  the  pas- 
tors and  the  appointed  office-bearers  of  the 
Church  give  their  attention  to  the  matter. 

It  will  hardly  be  necessary  to  say  that 
we  do  not  want  to  interfere  with  the  work 
of  the  minister.  Whether  religious  serv- 
ices, with  participation  of  the  congregation, 
may  be  arranged  here  and  there,  as  in  the 
time  of  the  apostles,  must  be  decided  in 
each  individual  case.  At  all  events,  the 
pastor  remains  the  spiritual  leader.  His 
special  work  is  not  abolished  or  lessened  by 
the  priesthood  of  all  believers.  But  there 
is,  besides,  an  immense  work  to  do,  which 
the  clergy  can  not  do  alone. 

Sunday-schools  are,  perhaps,  the  best  place 
to  accustom  and  train  young  people  to  labor 
with  the  Word  of  God.  Then  we  have  the  nu- 
merous works  of  home  mission.  The  preach- 
ing, properly  speaking,  of  laymen  ought  espe- 
cially to  have  two  objects  in  view.  1.  The 
evangelization  of  unbelievers.  A  Christian 
who,  perhaps,  does  not  yet  feel  himself  able 
to  exhort  and  strengthen  by  his  word  a  con- 
gregation of  living  Christians,  and  to  lead 
them  deeper  into  the  knowledge  of  the  ways 
of  God,  can  at  least  bear  testimony  to  the  un- 
converted of  the  faith  that  is  in  him.  The 
Church  must  go  out  to  seek  those  who  do 
not  come  to  her.  For  those  who  hesitate 
to  enter  into  a  church  occasion  must  be  giv- 
en to  hear  the  Word  of  God  at  other  places 
of  all  descriptions.  This  is  particularly  a 
work  for  laymen.  2.  Meetings  of  believers, 
besides  the  public  services.  These  are  of 
particular  blessing.  They  strengthen  be- 
lievers, and  bring  them  into  closer  com- 
munion with  each  other.  Such  meetings 
for  prayer  and  exhortation  are  best  put 
into  the  hands  of  laymen. 

For  a  salutary  development  of  this  work, 
it  is  of  the  utmost  value  to  have  the  great- 
est possible  harmony  between  the  pastor  of 
the  congregation  and  its  active  members. 
The  more  this  is  the  case,  the  smaller  the 
dangers  will  be.  The  minister  himself  has 


a  great  work  to  do  in  this  matter.  Better 
than  any  body  else  he  can  encourage  it  and 
give  practical  assistance.  He  ought  to  speak 
of  the  blessing  of  such  work  in  his  sermons. 
He  ought  to  invite  the  catechumens  to  take 
part  in  Sunday -school  work,  he  ought  to 
give  his  special  attention  to  the  Sunday- 
school  teachers,  and  form  lay  preachers  out 
of  them.  The  more  he  does  this,  the  more 
he  will  be  able  to  lead  the  movement.  The 
more  he  favors  it,  the  less  difficulties  the 
lay  preachers  will  put  in  his  way.  It  is  a 
noteworthy  fact  that,  \vhonever  a  minister 
gladly  concedes  also  to  others  the  right  of 
preaching  the  Word  of  God,  the  workers  are 
always  delighted  to  be  led  by  him ;  while  a 
minister,  who  in  priestly  arrogance  wishes  to 
keep  the  people  of  his  parish  from  snch  work, 
involuntarily  rouses  opposition  against  him- 
self. A  judicious  minister  will  not  lay  un- 
necessary fetters  on  the  lay  evangelists,  and 
not  try  to  limit  their  freedom  of  movement. 
Even  if  one  thing  or  the  other  does  not  quite 
agree  with  his  own  views,  he  will  neverthe- 
less rejoice  at  the  blessing  that  accompanies 
the  work. 

On  the  other  side,  the  lay  preachers  should 
consider  it  their  duty  to  -work,  as  far  as  pos- 
sible, in  accordance  with  the  pastor  of  the 
church  ;  they  should  especially  work  with 
perfect  openness  and  loyalty,  and  listen  as 
far  as  possible  to  the  advice  of  the  minister. 
If  in  this  way,  self-abnegation  is  practiced 
on  both  sides,  the  Lord's  kingdom  will  be 
built  up ;  and  that  is  the  desire  of  us  all ! 

I  condense  what  I  have  said  into  the  fol- 
lowing 

THESES  : 

1.  The  preaching  of  the  Word  of  God  by 
laymen,  who  have  the  necessary  ability,  is 
in  accordance  with  the  doctrines  of  Holy 
Scripture. 

2.  It  accords  with  the  practice  of  the  first 
Christian  churches. 

3.  It  is  a  consequence  of  the  principle  of 
the  Reformation  concerning  the  priesthood 
of  believers. 

4.  It  has  received  its  divine  sanction  by 
the  blessing  which  the  Lord  has  laid  upon 
it  in  the  present  century. 

5.  Its  general  introduction  would  strongly 
contribute  to  the  increase  of  religious  life. 

6.  It  must  not  interfere  with  the  public 
ministry,  but  seek  its  object  chiefly  in  small 
gatherings  of  believers  and  in  the  evangel- 
ization of  the  unbelieving  masses. 

.7.  It  is  desirable  that  the  ministers  should 
favor  and  encourage  it,  and  not  uselessly 
fetter  the  evangelists  in  their  work.  On 
the  other  hand,  lay  preachers  should  work 
in  harmony  with  the  pastor  and  gladly  list- 
en to  his  advice.* 


*  [In  the  absence  of  Count  Bernstorff,  who  could 
not  leave  the  Foreign  Office  in  Berlin,  an  abridgment 
of  his  essay  was  rea:l  before  the  Conference  by  the 
editor.] 


SECOND  SECTION-PARTICULAR  MISSIONARY  FIELDS. 


CHRISTIANITY  AMONG  THE  HINDOOS. 

BY  THE  REV.  NARAYAN  SHESHADRI,  OF  BOMBAY,  INDIA. 

[The  Rev.  N.  Sheshadri,  a  converted  Brahmin,  is  the  first  native  ordained  minister  from  India  that  has  ever 
visited  our  country.  He  was  so  much  in  demand  during  his  brief  sojourn  in  the  United  States,  that  he  had 
no  time  to  elaborate  an  essay,  but  could  only  furnish  us  with  corrected  newspaper  reports  of  several  addresses 
delivered  by  him.  From  these,  and  especially  from  the  report  of  his  speech  on  "  Christianity  in  India,"  de- 
livered before  the  Conference  on  the  10th  of  October,  the  following  paper  has  been  prepared. 

The  presence  of  this  brother  at  the  Conference,  clothed  in  his  native  dress,  and  telling  with  unaffected  sim- 
plicity, but  in  the  purest  English,  and  with  great  intelligence  and  eloquence,  the  good  old  story  of  our  own 
spiritual  experience  in  repentance,  faith,  love,  and  hope,  was  one  of  the  most  interesting  facts  connected  with 
this  remarkable  assembly.  He  stood  before  us  a  living  proof  of  the  adaptation  of  Christianity  to  all  races 
and  conditions  of  men,  and  a  practical  refutation  of  the  objections  to  foreign  missions.  His  influence  in 
promoting  missionary  zeal  will  long  be  felt.  In  him,  too,  we  witnessed  the  beneficial  effects  of  the  higher 
education  given  in  India  by  the  Scotch  Missionaries,  and  also  to  some  extent  by  our  own.  America  is  placed 
under  great  obligation  to  Dr.  Duff,  for  kindly  consenting  to  allow  Mr.  Sheshadri  to  leave  an  important  en- 
gagement in  Scotland,  in  order  to  come  to  this  side  of  the  Atlantic ;  to  Dr.  Hugh  Miller,  who  so  kindly  and 
at  considerable  sacrifice  accompanied  him,  and  to  our  own  Mr.  George  H.  Stuart,  through  whose,  indom- 
itable enterprise  the  whole  matter  was  successfully  arranged.  We  congratulate  our  Scotch  brethren  on  the 
possession  of  such  a  Missionary,  and  trust  he  may  long  be  spared  to  labor  among  his  countrymen.  He  has 
now  been  a  Christian  for  thirty  years,  and  for  over  twenty  years  a  preacher  of  that  faith  which  in  the  days 
of  his  youth  he  had  been  taught  as  a  Brahmin  to  despise.  The  perusal  of  his  views  on  missions,  as  now 
presented,  will  show  what  may  be  expected  from  men  of  his  class  and  country.— Ed.] 


IF  Manu,  the  old  Lawgiver  of  the  Hindoos, 
could  be  supposed  as  rising  from  his  ashes 
and  listening  to  the  expression  "  Christian- 
ity among  the  Hindoos,"  he  would  be  horri- 
fied, for  the  idea  of  his  law  was  that  from 
North  to  South  and  from  East  to  West  there 
should  be  nothing  but  Hindooism,  Hindoo- 
ism,  Hindooism,  to  the  absolute  exclusion  of 
every  other  system.  But  here  we  have  a 
new  theology,  a  new  code  of  morals,  and 
a  new  civilization  of  which,  Mauu  never 
heard. 

The  mention  of  Hindooism  leads  me  to 
speak  of  the  Brahmins,  for  they  are  the  very 
soul  of  Hiudooism.  They  form  the  highest 
class  in  Hindoo  society.  They  are  the  only 
authorized  interpreters  of  the  Shasters  and 
other  holy  books.  Each  Brahmin  is  a  much 
more  infallible  dignitary  than  the  Pope  of 
Rome.  In  his  right  hand  he  holds  fire,  with 
which  he  can  burn  up  the  entire  universe. 
In  his  right  ear  is  the  river  Gauges,  one  drop 
of  whose  waters  is  sufficient  to  wash  away 
the  sins  of  ten  generations  of  transgressors. 
In  his  big  toe  he  carries  the  entire  ocean. 
He  is  the  Lord  of  the  lower  world,  and  as 
such  might  appropriate  to  his  own  use  what- 
ever he  pleases.  His  law  is  infallible ;  his  in- 
terpretation of  the  sacred  books  must  be  im- 
plicitly believed;  and  he  has  taken  special 
care  to  conserve  his  system  by  prohibiting 
its  votaries  from  ever  crossing  the  seas,  the 
river  Indus,  or  visiting  foreign  lands. 

I  must  now  give  a  brief  view  of  the  sys- 


tem taught  in  the  sacred  books  composed 
by  these  Brahmins. 

THE   SACKED   BOOKS. 

These  are  known  as  the  Veda  [or  Ferfas], 
the  Shastet-s,  and  the  Purans.  Of  the  first 
there  are  four,  of  the  second  six,  and  of  the 
third  eighteen  books.  The  Veds  are  the  most 
ancient.  They  were  written  about  1400  years 
before  the  Christian  era.  The  religion  incul- 
cated in  these  earlier  books  differs  entirely 
from  that  taught  in  the  later  works.  The 
deities  mentioned  in  them  are  different.  In- 
dra,  Agni,  and  Surya,  with  numerous  god- 
desses, are  everywhere  invoked.  These  are 
merely  personifications  of  the  elements,  fire, 
the  sun,  the  air,  etc.  The  Hindoo  Triad — 
Brahma,  Vishnu,  and  Mahesh,  or  Shiv  —  is 
a  revelation  of  the  later  Shasters,  and  the 
names  of  Durga,  Ksili,  Ram,  Krishna,  Ga- 
nesh,  and  other  popular  deities  of  the  pres- 
ent day  were  then  entirely  unknown. 

The  worship  prevalent  at  the  time  the 
Teds  were  composed  seems  to  have  been 
that  of  the  sun,  moon,  stars,  fire,  air,  water, 
etc.  These  all  had  their  representative  de- 
ities, to  whom  offerings  were  made,  whose 
praises  were  sung,  and  whose  anger  was 
deprecated.  The  blessings  prayed  for  were, 
for  the  most  part,  of  a  temporal  character — 
wealth,  food,  life,  posterity,  cattle,  horses,  do- 
mestic felicity,  protection  against  enemies, 
victory  over  them,  particularly  where  these 
are  of  a  religion  differing  from  their  own,  pro- 


60C 


CHRISTIAN  MISSIONS. 


tection  against  evil  spirits,  and  the  attain- 
ment of  happiness  of  a  purely  sensual  char- 
acter— while  very  little  reference  was  made 
to  moral  and  spiritual  benefits.  The  offer- 
ings prescribed  were  chiefly  libations  and 
oblations — clarifiedbutterpouredonfire,and 
the  fermented  juice  of  the  Soma  plant  thrown 
into  the  fire,  sprinkled  on  the  floors  of  their 
dwellings,  or  on  the  ground  outside,  and 
largely  drunk  by  the  officiating  priests ! 
Worship  was  confined  chiefly  to  the  houses  of 
the  worshipers.  There  is  little  reference  to 
a  future  state,  and  even  the  immortality  of 
the  gods  themselves  is  but  faintly  indicated. 

VEDAXTISM. 

The  form  of  religion  which  succeeded  this 
was  of  a  more  philosophical  and  speculative 
character,  and  seems  to  have  been  an  out- 
growth of  that  contained  in  the  Veda.  Its 
underlying  sentiment  was,  "God  is  every 
thing,  and  every  thing  is  God."  It  em- 
bodied the  substantial  principles  of  modern 
Pantheism.  The  legitimate  consequence  of 
such  doctrine  was  the  complete  destruction 
of  all  free-will,  and  the  denial  of  even  per- 
sonal identity.  Moral  responsibility  under 
such  a  system  was  impossible,,  and  the  mul- 
tiplication of  the  objects  of  worship  paved 
the  way  for  the  introduction  of  the  great 
idolatrous  system  which  was  subsequently 
fully  developed  in  the  Shasters  and  Parana. 

The  original  centre  of  Modern  Hindooism 
was  Bramh.  This  may  be  defined  to  have 
been  the  primary  and  pervading  principle 
of  all  being,  which  from  all  eternity  remain- 
ed in  a  state  of  absolute  unconsciousness,  or 
complete  deprivation  of  all  attributes.  It 
had  existence  without  any  of  the  attributes 
of  such  a  condition.  To  the  Hindoo  mind 
there  is  no  difficulty  in  this  conception. 

The  Nirgun  of  the  Hindoo  mythology  was 
something  in  which  reposed  the  elements  of 
all  being,  all  life,  all  power,  all  extension, 
Jill  truth,  all  holiness,  all  that  we  can  possi- 
bly conceive  of  God,  and  yet  devoid  of  any 
manifestations  of  these  qualities.  It  was 
neither  masculine  nor  feminine,  but  a  pure- 
ly neutral  thing. 

THE   XIRGUN  BECOMES  8ARGUX. 

In  process  of  time  this  inanimate  neutral- 
ity manifests  signs  of  life  and  activity.  From 
its  state  of  profound  repose  it  suddenly  be- 
gins to  put  forth  developments  of  character 
that  show  it  to  be  possessed  of  every  con- 
ceivable attribute  necessary  to  the  Supreme 
Creator,  Preserver,  and  Governorof  all  things. 
The  term  "Sar-gun"  means  possessed  of"  all 
attributes,"  or,  in  other  words,  this  Being  now 
appears  as  the  universal  centre  of  all  forces, 
physical,  intellectual,  moral,  and  spiritual. 
It  has  become  endowed  with  the  power  of 
creating,  preserving,  and  destroying,  and  in 
each  of  these  capacities  it  soon  proceeds  to 
manifest  itself  in  a  tangible  form.  This  sud- 


den transition  presents  no  difficulty  to  the 
mind  of  the  orthodox  Hindoo.  To  his  mind 
this  huge  colossus  presents  an  image  having 
the  sun  and  moon  for  its  eyes,  the  trees  and 
rocks  for  its  nails,  and  the  remaining  por- 
tions of  the  universe  for  its  body.  This 
mighty  power,  once  set  free  from  the  leth- 
argy that  from  eternity  had  bound  its  ener- 
gies, soon  expands  into  the  full-blown  pan- 
theon of  the  Brahmiuical  imagination,  and 
peoples  the  universe  with  gods  and  demi- 
gods, fiends  and  demons,  to  the  number  of 
330,000,000.  Many  of  these  are  the  sons  and 
grandsons  of  the  three  principal  divinities, 
Brahma,  Vishnu,  and  Shiv.  These  deities  are 
divided  into  classes ;  they  are  of  all  colors, 
shapes,  and  figures,  sometimes  human,  some- 
times semi -human,  many -headed,  many- 
eyed,  many-handed,  many-footed  monsters. 
They  ride  on  elephants,  buffaloes,  lions,  ti- 
gers, deer,  sheep,  goats,  peacocks,  vultures, 
geese,  swans,  serpents,  and  rats !  They  are 
engaged  in  all  sorts  of  pursuits,  perform  ac- 
tions of  all  shades  of  morality,  and  are  mix- 
ed up  with  all  affairs  whether  in  heaven, 
earth,  or  hell.  They  delight  in  good  and 
evil  alike ;  they  enjoy  both  war  and  peace ; 
they  love  to  preserve  life,  while  they  delight 
in  the  blood  of  their  enemies  or  of  victims 
sacrificed  in  their  honor;  they  lie,  they  steal, 
they  commit  adultery;  they  are  covetous, 
blasphemous,  and  quarrelsome,  while  they 
represent  every  thing  that  is  conceivable  as 
good! 

The  people  who  worship  them  have  be- 
come like  them.  Having  such  examples  be- 
fore them  in  the  character  of  their  gods, 
what  can  we  expect  the  people  themselves 
to  bef 

LITERATURE   OF  THE   SACRED  BOOKS. 

These  sacred  books  not  only  treat  of  the 
character  of  their  gods,  but  also  professed- 
ly contain  vast  stores  of  Hindoo  literature. 
They  treat  of  chronology,  astronomy,  geog- 
raphy, and  science,  and  various  other  branch- 
es of  knowledge.  Their  chronology  reaches 
back  4,000,000  of  years ;  their  astronomy  di- 
vides the  universe  into  fourteen  great  worlds 
or  systems  of  worlds,  seven  below  our  own, 
and  seven,  including  ours,  above.  Our  own 
earth  is  declared  to  be  flat.  It  consists  of 
seven  circular  islands,  each  surrounded  by 
a  separate  ocean.  The  central  portion  is 
called  Jambu-Dwip,  outside  of  which  is  the 
great  salt  water  sea ;  outside  of  that  comes 
the  second  portion  of  land,  and  around  this 
flows  an  ocean  of  sugar-cane  juice;  then 
the  third,  around  which  we  have  the  sea  of 
spirituous  liquors ;  then  the  fourth,  and  its 
sea  of  clarified  butter;  the  fifth,  with  its 
sea  of  curds ;  next,  the  sixth,  and  its  ocean 
of  milk  ;  and,  lastly,  the  seventh,  with  its 
sea  of  fresh  water.  Beyond  this  last  ocean 
we  have  a  country  of  pure  gold  and  of  pro- 
digious magnitude,  whose  virgin  soil  has 


SHESHADRI :  CHRISTIANITY  AMONG  THE  HINDOOS. 


607 


never  jet  been  trodden  by  the  foot  of  man. 
The  diameter  of  this  world  is  500,000,000  of 
jojans  in  extent  (the  jojan  being  eight  miles). 
In  the  very  centre  of  Jambn-Dwip  rises 
Mount  Sumeru.to  the  height  of  600,000  miles, 
in  the  form  of  an  inverted  pyramid.  At  its 
base  it  is  128,000  miles  in  circumference,  at 
its  top  it  is  356,000  miles,  and  around  its 
base  rise  little  hills,  the  trees  on  which  reach 
the  modest  altitude  of  8800  miles  in  height. 
Time  will,  not  allow  me  to  speak  of  the  oth- 
er worlds,  the  distances  of  which  from  ours 
and  from  each  other  are  all  distinctly  speci- 
fied. These  are  all  destined  to  be  the  abodes 
of  spirits,  terrestrial  and  celestial.  In  the 
highest  of  these  is  the  chief  residence  of 
Brahma,  the  glory  of  which  we  are  told 
could  not  be  described  by  the  most  eloquent 
tongue  or  scribe  in  200  years !  Of  the  same 
extravagant  character  is  most  of  the  teach- 
ing of  the  Shasters,  and  when  we  come  to 
examine  the  Purans  in  the  light  of  Chris- 
tian morality  they  are  found  to  be  simply 
revolting. 

MY  CONVERSION. 

There  was  a  time  when  I  believed  in  these 
things.  I  was  born  and  brought  up  as  a 
Brahmin*  and  as  a  Brahmin  I  was  taught  to 
believe  that  I  myself  was  a  god  upon  earth — 
that  God  became  incarnate  in  me  when  I 
was  born — and  with  this  belief  I  grew  up. 
I  thought  it  my  right  to  claim  divine  honors, 
and  these  were  freely  accorded  to  me.  It 
was  a  life  of  the  highest  pretensions  and  the 
meanest  realities. 

It  may  interest  you  to  know  how  I  came 
to  abandon  this  system,  and  to  embrace  the 
religion  of  the  Christian.  At  first  I  despised 
the  Bible.  I  did  not  wish  to  know  any 
thing  about  it,  for  I  had  an  idea  that  its 
teachings  were  subversive  of  my  belief  and 
position  as  a  Brahmin.  But  the  Lord,  who 
is  most  Avonderful  in  his  ways  of  working, 
used  this  very  system  of  religion  iu  which 
I  was  brought  up  to  empty  me  of  myself, 
free  me  from  the  trammels  of  idolatry,  and 
bring  me  to  himself.  One  day,  standing  on 
the  beach  at  Bombay,  and  looking  out  upon 
the  mighty  waves  of  the  ocean,  lashed  into 
fury  by  the  storms  of  the  monsoon,  I  began 
to  think  of  a  legend  that  is  recorded  iu  the 
Hindoo  Scriptures,  regarding  a  man  who  is 
esteemed  by  them  a  mighty  sage,  and  who, 
on  account  of  his  good  deeds,  the  austeri- 
ties he  had  undergone,  and  his  remarkable 
holiness,  has  obtained  a  seat  in  a  constel- 
lation in  one  of  those  heavens  I  have  re- 
ferred to.  This  wonderful  man,  known  as 
Agastya  Rishi,  is  said  to  have  drunk  up 
the  entire  ocean — the  Atlantic,  the  Pacific, 
the  Indian,  aud  the  Northern  and  Southern 
Oceans — all  with  only  three  sips.  Credulous 
as  I  was  at  that  time,  this  was  too  much  for 
my  credulity,  aud  I  began  to  doubt  the  cor- 
rectness of  the  story  thus  recorded.  This 


was  the  starting-point.  It  set  me  to  think- 
ing about  religion.  Then  a  great  many  oth- 
er stories  passed  in  review  through  my  mind. 
One  of  these  was  the  story  related  of  Hanu- 
man,  or  the  Monkey-god.  He  is  represented 
as  carrying  iu  one  hand  a  monstrous  club 
with  which  he  can  destroy  all  his  foes,  and 
in  another  hand  a  mountain  which  he  can 
take  up  and  hurl,  as  a  man  would  a  pebble, 
into  the  midst  of  his  enemies.  Not  only 
can  he  carry  a  mountain  on  one  hand,  but  it 
is  said  that  he,  on  one  occasion,  carried  a 
mountain  on  each  hair  of  his  body.  Then 
it  is  said  that  this  same  Monkey-god  had  a 
very  long  tail,  and  he  used  this  tail  for  the 
destruction  of  the  island  of  Ceylon.  He 
wrapped  a  cloth  around  the  end  of  his  tail, 
dipped  it  into  oil,  set  this  on  fire,  and  with 
this  torch  ignited  the  entire  island,  which, 
we  are  told,  still  continues  to  blaze  to  the 
present  time.  When  he  found  his  tail  be- 
coming too  hot,  he  plunged  into  the  Indian 
Ocean,  and  there  extinguished  the  flame. 
This  punishment  was  inflicted  on  Ceylon 
because  its  king,  Ra"wan,  had  stolen  the 
beautiful  Sita,  the  wife  of  Ram  Chandar, 
King  of  Oude,  in  Northern  India,  who  would 
never  have  been  able  to  recover  her  but  for 
the  assistance  of  this  Monkey-god. 

I  began  to  think  that  surely  these  things 
could  not  be  revelations  from  God.  Then  I 
was  told  that  there  were  two  kinds  of  relig- 
ion, one  for  the  wise  and  learned,  and  anoth- 
er for  the  ignorant  and  foolish ;  that  as  yet  I 
had  only  learned  the  latter,  and  that  I  must 
now  become  acquainted  with  the  former.  I 
was  told  that  in  the  new  faith  there  was 
enough  to  satisfy  the  wisest  aud  greatest 
philosophers.  We  have  had,  and  still  have, 
a  great  deal  of  this  so-called  philosophy  in 
India,  more,  perhaps,  than  you  have  in  this 
Western  World,  or  exists  among  the  people 
of  Eugland,  Scotland,  and  Ireland.  I  thought 
perhaps  there  might  be  something  iu  that 
philosophical  system  which  had  been  recom- 
mended to  me.  I  began  to  study  it,  and  just 
about  this  time  the  scholarship  of  the  West 
came  to  my  assistance.  The  sacred  boots 
of  the  Hindoos  had  begun  to  be  translated 
into  English,  and  I  was  enabled  to  read  them 
iu  that  language,  and  hear  the  commentaries 
upon  their  contents  by  those  learned  men 
under  whom  I  was  pursuing  my  studies.  I 
found  innumerable  prayers  addressed  to  the 
god  of  the  sea,  the  gods  of  the  firmament, 
and  the  god  of  the  winds;  but  there  was 
nothing  very  remarkable  that  struck  me  iu 
those  prayers,  nothing  to  satisfy  the  longings 
of  an  earnest  soul,  nothing  to  take  away  my 
sense  of  sin  and  guilt ;  for  about  that  time  I 
began  to  be  very  much  afraid  of  death,  aud 
I  longed  for  something  that  could  give  me 
peace.  Bombay  was  very  badly  drained  in 
those  days,  and  we  had  cholera  almost  ev- 
ery year,  and  I  used  to  fear  that  I  would  be 
taken  away  in  one  of  these  visitations.  I 


608 


CHRISTIAN  MISSIONS. 


found  that  the  prayers  of  the  Veds  could  not 
satisfy  my  soul  at  such  a  time.  Such  a  pray- 
er, for  instance,  as  the  following :  "  Oh  thou 
who  ridest  in  a  car  drawn  by  two  milk-white 
horses,  come  to  our  sacrificial  feast,  and  drink 
of  the  moon-plant  juice,  and  be  drunk,  and 
eat  of  the  viands  we  have  prepared  for  thee." 
There  were  whisky-drinking  gods  in  those 
days.  There  was  nothing  in  such  prayers 
that  could  satisfy  me. 

Then  there  was  still  a  third  system  of 
faith,  which  professed  to  be  even  more  philo- 
sophical, viz.,  Vedantism,  which  I  have  al- 
ready shown  to  be  pure  pantheism,  a  system 
which  annihilates  man's  identity  and  de- 
stroys all  idea  of  moral  responsibility ;  which 
teaches  that  man  may  commit  the  greatest 
sins  imaginable,  and  escape  from  the  conse- 
quences under  the  plea  that  it  is  not  he  that 
commits  them,  but  God  himself.  Reflection 
showed  me  that  such  a  system  was  blasphe- 
mous. None  of  the  systems  set  forth  among 
the  Hindoos  could  satisfy  me. 

In  this  state  of  mind  my  thoughts  turned 
to  Christianity,  and  I  remembered  the  teach- 
ings of  those  eminent  men  under  whom  I 
was  then  prosecuting  my-  studies.  Dr.  Wil- 
son, who,  by-the-way,  was  regarded  as  a  great 
sorcerer  by  the  ignorant  Hindoos,  on  account 
of  the  number  of  people  that,  through  his  in- 
strumentality, had  embraced  the  Gospel,  had 
told  me  to  read  the  Twenty-second  Psalm 
and  the  fifty -third  chapter  of  Isaiah,  and 
then  turn  to  the  writings  of  the  Evangelists, 
and  compare  the  former  with  the  latter,  stat- 
ing that,  if  I  did  so,  he  was  sure  I  could  not 
remain  a  Hindoo.  I  had  ceased  to  consider 
Dr.  Wilson  a  sorcerer,  as  he  had  never  prac- 
ticed any  such  arts  upon  me.  I  concluded 
to  read  the  passages  he  had  pointed  out.  I 
did  so,  and,  as  I  considered  them,  the  whole 
field  of  prophecy  opened  up  before  me'.  I 
became  convinced  that  the  Bible  was  no 
cunningly  devised  fable,  but  that  the  holy 
men  who  wrote  it  did  so  as  they  were  moved 
by  the  Holy  Ghost.  Ever  since  that  time 
the  Bible  became  my  constant  companion. 
I  took  great  delight  in  attending  the  classes 
of  our  blessed  missionaries.  There  was  one 
missionary*  to  whom  I  am  under  special  ob- 
ligation, as  it  was  he  who  made  me  thorough- 
ly acquainted  with  the  doctrines  of  justifi- 
cation by  faith  in  Christ,  and  sanctification 
through  the  Spirit.  The  doctrine  of  the 
Cross  presented  a  sublimity  to  my  mind  that 
nothing  else  could  equal,  and  I  asked,  Was 
it  possible  that  Matthew,  Mark,  Luke,  and 
John,  these  illiterate  fishermen  of  Galilee, 
could  have  of  themselves  invented  these 
facts  and  doctrines,  which  to  me  seemed  far 
/  more  sublime  than  any  thing  ever  conceived 
of  by  Socrates  and  Plato  ?  I  concluded  that 
these  writers  must  have  been  led  by  God 
himself;  and  now  that  thirty  years  have 


•  The  Rev.  Robert  Nesbit. 


elapsed  since  first  this  thought  took  posses- 
sion of  my  heart,  it  is  still  as  fresh  as  ever. 
The  facts  of  the  Gospel  there  presented  re- 
main the  same  to-day  as  they  were  1800 
years  ago,  and  must  remain  unchangeably 
the  same  to  the  latest  age ;  and  I  resolved  to 
embrace  the  religion  that  teaches  them. 

Having  made  up  my  mind  to  become  a 
Christian,  I  was  baptized  on  the  13th  of 
September,  1843,  and  then  commenced  to 
study  for  the  ministry.  I  was  licensed  to 
preach  in  1851,  and  in  1854  was  ordained  to 
the  work  of  an  evangelist,  or  missionary  to 
my  own  countrymen. 

MISSIONARY  LABOR. 

I  labored  for  a  long  time  in  Bombay,  and 
afterward  I  went  into  the  interior  of  the 
country,  and  for  the  last  ten  years  have  been 
laboring  there. 

We  have  now  a  net-work  of  railroads 
throughout  many  parts  of  the  country  of 
some  5000  miles  in  extent,  and  more  in  proc- 
ess of  construction.  We  can  get  on  one  of 
our  railroads  and  perform  the  circuit  of  the 
country  in  a  very  few  days ;  and  as  ev- 
ery class  of  people  is  very  anxious  to  take 
advantage  of  this  mode  of  communication, 
I  thought  we  missionaries  ought  not  to  be 
behind  others,  and  that  we  ought  to  avail 
ourselves  of  this  means  of  carrying  the  Gos- 
pel to  remote  regious.  With  this  idea  m 
view  I  founded  several  stations  along  the 
North-eastern  line  of  the  Great  Indian  Pen- 
insular railroad,  and  the  South-western  liuo 
of  the  same  company.  I  have  one  station 
on  this  line  that  requires  special  notice.  In 
1864  I  went  there  to  pay  a  visit  to  two  na- 
tive Christians  who  were  baptized  by  my 
friend,  Dr.  Murray  Mitchell,  and  whose  work 
I  found  to  be  taking  effect  on  a  certain  class 
of  people.  I  stopped  there  a  few  weeks,  and 
instructed  them  in  the  Word  of  God,  and  bap- 
tized thirteen  or  fourteen  individuals.  In 
that  station,  in  the  year  1864,  there  were 
only  two  Christians,  but  in  1873  there  are 
upward  of  500,  young  and  old.  In  Jalna  we 
have  no  fewer  than  6  full  catechists,  10  as- 
sistant catechists,  3  colporteurs,  and  6  Bible 
women.  In  1864  we  had  not  a  single  reader 
of  God's  Word,  but  now  we  have  125  readers 
of  God's  Word  in  our  Christian  Church,  and 
it  is  a  delightful  and  gratifying  fact  to 
hear  the  voice  of  praise  and  thanksgiving 
proceeding  from  the  lips  which  never  be- 
fore uttered  auy  thing  consistent  with  God's 
praise.  Then  we  have  from  among  the 
heathen  1400  children  and  youth  under 
Christian  instruction  in  our  schools.  These 
scholars  are  taught  after  the  most  approved 
systems  of  your  own  land.  Our  schools 
are  carried  on  on  Biblical  principles,  and 
the  Bible  rules  all  our  studies,  and  the  ef- 
fect is  there,  as  it  has  been  here,  most 
gratifying. 

I  may  mention  here  that  I  recently  re- 


SHESHADRI:  CHRISTIANITY  AMONG  THE  HINDOOS. 


609 


ceived  a  grant  of  laud  of  800  acres  from ! 
the  government  of  his  highness  the  Nizam  [ 
of  Hyderabad,  on  which  I  am  planting  a 
Christian  colony.  The  town  is  called  Beth- 
el. It  is  to  be  constructed  on  good  sanitary 
principles,  with  wide  streets,  trees  planted 
on  either  side,  good  drains,  and  comfortable 
houses.  I  have  appropriated  300  acres  to 
the  town,  and  hold  the  rest  for  the  purpose 
of  cultivation.  I  have  already  constructed  a 
large  well,  and  hope,  when  I  return,  to  carry 
on  this  enterprise  with  vigor  to  a  successful 
result.  I  deem  it  of  the  utmost  importance 
to  my  work,  and  ask  for  it  the  sympathy 
and  support  of  my  Christian  friends  here 
and  in  the  British  Isles. 

One  of  our  greatest  obstacles  is  the  sys- 
tem of  caste,  which  is  much  more  formida- 
ble than  were  the  feudal  castles  of  the  Mid- 
dle Ages.  There  are  four  principal  castes 
among  the  Hindoos  —  the  Brahmins,  the 
Warriors,  the  Mercantile  and  the  Servile 
castes.  These  have  again  been  subdivided 
into  an  almost  innumerable  multitude  of 
subordinate  castes,  the  rules  in  regard  to 
all  which  are  most  imperious.  The  slight- 
est deviation  from  these  brings  down  upon 
the  offender  the  combined  vengeance  of  the 
entire  tribe.  To  become  a  Christian  is  the 
most  malignant  of  all  offenses  against  caste. 
Hence  the  zeal  with  which  all  converts  are 
so  eagerly  persecuted.  Before  the  light  of 
the  Gospel,  however,  this  caste  is  giving  way. 
And  this  reminds  mo  that  I  must  here  turn 
again  to  the  subject  with  which  I  set  out. 

PROSPECTS  OF  CHRISTIANITY  IX  INDIA. 

At  first  sight  it  would  appear  simply  im- 
possible that  this  new  religion  should  ever 
make  any  headway  in  such  a  country,  and 
the  missionaries,  if  they  had  not  faith  in 
the  truths  and  verities  of  the  Bible,  might 
have  given  up  the  task  and  returned  to 
Great  Britain,  or  America,  or  Germany ;  but 
these  men  came  to  our  land  possessed  of  a 
firm  confidence  in  the  Gospel  of  the  Lord 
Jesus  Christ,  and  in  the  power  of  their  risen 
and  glorified  Redeemer.  His  great  commis- 
sion to  his  Church  was,  "  Disciple  all  na- 
tions." The  manner  in  which  this  was  to 
be  done  was  very  much  left  to  the  discre- 
tion of  the  missionary,  according  to  the  light 
he  possessed. 

Accordingly  we  have  in  India  had  various 
agencies  at  work,  some  teaching  in  schools, 
some  preaching  in  bazars,  at  melas,  and  oth- 
er places  of  assemblage.  Many  people  did 
not  like  this  latter  method.  They  would 
not  condescend  to  stand  in  a  crowd  to  hear 
the  Word  preached.  They  despised  such 
preaching  as  this.  They  were  satisfied  with 
their  own  systems.  Some  of  the  missiona- 
ries, to  reach  this  class,  established  schools, 
colleges,  and  other  seminaries  of  learning. 

Dr.  Duff,  for  instance,  when  he  went  to 
Calcutta  in  1830,  found  that  the  people 
39 


there  were  not  accessible  to  street  preach- 
ers. He  determined  to  set  up  a  school  in 
which  all  the  knowledge  of  Western  Europe 
should  be  imparted.  He  was  prepared  to 
teach  science,  literature,  and  religion  in  a 
manner  equal  to  that  of  the  best  schools  of 
modern  times,  and  nobly  has  he  succeeded. 
The  institution  he  founded,  and  for  many 
years  ably  conducted,  became  a  mighty  pow- 
er in  India.  It  has  not  only  itself  exerted  a 
powerful  influence  through  its  own  teach- 
ings, but  it  has  become  the  model  after 
which  all  good  missionary  schools  have  since 
been  formed.  From  the  day  he  first  opened 
this  school  to  the  present  time  the  Bible  has 
ruled  all  the  other  studies.  He  found  a 
Large  number  of  very  intelligent  men,  many 
of  whom  had  been  educated  in  government 
schools  and  colleges,  who  had  imbibed  skep- 
tical notions  that  were  neither  good  for  Hin- 
dooism  nor  for  Christianity.  To  counteract 
this  he  instituted  lectures ;  and  week  after 
week  he  and  his  brethren  lectured  iu  Cal- 
cutta on  Christianity,  natural  and  reveal- 
ed religion,  ethics,  etc.,  etc. ;  and  the  conse- 
quence was  that  a  number  of  very  intelli- 
gent young  men,  who  attended  these  lec- 
tures, admitted  the  claims  of  Christianity, 
and  finally  declared  their  faith  in  the  Lord 
Jesus  Christ.  There  was  one  particular 
young  man,  Mr.  K.  M.  Banuerjee,  editor  of  a 
paper  called  The  Inquirer,  who  Avrote  a  se- 
ries of  articles  in  his  paper  that  were  very 
influential  at  that  time.  He  himself  em- 
braced Christianity,  studied  for  the  minis- 
try, was  ordained  to  that  work,  and  is  now 
exercising  a  very  great  influence  upon  the 
people  of  Calcutta.  Others  followed  his  ex- 
ample, and  that  great  institution,  founded 
in  1830,  has  since  that  time  been  eminently 
blessed  in  preparing  agents  for  missionary 
work  in  all  parts  of  India.  I  speak  its 
praises,  not  because  I  am  one  of  the  mission- 
aries of  that  church  to  which  it  belongs. 
I  but  re-echo  the  opinions  of  all  classes  of 
the  people,  from  the  viceroy  down  through 
all  grades  of  government  servants,  civilians, 
military  men,  merchants,  missionaries,  and 
others  who  have  no  connection  with  mis- 
sions, who  have  visited  it  and  examined  its 
students,  and  have  all  acknowledged  its 
worth  as  a  powerful  regenerating  agency  in 
that  great  city.  At  the  present  time  there 
are  no  fewer  than  1300  pupils  receiving  an 
education  there. 

This  will  give  you  some  faint  idea  of 
the  progress  made  by  education  in  Calcutta. 
The  London  Missionary  Society  has  a  simi- 
lar institution  there,  and  the  English  Church 
Missionary  Society  has  a  very  good  college, 
with  a  staff  of  professors,  though  with  no 
preparatory  department.  There  are  other 
Christian  schools  in  addition  to  these. 

All  these  agencies  have  been  the  means 
of  bringing  about  a  great  revolution  among 
a  large  number  of  the  people  of  Calcutta. 


610 


CHRISTIAN  MISSIONS. 


But  what  has  been  accomplished  in  Calcut- 
ta has  also  been  done  in  Bombay,  Madras, 
Allahabad,  Lucknow,  Nagpoor,  Agra,  Delhi, 
Amritsar,  Lahore,  and  in  many  other  large 
stations  •where  missions  have  been  estab- 
lished. But  besides  those  who  have  em- 
braced Christianity  there  is  another  influ- 
ential class,  who,  though  still  Hindoos  and 
Mohammedans,  have  been  drawn  toward 
Christians  by  the  collateral  influences  that 
have  been  brought  to  bear  upon  them. 
These  men  have  received  their  education 
mostly  in  missionary  schools  and  colleges, 
and  when  they  go  out  into  the  world  they 
still  find  the  missionaries  to  be  among  their 
best  friends,  ever  ready  to  lend  them  a  help- 
ing hand,  and  to  hold  friendly  social  inter- 
course with  them.  There  is  no  class  in  the 
English  community  in  whose  society  our 
educated  people  find  so  much  pleasure  as  in 
that  of  the  missionaries.  Their  houses  are 
always  open,  they  are  prepared  to  treat  the 
people  on  terms  of  social  equality.  During 
this  familiar  intercourse  their  difficulties  are 
laid  open  and  views  are  freely  exchanged  on 
all  the  leading  topics  of  the  day.  Then  they 
readily  attend  missionary  lectures,  and  in 
various  other  ways  enjoy  that  familiar  in- 
tercourse with  the  missionaries  which  can 
only  be  had  Avith  men  of  Christian  hearts, 
and  whose  hearts  yearn  for  the  salvation 
of  immortal  souls.  By  all  these  influences 
they  are  drawn  to  Christianity,  and  now  be- 
gin to  look  upon  it  as  the  greatest  civilizing 
power  in  the  whole  world.  Not  only  so,  but 
many  of  this  class  would  prefer  that  their 
children  should  grow  up  Christians,  rather 
than  that  they  should  imbibe  that  species 
of  infidelity  which  so  frequently  results 
from  government  education  in  schools  from 
which  the  Bible  is  excluded. 

The  old  schools  of  Hindoo  philosophy 
are  fast  losing  their  influence  on  the  people. 
Caste  prejudices  are  fast  disappearing  be- 
fore these  schools  in  which  Christian  in- 
struction is  imparted,  and  I  am  happy  to 
be  able  to  declare  in  this  place,  that  caste, 
at  the  present  day,  has  no  more  power  over 
hundreds  of  thousands  of  my  educated  coun- 
trymen than  it  has  over  you.  Caste  is  a 
purely  ceremonial  thing.  It  teaches  that 
religion  consists  in  eating  and  drinking  cer- 
tain things  in  certain  ways.  But  Christi- 
anity teaches  that  it  is  not  that  which  en- 
tereth  the  mouth  which  defileth  the  man, 
but  that  which  cometh  out  of  the  mouth. 
Christianity  grounds  its  disciples  thorough- 
ly in  the  doctrine  of  human  depravity  and 
human  guilt ;  and  shows  that  this  depravi- 
ty and  this  guilt  can  only  be  got  rid  of  by 
the  blood  of  Jesus  Christ.  "  The  blood  of 
Jesus  Christ  clcanseth  from  all  sin,"  and 
when  they  are  brought  to  this  belief,  then 
these  glorious  truths  that  have  been  so 
beautifully  illustrated  and  unfolded  in  this 
alliance— the  fellowship  with  the  Father, 


the  Sou,  and  the  Holy  Spirit  —  and  true 
Christian  fellowship  with  one  another — be- 
come evident  and  are  found  to  be  reducible 
to  practice  in  all  simplicity,  sincerity,  and 
truth. 

And  now  for  a  word  or  two,  before  I  con- 
clude, about  this  Alliance.  When  I  was  in 
ray  own  country,  America  was  always  asso- 
ciated in  my  mind  with  Theodore  Parker, 
Emerson,  and  other  writers  of  the  same 
school  of  thought,  and  I  had  a  kind  of  im- 
pression that  Evangelical  Christianity  had 
but  a  very  feeble  hold  of  the  minds  and 
hearts'  of  your  people.  But  since  I  came 
here,  what  have  I  seen  ?  Day  after  day, 
throughout  the  sessions  of  this  Alliance,  I 
have  found  not  only  this  one  building  filled 
to  overflowing,  but  three  or  four  others 
generally  called  into  requisition,  and  as  yet 
there  seems  no  diminution  of  the  interest 
taken  in  these  meetings  by  all  classes  of  the 
community.  The  presence  of  these  vast  as- 
semblies in  the  great  commercial  capital  of 
this  country  convinces  me  that  as  a  people 
you  are  not  tired  of  Christianity,  and  have 
no  desire  to  banish  it  from  your  midst.  It 
seems  to  me  that  though  Emerson,  Theodore 
Parker,  and  others  may  talk  otherwise,  there 
is  not  the  slightest  doubt  that  the  great 
mass  of  the  people  here  have  the  love  of 
God  in  their  hearts,  and  delight  to  make 
known  the  truth  that  God  has  revealed  in 
his  Word. 

Now,  one  of  the  effects  of  this  great  Alli- 
ance will  be  to  convince  my  countrymen 
that  there  are  hearts,  thousands  of  hearts, 
millions  of  hearts,  that  yearn  for  the  salva- 
tion of  the  240,000,000  of  my  own  country- 
men. Let  every  American  who  may  here- 
after visit  the  shores  of  India — and  there  are 
many  who  do  visit  them — not  as  mission- 
aries, but  as  merchants,  as  sailors,  as  engi- 
neers, as  travelers,  and  I  know  not  in  how 
many  other  capacities — but  let  every  one  of 
them,  yea,  let  all  who  come,  whether  Amer- 
icans, Germans,  French,  English,  Scotch,  or 
Irish,  come  there  as  living  members  of  the 
Lord  Jesus  Christ,  and  they  will  then  be 
preachers  of  sermons  more  eloquent,  and 
calculated  to  produce  far  greater  results, 
than  even  the  sermons  of  your  own  Henry 
Ward  Beecher. 

Judging  from  the  progress  that  Chris- 
tianity has  made  in  India  during  the  last 
half- century,  I  am  full  of  hope  and  encour- 
agement. It  may  be  before  this  generation 
has  passed  away,  we  may  have  the  happi- 
ness to  receive  hundreds  of  thousands  of  my 
countrymen  into  the  Church  of  the  living 
God.  And,  oh,  what  a  consummation  that 
would  be!  You  are  accustomed  to  look 
upon  your  own  country  as  a  grand  one — 
and,  indeed,  it  is  a  grand  land  —  and  your 
continent  as  a  grand  continent,  and  so  it  is; 
but  I  come  from  a  country  that  is  nearly  as 
grand  as  your  own  country.  You  talk  of 


SHESHADRI :   CHRISTIANITY  AMONG  THE  HINDOOS. 


611 


your  high  mountains !  Why,  we  have  the 
highest  mountains  in  the  world !  You  talk 
of  your  rivers !  We,  too,  have  gigantic  riv- 
ers— the  Ganges,  the  Indus,  the  Nerbudda, 
and  the  Krishna.  We  are  governed,  too,  by 
one  of  the  most  enlightened,  most  benefi- 
cent, and  most  progressive  governments  iu 
the  whole  world.  Christian  England  is  no- 
bly represented  in  that  land  by  some  of  the 
ablest  statesmen  of  modern  times,  and  our 
rulers  are  performing  wonders  in  opening 
up  the  country,  and  in  developing  its  hith- 
erto unexplored  resources.  All  these  move- 
ments tend  to  spread  intelligence,  wealth, 
and  civilization.  Ah!  there  is  indeed  a 
great  national  awakening  of  the  whole  land ; 
and,  although  my  forefathers  tried  to  keep 
my  people  secluded  from  the  rest  of  the 
world,  we  have  at  last  broken  the  shackles 
of  caste,  and  thrown  away  the  bull  of  infal- 
libility, and  we  can  now  travel  not  only 
to  Europe,  but  come  even  to  your  country, 
or  go  to  China,  or  to  any  other  part  of  the 
world.  So  that  we  can  receive  enlighten- 
ment and  civilization  from  all  lands.  Nay, 
beyond  all  these  benefits,  the  Sun  of  right- 
eousness has  himself  risen  there  with  heal- 
ing in  his  wings,  and  at  present  many  thou- 
sands rejoice  in  his  light. 

One  of  the  delegates  said  the  other  day 
there  would  be  no  successor  to  this  meeting 
of  the  Alliance ;  that  Europe  could  not  en- 
tertain you  as  we  have  been  entertained 
here,  iu  such  a  style  of  princely  magnifi- 
cence. But,  if  Europe  can  not  or  will  not 
invite  you,  I  trust  India  will  soon  be  iu  a 
position  to  do  so ;  and  if  you  will  come  over 
there  and  hold  a  meeting,  in  Bombay,  Alla- 
habad, or  Lahore,  I  shall  guarantee  that  you 
will  not  be  disappointed. 

We  have  already  had  an  Evangelical  Al- 


liance in  that  country,  on  a  small  scale,  but 
which  gives  a  foretaste  of  what  may  one  day 
be  expected  there.  In  December  last,  mis- 
sionaries from  all  parts  of  India  met  at  Al- 
lahabad, the  capital  of  the  North-west  Prov- 
inces, to  read  papers  and  discuss  matters 
connected  with  the  prosecution  of  mission- 
ary work  in  all  parts  of  the  country.  The 
conference  consisted  of  136  members,  con- 
nected with  all  the  different  missionary  so- 
cieties now  laboring  in  India.  During  that 
never-to-be-forgotten  week  the  utmost  har- 
mony and  good  feeling  prevailed,  though 
diversity  of  sentiment  was  expressed  on  all 
occasions  with  a  freedom  that  has  seldom 
been  witnessed  in  any  assembly  of  divines ; 
and  at  the  close  of  these  discussions,  on  the 
Lord's  day,  the  entire  assembly  met  and 
communed  together  at  the  table  of  their 
common  Lord  and  Master.  There  we  had 
Episcopalians,  Baptists,  Methodists,  Presby- 
terians, United  Presbyterians  (Scotch  and 
American),  Reformed  Presbyterians,  Luther- 
ans, and  many  other  denominations,  all  en- 
gaged in  sealing  their  common  faith  iu  the 
common  symbols  of  the  broken  body  and 
shed  blood  of  our  adorable  Redeemer.  Such 
a  scene  as  was  there  presented  is  one  of  the 
greatest  triumphs  of  Christianity.  That  tri- 
umph has  been  repeated  in  this  Alliance  in 
America ;  and  can  we  not  see  in  these  glo- 
rious manifestations  of  the  union  of  Chris- 
tians the  dawn  of  that  glory  which  shall  ere 
long  fill  the  whole  earth  ? 

I  shall  return  to  my  own  country  feeling 
that  the  day  of  her  deliverance  has  come, 
and  that  these  noble-minded  Christians  who 
have  extended  to  me  so  warm  a  welcome  to 
their  midst  will  never  cease  in  their  efforts 
for  India  till  all  her  sous  and  daughters 
shall  have  been  brought  to  Jesus. 


WOMAN'S  WORK  IN  INDIA. 

BY  THE  REV.  J.  S.  WOODSIDE,  OF  DEHRA  Doox,  INDIA. 


WOMAX,  originally  formed  from  man, 
"bone  of  his  bone  and  flesh  of  his  flesh," 
incorporated  into  his  very  being  and  identi- 
fied with  him  iu  God's  holy  covenant,  en- 
dowed with  the  same  intellectual  faculties, 
and  possessing  the  same  high  attributes  of 
moral  character ;  intended  to  be  the  loving, 
confiding,  loyal,  life-long  companion,  friend, 
counselor,  and  support  of  man — in  short,  a 
helpmeet  for  him  in  every  condition  of  life, 
has,  by  the  brutalizing  effects  of  the  fall, 
been  degraded  from  her  legitimate  position, 
and  subjected  to  a  state  of  bondage,  vary- 
ing in  its  character  iu  different  countries, 
but  calculated,  in  every  case,  to  deprive  her 
of  her  legitimate  rights,  and  prevent  the  re- 
alization of  God's  purposes  in  her  creation. 

The  earliest  legislation  of  ancient  nations, 
outside  of  India,  everywhere  shows  that  the 
true  position  of  woman  was  misunderstood. 

EGYPT,  professing  to  derive  its  laws  di- 
rectly from  the  gods,  subjected  woman  to 
the  caprice  of  the  stronger  sex,  and  while 
professing  a  species  of  veneration  for  her  in 
the  one  character  in  which  of  all  others  she 
seems  most  lovely — that  of  Mother — in  re- 
ality reduced  her  to  a  state  of  miserable  and 
servile  dependence. 

CHIXA,  claiming  for  her  legal  code  an 
equal  antiquity,  consigns  her  females,  of 
the  highest  rank,  to  a  seclusion  from  socie- 
ty amounting  to  the  most  rigorous  impris- 
onment, prohibiting  them  from  all  inter- 
course, even  with  their  own  fathers,  after 
their  removal  to  the  home  of  their  hus- 
bands. This,  with  the  physical  torture  in- 
flicted on  their  persons,  in  the  hope  of  se- 
curing those  conditions  of  body  deemed  by 
them  essential  to  feminine  beauty,  shows 
too  clearly  the  sad  condition  of  woman  in 
that  country. 

JAPAX,  considered  as  the  connecting  link 
between  the  civilization  of  Eastern  Asia 
and  that  of  Europe,  deprives  woman  of  all 
separate  legal  rights,  declares  her  incapable 
of  giving  evidence  in  the  courts  of  law,  and 
forbids  any  thing  like  genuine  confidence 
between  husband  and  wife. 

The  histories  of  GREECE  and  ROME  show 
a  higher  appreciation  of  female  character, 
but  even  in  those  nations,  in  the  brightest 
times  of  their  highest  civilization,  we  no- 
where find  woman  occupying  her  true  posi- 
tion as  the  "  companion  and  friend  of  man." 
The  same'  principle  of  subjection  to  man's 


caprice,  and  isolation  from  his  society,  marks 
her  condition  in  both. 

But  it  is  not  alone  among  the  ancients 
and  in  the  dark  obscurity  of  heathen  nations 
that  we  find  woman's  true  position  denied 
her.  In  the  most  enlightened  portions  of  EU- 
ROPE and  AMERICA,  where  science  and  reve- 
lation have  so  long  striven  to  define,  estab- 
lish, and  perpetuate  liberty,  both  civil  and 
religious,  do  we  not  find  many  of  her  un- 
doubted rights  unjustly  withheld  ? 

Notwithstanding  thousands  of  examples 
in  both  ancient  and  modern  history  of  a  de- 
votion, constancy,  fidelity,  and  truthfulness 
more  heroic  than  that  of  Porcia,  the  spirit  of 
many  laws  and  regulations,  both  social  and 
national,  affecting  her  interests,  still  practic- 
ally declares  that  woman  is  morally  inferior 
to  man  and  can  not  be  trusted  by  him. 

It  is  scarcely  credible  that  the  law  of  di- 
vorce enacted  by  the  Parliament  of  Great 
Britain  and  Ireland  as  late  as  the  year  1857, 
and  now  administered  throughout  an  em- 
pire upon  which  the  sun  never  sets,  and 
that,  too,  under  the  sovereignty  of  a  lady 
whose  virtues  lend  a  glorious  lustre  to  the 
crown  she  wears,  and  unparalleled  dignity, 
splendor,  and  majesty  to  the  throne  she  so 
nobly  adorns,  should  still,  with  unblushing 
effrontery,  proclaim  to  the  world  the  moral 
disparity  of  the  sexes.  While  it  severs  the 
conjugal  tie  for  a  single  offense  on  the  part 
of  woman,  it  declares  that  a  similar  offense 
on  man's  part  shall  be  condoned,  unless  to 
it  be  superadded  other  offenses,  such  as  gross 
brutality,  personal  violence,  or  desertion. 
No  wonder  that  Lord  Brougham,  contem- 
plating the  condition  of  woman  under  such 
enactments,  should  have  exclaimed,  "  There 
must  be  a  total  reconstruction  of  the  law 
before  Avoman  can  have  justice." 

The  late  Lord  Macaulay,  after  an  exhaust- 
ive survey  of  this  whole  subject,  wrote  as 
follows :  "  If,"  says  he,  "  there  be  a  word  of 
truth  in  history,  women  have  been  always, 
and  still  are,  over  the  greater  part  of  the 
globe,  humble  companions,  playthings,  cap- 
tives, menials,  beasts  of  burden.  Except  in 
a  few  happy  and  civilized  communities,  they 
are  strictly  in  a  state  of  personal  slavery. 
Even  in  those  countries  where  they  are  best 
treated  the  laws  are  generally  unfavorable 
to  them,  with  respect  to  almost  all  the  points 
in  which  they  are  most  deeply  interested." 

But  I  must  not  allow  these  remarks  to  di- 


WOODSIDE :  WOMAN'S  WORK  IN  INDIA. 


613 


verge  into  a  general  disquisition  on  "  wom- 
an's rights."  I  merely  wish  to  indicate  how 
difficult  it  has  been  to  secure  for  woman, 
even  in  the  most  highly  favored  nations,  the 
position  for  which  God.  originally  designed 
her,  and  to  which  Christianity  will  yet  re- 
store her. 

WOMAN'S  CONDITION  IN  INDIA. 

I  turn  now  to  that  far-off  land  I  have  the 
honor  to  represent  in  this  assembly,  and 
would  respectfully  claim  your  attention  to 
a  brief  statement  regarding  the  condition 
of  woman  in  India.  Hindoo  chronology 
claims  an  antiquity  reaching  away  back 
through  four  distinct  ages,  aggregating  a 
period  of  duration  of  nearly  four  millions  of 
years,  and  Hindoo  history  tells  us  that  dur- 
ing the  first  or  golden  age  of  this  period, 
which  lasted  1,728,000  years,  men,  and  women 
too,  were  all  virtuous.  Truth,  righteousness, 
and  absolute  perfection  of  character  every- 
where prevailed,  and  their  holy  lives  were 
prolonged  to  the  average  length  of  100,000 
years!  What  a  glorious  commencement  to 
the  career  of  a  nation ;  and  if  the  modern 
theory  of  progressive  development  by  an 
unerring  principle  of  natural  selection  had 
been  realized  in  subsequent  ages  down  to 
the  present  time,  what  a  spectacle  might 
not  the  India  of  to  -  day  have  presented ! 
How  sad.  that,  in  contemplating  the  pres- 
ent condition  of  her  benighted  millions,  we 
must  leave  the  regions  of  astronomical  num- 
bers as  to  time,  and  the  flights  of  poetic  fan- 
cy as  to  the  facts  of  history,  and  come  down 
to  the  sober  realities  of  life  as  we  now  find 
it  among  her  people !  It  would  indeed  be 
difficult  to  find  language  adequate  to  depict 
the  condition  of  woman  as  she  was  found  in 
India  at  the  commencement  of  the  present 
century.  Through  the  merciful  interposi- 
tion of  the  British  Government,  many  of  the 
evils  which  then  existed  have  been  greatly 
ameliorated,  and  some  entirely  removed; 
but  there  still  exist,  among  this  class,  a  deep 
moral  degradation  and  a  confirmed  spirit- 
ual bondage  that  no  civil  power,  however 
philanthropic,  can  ever  eradicate.  Nothing 
but  the  almighty  power  of  infinite  love,  ex- 
erted through  the  benign  agency  of  Christian 
women,  can  ever  work  out  her  full  and  final 
redemption. 

Birth  and  Infanticide. — From  the  moment 
of  her  birth  the  condition  of  woman  in  India 
is  one  of  sorrow,  misery,  and  servile  degra- 
dation. The  birth  of  a  daughter  in  a  Hin- 
doo family  is  considered  a  grave  calamity. 
As  soon  as  the  event  is  known,  disappoint- 
ment, sorrow,  and  not  unfrequeutly  deep- 
seated  indignation,  become  apparent  in  the 
entire  household.  A  Hindoo  father  has 
been  known  to  cause  the  death  of  his  wife 
by  violence,  because  she  has  committed  the 
crime  of  presenting  him  with  a  daughter! 

No  congratulations  must  ever  be  present- 


ed to  the  relatives,  nor  will  any  friend  or 
acquaintance  ever  presume  to  refer,  in  the 
most  distant  manner,  to  an  event  which  is 
considered  so  disastrous  to  all.  The  infant 
life  is  still,  alas !  too  frequently  sacrificed 
to  such  feelings,  notwithstanding  all  the  ef- 
forts of  a  beneficent  government  to  put  an 
end  to  this  inhuman  custom.  The  demands 
of  caste  in  regard  to  marriage,  especially 
among  the  Eajpoot  tribes,  are  so  inexorable 
that  in  cases  where,  through  poverty,  these 
can  not  be  complied  with,  infanticide  is  con- 
sidered the  only  possible  solution  of  the  dif- 
ficulty. At  the  commencement  of  the  pres- 
ent century  the  annual  slaughter  of  these 
female  innocents  might  have  been  reckoned 
by  hundreds  of  thousands.  In  the  year  1802 
the  Marquis  of  Wellesley,  then  Governor- 
general  of  India,  published  an  order  of  Gov- 
ernment declaring  Infanticide  to  be  murder, 
punishable  with  death,  and  from  that  time 
down  to  the  present  each  successive  admin- 
istration has  labored  to  eradicate  this  fear- 
ful evil ;  yet  so  late  as  the  year  1836  it  was 
estimated  by  a  Rajpoot  chief  that  as  many 
as  20,000  female  infants  were  destroyed  an- 
nually in  the  provinces  of  Malwa  and  Raj- 
pootana  alone.  What  adds  to  the  horror 
with  which  we  contemplate  this  savage  cus- 
tom is  the  thought  that  the  perpetrator  of 
the  crime  is  usually  the  mother  of  the  little 
victim  herself. 

The  present  Government  of  India  is  most 
energetic  in  its  efforts  to  crush  out  this  fear- 
ful evil  in  every  part  of  the  land,  and  efforts 
have  very  recently  been  made  to  induce  the 
people  so  to  modify  their  marriage  cere- 
monies as  to  diminish  expense,  and  thus 
make  it  possible  for  a  poor  man  to  have  his 
daughters  married,  and  avoid  the  other  fear- 
ful alternative  of  their  destruction.  An  in- 
telligent Rajpoot  once  complained  to  me  of 
the  hardships  of  his  position  in  these  words : 
"  I  am  a  Rajpoot.  I  have  a  family  of  nine 
children,  six  of  whom  are  daughters.  I  am 
poor,  I  can  not  get  my  daughters  married, 
and  the  English  Government  won't  allow  me 
to  kill  them.  For  them  to  remain  unmarried 
is  to  me  everlasting  disgrace  and  utter  ruin. 
What  am  I  to  do  ?"  I  advised  him  to  trust 
in  God,  and  the  same  kind  hand  that  had 
sent  him  these  daughters  would  no  doubt,  in 
due  time,  send  husbands  for  them.  Years 
afterward  I  met  him,  and  learned,  to  my 
great  joy,  that  he  had  found  husbands  for 
every  one  of  his  girls ;  and,  when  I  reminded 
him  of  his  former  state  of  mind,  he  express- 
ed his  gratitude  to  the  authors  of  those  be- 
nign laws  that  had  prevented  him  from  im- 
bruing his  hands  in  their  blood. 

Marriage  and  Widowhood. — If  permitted  to 
live,  the  next  great  matter  to  be  attended 
to,  in  the  life  of  the  Hindoo  girl,  is  her  mar- 
riage. A  Kulin  Brahmin  is  compelled,  by 
the  requirements  of  his  caste,  to  betroth  his 
daughter  as  soon  as  she  is  born.  Other 


614 


CHRISTIAN  MISSIONS. 


castes  deem  it  most  unfortunate  and  degrad- 
ing if  a  daughter  should  remain  uubetroth- 
ed  to  the  age  of  four  or  five  years ;  and  for 
her  to  remain  unmarried  to  the  age  of  eleven 
years  would  be  to  bring  utter  social  ruin 
upon  the  entire  family.  From  these  child 
marriages,  again,  arise  the  worst  features  of 
Hindoo  widowhood ;  for  many  a  child  in  In- 
dia becomes  a  widow  before  she  has  reach- 
ed the  age  of  seven  years !  It  matters  not 
whether  her  age  be  two,  four,  six,  ten,  twen- 
ty, or  thirty  years,  from  the  hour  of  her  hus- 
band's decease  her  condition  becomes  one  of 
intolerable  misery,  and  thousands  of  these 
unfortunates  are  driven  to  the  last  resource 
of  the  wretched — suicide — to  escape  from 
the  shame,  sorrow,  and  bodily  sufferings  to 
which  they  have  been  subjected.  Their 
hair,  that  grandest  ornament  of  woman,  is 
shorn  close  to  the  skin ;  they  are  stripped  of 
all  their  ornaments,  jewels,  and  even  decent 
apparel ;  their  persons  are  covered  with  ash- 
es ;  they  are  clothed  with  coarse  refuse  gar- 
ments, obliged  to  eat  the  coarsest  food,  ex- 
cluded from  all  familiar  intercourse  with 
their  relatives,  and  compelled  to  wait  upon 
the  more  favored  inmates  of  the  house  in 
the  capacity  of  slaves.  Their  persons  are 
no  longer  inviolate ;  they  are  liable,  at  any 
time,  to  bo  treated  with  the  most  outra- 
geous cruelty,  and  can  expect  no  expression 
of  sympathy  even  from  their  own  mothers 
and  sisters,  but  are  compelled  to  endure,  as 
best  thsy  can,  the  united  maledictions  of  all. 

Numerous  cases  have  come  under  my  own 
notice  where  these  poor  victims  of  social,  op- 
pression have  sought  refuge  from  their  suf- 
ferings in  death,  produced  by  means  of  opi- 
um and  arsenic,  or  by  precipitating  them- 
selves into  wells.  And  yet  these  horrid  cus- 
toms have  the  full  sanction  not  only  of  uni- 
versal usage,  but  claim  prescriptive  recog- 
nition and  approval  in  their  divine  laws. 
Thanks  be  to  God,  there  is  at  last  the  d,awn 
of  a  better  day  for  the  Hindoo  widow,  for 
of  late  years  the  more  enlightened  members 
of  that  community  have  begun  not  only 
to  advocate  and  defend,  but  to  permit  and. 
practice  the  remarriage  of  widows. 

But  supposing  the  Hindoo  wife  to  escape 
the  misfortune  of  early  widowhood,  and  to 
live  to  become  the  inmate  of  her  husband's 
house,  her  position  is  still  what,  to  our  West- 
ern ideas,  would  be  considered  wretched  in 
the  extreme.  Her  husband  is  her  lord  and 
master.  She  can  not  even  meet  him  face  to 
face,  unveiled,  in  the  presence  of  a  third  par- 
ty, though  that  may  be  one  of  her  own  chil- 
dren. She  can  never  sit  down  to  eat  till 
her  husband  has  first  finished  his  meal.  She 
dare  not  presume  to  eat  from  the  same  dish 
with  him,  but  is  content  to  wait  upon  him 
in  the  character  of  an  humble  attendant. 
She  is  closely  guarded,  and  jealously  watch- 
ed by  a  vigilant  and  perhaps  overbearing 
and  despotic  mother-in-law,  and  other  fe- 


male relations,  or  even  dependents.  Should 
she  be  so  unfortunate  as  to  have  no  chil- 
dren, she  will  soon  have  to  endure  the  pres- 
ence of  a  rival  in  the  person  of  another 
wife,  and  may  at  last  be  content  to  lavish 
her  pent-up  affections  on  the  children  of 
this  intruder. 

I  have  spoken  here  only  of  the  Hindoo, 
because  that  class  is  by  far  the  largest,  and 
have  only  now  to  add  that  in  many  cases 
the  sorrows  of  the  Hindoo  woman  are  borne 
with  a  fortitude  that  does  honor  to  her  spe- 
cies, and  she  exhibits  traits  of  character  that 
place  her  high  in  the  list  of  the  noblest  wom- 
en of  any  nation. 

Testimony  of  the  Sacred  Books. — But  it  may 
be  asked,  Are  these  things  the  result  of  so- 
cial degeneration  alone,  or  does  this  condi- 
tion of  things  find  any  sanction  in  the  laws 
of  this  ancient  people  ?  These  laws  are  to 
be  found  in  the  Vedas,  the  Institutes  of 
Mauu,  the  Sbasters,  and  the  Puraus.  Truth 
compels  the  declaration  that,  so  far  as  mod- 
ern research  has  yet  reached  in  the  investi- 
gation of  these,  there  is  nothing  found  which 
will  prevent  the  conclusion  that  the  evils  of 
woman's  condition,  as  above  described,  find 
their  fullest  sanction  in  them  all. 

According  to  the  Vedas,  "Woman  is  so 
bad  that  she  is  declared  to  be  simply  an  in- 
carnation of  sin.  She  can  not  be  trusted; 
her  evidence  in  law  can  not  be  taken.  She 
must  not  read  the  Vedas,  and  is  to  have  no 
concern  whatever  with  religious  rites." 

In  the  Institutes  of  Mauu  it  is  declared, 
"That  woman  can  have  no  separate  holy 
rites,  nor  perform  for  herself  any  acts  of  de- 
votion. All  she  has  to  do  is  to  worship  her 
husband,  and  thus  she  will  become  famous 
in  heaven."  He  ordains  "that  woman  must 
do  whatever  her  husband  commands  her," 
even  to  the  violation  of  any  and  every  pre- 
cept of  morality.  The  Shaster  says,  "To 
lie,  to  be  impudent,  to  deceive,  to  speak  bit- 
ter words,  to  be  unclean  and  cruel,  are  all 
vices  inherent  in  a  woman's  disposition." 
And  the  Purans  say,  "Let  the  wife  who 
wishes  to  perform  sacred  ablutions  wash 
the  feet  of  her  husband  and  drink  the  wa- 
ter ;  for  the  husband  is  to  his  wife  greater 
than  Sbankar  or  Vishnu.  The  husband  is 
her  God,  and  Guru,  and  religion  and  its 
services;  wherefore,  abandoning  everything 
else,  she  ought  chiefly  to  worship  her  hus- 
band, looking  upon  him  as  Vishnu." 

Among  the  Mohammedans. — But  it  is  not 
only  among  the  Hindoos  that  we  find  the 
condition  of  woman  so  degraded.  If  we 
turn  to  the  Mohammedan  population,  num- 
bering some  35,000,000  in  India,  we  find  the 
state  of  her  affairs  perhaps  even  worse  than 
among  those  already  described.  Here  po- 
lygamy, with  all  its  frightful  evils,  is  to  be 
found  in  all  its  intensity,  and,  as  a  natural 
consequence,  the  system  of  seclusion,  as 
found  in  the  harem  and  zenana. 


WOODSIDE :  WOMAN'S  WORK  IN  INDIA. 


615 


This  system  seems  inseparable  from  the 
former,  and  is  absolutely  essential  to  its  ex- 
istence. Sir  William  Muir,the  present  Lieu- 
tenant-governor of  the  North-west  Prov- 
inces, and  the  ablest  as  well  as  the  most 
philanthropic  Christian  statesman  now  in 
India,  in  his  "Life  of  Mohammed,"  speaking 
of  the  seclusion  of  females,  says :  "  The  truth 
is  that  the  extreme  license  of  polygamy  and 
divorce  permitted  to  his  followers  by  Mo- 
hammed rendered  these  safeguards  necessa- 
ry. Such  license  could  not,  without  gross 
and  flagrant  immorality,  be  compatible  with 
the  free  and  open  intercourse  of  European 
society.  It  would  not  in  any  nation  be  tol- 
erable without  restrictions  which  fetter  and 
degrade  the  female  sex.  The  licentiousness 
of  the  system  without  the  present  checks, 
cruel  and  unnatural  as  they  are,  would  cer- 
tainly create  in  Mussulman  countries  an  ut- 
ter dissolution  of  morality,  already  at  a  suf- 
ficiently low  ebb.  If  any  man  might  look 
upon  any  married  woman  (near  relatives 
excepted)  as  within  his  reach  by  marriage, 
the  present  husband  consenting ;  if  every 
married  woman  felt  that  she  might  become 
the  lawful  wife  of  any  man  whom  she  might 
captivate,  and  who  could  persuade  her  hus- 
band to  pronounce  a  divorce,  the  foundations 
of  society  would  be  broken  up !"  These  re- 
marks of  this  distinguished  statesman  and 
scholar  are  worthy  of  serious  thought  by 
those  who  think  that  Brigham  Young  has 
been  a  benefactor  of  mankind  by  introdu- 
cing this  system  into  the  Salt  Lake  Valley. 

This  State  of  Things  not  Universal.— But  I 
can  not  here  attempt  to  follow  the  woman 
of  India  through  all  the  intricacies  of  her 
inner  life,  nor  to  speak  of  this  life  as  it  is 
presented  in  the  several  different  communi- 
ties of  the  country.  Nor  is  it  to  be  inferred 
from  what  is  stated  above  that  all  females 
in  India  are  equally  subjected  to  the  vilo 
treatment  prescribed  in  the  sacred  books  of 
the  Hindoos,  and  enforced  by  custom,  more 
particularly  in  the  regions  to  the  north  of 
the  Vindhya  range,  where  the  political  pow- 
er and  social  influence  of  Mohammedanism 
have  been  chiefly  felt. 

In  all  parts  of  India  the  lowest  classes  of 
women  are  permitted  to  go  abroad,  and  in 
the  South  and  West  there  is  less  restriction 
on  the  liberty  of  the  higher  classes  than  else- 
where; but  whatever  the  personal  and  social 
relations  of  woman  in  India  may  be,  the  great 
central  fact  in  regard  to  her  moral  and  spirit- 
ual condition  still  stands  out  in  all  its  naked 
enormity  before  us.  Nearly  120,000,000  of 
women  in  that  great  country  are  still  held  in 
a  state  of  moral  bondage,  and  appeal  through 
us,  this  day,  to  the  only  real  source  whence 
deliverance  can  be  hoped  for. 

THE   REMEDY. 

There  is  but  one  power  in  the  world  that 
can  rescue  them,  and  that  is  the  Gospel,  car- 


ried to  them,  too,  in  the  tender  hands,  and 
spoken  to  them  in  the  fond,  loving,  heart- 
felt, and  affectionate  tones  of  sisterhood  by 
Christian  women.  The  peculiar  constitu- 
tion of  Indian  society  presents  an  insuper- 
able barrier  to  the  direct  evangelization 
of  the  women  of  India  by  the  agency  of 
man;  but  the  Divine  Author  of  our  holy 
religion  has  provided  for  not  only  this, 
but  for  every  other  form  of  antagonism  to 
the  truth,  and  apostolic  example  shows  us 
how  the  all-powerful  aid  of  woman  may  be 
brought  to  supplement  our  original  mis- 
sionary agency  in  that  country.  The  spirit 
of  missions  is  not  confined  to  one  sex.  It  is 
poured  out  upon  all  flesh,  and  the  daughters 
of  the  Church,  as  well  as  her  sons,  have  a 
divine  commission  to  "  prophesy,"  or  make 
known  the  glad  tidings  of  eternal  life  in 
such  circumstances,  and  under  such  condi- 
tions, as  may  appear  to  require  their  special 
qualifications. 

THE  WORK  ALREADY  DO?fE. 

But  I  must  now  proceed  to  notice  briefly 
the  work  that  has  already  been  done.  From 
the  very  commencement  of  missionary  effort 
in  India,  the  wives  of  missionaries,  and  many 
other  Christian  ladies,  have  steadily  endeav- 
ored to  ameliorate  the  condition  of  their  hea- 
then sisters,  and  introduce  as  mauy  as  could 
be  brought  within  the  reach  of  their  influence 
to  the  knowledge  of  the  truth  as  it  is  in  Je- 
sus; but  still  the  great  work,  of  the  evangel- 
ization of  India's  daughters  is,  as  yet,  in  its 
very  infancy.  From  what  has  already  been 
said,  it  will  appear  clear  to  a  demonstra- 
tion that  this  work  must,  for  the  present,  be 
almost  purely  educational. 

1.  Accordingly,  among  our  earliest  mis- 
sionary institutions,  female  orphanages  find 
a  place.     Into  these  schools  little  outcast 
and  destitute  girls,  deprived  of  all  parental 
or  other  friendly  care,  were  received,  fed, 
clothed,  and  educated,  as  Christian  children, 
with  all  the  tender  solicitude  of  parents ; 
and  these  efforts  have  been  greatly  blessed  ; 
for,  from  these  institutions  have  gone  forth 
most  of  the  Christian  wives  of  our  earlier 
converts,  who  have  thus  become'  the  mothers 
of  the  future  Indian  Church.     This  agency 
is  still  continued,  and  is  doing  a  great  work 
for  Christ,  in  connection  with  almost  every 
missionary  society  now  laboring  in  India. 

2.  Then  we  have  day-soltools  for  the  ed- 
ucation, chiefly,  of  the  lower  classes,  as  only 
such  can  at  present  bo  induced  to  attend 
them.     It  is  very  difficult  to  convince  the 
people  of  the  utility  of  these  schools,  and  it 
was  necessary,  in  mauy  instances,  to  allure 
the  girls  into  attendance  by  the  payment  of 
a  small  pecuniary  consideration.     This,  in 
man}'  places,  is  no  longer  necessary.    A  wide 
door  is  being  rapidly  opened  for  the  prose- 
cution of  this  department  of  Christian  ef- 
fort, and  this  must  go  on  extending,  until 


616 


CHRISTIAN  MISSIONS. 


the  entire  population  is  brought  under  its 
influence. 

3.  Zenana  Missions. — About  twenty  years 
ago  a  new  enterprise  was  first  attempted, 
which  has  since  risen  into  a  position  of  no 
secondary  magnitude,  and  which  is,  I  be- 
lieve, destined  to  exert  a  mighty  influence 
for  good  among  the  women  of  India.  I  re- 
fer to  what  is  known  as  "  Zenana  Teach- 
ing." Among  the  educated  classes  we  now 
find  a  considerable  desire  springing  up  to 
have  their  wives  and  daughters  also  edu- 
cated, if  this  can  be  done  in  accordance  with 
the  peculiar  customs  of  the  country.  Lady 
missionaries  are  allowed  unrestricted  access 
to  the  women's  apartments  in  the  houses  of 
this  class,  and  thus  a  field  for  evangelistic 
effort,  of  unlimited  extent,  is  opened  up,  and 
now  invites  the  women  of  Christian  lands 
to  enter  in  and  cultivate  it.  This  work  is 
carried  on  at  almost  every  mission  station 
in  India  in  a  more  or  less  systematic  way; 
but  there  are  two  or  three  prominent  so- 
cieties organized  with  special  reference  to 
it  which  demand  a  brief  notice  in  this 
place. 

"  The  American  Zenana  Mission,"  organ- 
ized under  the  able  superintendence  of  Miss 
Brittan,  a  lady  well  known  in  this  city,  and 
supported  by  the  "  Woman's  Union  Foreign 
Missionary  Society,"  is  one  of  the  most  impor- 
tant of  these.  It  employs  nineteen  agents,  be- 
sides a  considerable  number  of  native  Chris- 
tian assistants.  These  labor  at  three  great 
centres,  and  were  at  the  close  of  last  year 
educating  about  900  pupils  in  their  schools. 
The  education  given  is  as  yet  necessarily  of 
an  elementary  character.  "  They  are  taught, 
in  the  vernacular,  Earth's  'Bible  Stories,' 
'  Line  upon  Line,' '  Peep  of  Day/  the  Gospels, 
the  '  History  of  India,'  the  '  Pilgrim's  Prog- 
ress,' '  Rudiments  of  Knowledge/  Geography, 
books  of  Natural  History,  etc.,  and,  in  En- 
glish, the  First,  Second,  Third,  and  Fourth 
Readers,  Geography,  Arithmetic,  and  '  Peter 
Parley's  History.' " 

Next  in  importance  is  the  English  "  In- 
dian Female  Normal  School  Society."  "  At 
the  end  of  1872,  four  hundred  and  twenty- 
five  zenanas  were  open  to  the  agents  of  this 
society  in  nine  different  stations ;  and  in 
these  zenanas  upward  of  700  ladies  were  un- 
der instruction.  In  addition  to  these,  there 
were  twenty-seven  schools  with  727  schol- 
ars." The  whole  number  of  foreign  agents 
and  assistant  teachers  connected  with  this 
society  is  seventeen. 

"  The  Society  for  Promoting  Female  Edu- 
cation in  the  East "  is  one  of  older  standing 
than  either  of  the  above ;  but  its  operations 
are  carried  on  through  the  association  of  its 
agents  with  the  missionaries  of  other  soci- 
eties. Separate  details  of  their  work  are 
not  at  present  within  my  reach.  This  soci- 
ety has  also  certain  stations  of  its  own,  and 
nobly  co-operates  with  other  societies  in  car- 


rying on  the  great  and  good  work  which  its 
name  embodies. 

"  The  Woman's  Foreign  Missionary  Socie- 
ty "  of  the  Presbyterian  Church  in  America 
is  also  largely  engaged  in  this  work.  At 
all  the  principal  stations  occupied  by  the 
Board  throughout  the  North-west  Provinces 
and  the  Punjab,  their  agents  are  at  work  in 
the  zenanas  as  well  as  other  departments  of 
female  education,  both  vernacular  and  En- 
glish. 

4.  Christian  Girls'  Boarding-schools. — Last, 
but  not  least,  I  must  notice  those  institu- 
tions that  are  the  direct  outgrowth  of  Chris- 
tian missions,  and  now  press  their  claims  on 
the  Church  in  Christian  lands,  not  merely 
as  a  means  of  conserving  the  products  of 
toil  already  gathered,  but  as  great  and  im- 
portant agencies  for  developing  an  indige- 
nous evangelistic  spirit  among  the  people  of 
the  land.  Foremost  among  these  rank  our 
Christian  Girls'  Boarding-schools.  These  in- 
stitutions are  intended  exclusively  for  the 
education  of  the  daughters  of  native  con- 
verts and  others  intrusted  to  the  mission- 
ary's care  to  be  trained  up  as  Christians. 
Special  reference  is  had  to  the  position  the 
pupils  are  to  occupy  in  after-life  as  the  Pio- 
neers of  the  new  Christian  civilization.  They 
are  educated  with  a  special  view  to  their  be- 
coming centres  of  Christian  influence  in  their 
future  homes,  and  every  thing,  whether  do- 
mestic, scientific,  or  ethical,  that  is  calcu- 
lated to  make  a  Christian  home  in  India  the 
exact  counterpart  of  such  homes  in  Europe 
and  America  is  carefully  inculcated.  One  of 
the  principal  of  these,  and  that  Avith  which 
I  am  best  acquainted,  is  the  school  estab- 
lished at  Dehra  Doon,  in  the  North-west 
Provinces,  in  the  year  1859.  This  school 
was  commenced  under  the  superintendence 
of  a  noble-minded  daughter  of  Massachu- 
setts— the  late  Mrs.  Herron,  herself  a  pupil 
of  the  celebrated  Mount  Holyoke  Seminary 
at  South  Hadley — and  has  thus  far  been  con- 
ducted, as  nearly  as  possible,  after  the  plan 
of  that  world-renowned  establishment.  Mrs. 
Herron  gave  her  brief  but  brilliant  life  to 
its  service,  and  her  remains  now  repose  near 
the  scene  of  her  self-denying  labors. 

She  was  succeeded  in  that  arduous  work 
by  another  of  America's  high-minded,  high- 
ly educated,  and  self-sacrificing  daughters — 
Miss  Beatty,  a  lady  whose  brief  Indian  ca- 
reer sheds  a  lustre  upon  the  Christianity  of 
America  not  surpassed  in  the  entire  annals 
of  missionary  enterprise.  She  was  a  native 
of  the  adjoining  State  of  New  Jersey,  to  which 
place  she  returned  in  the  year  1869,  and 
died  "  in  the  midst  of  loving  friends,"  after 
an  absence  of  seven  years.  As  a  missionary 
teacher,  she  excelled  in  all  those  qualifica- 
tions most  essential  to  such  a  position.  Her 
knowledge,  her  experience,  her  patience,  her 
quiet  but  resistless  will,  and  her  indomitable 
perseverance  enabled  her  to  accomplish  more 


WOODSIDE :  WOMAN'S  WORK  IN  INDIA. 


617 


in  the  few  years  of  her  connection  with  the 
school  than  could  have  been  accomplished 
in  much  longer  time  by  one  less  gifted  than 
herself.  So  highly  were  her  labors  appreci- 
ated by  even  the  Government  of  India,  that 
the  late  lamented  Lord  Mayo  did  not  con- 
sider it  beneath  his  position  as  the  Viceroy 
of  India,  and  representative  of  her  majes- 
ty the  Queen,  to  pay  a  visit  of  condolence 
to  her  sick-chamber,  and  to  speak  words  of 
comfort  and  encouragement  to  one  who  had 
given  her  life  to  the  work  of  Christian  edu- 
cation. It  was  my  privilege  to  labor,  for 
four  years,  side  by  side  with  this  noble  wom- 
an, and  to  witness  day  after  day  the  inextin- 
guishable zeal  with  which,  amidst  difficulties 
of  no  ordinary  character,  she  continued  to 
labor  for  the  welfare  of  the  children  com- 
mitted to  her  care.  How  often  has  my  heart 
burned  and  my  soul  kindled  with  admira- 
tion as  I  looked  upon  her  pale  face  and  ex- 
hausted frame,  still  toiling  on  to  the  very 
end  with  a  holy  enthusiasm  that  seemed  su- 
pernatural, and  compelling  the  recognition 
of  a  power  in  woman  as  a  missionary,  I  had 
never  before  fully  realized.  Her  character, 
and  that  of  others  I  might  here  depict,  dem- 
onstrate to  the  Church  that  there  is  no  bar- 
rier of  caste  that  may  not  be  torn  down,  no 
chains  of  ignorance  that  may  not  be  broken, 
no  dungeon  in  the  zenana  that  may  not  be 
opened,  no  depth  of  superstition  that  may 
not  be  fathomed,  and  no  moral  darkness  that 
may  not  be  illumined  by  the  sanctified  en- 
ergies of  Christian  women. 

The  school  founded  and  moulded  by  these 
devoted  women  now  contains  about  120 
Christian  girls,  under  the  superintendence 
of  a  missionary  and  his  wife.  The  children 
are  instructed  by  a  staff  of  five  American  la- 
dies, aided  by  an  equal  number  of  native  as- 
sistants. Instruction  is  given  both  in  the 
vernacular  and  English  languages,  and  the 
aim  of  all  is  to  make  the  teaching  as  thor- 
ough as  it  possibly  can  be  made  in  every 
department.  It  is,  to  all  intents  and  pur- 
poses, a  model  or  normal  school  of  the  first 
rank.  But  it  is  not  alone  as  a  great  educa- 
tional agency  that  the  value  of  such  an  in- 
stitution is  to  be  estimated.  It  is  more  than 
this — it  is  a  Christian  home,  where  order,  in- 
telligence, industry,  and  religion  are  used  to 
form  the  basis  of  that  domestic  character  so 
essential  to  the  future  mothers  of  the  Church 
in  India.  The  buildings  in  which  it  is  con- 
ducted have  just  been  completed  at  a  cost 
of  about  $30,000.  They  consist  of  two  prin- 
cipal wings,  two  stones  in  height,  each  156 
feet  in  length  by  47  in  depth,  with  interven- 
ing class  and  lecture  rooms,  50  by  58  feet. 
In  addition  to  these,  there  are  a  spacious 
cook-room,  store-rooms,  lavatory,  latrine,  and 
other  buildings,  and  in  the  adjacent  com- 
pound a  separate  building,  at  present  rented 
as  a  hospital. 

These  details  are  given  just  to  show  the 


requirements  of  a  branch  of  labor  which 
missionary  success  has  already  imposed  on 
the  Church,  and  which  must  be  sustained  if 
the  future  Christianity  of  India  is  to  be  like 
our  own. 

This  school  is  under  the  special  care  of 
the  "  Woman's  Foreign  Missionary  Society," 
and  it  should  have  been  mentioned  that  this 
same  society  has  recently  purchased  the 
Woodstock  School  at  Landour,  with  the  view 
of  maintaining  there  a  school  of  a  high  or- 
der for  the  children  of  missionaries  of  all 
denominations,  and  those  members  of  the 
Anglo-Indian  community  that  may  wish  to 
avail  themselves  of  its  advantages. 

Other  schools  of  this  class  have  been  com- 
menced, and  are  to  be  conducted  on  the 
same  plan.  Such,  for  instance,  is  that  re- 
cently established  by  our  Methodist  Episco- 
pal brethren  at  Lucknow,  and  one  in  the 
Punjab  under  the  English  Church  Mission. 
Other  missions,  in  particular  our  Scotch 
brethren,  are  not  behindhand  in  their  schools 
for  girls.  Did  time  permit,  I  might  refer  in 
detail  to  many  of  them,  all  doing  a  noble 
work,  but  I  must  hasten  to  notice  another 
important  agency. 

Government  Female  Schools. — I  am  delighted 
to  be  enabled  to  state  in  this  place  that  fe- 
male education  is  not  only  prosecuted  of  late 
years  with  greatly  increased  vigor  by  mis- 
sionaries, but  it  has  also  arrested  the  atten- 
tion of  Government,  and  noble  efforts  are 
now  being  put  forth  in  this  direction  in  all 
parts  of  the  land.  Not  only  the  Government 
of  India,  but  the  local  Governments,  are  ev- 
erywhere actively  engaged  in  this  work,  and 
do  all  in  their  power  not  only  to  encourage 
it  in  the  public  schools,  but  endeavor,  by  all 
legitimate  means,  to  stimulate  private  indi- 
viduals to  imitate  their  example.  Foremost 
among  these  stands  the  Lieutenant-govern- 
or of  the  North-west  provinces.  He  is  no- 
bly sustained  in  these  efforts  by  his  excel- 
lent Christian  wife,  Lady  Muir,  who  spends 
much  time  in  visiting  these  schools  wherev- 
er she  goes,  and  by  her  presence  and  gener- 
osity does  much  to  encourage  those  more 
immediately  engaged  in  the  work.  There 
are  many  other  prominent  English  ladies, 
whose  names  might  hero  be  mentioned,  who 
not  only  aid  these  Government  efforts,  but 
who, like  Lady  Muir,  also  manifest  a  special 
interest  in  those  schools  in  which  Christian- 
ity is  taught. 

In  the  last  administration  report  of  the 
North-western  Provinces  we  find  that  the 
Government  maintained  in  these  provinces 
alone  427  female  schools,  containing  7917 
pupils,  and  gave  liberal  aid  to  108  private 
establishments,  containing  3571  pupils. 

The  Government  of  the  Punjab  reports 
125  schools,  with  2573  pupils,  and  166  aided 
schools,  giving  instruction  to  6646  pupils ; 
and  so  with  regard  to  all  the  other  local 
governments,  exact  statistics  of  which  are 


618 


CHRISTIAN  MISSIONS. 


not  here  available.  The  good  work  is  go- 
ing forward,  and  though  wo  have  still  to  la- 
ment the  fact  that  the  Bible  has  not  been 
introduced  into  the  regular  curriculum  of 
education,  it  can  not  be  denied  that  these 
schools  are  doing  much  for  the  overthrow 
of  idolatry ;  for  it  is  absolutely  impossible 
to  give  any  kind  of  accurate  instruction  in 
modern  science,  history,  or  even  geography, 
without  undermining  the  fabric  of  heathen- 
ism. 

It  is  due  to  the  Government  of  India  here 
to  add  that,  though  the  Bible  is  not  taught 
in  their  schools,  it  is  invariably  placed  in 
the  school  library,  and  any  pupil  who  may 
wish  to  refer  to  it  has  every  facility  for  do- 
ing so  placed  at  his  disposal.  Tens  of  thou- 
sands of  the  daughters  of  India  are  to-day 
receiving,  in  these  Government  schools,  and 
in  private  native  institutions,  much  sound 
secular  instruction,  which  must  prove  high- 
ly beneficial  to  society  at  large,  and  prepare 
the  people  for  that  higlier  knowledge  so  es- 
sential to  their  spiritual  regeneration. 

Let  us  here  remember,  too,  that  there  are 
some  30,000  girls  in  the  mission  schools  of 
India,  representing  the  combined  efforts  of 
twenty -five  different  missionary  societies 
and  the  entire  Church  of  Christendom. 
But  supposing  all  these  to  receive  a  Chris- 
tian education  of  the  very  highest  order, 
what  are  they  among  the  vast  multitudes 
still  unreaclied  ?  The  results  here  disclosed 
but  discover  the  extreme  impotence  of  the 
agencies  as  yet  in  operation.  Let  no  one 
be  deceived.  The  evangelization  of  India 
is  scarcely  as  yet  fairly  commenced.  It  is 
a  work  in  which  generations  of  missionaries, 
yet  unborn,  may  toil  and  die;  but  still  it  is 
certain  of  success ;  and  we  have  now  enlist- 
ed in  this  cause  a  power,  the  potency  of 
which  the  world  has  never  yet  fully  under- 
stood. 

Woman  is  to  share,  as  God  intended  she 
should  share,  in  every  thing  that  tends  to 
the  glory  of  humanity  in  this  holy  struggle. 
India  affords  a  wide  and  inviting  field  for 
the  exercise  of  her  peculiar  gifts,  and  were 
all  the  churches  represented  in  this  Alliance 
engaged  in  this  work,  as  I  believe  they  one 
day  shall  be,  great  and  glorious  results  would 
soon  be  manifest. 

The  crying  want  of  India  is  Christianity ; 
and  in  the  words  of  a  brother-missionary, 
"  Well-ordered  Christian  homes  are  one  of 
the  greatest  wants  of  the  Indian  Church. 
We  rejoice  that  there  are  such  homes,  but 
they  are  very  few  compared  with  the  num- 
ber of  Christian  families  and  the  wants  of 
the  Church.  Englishmen,  Americans,  and 
Germans  need  no  arguments  to  convince 
them  of  the  matchless  worth  and  priceless 
blessings  of  their  Christian  homes.  They 
are  nurseries  of  piety,  and  virtue,  and  great- 
ness, and  goodness.  Like  the  air  and  the 


dew  and  the  sunshine  in  the  natural  world, 
they  are  the  silent  but  powerful  agents  that 
are  everywhere  at  work,  refreshing  and  sus- 
taining the  spiritual  life  of  the  Church,  fill- 
ing it  with  beauty  and  goodness,  and  sus- 
taining and  directing  its  energies.  It  is 
only  pious,  intelligent,  and  cultivated  wives 
and  mothers  that  can  make  such  homes. 
The  homes  of  England  and  America — the 
brightest  and  happiest  and  most  beautiful 
places  on  this  side  heaven — are  the  creations 
of  Christian  womanhood — and  the  Christian 
woman  herself  the  richest  product  and  glory 
of  the  religion  of  Christ  on  earth."  Chris- 
tian women  of  America,  the  daughters  of 
India  appeal  to  you  by  every  tie  that  binds 
you  to  them  as  sisters,  and  by  the  bonds  of 
that  love  Avhich  reaches  far  beyond  all  hu- 
man relationships,  and  unites  all  in  Christ, 
to  come  to  their  aid.  They  still  continue 
to  be  born,  live,  suffer,  and  die  in  heathen 
darkness,  with  scarce  a  ray  of  light  to  il- 
lumine, in  the  smallest  degree,  the  impen- 
etrable gloom  of  their  dark  habitations. 
Shall  they  call  in  vain  ?  Surely  not ! 

WOMAN  IN  INDIA  TO  WOMEN  IN  CHRIST. 

India's  daughters,  long  degraded. 
Long  by  heathen  power  enslaved, 

Call  aloud  to  Christian  women 
In  these  lands  by  Jesus  saved. 

Infants  slain  by  wicked  mothers, 
Children  sunk  'neath  Saugor's  wave, 

Speak  to  you  from  death's  dark  chamber^ 
Call  to  yon  their  race  to  save. 

Widows  shorn,  despoiled,  maltreated, 
Widows  though  but  children  still, 

Cry  aloud,  ye  Christian  mothers, 
Yon  can  help  us  if  you  will ! 

Wives  shut  np  in  lone  zenanas, 
Slaves  and  tools  of  man's  caprice, 

Ask  your  aid,  ye  Christian  sisters, 
Them  from  bondage  to  release. 

Matrons  old,  in  sin  grown  hardened, 
Yet  with  souls  of  priceless  worth, 

Hail  yon  as  their  saviours,  saying : 
For  our  rescue,  oh,  come  forth  1 

Shall  not  women  thus  appealed  to, 

Women  loyal,  kind,  and  true, 
Quickly,  in  love's  sweetest  accents, 

Answer  yes !  we  come  to  yon  ? 

And  we  bring  with  us  the  Saviour, 

Jesus  Christ  the  Son  of  God, 
Who  to  ransom  wretched  sinners, 

Freely  shed  his  priceless  blood. 

He  has  long  with  pity  viewed  yon ; 

Now  his  power  he  will  display 
In  your  full  and  free  salvation, 

He  the  Life,  the  Truth,  the  Way. 

Yes,  daughters  of  India,  lift  up  your  heads ; 
the  day  of  your  redemption  draweth  nigh. 
Christian  women  in  every  Christian  land 
have  espoused  your  cause,  and  have  re- 
solved that  you  shall  be  free ;  and  heralds 
of  their  love  are  gathering  around  you,  and 
will  never  give  yon  up  till  you  shall  all  be- 
come one  with  them  in  Christ. 


MISSIONS  AMONG  THE  LOWEST  OF  THE  HEATHEN. 


BY  THE  RT.  REV.  E.  DE  SCHWEINITZ,  S.T.D., 

Bishop  of  the  Moravian  Church,  and  President  of  the  Theological  Seminary  at  Bethlehem,  Pa. 


MR.  CHAIRMAN  AND  BRETHREN, — Before 
reading  the  paper  which  I  have  prepared, 
permit  ine  to  communicate  a  fact  which 
ought  to  be  made  known  on  this  "  Mission- 
ary Day  "  of  our  Conference. 

In  the  city  from  which  the  gentleman 
comes  who  has  just  taken  his  seat  (Rev.  E. 
E.  Jeukius,  of  London),  there  exists  a  So- 
ciety called  "  The  London  Association  in  Aid 
of  the  Missions  of  the  United  Brethren."  This 
association  is  composed  exclusively  of  mem- 
bers of  the  Church  of  England,  of  Independ- 
ents, of  Baptists,  and  of  other  Protestant 
Christians,  who  contribute,  with  the  utmost 
liberality  and  in  fraternal  fellowship,  about 
$25,000  a  year  toward  the  support  of  the 
Foreign  Missions  of  the  Church  which  I  rep- 
resent. Such  a  Foreign  Missionary  Evan- 
gelical Alliance  is,  as  far  as  I  know,  without 
a  parallel  in  the  history  of  Protestantism, 
and  does  the  highest  honor  to  the  catholic 
spirit  of  the  Christians  of  Great  Britain,  who 
are  so  worthily  and  ably  represented  at  this 
Convention.  The  Association  was  organized 
in  1817,  and  has,  therefore,  been  doing  its  no- 
ble work  for  fifty-six  years. 

With  these  remarks  I  proceed  to  take  up 
the  topic  which  I  am  to  discuss.  From  the 
four  gentlemen  who  have  preceded  me,  we 
have  heard  very  interesting  accounts  of 
Christianity  as  it  is  influencing  that  an- 
cient, and,  iu  many  respects,  enlightened 
people,  the  Hindoos.  I  will  direct  your  at- 
tention to  pagans  of  an  entirely  different 
order.  My  subject  is,  MISSIONARY  WORK 

AMONG  THE  MOST  INSIGNIFICANT  AND  DE- 
GRADED TRIBES  OF  THE  HEATHEN  WORLD. 

It  will  be  necessary,  in  the  first  place,  to 
define  what  I  mean  by  their  insignificance 
and  degradation. 

From  a  missionary  point  of  view,  the  hea- 
then may  be  divided  into  three  classes.  The 
first  consists  of  populous  nations,  whose  homes 
are  permanently  established,  and  whose  coun- 
tries embrace  important  resources  for  the  ma- 
terial development  of  the  world.  Such  na- 
tions are  found  in  possession  of  nearly  two- 
thirds  of  Asia,  from  the  North  Pacific  to  the 
river  Indus,  and  spreading  over  more  than 
one-half  of  Africa,  from  the  Capo  Colony  to 
the  Great  Desert.  Their  conversion  to  Chris- 
tianity would  make  them  a  great  and  far- 
reaching  power  iu  the  Church  of  Christ. 

The  second  class  comprises  aborigines  that 


either  inhabit  islands  of  the  sea  conjointly 
with  growing  colonies  of  the  white  race,  or 
that  occupy  the  interior  of  continents  and 
are  encircled  by  civilized  and  nominally 
Christian  states.  In  the  Malay  Archipela- 
go, in.  Polynesia,  in  Australasia,  excepting 
the  continent  of  Australia,  and  in  the  lu- 
ilian  territories  of  North  and  South  Amer- 
ica, we  meet  with  the  representatives  of  this 
class.  Their  future  is  still  an  open  ques- 
tion. Whether  they  will  be  permanent 
agents  in  the  coming  time,  we  of  to-day 
can  not  tell.  They  may,  at  least  in  part, 
disappear.  In  any  case,  they  will  consti- 
tute, both  on  account  of  their  geographical 
position  and  inferior  resources,  a  secondary 
power  in  subduing  the  earth  to  the  sway  of 
Christ. 

The  third  class  is  made  up  of  small  tribes, 
or  broken  remnants  of  nations,  isolated,  con- 
trolling no  resources  of  any  moment,  exer- 
cising no  influence,  and,  in  some  cases,  fast 
dying  out.  Indeed,  their  total  extinction 
would  not  effect  the  world;  its  material 
development  would  go  on  unhindered,  and 
even  its  spiritual  progress,  in  so  far  as  any 
evangelizing  force  is  concerned  which  they 
could  put  forth,  would  barely  feel  their  loss. 
They  mostly  occupy,  moreover,  the  lowest 
grade  of  humanity.  Their  religious  sense 
is  almost  a  blank,  relieved  only  by  vague 
superstitions,  which  they  do  not  themselves 
understand.  To  this  class  belong  the  Es- 
quimaux of  the  far  North ;  petty  and  de- 
tached clans  of  Indians  in  the  forests  of  Cen- 
tral and  South  America ;  the  Bush  negroes 
of  Surinam ;  the  inhabitants  of  Terra  del 
Fuego ;  and  the  aborigines  of  the  continent 
of  Australia.  I  do  not  pretend  to  give  a 
complete  list.  That  will  not  be  possible 
until  the  Protestant  Church  will  have  fully 
searched  out  every  pagan  land. 

The  tribes  of  this  third  class,  therefore,  I 
denominate  the  most  insignifictint  and  de- 
graded of  the  heathen  world ;  and  to  the 
missionary  work  goiug  on  among  them  I 
now  beg  leave  to  direct  your  attention. 

It  can  not  be  denied  that  other  missions 
are  comparatively  more  important.  The 
conversion  of  Japan,  of  China,  or  of  India, 
concerning  which  country  we  have  heard 
so  much  this  morning,  would  bring  millions 
of  new  members  into  the  Church.  The 
riches  of  the  East  would  be  poured  out 


620 


CHRISTIAN  MISSIONS. 


at  Christ's  feet.  His  banner  would  be 
borne  by  armies  of  missionaries  to  all  the 
ends  of  Asia.  Or  suppose  the  Koraunas, 
the  Bechuauas,  the  Dahomaus,  with  their 
terrible  history  of  slave-hunts  and  blood, 
and  other  cognate  peoples  of  Africa,  re- 
claimed from  barbarism,  and  made  partak- 
ers of  that  grace  of  God  which  brings  sal- 
vation and  which  has  appeared  to  all  men. 
The  result  would  be  wonderful.  Influences 
would  be  set  at  work  that  must  eventually 
cause  the  wild  multitude  of  negro  tribes  to 
flow  together  into  one  great  and  powerful 
Christian  nation,  making  their  continent  a 
stronghold  of  the  Gospel,  and  its  southern 
extremity,  iu  a  new  and  glorious  sense,  the 
Cape  of  Good  Hope. 

An  outlook  such  as  this  suggests  the 
question :  Would  it  not  be  advisable  for 
the  Church  to  withdraw  from  work  among 
the  inferior  tribes,  scattered  over  the  hea- 
then world,  and  to  concentrate  all  its  ener- 
gies in  the  midst  of  populous  nations  that 
constitute  a  power  and  that  have  a  fu- 
ture? This  question  assumes  considerable 
importance  when  we  glance  at  the  history 
of  missions. 

In  Greenland  the  Lutheran  Mission  was 
begun  in  1721,  the  Moravian  in  1733.  Both 
enterprises  are  still  continued.  Through- 
out a  century  and  a  half,  therefore,  they 
have  been  calling  for  money  and  men.  At 
least  two  hundred  laborers,  in  all,  have  been 
sent  out,  and  about  forty  are  iu  the  field  at 
present.  Shut  up  amidst  arctic  snows  and 
separated  from  the  rest  of  the  world,  they 
draw  a  steady  support  from  the  churches  at 
home  and  expend  their  own  strength — for 
the  sake  of  an  insignificant  people  that  will 
never  exercise  any  direct  influence  upon  the 
conversion  of  the  human  race.  The  same  sup- 
port and  strength  applied  elsewhere  would 
accomplish  far  greater  results,  and  help  more 
immediately  to  evangelize  the  world. 

Still  more  to  the  point  is  the  case  of  the 
mission  among  the  Bush  negroes  of  Suri- 
nam. Its  history  is  a  record  of  sickness  and 
death,  of  disappointments  and  failures.  The 
air  of  the  forests  through  which  the  Bush 
negroes  wander  is  poison  to  the  white  man, 
and  the  water -courses  along  which  they 
build  their  huts  reek  with  miasmata.  And 
yet,  ever  since  1765,  with  occasional  inter- 
ruptions, missionary  work  has  been  carried 
on  in  that  pestilential  and  obscure  corner 
of  the  earth.  Indeed  it  has  been  the  scene 
of  Christian  heroism  such  as  is  rarely  sur- 
passed. And  who  are  the  Bush  negroes  ?  A 
handful  of  savages,  descended  from  the  fugi- 
tive slaves  of  the  Colony,  living  wholly  to 
themselves,  carrying  on  no  trade,  without 
the  slightest  importance  iu  the  world.  The 
same  determined  missionary  labor,  done  in 
other  countries  and  among  other  tribes, 
would  have  produced  a  far  more  plenteous 
harvest. 


Over  against  such  facts,  however,  and  iu 
reply  to  the  question  which  has  suggested 
them,  three  considerations  may  be  urged. 

First,  we  have  a  Divine  behest :  "  Go  ye 
into  all  the  world,"  said  Christ  to  his  disci- 
ples, "  and  preach  the  Gospel  to  every  crea- 
ture." The  tribes  under  discussion  are  in- 
cluded in  this  command.  They  belong  to 
the  heathen  who  shall  be  given  to  our  Sav- 
iour for  an  inheritance,  and  their  secluded 
domains  to  those  uttermost  parts  of  the 
earth  which  he  shall  have  for  a  possession. 
The  Church  would  be  disobedient  to  its 
Head,  if  any  pagans  were  neglected  on  ac- 
count of  their  insignificance.  Indeed,  as 
has  been  well  said,  it  would  cease  to  be 
Christ's  Church  if  it  abandoned  missionary 
work  before  the  last  heathen  had  heard  the 
Gospel. 

But,  second,  we  joyfully  recognize  the 
power  of  Christian  love.  Love  to  God  and 
man  is  the  life  of  the  Church.  This  love 
begets  missionaries.  Deeming  no  heathens 
too  degenerate,  and  no  heathen  tribe  too  pal- 
try, to  be  saved,  it  has  sought  out  the  low- 
est first.  If  its  activity  in  this  direction 
were  to  come  to  an  end,  there  would  be 
something  wanting  in  the  Christianity  of 
our  day.  A  jewel  would  drop  out  of  its 
crown. 

Finally,  we  acknowledge  the  importance 
of  a  prudent  missionary  policy.  It  would 
be  unwise  to  abandon  fields  that  are  of  lit- 
tle consequence  and  concentrate  the  entire 
strength  of  the  Church  among  powerful  na- 
tions. For  its  present  work  is  merely  a 
preparation  for  that  which  is  to  come,  when 
Joel's  prophecy  will  be  fulfilled  still  more 
completely  than  on  the  day  of  Pentecost, 
when  God  will  pour  out  his  Spirit  on  all 
flesh,  and  when  the  heathen  will  fly  as  the 
clouds  and  as  the  doves  to  their  windows. 
The  world  can  not  be  converted  without 
such  a  visitation  from  on  high.  "Not  by 
might,  nor  by  power,  but  by  my  Spirit,  saith 
the  Lord  of  hosts."  Hence  prudence  directs 
that  at  least  a  watch-tower,  with  a  chamber 
for  prayer  on  its  roof,  should  be  built  in  the 
midst  of  every  pagan  tribe.  And  then,  when 
the  heathen  world  will  have  been  surround- 
ed with  the  cordons  of  the  Christian  host, 
that  host  will  advance  and  conquer,  in  the 
Lord's  time  and  at  the  Spirit's  signal. 

These  reasons  seem  to  me  to  show  that 
missionary  work  among  the  most  insignifi- 
cant and  degraded  tribes  of  paganism  is  nei- 
ther a  waste  of  money  nor  a  loss  of  men.  It 
is  a  proper,  a  necessary,  and  a  great  work. 

But  there  is  another  point  of  view  from 
which  such  enterprises  may  be  contem- 
plated. They  prove,  without  the  possibili- 
ty of  a  doubt,  what  the  Bible  predicates 
concerning  the  world -wide  sufficiency  of 
the  Gospel  as  a  converting  and  civilizing 
power. 

I  will  illustrate  and  establish  this  position 


SCHWEINITZ :  THE  LOWEST  OF  THE  HEATHEN. 


621 


by  facts  drawn  from  the  history  of  the  mis- 
sion among  the  natives  of  the  Australian 
Continent.  This  is  one  of  the  newest  and 
most  remarkable  of  those  undertakings  that 
come  within  the  scope  of  my  topic,  although 
it  is  but  little  known  in  our  country.  My 
authority  is  a  faithful  and  distinguished  mis- 
sionary, who  labored  in  Australia  for  nine 
years,  and  who  visited  me  last  spring,  on 
his  way  to  Canada,  where  he  has  taken 
charge  of  an  Indian  Mission. 

It  has  been  computed  that  but  30.000,  or 
perhaps  40,000  Papuans  remain  within  the 
vast  territory  which  forms  their  home.  They 
arc  fearfully  debased.  No  other  heathens  are 
more  so.  This  might  be  forcibly  shown  by 
their  manner  of  life,  if  the  time  to  which  I 
am  restricted  did  not  forbid.  A  few  points, 
setting  forth  their  moral  and  spiritual  state, 
must  therefore  suffice. 

Among  the  natives  of  Australia  marriage 
exists  merely  in  name.  Wives  are  exchanged 
at  the  pleasure  of  the  men,  and  a  newly  mar- 
ried woman  belongs,  for  a  time,  to  the  whole 
tribe.  Many  of  the  offspring  of  such  unnat- 
ural unions  fall  a  prey  to  infanticide  in  its 
most  horrible  form.  Weak  and  puny  chil- 
dren are  strangled,  and  pieces  of  their  flesh 
given  to  their  brothers  to  eat,  that  these 
may  grow  stronger.  In  the  aboriginal  lan- 
guage no  equivalent  words  are  found  for 
love,  faith,  forgiveness,  truth,  or  honesty. 
The  natives  have  no  conception  of  such 
virtues.  No  religion  whatever,  not  even 
the  lowest  species  of  idolatry,  exists  among 
them.  It  is  true,  they  entertain  a  vague 
notion  of  a  good  and  of  an  evil  spirit.  But 
they  do  absolutely  nothing  to  propitiate  the 
one,  or  to  appease  the  other.  They  have  no 
worship,  no  sacrifices,  no  sacred  rites  of  any 
kind.  The  only  power  which  they  fear  is 
that  of  witchcraft.  The  only  dictates  which 
they  follow  are  those  of  superstition,  jeal- 
ousy, revenge,  and  lust.  Since  the  arrival 
of  the  white  race,  the  natives  have  sunk 
still  lower.  Their  licentiousness  has  in- 
creased, and  new  vices  have  been  intro- 
duced. My  informant  pronounces  a  drunk- 
en spree,  in  a  native  camp,  to  be  one  of  the 
most  hideous  things  ever  witnessed  in  this 
sinful  world. 

In  view  of  these  facts,  it  is  not  astonishing 
that  the  Australian  aborigines  were  common- 
ly deemed  to  be  beyond  the  reach  of  civili- 
zation and  Christianity.  This  opinion  was 
but  strengthened  by  thirty -six  years  of 
fruitless  efforts,  on  the  part  of  several  mis- 
sionary societies,  to  reclaim  them.  Even  en- 
lightened Christians  began  to  fear  that  such 
work  was  hopeless.  But  the  day  of  salva- 
tion came  at  last.  In  1860,  Nathaniel  Pep^ 
per,  a  native  of  the  Colony  of  Victoria,  was 
converted  and  baptized.  So  great  was  the 
sensation  which  this  event  produced,  that  a 
public  meeting,  with  the  colonial  governor 
for  a  chairman,  was  called  at  Melbourne,  to 


express  the  joy  of  Christians  of  every  name 
at  this  marvelous  victory  of  the  Gospel. 

It  has  not  been  a  fleeting  triumph.  Mis- 
sions are  now  permanently  established  among 
the  Papuans,  and  supported  by  a  number  of 
the  Protestant  churches  of  Australia  in  fel- 
lowship. 

These  missions  reveal  surprising  results. 
The  converts  have  been  won  from  the  for- 
ests through  which  they  roamed,  and  are 
settled  in  villages.  At  such  villages  the  ex- 
tinction of  the  race  has  actually  been  arrest- 
ed. Among  the  wild  tribes,  the  number  of 
deaths  far  exceeds  the  number  of  births; 
at  the  mission  the  reverse  is  the  case.  The 
converts  devote  themselves  to  gardening 
and  mechanical  pursuits,  or  serve  the  white 
settlers  as  herdsmen.  Many  of  them  have 
learned  to  read,  write,  and  cipher.  Their 
children  are  taken  through  a  regular  course 
of  education.  Among  twelve  huudred  colo- 
nial schools  in  Gippsland,  the  mission  school 
for  natives,  at  Ramahyuk,  recently  gained 
the  highest  prize  offered  by  the  Govern- 
ment. Young  and  old  have  adopted  all  the 
habits  and  usages  of  civilization.  In  a  ma- 
jority of  cases,  the  evidences  of  a  genuine 
change  of  heart  are  clear  and  marked.  Not 
a  few  instances  of  triumphant  death  have 
occurred.  Old  Norah,  when  she  first  came 
to  the  mission,  was  a  mere  wreck  in  body 
and  mind.  Her  life  had  been  steeped  in  in- 
iquity. She  appeared  to  be  almost  idiotic. 
And  yet  no  believer,  reared  amidst  all  the 
advantages  of  the  Church  and  of  a  Chris- 
tian home,  ever  delivered  a  brighter  testi- 
mony in  the  last  hour  than  she  did.  The 
very  faces  of  these  converts  show  that  they 
have  passed  from  darkness  into  marvelous 
light.  When  I  looked  at  the  photograph 
of  Philip  Pepper,  a  brother  of  the  first  con- 
vert, and  an  assistant  at  the  Ebeuezer  Mis- 
sion, and  heard  his  teacher's  account  of  the 
impressive  warmth  with  which  he  publicly 
proclaims  the  Gospel  and  prays  to  God,  I 
could  scarcely  believe  that  this  man  had 
been  a  naked  savage,  squatting  in  the  sand 
and  roasting  lizards  for  his  food,  joining  his 
countrymen  in  the  vilest  abominations,  and 
living  for  years  in  a  state  as  near  to  that 
of  the  irrational  creation  as  it  is  possible 
for  human  beings  to  reach. 

Now  this  transformation  among  the  Pap- 
uans has  been  brought  about  through  the 
Gospel.  No  other  agency  would  have  been 
sufficient.  A  letter  from  one  of  the  mission- 
aries to  a  colonial  newspaper  says :  "  We 
testify  that  no  real  change  for  the  better 
took  place  among  the  natives  gathered  at 
the  Ebeuezer  station  until  they  received  the 
Gospel.  Then  the  change  began." — This  is 
the  same  Gospel  which  has  evangelized  oth- 
er pagans  'of  the  lowest  class,  which  has 
gained  such  glorious  victories  in  the  Islands 
of  the  Sea,  and  which  is  slowly  making  its 
way  into  the  midst  of  the  powerful  nations 


622 


CHRISTIAN  MISSIONS. 


of  heathemlom.  Ouo  history  of  the  atone- 
ment, one  array  of  promises,  one  body  of  fun- 
damental doctrines  set  forth  in  demonstra- 
tion of  the  Spirit  and  of  power,  work  out 
one  end  in  every  case.  The  pagans  are  en- 
lightened, radically  changed  in  all  the  tend- 
encies of  their  nature,  christianized  through 
faith  in  a  common  Saviour,  and,  finally,  civ- 
ilized. And  there  is  no  tribe  too  low  for 
the  influence  of  the  Gospel.  There  is  no 
tongue  too  barbarous  for  a  version  of  the 
New  Testament.  There  is  no  individual 
heathen  too  debased,  stolid,  and  brutish  to 
be  made  a  new  creature  in  Christ  Jesus,  a 
useful  member  of  the  Church,  a  believer 
both  able  and  ready  to  give  a  reason  of  the 
hope  that  is  iu  him  with  meekness  and  fear. 
There  is  no  form  of  barbarism  which  can  not 
eventually  be  civilized  and  even  refined  iu 
ways  that  are  wonderful,  to  the  glory  of  God. 

In  the  further  proof  of  this  last  position, 
let  me  say,  in  passing,  that  at  the  dedication 
of  a  new  mission  chapel  in  the  Bushland,  a 
choir  of  Bush  negroes,  assisted  by  some  con- 
verted slaves  from  the  Colony,  sang,  with 
genuine  appreciation  and  great  effect, "  The 
heavens  are  telling,"  etc.,  from  Haydn's  "  Or- 
atorio of  the  Creation."  The  same  grand 
chorus,  which  enraptures  the  cultured  Chris- 
tian of  Europe  and  America,  formed  the  ex- 
pression of  praise  that  burst  from  the  hearts 
of  these  reclaimed  savages. 

From  all  that  has  been  said,  we  therefore 
infer  that  the  Gospel  is  a  sufficient,  and  the 
only  sufficient,  power  for  the  conversion  of 
the  whole  world. 

This  inference  should  encourage  the 
Church  to  push  forward  its  foreign  mission- 
ary work,  in  these  present  days,  with  all  its 
strength.  The  success  which  has,  at  last, 
been  won  even  among  the  natives  of  Aus- 
tralia should  give  new  energy  to  every  la- 
borer in  the  field,  and  new  zeal  to  every  so- 
ciety at  home.  Is  the  everlasting  Gospel 
thus  going  forth  conquering  and  to  conquer, 
then  let  there  be  more  of  a  union  among 
Protestant  Christians  in  supporting  it,  and 
more  of  a  system  in  spreading  it,  so  that  our 
common  Lord  may  hasten  the  day  of  its 
final  victory. 

And  here,  my  brethren,  permit  me  to  throw 
out  a  single  suggestion.  I  know  very  well 
that  this  Conference  ought  not  to  legislate, 
and  that  formal  resolutions  are  not  to  be  en- 
tertained. But  do  you  not  believe  that  the 
time  has  arrived,  or,  at  least,  is  very  near, 
when  all  Protestant  Churches  engaged  in 


the  foreign  missionary  work  ought  to  come 
to  a  full  understanding  with  regard  to  a 
general  and  united  movement  forward  into 
the  very  heart  of  heathendom,  and  especial- 
ly with  regard  to  their  denominational  re- 
lations to  each  other  in  the  field  T  A  Mis- 
sionary Congress  of  the  entire  Protestant 
world,  on  a  basis  something  like  that  occupied 
by  the  Missionary  Convention,  to  which  Mr. 
Sheshadri  referred  this  morning,  held  iu  In- 
dia last  January,  is  possible.  And  would  it 
not  be  within  the  province  of  the  present 
meeting  of  the  Evangelical  Alliance  to  take 
the  preliminary  steps  for  the  convocation  of 
such  a  Congress  f  It  seems  to  me,  brethren, 
that  the  discussions  of  this  "  missionary  day  " 
should  lead  to  some  practical  result. 

But  to  return  to  my  argument.  The  in- 
ference which  has  been  reached,  with  re- 
gard to  the  sufficiency  of  the  Gospel  only  in 
converting  and  civilizing  the  heathen  world, 
claims  the  notice  of  scientific  philosophy  alsc, 
in  its  modern  Antichristian  forms.  Such 
philosophy  is  struggling  to  annihilate  the 
Gospel.  We  therefore  ask  the  former  to  ex- 
plain the  wonders  which  the  latter  is  bring- 
ing about  among  the  very  lowest  representa- 
tives of  heathenism.  Take  the  case  of  the 
Papuans.  If  they  do  not  owe  their  exist- 
ence to  God,  if  their  depraved  state  is  not  a 
consequence  of  sin  as  it  came  into  the  world 
through  Adam,  if  there  was  no  atonement 
made  for  them  by  Christ,  but  if  their  origin 
must  be  ascribed  to  natural  forces,  and  their 
degradation  to  a  want  of  action  among  these 
forces,  why  has  the  Gospel  proved  to  be  the 
only  power  that  can  rouse  them  from  their 
death-like  stupor,  and  elevate  them  from 
their  brutishness  ? 

In  order  to  facilitate  discussion,  should 
time  permit,  I  will  sum  up  what  has  been 
said  in  the  form  of  two  theses. 

I.  It  is  the  duty  of  the  Church  to  continue 
and  finish  the  missionary  work  begun  among 
the  most  insignificant  and  degraded  tribes 
of  the  heathen  world. 

II.  Such  work  has  a  peculiar  significance 
in  our  day,  because  it  proves  to  the  Church 
and  to  Antichristian  philosophy  the  world- 
wide sufficiency  of  the  Gospel  as  a  convert- 
ing and  civilizing  power. 

And  now,  in  conclusion,  looking  once  more 
at  those  obscure  and  dark  corners  of  the 
earth,  concerning  which  I  have  been  speak- 
ing, I  say,  from  the  bottom  of  my  heart, 
with  the  apostle,  "  The  glorious  Gospel  of 
the  blessed  God !" 


THE  MISSION  FIELD  OF  THE  SOUTH. 


BY  THE  REV.  MOSES  D.  HOGE,  D.D.,  RICHMOND,  VA. 


PHOTOGRAPHY  has  illustrated  the  possibil- 
ity of  printing  a  volume  as  large  as  Homer's 
Iliad  on  a  slip  of  paper  no  larger  than  the 
palm  of  a  man's  hand ;  but  science  has  dis- 
covered no  method  of  enabling  a  speaker  to 
condense  into  the  limits  of  a  few  minutes 
the  discussion  of  a  theme  requiring  as  many 
hours  for  its  proper  elucidation.  In  at- 
tempting to  portray  "  The  Mission  Field  of 
the  South,"  I  can  only  do  as  the  painter 
who  is  compelled  to  make  a  hurried  sketch 
of  a  wide  landscape :  he  can  only  present  it 
in  outline,  with  a  few  touches  which  rather 
suggest  its  salient  points  than  depict  them. 
There  is  no  time  for  filling  in,  or  for  minute 
delineation.  If  he  can  not  produce  a  com- 
pleted picture,  he  must  content  himself  with 
a  cartoon. 

Speakers  and  writers  vary  in  their  enu- 
meration of  the  States  which  constitute  what 
we  familiarly  call  "The  South."  I  shall 
adopt  Commodore  Maury's  classification, 
which  includes  Virginia,  North  Carolina, 
South  Carolina,  Georgia,  Florida,  Alabama, 
Mississippi,  Louisiana,  Texas,  Arkansas,  and 
Tennessee,  with  the  Indian  Territory  and  New 
Mexico,  which  are  classed  with  the  South- 
ern States  because  they  lie  east  of  the  Rocky 
Mountains,  south  of  36°  30'  N.  Latitude,  and 
are  drained  by  the  rivers  which  empty  into 
the  Gulf  of  Mexico.  Some  of  the  States  j  ust 
enumerated  are  the  largest  in  the  Union — 
one  of  them,  Texas,  being  equal  in  extent 
to  all  the  New  England  States  together, 
and  all  the  Middle  States  besides,  and  per- 
haps a  portion  of  one  of  the  Western  States 
in  addition. 

Physical  Advantages. — The  eleven  South- 
ern States  together  occupy  an  area  nearly 
equal  to  that  of  Austria,  Prussia,  France, 
and  Italy,  with  their  combined  population 
of  more  than  120,000,000.  Such  is  the  ex- 
tent of  the  missionary  field  of  which  I  am 
to  speak.  But  there  is  no  moral  interest  at- 
tached to  mere  territorial  magnitude.  The 
physical  character  of  this  great  domain, 
however,  has  a  most  important  connection 
with  what  does  give  it  peculiar  interest  in 
the  regards  of  the  philanthropist  and  Chris- 
tian, for  its  natural  advantages  are  such  as 
must  ultimately  give  it  a  population  com- 
mensurate with  its  vast  extent.  One  of  the 
wonderful  features  of  the  Atlantic  side  of 
the  North  American  Continent  is  that  the 
great  basin  of  the  St.  Lawrence  is  the  only 


one  which  runs  from  west  to  east,  while  at 
right  angles  to  it  is  the  greater  basin  of  the 
Mississippi,  which  flows  from  north  to  south 
— as  do,  more  or  less  directly,  all  the  prin- 
cipal rivers  of  the  Union  —  widening  and 
deepening  as  they  run ;  thus  affording  in- 
creased facilities  for  navigation  as  they  ap- 
proach the  ocean  or  the  Gulf  of  Mexico, 
through  whose  waters,  laving  our  southern 
coast,  in  a  few  years  more,  so  much  of  the 
commerce  of  the  world  will  pass.  But  the 
commercial  interests  of  the  country  demand 
artificial  lines  of  canal  and  railway  trans- 
verse to  the  natural  lines  of  valleys  and  riv- 
ers. One  of  these  great  avenues  of  trade* 
from  the  interior  to  the  coast  was  traced  by 
the  foresight  of  Washington  more  than  a 
century  ago,  when,  observing  how  the  con- 
fluence of  the  Missouri  and  Ohio  rivers  with 
the  Mississippi  was  midway  between  the 
northern  lakes  and  the  Gulf  of  Mexico,  and 
that  the  capes  of  the  Chesapeake  Bay  were 
midway  between  Florida  and  Maine,  he  pro- 
jected the  grand  scheme  of  connecting  the 
James  River  with  the  Kauawha,  thus  estab- 
lishing communication  by  water  between 
the  Mississippi,  with  its  vast  tributaries  in 
the  West,  and  the  Atlantic  Ocean  on  the 
East.  The  construction  of  this  great  na- 
tional work  is  now  one  of  the  most  interest- 
ing of  all  the  enterprises  which  occupies 
public  attention,  and  its  completion  will 
mark  a  new  era  in  the  commercial  prosperi- 
ty of  the  whole  country. 

Such  a  connection  between  the  West  and 
East  by  water  communication  will  be  fol- 
lowed, or  perhaps  preceded,  by  another  and 
a  greater  by  rail.  For  the  natural  laws  of 
climate,  distance,  and  production  will  com- 
pel the  construction  of  an  Atlantic  and  Pa- 
cific Railroad  south  of  the  36th  parallel 
of  latitude  —  one  which  will  not  require  a 
snoAV-plow  driven  by  locomotives  to  open  a 
track  through  formidable  drifts — the  short- 
est, the  cheapest,  and  least  obstructed  by 
frost  and  storms,  constituting  another  of 
those  great  continental  highways  of  com- 
merce not  only  for  North  America,  but  for 
Europe  and  Asia — such  as  Macaulay  tells 
us  is  always  like  a  belt  of  gold  across  any 
country  over  which  it  passes. 

The  Southern  States,  stretching  down  from 
the  Potomac  and  Ohio  rivers,  early  chilled 
by  autumnal  frosts,  to  the  Florida  Islands, 
within  one  degree  of  the  torrid  zone,  from 


624 


CHRISTIAN  MISSIONS. 


the  days  of  their  colonial  history  have  been 
the  producers  of  the  great  staples  whose 
importance  to  the  commerce  of  the  world 
rendered  them  especially  invaluable  to  this 
country,  because  the  time  came,  and  was 
not  long  ago,  when  they  furnished  three- 
fourths  of  its  entire  domestic  exports.  It 
is  true  the  system  of  labor  which  produced 
these  results  has  been  changed ;  but  climate 
and  soil  can  not  be  changed  by  revolution, 
.and  therefore  their  capacity  for  production 
is  undimiuished. 

But,  in  addition  to  the  cotton,  sugar,  and 
other  great  staples,  no  States  surpass  the 
Southern  in  the  certainty  and  abundance  of 
their  cereal  products.  Not  only  is  this  true 
of  the  vast  grain  fields  of  Virginia,  North 
Carolina,  and  Tennessee,  but  the  little  sandy 
State  of  South  Carolina,  as  long  ago  as  the 
year  1850,  produced  six  million  bushels  of 
corn  more  than  all  the  New  England  States 
together;  while  Virginia,  North  Carolina, 
and  Tennessee  produced  300,000  bushels  of 
corn  in  excess  of  all  that  was  grown  in  New 
York,  Pennsylvania,  New  Jersey,  Ohio,  Maine, 
New  Hampshire,  Vermont,  Massachusetts, 
and  Connecticut — to  say  nothing  of  Rhode 
Island. 

The  development  of  the  mineral  resources 
of  the  South  has  just  commenced;  but  so 
rich  and  inexhaustible  are  they,  that  they 
are  now  attracting  the  attention  of  capital- 
ists from  every  country  represented  in  this 
Alliance. 

I  do  not  speak  vauntingly  of  these  phys- 
ical characteristics  of  the  Southern  States, 
for  there  is  no  merit  and  nothing  to  be 
proud  of  in  the  possession  of  these  natural 
advantages — especially  as  we  have  not  im- 
proved them  as  we  ought — and  I  only  enu- 
merate some  of  them  to  show  how  vast  a 
population  may  be  supported  by  a  section 
of  country  so  favored  by  nature,  and  how 
important  it  is  (now  that  the  overthrow  of 
slavery  has  removed  the  greatest  obstacle  to 
immigration)  to  make  every  possible  prep- 
aration for  the  spiritual  good  of  the  millions 
who  are  so  soon  to  crowd  our  South -land 
and  render  it  the  most  populous  part  of  the 
Union. 

Sparse  Population  and  Ignorance. — Coming 
now  to  a  more  important  division  of  my  sub- 
ject, I  remark  that  there  are  some  hindr- 
ances to  progress  of  the  Gospel  among  our 
people,  some  of  which  can  not  be  immedi- 
ately removed.  The  sparseness  of  the  pop- 
ulation compared  with  the  territorial  ex-  J 
tent  of  most  of  the  Southern  States  is  a  se- 
rious obstacle  to  the  establishment  either 
of  schools  or  churches.  Living  upon  large 
plantations,  as  so  many  of  their  inhabitants 
do,  necessarily  remote  from  each  other,  not 
yet  recovered  from  the  impoverishment  of 
unsuccessful  war,  it  is  often  impossible  to 
unite  in  sufficient  numbers  for  the  mainte- 
nance of  the  ordinances  of  religion. 


There  is  a  partial  remedy  for  this  hinder- 
ance  in  the  efforts  of  the  Mission  Boards  of 
different  denominations  to  supply  people  so 
situated  with  evangelistic  labor  and  with 
healthful  religious  reading.  But  another 
impediment  to  spiritual  improvement  from 
that  source  is  found  in  the  ignorance  of 
a  large  class  of  the  population,  debarring 
them  from  the  benefit  of  any  teaching  that 
is  not  oral. 

Education  and  the  University  of  Virginia. — 
Intending  to  present  as  faithfully  as  I  can  a 
true  picture  of  my  field,  I  do  not  suppress 
the  fact,  though  it  pains  me  to  admit  it,  that 
the  United  States  census  reveals  a  larger 
percentage  of  illiteracy,  even  among  the  na- 
tive white  population  of  the  South,  than  is 
to  be  found  in  any  other  portion  of  the  Un- 
ion. But  this  obstacle  to  spiritual  improve- 
ment, like  that  occasioned  by  sparse  popula- 
tion, time  and  effort  will  speedily  remove. 
1  Indeed,  the  educational  interests  of  the 
j  South  have  recently  received  a  mighty  im- 
pulse. Certain  circumstances  have  aroused 
I  the  people  in  reference  to  the  education  of 
all  classes,  and  they  are  addressing  them- 
selves earnestly  to  the  great  undertaking. 
Thousands  of  our  planters  and  farmers  at 
the  close  of  a  desolating  war,  even  before 
they  began  to  retrieve  their  material  losses, 
made  provision  for  the  education  of  their 
sons  for  the  purpose  of  securing  to  them  a 
capital  which  none  of  the  vicissitudes  of  life 
could  deprive  them  of,  and  by  which  they 
might  always  attain  the  means  of  honor- 
!  able  maintenance.  They  did  not  agree 
with  Montaigne's  father  that  "your  scholar 
costs  too  much,"  but  they  believed  there  was 
no  investment  of  money  which  brought  re- 
turns so  splendid,  not  only  to  the  individ- 
ual mind  illumined  and  invigorated  by  no- 
ble learning,  but  to  the  State,  whose  shat- 
tered fortunes  could  be  best  reconstructed 
by  filling  it  with  young  men  qualified,  by 
thorough  classical  and  scientific  training, 
to  develop  its  material  resources  as  well  as 
advance  its  intellectual  and  moral  power. 
They  knew  that,  if  the  prestige  so  long 
attached  to  gentle  blood  and  hereditary 
wealth  could  not  be  maintained,  the  aris- 
tocracy of  talent  and  acquirement  would 
never  lose  its  influence.  The  young  men, 
too,  comprehended  the  situation,  and  the 
consequence  was,  all  the  colleges  and  higher 
schools  of  the  South  began  to  revive,  even 
before  trade  and  commerce  revived,  and  were 
filled  with  eager,  ambitious  young  men,  de- 
termined to  achieve  whatever  victories  may 
be  won  on  the  peaceful  fields  of  studious  let- 
ters. In  Virginia  we  have  the  advantage 
of  an  institution  which  is,  in  effect,  a  nor- 
mal school  to  all  other  educational  institu- 
tions. The  University  of  Virginia  was  the 
first  in  the  land  organized  on  a  system 
which  made  it  the  true  culmination  of  the 
primary  school,  the  academy,  and  the  col- 


HOGE :  THE  MISSION  FIELD  OF  THE  SOUTH. 


625 


lege ;  above  them  all  in  its  standards,  yet 
drawing  them  all  upward,  by  degrees,  to 
an  approximation  with  itself,  by  furnishing 
them  with  a  proper  ideal,  and  by  supplying 
them  with  teachers  and  professors  compe- 
tent to  apply  the  true  principles  of  instruc- 
tion. •  Lest  I  should  seem  to  speak  too  warm- 
ly of  our  University,  with  its  elective  system 
and  independent  schools — some  of  them  of 
applied  science  —  and  its  professors,  better 
known,  perbaps,  in  Europe  than  nearer  home, 
I  may  say  that  a  distinguished  scholar  of 
Great  Britain,  who  recently  visited  this  coun- 
try to  study  its  educational  systems,  in  his 
published  estimate  of  our  University,  gives 
it  a  rank  higher  than  I  have  done,  and  says 
some  of  its  methods  of  instruction  long  fa- 
miliar there  are  just  beginning  to  be  intro- 
duced into  the  best  institutions  abroad.* 

And  now  that  Virginia,  too  long  content 
with  fostering  her  higher  schools,  has  taken 
up  in  earnest  the  education  of  the  masses,  it 
is  easy  to  see  what  an  impulse  will  be  giv- 
en to  the  cause  by  such  teachers  as  the  Uni- 
versity is  sending  out,  and  by  the  elevated 
standard  which  it  presents  to  all  institu- 
tions of  inferior  grade. 

But  more  important  than  the  removal  of 
ignorance  is  the  removal  of  spiritual  blind- 
ness ;  and  it  is  true  in  Christian  as  in  hea- 
then countries,  that,  though  the  teacher  and 
the  preacher  may  go  together,  it  is  the  Gos- 
pel, after  all,  which  is  the  power  of  God  to 
the  salvation  of  men. 

Having  spoken  of  obstacles,  I  may  now 
enumerate  some  facilities  to  the  progress  of 
the  Gospel  in  the  Southern  field. 

Characteristics  of  Southern  People. — One  is 
that  the  people  of  the  South  are  the  most 
homogeneous  on  the  continent.  As  yet,  the 
foreign  element  is  comparatively  small,  and 
the  Continental  forms  of  unbelief  do  not  pre- 
vail among  them.  Speaking  the  same  lan- 
guage, with  common  traditions  and  sympa- 
thies binding  them  together,  of  course  the 
religious  teacher  obtains  readier  access  to 
them  than  where  different  races,  tongues, 
and  creeds  are  elements  of  disintegration  in 
society. 

Again,  our  native  population  is  not  rest- 
less. It  clings  to  the  old  ancestral  home ;  it 
also  cleaves  to  ancestral  religious  faith.  It 
not  only  abides  by  the  soil  in  which  the  dust 
of  noble  forefathers  is  mingled ;  it  is  loyal 
to  the  creeds  associated  with  the  memories 
of  pious  parents.  The  novel  and  specious 
forms  of  error  which  elsewhere  have  oblit- 
erated the  old  landmarks  find  no  welcome 
among  them.  The  irreligion  of  the  South 
is  rather  the  irreligion  of  recklessness,  of 
ignorance,  of  passion,  than  of  infidelity  or 
of  crystallized  forms  of  unbelief.  There 
are  many  communities  in  this  land  where 
the  truth  can  scarcely  penetrate,  so  crusted 


*  Dr.  Porter,  author  of  "Giant  Cities  of  Bashan, "etc. 
40 


over  are  they,  and  incased  by  formulated 
systems  of  impiety.  But  no  neighborhood 
in  the  South  is  inaccessible  because  of  in- 
trenched infidelity.  Skeptical  isms,  which 
spread  like  epidemics  in  some  quarters, 
were  never  popular  there.  And  least  of 
all  are  our  people  infected  by  the  scientific 
philosophy  of  the  day,  which  asserts  such 
an  unvarying  uniformity  in  the  operation 
of  physical  law  as  to  leave  no  place  in  the 
universe  of  God  for  the  supernatural,  and 
therefore  denies  miracles,  discredits  proph- 
ecy, and  silences  prayer.  It  follows,  there- 
fore, that,  when  the  Christian  teacher  comes 
among  us,  he  does  not  have  the  double  task 
of  first  storming  some  outwork  of  infidelity 
before  he  attacks  the  central  citadel  of  natural 
aversion  to  evangelical  truth ;  and  this  great- 
ly facilitates  his  labors  among  our  people. 

Christian  Civilization  of  the  South. — I  am 
tempted  to  enter  into  these  details  about 
Southern  characteristics,  because  there  is 
perhaps  no  part  of  the  world  so  little  un- 
derstood, no  people  about  whom  so  many 
erroneous  impressions  prevail.  We  have 
few  opportunities  for  correcting  them.  Our 
large  cities  are  few  and  far  apart.  Our 
newspapers  are  for  the  most  part  provin- 
cial. Distinguished  foreigners,  visiting  the 
United  States,  find  more  to  interest  them 
north  of  the  Potomac,  and  seldom  derive 
their  information  of  the  South  from  person- 
al observation.  If  we  sought  for  vindica- 
tion, however,  we  would  find  it  in  an  impar- 
tial and  official  source,  bearing  a  testimony 
to  our  Christian  civilization  so  emphatic  as 
to  be  worth  reproducing. 

One  of  the  tables  of  the  United  States 
Census  Report  gives  the  statistics  of  pau- 
perism and  crime  in  all  the  States  of  the 
Union.  Freedom  from  both  of  these  evils 
unquestionably  indicates  a  healthful  and 
elevated  civilization.  The  Southern  States 
stand  highest  in  the  list  in  these  respects. 
I  contrast  the  statements  made  in  the  Cen- 
sus Report  with  regard  to  pauperism  and 
crime  in  the  New  England  States  and  in 
the  Southern  States,  not  for  the  purpose  of 
making  an  invidious  comparison,  which  I 
have  no  desire  to  do,  but  because  the  New 
England  States  are  generally  spoken  of  as 
distinguished  for  thrifty  industry  and  high 
moral  character. 

I. — 1.  Pauperism  prevails  in  the  New  En- 
gland States  in  the  proportion  of  44  to  ev- 
ery 10,000  of  the  entire  population.  In  the 
Southern  States  the  proportion  is  13  to  ev- 
ery 10,000  of  the  entire  population.  2.  In 
the  native  New  England  population,  the  ratio 
is  47  to  every  10,000.  In  the  entire  white 
population  of  the  South,  native  and  foreign, 
the  ratio  is  only  14  to  10,000.  3.  In  the  for- 
eign population  of  New  England  States,  the 
ratio  of  pauperism  is  35  to  every  10,000. 
Among  the  colored  people  of  the  Southern 
States,  the  ratio  is  13  in  every  10,000. 


626 


CHRISTIAN  MISSIONS. 


II. — 1.  In  the  United  States  census  tables 
of  criminal  statistics,  we  are  told  that  in  the 
entire  New  England  population  the  propor- 
tion is  11  in  10,000.  In  the  entire  Southern 
population  it  is  8  in  10,000.  2.  In  the  native 
New  England  population  the  proportion  is 
8  in  every  10,000.  In  the  entire  white  pop- 
ulation of  the  South,  native  and  foreign,  the 
proportion  of  criminals  is  a  little  over  4i 
in  every  10,000.  3.  In  the  foreign  New  En- 
gland population  the  proportion  of  criminals 
is  26  in  every  10,000.  In  the  colored  popu- 
lation of  the  Southern  States  it  is  about  13 
in  10,000. 

III.  Another  surprising  revelation  which 
these  census  tables  makes  is  in  reference 
to  church  accommodations.  1.  In  the  New 
England  States  there  are  5421  churches, 
with  2,203,607  sittings.  [Total  population, 
3,487,924.]  In  the  Southern  States  there  are 
18,000  churches,  with  sittings  for  4,706,937 
persons.  [Total  population  9,487,386.]  2. 
Or,  to  state  it  in  another  form,  in  New  En- 
gland there  is  one  church  for  643  inhabit- 
ants. In  the  South  there  is  one  church  for 
518  inhabitants. 

Thus  we  see  that  if  the  ability  of  a  peo- 
ple to  provide  for  their  own  support  with- 
out being  dependent  on  charity,  if  rever- 
ence for  law,  if  generous  provision  for  the 
ordinances  of  the  Gospel  are  constituent  el- 
ements of  a  true  Christian  civilization,  then, 
when  there  is  a  call  for  a  judgment  by  these 
criteria,  the  Southern  States  step  to  the 
front. 

The  Negroes. — And  yet  there  is  a  vast  work 
to  be  done  for  the  evangelization  of  the  na- 
tive population  of  the  South,  and  a  still  great- 
er for  the  spiritual  welfare  of  two  other  very 
dissimilar  but  most  interesting  races,  the  one 
in  the  Providence  of  God  intermingled  with 
us,  and  the  other  dwelling  upon  our  border. 
In  the  eleven  Southern  States  there  are  about 
five  millions  and  a  half  of  whites,  and  a  lit- 
tle less  than  four  millions  of  negroes.  In 
three  of  the  Southern  States  they  outnum- 
ber the  whites.  In  South  Carolina  they 
have  a  majority  of  more  than  125,000. 

It  will  be  interesting  to  those  whose  sym- 
pathies have  long  been  enlisted  in  behalf  of 
the  freedmen,  and  who  have  had  little  op- 
portunity of  learning  what  Christian  phi- 
lanthropy is  attempting  for  their  improve- 
ment, to  hear  something  definite  with  re- 
gard to  the  efforts  which  are  made,  first, 
for  their  secular  education,  and,  second,  for 
their  religious  training. 

The  Freedman's  Bureau,  out  of  thirteen 
millions  of  dollars,  expended  only  three  and 
a  half  millions  for  educational  purposes.* 
But  what  is  needed  is  some  regular  and  per- 
manent provision,  such  as  is  contemplated 
in  the  Free  School  System  of  the  Southern 


*  Letter  from  Virginia,  in  Old  and  Xeie.    Boston, 
Nov.,  1872. 


States,  which  provides  for  the  education  of 
the  children  of  both  races.  Oppressed  as 
were  the  property  holders  by  the  burdens 
of  taxation,  they  nevertheless  addressed 
themselves  to  the  work  of  establishing  free 
schools  for  white  and  colored  children  with- 
out discrimination  between  them. 

Virginia  has  taken  the  lead  in  this  great 
work,  and  there  the  Free  School  System  in- 
augurated in  1870  has  been  most  faithfully 
and  efficiently  managed,  as  it  might  have 
been  all  over  the  South  but  for  the  fact 
that  in  some  of  the  States  where  aliens 
have  monopolized  office,  and  ignorance  has 
expelled  intelligence  from  the  halls  of  legis- 
lation, the  public  school  fund  has  been  squan- 
dered and  the  interests  of  the  colored  people 
betrayed. 

The  question  of  levying  a  local  tax  for 
providing  school  accommodations  was  car- 
ried in  Virginia  in  every  case  where  it  was 
presented  to  the  suffrages  of  the  people,  ex- 
cept in  one  district  in  which  the  colored  peo- 
ple voted  solidly  against  it.  In  another  large 
district  where  the  colored  people  were  in  the 
majority,  they  left  the  question  of  the  school 
tax  to  be  decided  exclusively  by  the  whites, 
who  were  the  property  holders.  Not  a  vote 
was  cast  by  a  freedman,  but  the  white  people 
voted  unanimously  for  the  tax. 

The  establishment  of  normal  schools  for 
the  negroes,  like  the  excellent  and  well-en- 
dowed Agricultural  and  Polytechnic  Insti- 
tute at  Hampton,  near  Fortress  Monroe,  will 
do  more  than  any  thing  else  to  confirm  their 
possibly  wavering  interest  in  educational 
schemes  for  their  benefit.  Enlightened  and 
well- trained  colored  teachers,  thoroughly 
understanding  the  idiosyncrasies  of  their 
own  race,  and  sincerely  desirous  to  promote 
their  good,  without  partisan  or  selfish  aims, 
will  become  the  best  agency  for  keeping 
alive  their  present  zeal  for  self-improvement, 
and  for  instructing  them  how  to  guard  the 
great  political  estate  so  recently  and  sud- 
denly conferred  on  them,  against  the  raids 
of  pillaging  and  unprincipled  demagogues. 

Next,  as  to  the  efforts  made  for  the  direct 
religious  instruction  of  the  freedmen,  I  may 
say  that  every  evangelical  Church  in  the 
South  has  their  spiritual  welfare  at  heart, 
and  gladly  embraces  every  opportunity  for 
doing  them  good. 

African  independent  Churches. — The  colored 
people  among  us  prefer  separate  independent 
ecclesiastical  organizations;  and  those  of  the 
white  race,  who  have  given  the  subject  the 
most  conscientious  thought,  are  disposed  to 
encourage  them  in  forming  churches  of  their 
own,  with  ministers  and  officers  of  their  own 
choosing,  all  to  be  gathered,  when  they  be- 
come sufficiently  numerous,  under  the  care 
of  Presbyteries,  Synods,  Conferences,  Asso- 
ciations, or  Conventions,  according  to  the 
denominations  to  which  they  belong ;  their 
white  brethren,  in  the  mean  time,  giving 


HOGE :  THE  MISSION  FIELD  OF  THE  SOUTH. 


627 


them  all  the  encouragement,  pecuniary  aid, 
and  moral  support  in  their  power.  This  is 
the  preference  of  the  freedmen,  and  the  poli- 
cy of  the  Methodist  and  Baptist  Churches, 
to  which  denominations  the  colored  people 
in  the  South  for  the  most  part  belong. 

Few  of  them  now  remain  in  connection 
with  the  Methodist  Church,  South.  But  with 
its  approval,  and  under  its  auspices,  an  Af- 
rican Methodist  Church  has  been  organized, 
distinct  and  independent,  yet  still  looking  to 
their  old  spiritual  guardians  for  sympathy, 
counsel,  and  help.  This  they  receive.  All  the 
houses  of  worship  belonging  to  the  Meth- 
odist Church,  South,  which  were  built  for 
their  colored  members,  are  transferred  to 
them  when  they  organize  churches  of  their 
own,  and  in  every  way  they  are  encour- 
aged and  assisted  in  carrying  out  their  wish 
to  maintain  a  distinctive  ecclesiastical  life, 
with  congregations  composed  exclusively  of 
their  own  people,  under  the  control  of  pas- 
tors and  officers  of  their  own  race. 

This  instinctive  and  intense  regard  for 
race,  which  first  segregates  and  then  con- 
solidates them,  is  a  stronger  bond  than  that 
of  nationality ;  and  it  is,  perhaps,  a  prophe- 
cy, and  a  preparation  for  the  time  when  they 
will  be  colonized  into  some  state  or  territo- 
ry of  their  own.  This  will  probably  be  the 
happy  and  harmonious  solution  of  the  prob- 
lem of  their  destiny  in  this  country,  for  all 
history  shows  how  difficult  it  is  for  two  races 
so  dissimilar  in  character  and  capacity  to 
live  together  in  the  peaceful  exercise  of  co- 
ordinate authority  in  Church  and  State. 

It  is  now  admitted  to  be  one  of  the  great 
discoveries  of  modern  missions  that  Chris- 
tianity is  most  rapidly  and  permanently  ad- 
vanced by  the  establishment  of  self-reliant 
churches  composed  wholly  of  native  con- 
verts, each  church  complete  in  itself,  with 
pastors  of  the  same  race  with  the  people. 
The  illustration  of  this  principle  is  already 
beginning  to  be  seen  in  the  South. 

The  colored  Bishop  of  the  Methodist 
Church,  the  Right  Eev.  W.  H.  Miles,  a  man 
of  eminent  prudence  and  piety,  at  a  recent 
General  Conference  held  at  Augusta,  Geor- 
gia, reported  14  annual  conferences,  with 
more  than  600  traveling  preachers,  and 
nearly  600  local  preachers,  and  a  member- 
ship of  about  70,000.  He  opposes  mixed 
schools,  mixed  membership,  and  favors  an 
organization  confined  to  his  own  people — 
not  in  ally  spirit  of  antagonism  or  unkind- 
ness,  for  he  exhorts  them  to  cultivate  the 
most  amicable  relations  with  the  whites, 
and  to  identify  themselves  with  the  inter- 
ests of  the  communities  in  which  they  re- 
side. 

Nor  are  our  Baptist  Churches  less  active 
and  efficient  in  their  labors  for  the  colored 
people.  They  have  missionary  societies 
whose  business  it  is  to  set  the  blacks  to  do- 
ing something  for  themselves,  and  the  whites 


to  helping  them.  They  find  the  Sunday- 
school  to  be  an  instrumentality  admirably 
adapted  for  giving  them  just  the  training 
they  most  need,  because  of  the  opportunity 
it  affords  of  imparting  such  instruction  as 
informs  the  understanding  and  enlightens 
the  conscience.  These  are  springing  up  all 
over  the  South,  and  those  which  are  main- 
tained during  the  winter  as  well  as  the  sum- 
mer months  are  called  by  the  significant 
name  of  evergreens. 

Wliat  the  Freedmen  need. — But,  after  all, 
the  paramount  necessity  of  the  Southern  Af- 
rican Churches  is  a  thoroughly  educated 
ministry  of  their  own.  Nothing  can  be  sub- 
stituted for  this,  nor  can  the  complete  devel- 
opment of  their  ecclesiastical  life  ever  be  at- 
tained without  it.  The  negroes  are  consti- 
tutionally imaginative  and  mercurial,  with 
a  strong  inclination  to  superstition  and  fa- 
naticism. And  what  they  most  require  to 
counteract  these  tendencies  is  systematic  in- 
struction in  divine  truth — not  the  technical 
systems  of  the  schools,  not  metaphysical  sub- 
tleties or  sectarian  polemics,  but  a  ground- 
ing in  fundamental  principles  —  such  a 
grounding  as  comes  from  illustrating  these 
principles  so  simply  and  reiterating  them  so 
patiently  as  to  insure  a  true  and  clear  com- 
prehension of  them.  If  ignorant  enthusiasts 
and  fiery  fanatics  are  their  spiritual  guides, 
their  religion  will  be  the  intoxication  of  ex- 
cited animal  sensibilities,  full  of  the  chime- 
ras of  distempered  fancy,  instead  of  the  calm 
sobriety  of  rational  faith  and  the  salutary 
convictions  of  conscience  enlightened  by  the 
Spirit  of  Truth.  The  Church,  therefore, 
which  secures  this  kind  of  instruction  for 
them  is  their  greatest  benefactor.  The 
American  Baptist  Home  Missionary  Society 
is  doing  a  noble  work  in  this  direction.  It 
has  established  seven  schools,  one  in  Wash- 
ington City,  and  the  others  in  the  Southern 
States  at  well  -  selected  points,  viz.,  Rich- 
mond, Raleigh,  Columbia,  Augusta,  New  Or- 
leans, and  Nashville,  for  the  education  of 
young  men  of  color  for  the  Gospel  ministry. 

Type  of  Civilization  and  Christianity  among 
the  Negroes. — Let  us  hope  that  these  vari- 
ous instrumentalities  will  be  blessed  by  the 
Great  Head  of  the  Church  to  the  highest 
good  of  the  African  people  in  this  country. 
Nothing  but  the  conservative  power  of 
Christianity  can  secure  them  against  the 
evil  influences  which  threaten  them.  Noth- 
ing else  can  bring  them  a  happy  future. 
There  is  much  to  hinder  their  attainment  of 
a  high  degree  of  civilization.  They  are  men- 
tally and  physically  unfitted  to  cope  with 
the  superior  energy  of  the  white  races.  It 
is  no  disparagement  to  the  African,  and  no 
reflection  on  the  wisdom  and  goodness  of 
the  Creator,  that  these  inequalities  exist. 
The  truest  friend  of  the  African  is  not  the 
man  who  inspects  him  through  the  rose-col- 
ored lenses  of  a  sentimental  philanthropy, 


628 


CHRISTIAN  MISSIONS. 


but  one  who  looks  at  him  in  the  light  of 
truth,  recognizing  his  weaknesses  that  he 
may  guard  him  against  their  influence,  and 
appreciating  his  good  qualities  that  he  may 
encourage  him  in  their  development. 

Nor  is  this  picture  a  cheerless  and  dis- 
couraging one.  There  is  before  him  the 
hope  of  a  moral  and  spiritual  progression  of 
greater  worth  than  any  that  is  merely  men- 
tal ;  and,  though  his  type  of  civilization  and 
of  Christianity  may  be  different  from  that 
of  the  Caucasian,  it  need  not  be  necessarily 
an  inferior  one;  though  he  may  never  be 
distinguished  in  the  walks  of  philosophic  or 
scientific  research,  or  of  broad  statesman- 
ship, or  of  original  discovery,  yet  he  may  at- 
tain to  a  spiritual  development  of  the  gen- 
tlest and  most  attractive  character.  The 
very  traits  so  prominent  in  his  nature — his 
freedom  from  ambition  and  avarice,  his  hum- 
ble, docile,  forgiving,  contented,  patient,  lov- 
ing, submissive  spirit — may,  under  the  cher- 
ishing and  sanctifying  influence  of  divine 
grace,  prepare  him  for  a  type  of  Christian 
civilization,  softer,  kindlier,  fuller  of  the  vir- 
tues of  the  Sermon  on  the  Mount,  more  self- 
sacrificing,  and  richer  in  the  sweet  charities 
of  the  Gospel  than  any  yet  exhibited  by  the 
more  aggressive  and  dominant  white  races. 

The, Bed  Man. — A  glance  at  another  race 
thrown  upon  our  Christian  charity,  in  the 
providence  of  God,  will  complete  my  sketch 
of  the  "Mission  Field  of  the  South." 

On  the  100th  meridian,  between  Kansas 
and  Texas,  lies  what  is  called  the  Indian 
Territory,  a  land  of  water-brooks,  and  fount- 
ains, and  depths,  that  spring  out  of  valleys 
and  hills ;  a  land  spread  out  in  wide  and  un- 
dulating plains,  many  of  them  of  inexhaust- 
ible fertility,  through  which  flow  broad  and 
navigable  rivers,  bordered  by  forests ;  a  land 
of  temperate  and  healthful  climate,  and 
larger  in  extent  than  either  of  the  great 
States  of  New  York,  Pennsylvania,  or  Vir- 
ginia. This  Territory  is  now  the  home  of 
the  Indian  tribes  once  dwelling  in  Georgia, 
Alabama,  Mississippi,  and  Florida,  but  re- 
moved by  the  Government  of  the  United 
States  to  the  reservations  now  allotted  to 
them  and  marked  by  treaty  boundaries. 
The  Indian  tribes  inhabiting  this  Territory 
are  the  Cherokees,  Choctaws,  Chickasaws, 
Creeks,  and  Seminoles,  with  a  few  remnants 
of  other  tribes. 

These  Indians  form  a  part  of  the  aborig- 
ines to  whom  this  whole  continent  once  be- 
longed, driven  from  year  to  year  by  aggress- 
ive white  emigration  into  narrower  limits, 
and  now  nearly  all  removed  to  the  west  of 
the  Mississippi  River. 

To  those  who  are  fond  of  observing  the 
characteristic  distinctions  of  race,  the  In- 
dian of  our  frontier  will  furnish  an  interest- 
ing study.  Many  of  his  characteristics  are 
in  marked  contrast  with  those  of  the  Afri- 
can, which  we  have  just  been  considering. 


The  North  American  Indian  is  haughty  in 
demeanor,  taciturn,  stoical,  watchful,  often 
revengeful,  implacable,  and  cruel ;  yet  hos- 
pitable, grateful  for  kindness,  of  a  tempera- 
ment imaginative  and  poetic,  dignified  in 
manner,  ceremonious,  regardful  of  the  ties 
of  consanguinity,  full  of  veneration  for  an- 
cestral traditions  and  usages,  with  powers 
of  expression  which  often  rise  to  impressive 
and  effective  oratory. 

Though  the  Indian  has  not  attracted  the 
attention  or  called  forth  the  Christian  ac- 
tivities of  our  people  as  the  negro  has  done 
— for  philanthropy  in  this  country  has  been 
for  the  most  part  monochromatic,  and  not 
much  tinged  by  the  red  ray  —  yet  no  ef- 
forts have  been  more  richly  rewarded  than 
those  which  have  been  made  for  the  spirit- 
ual good  of  the  poor  Indian.  Recently,  in- 
deed, a  noble  advance  has  been  made  in  that 
direction.  Within  a  year  or  two  the  Gov- 
ernment has  accepted  the  aid  of  religious 
bodies  in  its  effort  to  pacify  and  civilize  the 
savages  on  our  Western  plains.  In  Wash- 
ington City,  in  January  last,  the  Board  of  In- 
dian Commissioners  held  a  conference  with 
some  of  the  Missionary  Boards  which  have 
been  co-operating  with  the  official  agents 
of  the  Government,  and  the  reports  made 
and  the  addresses  delivered  indicate  a  new 
era  in  popular  interest  in  behalf  of  the  civil 
and  spiritual  condition  of  the  Indian. 

Those  were  impressive  words  of  Bishop 
Whipple  when' he  said,  "Very  much  of  the 
hostility  of  the  Indian  is  the  hostility  of  de- 
spair ;  it  is  the  terrible  blow  which  a  man 
who  has  nothing  to  hope  for  strikes  toward 
his  enemies."  And  those  were  brave  words 
addressed  to  the  Board  of  Indian  Commis- 
sioners, in  1872,  by  the  President  of  the 
United  States,  in  reference  to  the  rumor  of 
a  change  in  the  humane  policy  which  had 
been  pursued  toward  the  ludian :  "  Such  a 
thing  has  not  been  thought  of.  I  do  not 
believe  our  Creator  has  placed  the  different 
races  of  men  on  the  earth  with  the  view 
of  having  the  stronger  exert  his  energies  in 
exterminating  the  weaker.  If  any  change 
takes  place  in  the  Indian  policy  of  the  Gov- 
ernment while  I  hold  my  present  office,  it  will 
be  on  the  humanitarian  side  of  the  question." 

The  improved  condition  of  the  Indians 
of  the  South-west  Territory  illustrates  the 
happy  results  of  Christian  effort  in  their 
behalf.  They  are  civilized  communities. 
They  wear  the  dress,  and  live  in  houses 
built  and  furnished  as  among  the  humbler 
classes  in  the  States.  They  till  their  fields 
and  have  herds  of  domestic  animals.  They 
have  printing-presseSjiiewspapers,  andbooks 
in  the  English  language  and  in  their  own 
tongues.  They  have  more  schools,  more 
churches,  in  proportion  to  population,  and 
larger  attendance  on  religious  services,  and 
contribute  more  money  for  benevolent  ob- 
jects, than  the  people  of  any  Territory  of  the 


HOGE :  THE  MISSION  FIELD  OF  THE  SOUTH. 


629 


United  States.  Life  and  property  are  more 
safe  among  them,  and  there  are  fewer  viola- 
tions of  law  among  them,  than  in  the  terri- 
tories occupied  by  the  whites.* 

The  Southern  Methodists  and  Baptists 
are  doing  faithful  work  among  them.  So, 
too,  is  the  Northern  Presbyterian  Board,  es- 
pecially among  the  Creeks  and  Seminoles. 

But  the  most  extensive  missionary  op- 
erations in  the  Territory  are  conducted  by 

*  "  Fourth  Annual  Report  of  Board  of  Indian  Com- 
missioners." 


the  Southern  Presbyterian  Church.  It  has 
seven  missionaries,  three  female  missionary 
assistants,  and  a  number  of  native  help- 
ers, together  Avith  an  important  institution, 
Spencer  Academy,  under  the  care  of  three 
able  instructors,  and  with  judicious  man- 
agement destined  to  become  a  power  for 
good  in  advancing  the  educational  and  re- 
ligious interests  of  the  Indian  people.  - 

Such  are  some  of  the  gleanings  of  informa- 
tion which  I  have  the  honor  to  lay  before  you 
from  "  The  Missionary  Field  of  the  South." 


THE  INDIANS  IN  THE  UNITED  STATES. 


BY  THE  HON.  FELIX  R.  BEUNOT,  PITTSBURG,  PA., 
Chairman  of  the  U.  S.  Board  of  Iiidian  Commissioners. 


IF  ^>  e  speak  of  the  Turks,  the  Mexicans, 
or  the  Chinese,  the  mind  at  once  localizes 
them,  and  recalls  some  definite  conception 
of  the  habits  and  condition  of  the  people 
mentioned,  and  that  which  we  know  to  be 
characteristic  of  a  part  is  generally  correct 
if  applied  to  the  nation. 

We  are  apt  to  speak  and  think  of  the 
North  American  Indians  in  like  manner. 
Those  we  have  read  of,  or  know  of,  or  have 
seen,  make  up  our  conceit  of  the  whole  race. 
And  yet,  as  they  now  exist  in  the  States  and 
Territories,  there  are  as  great  diversities  of 
condition  and  circumstances  among  the  va- 
rious tribes  of  Indians,  as  there  are  between 
the  nations  I  have  mentioned. 

They  are  distributed  from  the  Atlantic  to 
the  Pacific,  and  occupy  reservations  or  claim 
their  hunting-grounds  in  eight  States  and 
eleven  Territories  of  the  United  States. 

There  are  ninety  reservations,  one-third  of 
the  number  being  west  of  the  Rocky  Mount- 
ains, and  about  one  hundred  and  thirty  tribes, 
or  remnants  of  tribes,  speaking  probably  as 
many  as  fifty  different  languages. 

Many  of  the  tribes  have  no  more  knowl- 
edge of,  or  intercourse  with,  each  other  than 
the  Turks  have  with  the  Mexicans ;  and  oth- 
ers maintain  only  the  intercourse  of  war  with 
their  hereditary  enemies.  The  Comanches 
fight  the  Apaches  and  the  Osages ;  the  Sioux 
fight  the  Crows  and  the  Utes ;  the  Utes  fight 
the  Cheyennes. 

In  1869,  when  the  Cheyennes  and  Arra- 
pahoes  made  a  "  strong  peace,"  as  they  ex- 
pressed it,with  the  whites,  the  chiefs  thought 
it  necessary  to  explain  that,  "in  all  their 
talks  with  the  Great  Father's  commission- 
ers, they  never  agreed  to  make  peace  with 
the  Utes  or  the  Sioux,"  and  asked  me  for  a 
"paper"  which  would  allow  them  to  go  af- 
ter their  enemies,  and  not  be  molested  by 
the  "  Great  Father's  soldiers."  Their  raids 
•against  each  other  have  been  less  frequent 
of  late,  and  will  soon  cease. 

The  "Plains  Indians"  here  spoken  of  are 
savages,  and  are  just  beginning  to  improve 
under  the  peace  policy. 

The  Oneida  Indians  in  Cattaraugus  Coun- 
ty, in  this  State,  hold  Agricultural  Fairs  and 
Teachers'  Institutes.  The  Santee  Sioux  in 
Dakotah  maintain  Episcopal  and  Presbyte- 
rian churches.  The  Cherokees,  Choctaws, 
Seminoles,  and  Creeks,  in  the  Indian  Terri- 


tory, have  Methodist,  Baptist,  and  Presbyte- 
rian churches,  a  legislature,  and  a  system  of 
public  schools.  At  several  reservations  in 
Washington  Territory  the  Indians  are  good 
Catholics,  and  at  one  the  chief  conducts  dai- 
ly matins  and  vespers  in  the  church.  Many 
of  the  laborers  in  the  great  lumber-mills  at 
Puget  Sound,  and  nearly  all  in  the  Belling- 
ham  Bay  Coal  Company's  mines,  are  Indians, 
earning  the  same  wages  as  white  men. 

Upon  another  reservation  quite  remote 
from  white  settlement  the  Indians  have 
erected  two  Methodist  churches,  which  are 
supplied  by  native  preachers  and  have  five 
hundred  members.  The  Pueblo  tribes  in 
New  Mexico,  from  time  immemorial,  have 
lived  in  houses,  raised  corn,  peaches,  and 
melons,  and  weave  on  looms  of  their  own 
invention  water-proof  ponchos,  or  blankets, 
which  have  not  yet  been  successfully  imi- 
tated by  the  whites. 

In  view  of  these  diversities  of  character 
and  condition,  and  the  facts  stated,  it  is 
charitable  to  suppose  that  the  man  who 
declares  that  "the  Indians  are  only  fit  to 
be  exterminated"  knows  very  little  about 
them  as  a  race  of  people.  So  also  of  him 
who  declares  that  "the  Indians  are  inca- 
pable of  being  civilized."  If  the  one  only 
means  that  such  of  the  Indians  as  commit 
murders  and  savage  atrocities  in  time  of 
peace  should  be  exterminated,  I  agree  with 
him.  Even  white  people  of  that  class  ought 
to  be  exterminated,  but  not  the  race.  If 
the  other  means  only  that  a  barbarous  peo- 
ple can  not  in  a  few  years  all  be  transform- 
ed into  inventors,  scientists,  lawyers,  litte- 
rateurs, and  adepts  in  the  mechanic  arts,  I 
agree  with  him  also.  But  these  are  not  the 
inseparable  concomitants  of  civilization,  any 
more  than  are  marble  palaces  and  French  fur- 
niture. There  are  white  communities  in  this 
country  and  in  Europe,  and  in  both  great 
masses  of  humble  people  who  could  not  be 
elevated  to  this  degree  of  civilization  in  a 
century,  yet  they  are  civilized. 

When  it  is  claimed  that  the  Indians  are 
susceptible  of  civilization,  I  mean  that,  un- 
der proper  treatment  and  teaching,  they  can 
become  an  inoffensive,  industrious,  Christian 
people,  with  all  the  civilization  necessary  to 
their  own  happiness  and  the  peace  of  their 
neighbors,  and  all  the  Christianity  needful 
to  their  salvation. 


BRUNOT :   INDIANS  IN  THE  UNITED  STATES. 


631 


Since  the  day  of  Roger  Williams  to  the 
present  time,  the  Proprietary,  Colonial,  Con- 
tinental, and  United  States  Governments 
have  generally  legislated  in  recognition  of 
the  Indians'  rights.  The  legislative  wrongs 
have  been  the  result  of  deception,  or  forced 
by  the  aggressive  character  of  the  people. 
The  benevolent  measures  attempted  for  their 
benefit  and  improvement  in  times  past  were 
almost  uniformly  thwarted  by  the  agencies 
employed  to  execute  them.  Said  the  Board 
of  Indian  Commissioners  in  1869 :  "  The  sol- 
diers sent  for  their  protection  carried  demor- 
alization and  disease  into  their  midst.  The 
agent  appointed  to  be  their  friend  and  coun- 
selor, business  manager,  and  the  almoner  of 
the  Government  bounties,  frequently  went 
among  them  only  to  enrich  himself  in  the 
shortest  possible  time,  at  the  cost  of  the  In- 
dians, and  spend  the  largest  available  sum 
of  the  government  money  with  the  least  os- 
tensible beneficial  results.  The  general  in- 
terest of  the  trader  was  opposed  to  their  en- 
lightenment as  tending  to  lessen  his  prof- 
its. Any  increase  of  intelligence  would  ren- 
der them  less  liable  to  his  impositions ;  and, 
if  occupied  in  agricultural  pursuits,  their 
product  of  furs  would  be  proportionally  de- 
creased. The  contractors'  and  transporters' 
interests  were  opposed  to  it,  for  the  reason 
that  the  production  of  agricultural  products 
on  the  spot  would  measurably  cut  off  their 
profits  in  furnishing  army  supplies.  The 
interpreter  knew  that  if  they  were  taught 
his  occupation  was  gone.  The  more  sub- 
missive and  patient  the  tribe,  the  greater 
the  number  of  outlaws  infesting  its  vicini- 
ty ;  and  all  these  were  the  missionaries  teach- 
ing them  the  most  degrading  vices  of  which 
humanity  is  capable.  If,  in  spite  of  these  ob- 
stacles, a  tribe  made  some  progress  in  agri- 
culture, or  their  lands  became  valuable  from 
any  cause,  the  process  of  civilization  was 
summarily  ended  by  driving  them  away 
from  their  homes  with  fire  and  sword  to 
undergo  similar  experiences  in  some  new 
locality." 

Under  the  pernicious  political  maxim  that 
"  to  the  victors  belong  the  spoils,"  Indian 
agencies  had  been  for  many  years  among  the 
perquisites  of  successful  politicians.  They 
were  bestowed  too  often  as  the  choicest  re- 
wards upon  their  most  active  and  most  scru- 
pulous partisans.  As  a  natural  consequence, 
peculation  and  robbery,  and  a  disregard  for 
the  rights  of  the  Red  Men,  had  become  the 
rule  among  them,  and  honest  administration 
the  exception. 

The   outrages  perpetrated  upon  the  In- 
dians by  the  lawless  classes  of  the  frontiers  \ 
were  frequently  made  the  pretext  of  war 
against  them. 

For  a  hundred  years  the  minds  of  the 
American  people  have  been  filled  with  tales 
of  Indian  atrocities  done  upon  "  the  hardy 
pioneers  of  the  frontier,"  nearly  always  hor- 


rible enough  to  stop  the  heart  beat,  and  chill 
the  blood  in  the  veins  of  the  hearer,  and  al- 
ways seemingly  unprovoked. 

The  white  man's  story  alone  was  told,  the 
Indian's  never.  The  celebrated  Kit  Car- 
son, before  a  Congressional  committee,  testi- 
fied but  mildly  when  he  said,  "As  a  general 
thing,  the  difficulties  arise  from  aggressions 
on  the  part  of  the  whites."  I  would  have 
used  far  stronger  words  justified  by  facts. 
The  Indian  wars  of  the  forty  years  before 
the  election  of  President  Grant  have  cost 
five  hundred  millions  of  dollars.  The  ac- 
companying horrors  of  slain  soldiers,  mur- 
dered families,  and  devastated  homes,  who 
can  count  f 

The  military  "  Peace  Commission  "  of  1867, 
comprising  among  its  members  the  com- 
mander-in-chief  and  leading  generals  of  the 
army,  relate  some  striking  facts  in  their  re- 
port. I  quote  you  one  of  their  conclusions : 
"But  it  is  said  our  Indian  wars  have  been 
almost  constant.  Have  we  been  uniformly 
unjust?  We  answer  unhesitatingly,  Yes !" 
No  one  can  traverse  the  field  of  their  inves- 
tigations without  coming  to  the  same  infer- 
ence. 

The  remembrance  that  my  topic  belongs 
to  "Missionary  Day"  in  the  programme 
warns  me  away  from  this  prolific  phase  of 
the  subject. 

That,  under  auspices  so  adverse,  the  In- 
dians have  not  made  greater  progress  in  civ- 
ilization can  not  excite  surprise.  That  so 
much  progress  has  been  made  by  many  of 
them  is  wonderful. 

President  Grant  in  his  initial  message  in- 
dicated his  determination  to  do  justice  to 
the  remnant  of  the  aboriginals,  and  reform 
the  abuses  of  the  Indian  service.  The  "Peace 
Policy  "  will  stand  to  his  honor  as  long  as 
our  country  has  a  place  in  history.  Taking 
out  from  politics  the  nomination  of  Indian 
agents,  he  placed  it  in  the  hands  of  Christian 
denominations  willing  to  accept  the  trust 
with  its  responsibilities.  They  are  expected 
to  nominate  honest  men,  and  supplement  the 
civilizing  instrumentalities  of  the  Govern- 
ment with  Christian  missions. 

Passing  over  the  wise  adoption  of  the  pol- 
icy to  assure  peace  and  safety  to  the  frontier 
settler,  its  economy  in  lives  and  money,  and 
other  details  of  its  purpose  and  operations, 
I  confine  my  remarks  to  the  features  which 
especially  concern  this  Christian  assembly. 

It  affirms  the  duty  of  the  nation  to  extend 
the  blessings  of  civilization  to  the  Indians, 
and  recognizes  the  religion  of  Christ  as  the 
foundation  principle  of  civilization.  Do  the 
Christians  of  the  United  States  believe  this  ? 
Never  before  was  there  such  an  opportuni- 
ty to  prove  our  faith  by  our  works.  Never 
was  there  an  opportunity  for  Christian  mis- 
sions under  so  favorable  circumstances  — 
never  a  plainer  duty  presented. 

There  are   about  350,000  Indians  in  the 


CHRISTIAN  MISSIONS. 


United  States  ami  Territories.  Every  de- 
gree of  progress  from  barbarism  to  civili- 
zation is  illustrated  in  the  tribes.  About 
250,000  are  civilized  or  partly  civilized,  and 
the  remainder  are  yet  savages  in  every  re- 
spect. Not  less  than  15,000  Indians  are 
members  of  Christian  churches,  and  those 
tribes  are  most  advanced  in  civilization 
where  the  foundation  was  laid  by  Christian 
missions.  The  Cherokees,  Choctaws,  Creeks, 
and  Chickasaws  have  a  history  perhaps  nev- 
er paralleled  in  their  rapid  advancement 
from  barbarism  to  civilization.  They  now 
number  about  50,000,  have  each  a  legisla- 
tive assembly — their  own  written  language 
and  laws,  judges  and  courts.  The  Cherokee 
alphabet  was  the  invention  of  a  Cherokee 
Indian.  They  have  churches,  schools,  acad- 
emies, and  newspapers ;  and  a  confederated 
government  and  national  assembly,  the  de- 
liberations of  which  compare  favorably  with 
similar  assemblages  elsewhere.  To  this  I 
need  hardly  add  that  many  of  their  citizens 
are  highly  intelligent  and  educated. 

I  have  two  volumes  of  Cherokee  and 
Choctaw  laws,  printed  in  English,  on  their 
own  printing-presses,  in  the  year  1852.  In 
these  days  of  temperance  agitation,  it  is 
worth  mentioning  that  one  of  the  statutes 
is  identically  the  "Maine  liquor  law,"  but 
antedates  that  law  ten  years. 

Before  the  war  of  the  Rebellion,  many  of 
the  Indians  were  rich  in  farm  improvements, 
cattle,  horses,  and  slaves.  At  the  close  of 
the  war,  in  1865,  its  ravages  had  left  their 
country  devastated,  and  themselves  in  pov- 
erty. Yet  the  statistics  of  1871  showed  that, 
in  number  of  acres  cultivated,  products,  val- 
uation, wealth,  and  school  statistics,  they 
compared  favorably  with  the  Territories  of 
the  United  States. 

The  Cherokees  have  a  population  of 
14,682 ;  live  in  houses  built  by  themselves, 
in  number  about  4000.  Five  hundred  of 
these  are  framed  and  boarded  houses,  the 
remainder  built  of  logs. 

They  have  two  boarding-schools,  one  col- 
lege, and  sixty  day-schools,  with  an  average 
attendance  of  about  2133  pupils,  sustained 
at  a  cost  of  $25,000  last  year  from  their  na- 
tional fund.  Three  of  these  schools  are  for 
the  children  of  freedmen.  They  have  also 
a  national  orphan  asylum. 

The  Creeks  number  about  15,000.  They 
have  one  boarding-school  and  thirty  day- 
schools,  which  cost  them  $14,258  in  1872. 
They  have  their  missions,  and  2050  church- 
members. 

The  Choctaws  and  Chickasaws  have  a  pop- 
ulation of  about  20,000.  They  had  last  year 
two  boarding-schools  and  forty-eight  day- 
schools,  and  expended  upon  them  $69,500 
during  the  year.  They  have  three  missions 
besides  churches,  and  a  church-membership 
of  2500. 

To  enter  into  similar  details  in  regard  to 


all  the  Indian  tribes,  however  interesting  to 
me,  would  be  tedious  to  you.  I  will  men- 
tion but  one  or  two  others. 

Fifteen  years  ago  the  Yakaina  Indians, 
a  wild  tribe  in  Washington  Territory,  were 
subdued  after  a  bloody  war.  They  were 
put  upon  a  reservation,  and  a  costly  mili- 
tary post  established  to  keep  them  in  order 
there.  The  efforts  of  a  Methodist  missiona- 
ry soon  rendered  the  military  useless.  When 
I  visited  them  in  1871, 1  found  three  hun- 
dred farm-houses  upon  as  many  little  farms, 
and  two  neat  wooden  churches  erected  by 
themselves,  and  about  four  hundred  church- 
members.  The  churches  were  partly  under 
the  control  of  native  preachers.  The  church- 
membership  has  largely  increased  during  the 
two  years  past. 

Twelve  hundred  miles  east  of  the  Yaka- 
mas,  as  the  crow  flies,  and  the  same  dis- 
tance north  of  the  Cherokees,  we  find  the 
successful  Episcopal  missions  among  the 
Dakotahs.  Ten  years  ago  these  Indians  were 
engaged  in  the  horrible  Minnesota  massa- 
cres, in  which  hundreds  of  white  settlers 
paid  the  forfeit  of  their  lives  for  wrongs 
done  upon  the  Indians  by  others.  Now, 
under  the  encouragement  of  the  new  poli- 
cy, the  Episcopalians  have  six  missions  and 
two  sub-stations  among  the  Dakotahs,  with 
churches  and  schools,  and  more  than  600 
communicants.  A  large  number  of  the  In- 
dians live  in  houses,  wear  civilized  clothing, 
and  labor  industriously  to  eke  out  a  sub- 
sistance  by  farming.  The  Presbyterians 
have  also  an  interesting  mission  among  the 
same  people.  Passing  by  equally  successful 
missions  of  the  Presbyterian,  Baptist,  Cath- 
olic, and  Moravian  denominations  with  re- 
gret, I  ask  your  attention  to  a  few  words  in 
regard  to  the  wild  tribes  of  the  plains  and 
mountains. 

There  are  probably  75,000  Indians  who 
are  totally  barbarous,  and  who  still  subsist 
in  whole  or  in  part  by  the  chase.  They  are 
all  now  at  peace  with  the  Government,  and 
most  of  them  have  become  satisfied  of  the 
power  and  superiority  of  the  whites.  The 
leading  chiefs  of  the  Sioux,  Crows,  Coman- 
ches,  Kiowas,  Cheyennes,  Blackfeet,  and 
other  tribes  admit  the  necessity  of  "going 
the  white  man's  road." 

None  of  the  North  American  Indians  are 
idolaters.  They  worship  the  "  Great  Spirit," 
who,  they  say,  made  .all  things.  I  have  found 
but  one  Indiau  in  all  iny  visits  to  the  tribes 
who  pretended  to  be  an  atheist.  Even  he, 
in  their  ceremonious  pipe  lighting,  made  the 
customary  reverence  of  the  tribe  toward  the 
"  Great  Spirit." 

On  several  occasions  when  I  opened  a  coun- 
cil with  prayer,  the  chief  followed  the  exam- 
ple by  offering  prayer  to  the  "  Great  Spirit. 

At  my  first  council  with  the  wild  Sioux, 
Red  Cloud,  the  head-chief,  stepped  out  into 
the  space  surrounded  by  his  warriors,  and, 


BRUNOT :  INDIANS  IN  THE  UNITED  STATES. 


633 


raising  his  right  arm  in  majestic  and  rever- 
ent attitude,  made  a  prayer  which  is  worthy 
of  preservation. 

MOK-PE-A-LU-TA'S  PRAYER. 

"  O  Great  Spirit,  I  pray  you  to  look  at  us. 
We  are  your  children,  and  you  first  put  us 
on  this  land.  We  pray  you  to  look  down 
on  us,  so  nothing  but  the  truth  will  be  spo- 
ken in  this  council.  We  don't  ask  for  any 
thing  but  what  is  right  and  just.  When 
you  made  your  red  children,  O  Great  Spirit, 
you  made  them  to  have  pity  on  them.  Now 
we  are  before  you  to-day,  praying  you  to 
look  down  on  us,  and  take  pity  on  your  poor 
red  children. 

"We  pray  you  to  have  nothing  but  the 
truth  spoken  here.  We  hope  these  things 
will  be  settled  up  right.  You  are  the  Pro- 
tector of  the  people  born  with  bows  and 
arrows,  as  well  as  the  people  born  with 
clothes,  and  I  hope  we  do  not  pray  to  you  in 
vain.  We  are  poor  and  ignorant.  Our  fore- 
fathers told  us  we  would  not  be  in  misery 
if  we  asked  for  your  help.  O  Great  Spirit, 
look  down  on  your  children  and  help  them." 

Last  summer  I  passed  a  week  in  council 
•with  the  Crow  tribe,  on  the  Upper  Yellow- 
stone River,  in  Montana,  and  on  Sunday  af- 
ternoon I  told  them  of  the  white  man's  great 
Book  of  Knowledge,  and  the  simple  story  of 
the  Saviour.  Next  day  the  chief  made  an 
eloquent  speech,  in  the  course  of  which  he 
said,  "  You  told  us  about  your  religion.  We 


have  onr  religion,  which  is  much  the  sanje, 
only  you  call  the  Great  Spirit  Jesus,  and  we 
call  him  by  another  name.  We  call  him  in 
Crow  language  E-ao-we-icat-se.  He  will  pun- 
ish us  if  we  are  bad.  We  give  him  a  part 
of  all  we  have.  We  pray  to  him." 

We  had  noticed  a  beacon  light  for  two 
nights,  far  up  above  the  timber  line,  upon 
the  summit  of  the  highest  mountain  near. 
Some  of  the  young  men  were  there  engaged 
in  their  religious  rites,  during  which  they 
remain  for  days  without  eating  or  drinking. 
The  Crows  are  a  generous,  kindly,  friendly 
people  to  the  whites,  but  they  are  heathen. 

Woe  be  to  us  if  we  preach  not  the  Gospel 
to  the  heathen !  What  matter  if  some  of 
them  are  idle  or  dirty,  degraded  or  treach- 
erous, even  as  their  worst  enemies  charge  ? 
Christ  died  not  alone  for  the  industrious, 
clean,  and  gentle-bred.  And  let  us  remem- 
ber that  not  many  centuries  ago  our  boast- 
ful Anglo-Saxon  race  was  but  little  less  de- 
graded than  the  North  American  Indians. 
A  Sioux  Indian,  whose  heart  was  touched 
by  the  story  of  the  Saviour,  asked,  "  How 
long  has  the  white  man  known  about  this  ?" 
and  on  being  told,  said,  "Why  did  you  not 
tell  us  before  ?  I  think  the  Great  Spirit  will 
not  punish  us  who  did  not  know,  but  will 
punish  the  white  man  who  did  not  tell  us." 

It  will  be  seen  that  I  have  but  flitted 
over  my  subject, "The  Indians  in  the  United 
States,"  touching  here  and  there  by  the  way. 
The  time  allowed  would  admit  of  nothing 


MISSIONS  TO  THE  ORIENTAL  CHURCHES. 


BY  THE  EEV.  HENRY  HARRIS  JESSUP,  D.D.,  BEIRUT,  SYRIA. 

[This  paper  of  Dr.  Jessnp,  who  could  not  be  personally  present,  was  read  to  the  Conference  by  his  co- 
laborer  in  Syria,  the  Rev.  DAVID  STUABT  DODGK.—  Ed.] 


IT  is  one  of  the  marvels  of  Christian  his- 
tory that,  after  the  lapse  of  nearly  two  thou- 
sand years,  the  birthplace  of  Christianity  is 
missionary  ground.  The  lauds  of  the  Bible 
ask  for  the  Word  of  God.  The  birthplace 
of  religion  needs  a  religion.  The  Christian 
Churches  of  the  East  need  to  be  taught  the 
nature  of  Christianity.  The  moral  and  re- 
ligious conflicts  of  the  past  are  to  be  repeat- 
ed by  the  armies  of  the  truth  in  the  very 
seat  of  their  ancient  victories.  The  encamp- 
ments of  the  Prince  of  Darkness,  like  the 
black  tents  of  the  Bedouins,  cover  the  lands 
where  prophets  and  apostles  preached ;  and 
where  He  appeared  —  who  is  himself  the 
Truth  and  the  Life — there  still  exists  enough 
of  error  to  make  the  last  decisive  struggle 
protracted  and  severe. 

Western  Asia,  the  cradle  of  the  race,  the 
battle-field  of  opinions,  is  now  preparing  to 
play  her  part  in  that  coming  conflict  in  which 
the  issues  of  human  history  are  to  be  finally 
settled. 

The  chief  religious  systems  of  Western 
Asia  to-day  are  Mohammedan,  semi-Pagan,  and 
nominal  Christian,  with  a  trace  of  Judaism. 

1.  Mohammedanism,  extending  from  the 
Republic  of  Liberia,  through  North  Africa, 
Arabia,  Syria,  Persia,  and  Northern  India,  to 
Pekin  in  China,  with  its  one  hundred  and 
twenty  millions  of  followers,  presents  one  of 
the  widest  and  noblest  missionary  fields  in 
the  world.     Some  of  the  finest  races,  intel- 
lectually and  physically,  are  believers  in  the 
Koran.*     They  believe  in  one  God,  and  in 
the  divine  origin  of  the  Old  and  New  Testa- 
ments ;  but  regard  the  Scriptures  as  corrupt- 
ed, deny  the  divinity  of  Christ,  ignore  the 
spirituality  of  religion,  and  look  upon  Chris- 
tians as  their  hereditary  enemies.    Having 
seen  only  the  Oriental  type  of  Christianity, 
they  despise  its  immorality,  idolatry,  and 
want  of  charity,  and  refuse  to  exchange  a 
system  of  monotheistic  worship  for  what 
they  regard  as  polytheistic  idolatry. 

2.  The  semi-Pagan  sects,  as  the  Druze,  Nu- 
sairy,  and  Yezidee,  numbering  in  all  little 
more  than  half  a  million  souls,  constitute  a 
most  difficult,  yet  none  the  less  important 
part  of  the  Western  Asia  missionary  field. 


*  Want  of  space  forbids  mention  of  the  various 
sects  of  Islamism. 


3.  But  that  portion  to  which  the  attention 
of  Christian  Europe  and  America  has  been 
chiefly  called  consists  of  what  are  styled  the 
Oriental  Churches.  The  massacre  of  Scio  in 
1822,  the  Greek  Revolution,  the  Crimean  War, 
and  the  massacres  of  1860  in  Lebanon  and 
Damascus,  have  awakened  interest  most  ex- 
tended, and  schemes  most  varied,  for  the  pro- 
tection and  elevation,  or  the  reformation 
and  evangelization  of  the  Christians  of  the 
East.  Few  have  any  correct  idea  as  to  who 
these  Christians  are,  what  they  are,  how  nu- 
merous, and  how  widely  dispersed. 

It  is  not  enough  to  say  that  the  Oriental 
Christians  hold  to  the  divinity  of  Christ  and 
the  divine  inspiration  of  the  Scriptures,  and 
deserve  all  honor  for  holding  steadfastly  to 
even  a  degenerate  Christianity  in  the  midst 
of  Pagan  darkness  and  Mohammedan  fanati- 
cism ;  for  it  is  also  true  that  they  have  all 
gone  astray  from  the  simplicity  of  the  Gos- 
pel, not  only  exalting  tradition  above  Script- 
ure, and  holding  usages  which  are  idola- 
trous and  anti-Christian,  but  living  in  open 
disregard  of  the  morality  of  the  Gospel.  Re- 
ligion and  morality  are  divorced.  The  Greek 
brigand  or  pirate  who  keeps  the  fasts  is  es- 
teemed a  religious  man,  while  such  mission- 
aries as  an  Eli  Smith  or  a  Jonas  King,  who 
do  not  keep  the  fasts,  are  branded  as  having 
no  religion. 

The  Oriental  Churches  may  be  divided 
into  six  great  classes,  comprising  fourteen  dif- 
ferent sects.* 

I.  The  Monophysite,  Eutychian,  or  anti- 
Chalcedonian  sects,  who  reject  the  decrees 
of  the  Council  of  Chalcedon,  held  in  451. 
These  are  four :  the  Armenians,  Jacobites  (or 
Syrians),  Copts,  and  Abyssinians.     They  all 
have  their  own  distinct  ritual  and  calendar ; 
are  hostile  to  each  other,  and  to  all  other 
Christian  sects ;  have  a  married  parish  cler- 
gy ;  and  reject  the  primacy  of  the  Pope. 

II.  The  anti-Ephesian,  who  reject  the  Coun- 
cil of  Ephesus  in  431.     These  are  the  Nesto- 
rians,  or  Chaldeans.     They  have  a  married 
clergy,  a  high  reverence  for  the  Scriptures, 
and  but  little  of  picture  worship. 

III.  The  Orthodox  Greek,  who  accept  the 
seven  General  Councils.     The  Greek  Church 
is  Rome  decapitated — a  priestly  system  with- 


See  "  London  Quarterly  Review,"  July,  1SG9. 


JESSUP :  MISSIONS  TO  THE  ORIENTAL  CHURCHES. 


635 


out  a  poutifex ;  an  exclusive  traditional 
Church,  which  yet  allows  the  Bible  to  the 
people.  Ill  the  Turkish  Empire  its  patri- 
archs and  the  most  of  its  bishops  are  foreign- 
ers, speaking  only  Greek,  and  ignorant  of 
the  customs  and  wants  of  the  people.  The 
parish  clergy  are  married,  and  generally 
most  illiterate. 

IV.  The  Maronite,  a  Papal  sect,  with  an  ig- 
norant people,  and  an  educated  priesthood, 
sworn  to  allegiance  to  Rome,  and  yet,  like 
all  the  above,  with  a  married  parish  clergy. 
The  Maronite  Patriarch  is  regarded  by  his 
people  as  hardly  inferior  to  the  Pope.     He 
refused  to  attend  the  Vatican  Council,  fear- 
ing, it  is  supposed,  Papal  interference  with 
his  personal  prerogatives. 

V.  The  six  Oriental  Papal  sects,  who  are 
converts  from  six  of  the  above  sects  to  the 
Church    of  Rome.      They    are    the   Papal 
Greek,  Papal  Armenian,  Papal  Syrian,  Papal 
Nestorian,  Papal  Coptic,  and  Papal  Abyssinian, 
They  maintain  their  own  calendar  and  saint 
days,  the  marriage  of  the  clergy,  and  vari- 
ous ancient  prerogatives,  which  the  Papal 
legates  are  now  striving  most  assiduously  to 
abolish.  In  the  Papal  Greek  Church  of  Syria, 
and  the  Papal  Armenian  Church  of  Constan- 
tinople, this  interference  of  the  Pope  has 
resulted  in  schism,  and  large  numerical  loss 
to  the  Romish  communion. 

VI.  The  Latins,  a  small  community,  com- 
posed chiefly  of  attache's  of  the  French  and 
Italian  monasteries,  who  have  conformed  in 
all  respects  to  the  Church  of  Rome. 

These  sects  all  agree  sufficiently,  both  in 
the  common  truth  and  the  common  error 
which  they  hold,  to  be  classed  as  one — one 
in  their  need  of  reformation,  one  in  being  an 
obstacle  to  the  evangelization  of  the  Mo- 
hammedan world. 

1.  They  all  hold  the  doctrine  of  transub- 
stantiation.     The  books  of  the  Greek  Church 
are  explicit  on  this  point.*    "  The  bread  and 
wine  are  not  the  symbols  of  the  body  and 
blood  of  Christ  (God  forbid),  but  the  very 
deified  body  of  the  Lord."     This  expression 
is  found  in  the  reply  of  the  Patriarch  of  Con- 
stantinople to  the  German  Protestant  di- 
vines, who  opened  a  correspondence  with 
him  about  thirty  years  after  the  death  of 
Luther  (Greek  edition,  p.  184). 

The  other  Eastern  Churches  hold  this  doc- 
trine with  equal  tenacity. 

2.  They  all  agree  in  the  doctrine  of  baptis- 
mal regeneration.     In  this  respect  the  Greek 
Church  is  pre-eminently  exclusive.     It  de- 
clares trine  immersion,  in  the  name  of  the  Fa- 
ther, Son,  and  Holy  Ghost,  to  be  absolutely 
essential  to  salvation,  and  denies  lay  bap- 
tism.    The  Pope  unchurched  all  non-Papal 
Christendom,  and  the  Greek  Church  casts 
out  the  Pope  as  an  unbaptized  heretic. 


•  Article  on  the  Greek  Church,  hy  Rev.  S.  H.  Cal- 
honn,  missionary  to  Syria.— "New  York  Evangelist," 
March  1, 1SG6 


3.  They  all  agree  in  the  doctrine  of  priestly 
absolution,  and  a  priestly  mediation  between 
God  and  man. 

4.  They  all  worship  the  Virgin  Mary  and 
the  Saints. 

5.  They  all  regard  relics  and  pictures  or  im- 
ages with  more  or  less  of  superstitious  rev- 
erence. 

6.  They  all  use  the  confessional  and  prayers 
for  the  dead. 

7.  With  the  trifling  exception  of  the  Lat- 
ins, their  parish  clergy  are  all  allowed  to 
marry,  although  the  bishops  and  patriarchs 
are  celibate. 

In  nothing  is  the  inconsistency  of  Rome 
more  evident  than  in  allowing  the  priests  in 
seven  of  the  Oriental  sects  the  liberty  of  mar- 
rying, while  denying  it  to  all  its  priests  in 
Europe  and  America. 

A  native  Syrian,  in  a  recent  tract  against 
the  Jesuits,  asks  them  this  question :  "  If 
marriage  be  a  sacrament  of  the  Church,  why 
deny  it  to  the  clergy  I" 

8.  In  none  of  these  Churches  is  instruction 
given  in  the  Scrijptures.     Their  liturgies  are 
in  dead  languages,  and  preaching  is  almost 
unknown.    The  only  preacher  of  note  in  the 
Greek   Church  in   Syria   is    denounced  by 
many  of  his  people  as  a  Protestant. 

The  numbers  of  these  various  sects  in 
Western  Asia  and  North  Africa  are  nearly  as 
follows,  not  including  the  Greeks  of  Russia 
or  Greece : 

Greeks 1,000,000 

Nestorians 140,000 

"         in  India 116,000 

Maronites 230,000 

Copts 200,000 

Nestorian  Catholics 20,000 

Armenians ,  3,000,000 

Greek  Catholics 50,000 

Jacobite  Syrians 30,000 

Abyssinians 4,500,000 

Other  Papal  sects 300,000 

Total 9,586,000 

This  brings  the  grand  total  to  about  ten  mill- 
ions,  which  will  probably  include  all  the  nom- 
inal Christians  in  Western  Asia  and  North 
Africa. 

If  now  we  consider  the  geographical  distri- 
bution of  these  various  sects,  a  remarkable 
fact  is  presented.  As  in  the  Apostolic  age, 
the  Jews  were  dispersed  among  the  Gen- 
tiles, possessing  the  Hebrew  Scriptures,  yet 
dead  and  superstitious,  formal  and  inert,  so 
now  we  find  the  Oriental  Churches,  retain- 
ing at  least  parts  of  the  Scriptures,  scattered 
through  the  semi-Pagan  and  Mohammedan 
world. 

In  Turkey,  the  Armenians  and  Greeks  arc 
mingled  with  the  Ottoman  Turks.  In  Per- 
sia, the  Armenians  and  Nestorians,  with 
the  Persian  Mohammedans,  Kurds,  and  Tar- 
tars ;  in  Mesopotamia  and  Northern  Syria,  the 
Greeks,  Jacobites,  and  Armenians,  with  Yezi- 
dees,  Moslems,  Nusairiyeh,  and  Arabs  of  the 
Desert.  In  Syria  Proper,  the  Greeks,  Marou- 


636 


CHRISTIAN  MISSIONS. 


ites,  Jacobites,  and  Roman  Catholics  of  va- 
rious names,  among  Moslems,  Nusairtyeh, 
Druzes,  Metarcileh,  aud  Arabs  of  the  Desert, 
lu  Egypt,  the  Greeks,  Copts,  aud  Armenians, 
among  Egyptian  Moslems,  and  tribes  of 
North  Africa  aud  Arabia.  In  Abyssinia,  the 
Abyssinians  among  the  surrounding  Pagan 
and  Mohammedan  tribes.  And  in  Western 
India,  at  Travancore,  the  Nestorian  or  Thom- 
as Christians,  on  the  borders  of  Hindoo  Pa- 
ganism and  Islamism. 

These  nominal  Christian  sects  thus  occu- 
py the  great  centres  of  Moslem  power :  Cairo, 
Damascus,  Aleppo,  Constantinople,  Mosul,  and 
Teheran.  Their  very  position  is  providential 
and  full  of  suggestion,  and  will  aid  us  in  de- 
termining the  object  of  missionary  work  among 
the  Oriental  Churches. 

The  primary  object  of  all  missionary  work 
is  the  salvation  of  men  through  the  preach- 
ing of  the  Gospel.  This  must  be  the  imme- 
diate object  here.  The  Oriental  Churches,  in 
their  present  lapsed  state,  need  the  Gospel 
as  much,  in  many  respects,  as  their  Moslem 
neighbors.  Gross  darknesa  covers  the  peo- 
ple. The  work  to  be  done  is  one  which  will 
bring  men  to  Christ — a  living  Christ.  The 
great  commission  is  a  commission  to  preach 
the  Gospel. 

But  in  what  ivay  is  the  Gospel  to  be  brought 
home  to  these  Oriental  Churches  ?  In  what 
mode  is  the  work  to  be  done  ? 

There  has  been  an  honest  difference  of 
opinion  on  this  subject  even  among  Evan- 
gelical Christians,  aud  a  much  greater  differ- 
ence between  them  and  the  high  ecclesias- 
tical party  in  the  Protestant  Church. 

I.  One  view  has  been  to  effect  an  outward 
ecclesiastical  union  between  these  sects  and 
Protestant  Christianity,  on  the  basis  of  ad- 
mitting the  truth  they  hold,  without  agitat- 
ing the  question  of  their  errors.  One  ob- 
jection to  this  is  its  absolute  impracticability. 
Union  of  Protestants  with  the  Greek  Church, 
on  the  basis  of  intercommunion,  can  never 
be  effected — the  Greek  Church  remaining  as 
it  is — until  all  Protestants  have  submitted 
to  trine  immersion  by  a  regularly  ordained 
Greek  priest.  The  concession  must  be  all  on 
one  side.  Let  this  be  borne  in  mind,  and  the 
advocates  of  union  with  the  Greek  Church 
may  be  saved  much  needless  mortification. 
Since  the  contemptuous  treatment  of  the 
German  Protestant  divines,  in  the  sixteenth 
century,  by  the  Patriarch  of  Constantinople, 
there  has  been  witnessed  no  more  humilia- 
ting spectacle  than  that  of  Protestant  min- 
isters courting  the  ecclesiastical  favor  of 
Greek  priests,  who,  while  not  wanting  in  out- 
ward courtesy,  regard  them  as  heretics,  pub- 
licly anathematize  them  at  least  once  a  year 
(on  Ash- Wednesday)  in  their  churches,  and 
consign  them,  with  all  other  heretics  and 
unbaptized  persons,  to  perdition.* 


*  See  the  Jerusalem  edition  of  the  "  Triodion  "  serv- 
ice for  Ash- Wednesday. 


Any  attempt  to  fraternize  with  the  Greek 
Church  can  only  increase  the  contempt  of 
their  clergy  for  ourselves,  and  their  attach- 
ment to  the  traditions  aud  superstitions  of 
their  fathers. 

II.  Another  plan  has  been  to  reform  the  high- 
r  ecclesiastics,  aud  through  them  the  people. 
The  twelve  labors  of  Hercules  were  slight 
compared  with  such  a  task.  The  patriarchs 
and  bishops  of  the  East  are,  as  a  class, 
wealthy,  avaricious,  masters  of  political  in- 
trigue, unscrupulous,  aud  trained  to  hierarch- 
ical tyranny  over  the  consciences  of  men, 
aud  will  probably  be  the  last  class  in  the 
East  to  accept  the  Gospel  in  its  simplicity. 
There  are,  indeed,  noble  exceptions  —  men 
who  would  gladly  hail  a  reformation,  but 
find  their  hands  tied  and  their  labors  hin- 
dered by  the  iron  fetters  of  ecclesiastical 
despotism. 

III.  A  third  scheme  has  been  suggested, 
and  faithfully  tried.  It  proposes  to  preach 
the  Gospel  and  give  the  Bible  to  the  people, 
leaving  them  in  their  own  ecclesiastical  re- 
lations, thus  reforming  the  Church  from 
within.  This  plan  has  been  patiently  tried 
in  Syria,  Egypt,  and  Asia  Minor,without  suc- 
cess. It  is  still  on  trial  among  the  Nesto- 
riaus.  It  has  been  found  in  the  countries 
first  named  that,  no  sooner  do  men  read  the 
Bible  and  know  Christ  experimentally — no 
sooner  do  they  compare  the  New  Testament 
Church  with  the  rites,  ceremonies,  and  priest- 
ly systems  of  the  Oriental  Churches,  than 
they  make  haste  to  "  come  out  aud  be  sepa- 
rate." Enlightened  men,  with  the  Gospel  in 
their  hands,  will  not  confess  to  a  priest  and 
worship  a  picture.  Nor,  if  they  wished  it, 
would  their  priests  allow  them  to  remain  in 
a  Church  whose  laws  they  disobey. 

There  are  not  wanting  signs  of  the  growth 
of  a  Reform  party  in  the  Greek  and  Arme- 
nian Churches  leaning  toward  evangelical 
truth,  but  it  remains  to  be  seen  whether  it 
will  be  allowed  to  continue  in  the  bosom  of 
the  "Mother  Church." 

The  missionaries  in  Syria  tried  the  experi- 
ment of  preaching  to  the  people,  and  leaving 
them  in  their  old  Churches,  until  the  con- 
verts demanded  the  organization  of  a  distinct 
Evangelical  Church. 

And  this  brings  us  to  the  fourth  scheme, 


IV.  Preaching  the  Gospel,  and  founding  a 
neiv  Oriental  Evangelical  Church,  outside  of 
the  old  Churches,  unstained  with  idolatry, 
and  composed  of  living  spiritual  members 
gathered  from  all  the  sects  of  the  East. 

This  is  believed  by  many  to  be  the  only 
true  basis  of  procedure  to  secure  a  genuine 
reformation  in  the  East.  Christianity  in  the 
East  is  a  name,  a  dogma,  a  lifeless  form.  It 
is  a  skeleton  in  the  panoply  of  Christianity. 
Its  religious  life  is  that  of  the  Middle  Ages. 
Every  where  you  find  mouasticism,  feast 
days,  worship  of  saints,  pictures,  and  images. 


JESSUP:  MISSIONS  TO  THE  ORIENTAL  CHURCHES. 


637 


Mariolatry  is  supreme.  The  Eastern  Church 
is  a  valley  of  dry  bones.  The  Life,  the 
Christ,  is  departed.  His  humanity,while  the- 
oretically admitted,  is  practically  ignored, 
and  he  is  banished  beyond  the  reach  of  hu- 
man prayer  or  human  sympathy,  while  oth- 
er mediators  crowd  the  scene,  to  supply  the 
want  of  the  soul,  and  bring  man  near  to 
God.  What  is  needed  is  a  preached  Gospel, 
an  open  Bible,  a  pure  spiritual  Church,  a  de- 
voted ministry,  baptized  with  the  Spirit,  and 
an  exalting  of  the  God-man,  Jesus  of  Naza- 
reth, as  the  only  Saviour,  the  only  Mediator, 
the  only  Head  of  the  Church.  The  apostolic 
spirit  must  be  restored,  for  apostolic  work 
is  to  be  done,  and  this  can  only  be  hoped 
for  through  the  free  spirit  of  the  Bible,  work- 
ing in  the  free  system  of  Protestant  order. 
If  Mariolatry  is  false,  you  must  give  the  peo- 
ple a  Church  without  Mariolatry.  If  trau- 
substantiation  is  idolatrous,  give  them  a 
Church  without  transubstantiation.  If  priest- 
ly absolution  and  human  mediation  are  anti- 
Christian,  they  must  have  and  will  have  a 
Church  whose  only  Priest  is  Christ,  and 
whose  only  Mediator  is  he  who  sitteth  at 
the  right  hand  of  God. 

But  the  crowning  reason  for  the  founding 
of  a  living  Church,  in  which  is  to  be  preached 
the  Gospel  of  a  living  Christ,  lies  in  the  fut- 
ure mission  of  Christianity  in  the  East.  The 
present,  immediate  object  of  missionary  labor 
in  the  East  is  the  conversion  of  the  Orien- 
tal Christians ;  but  the  ultimate  object  of 
Christian  work  among  these  sects  may  be  re- 
garded as  the  conversion,  through  these  sects, 
of  the  non-Christian  populations  of  West- 
ern Asia  and  Northern  Africa.  These  ten 
millions  of  Eastern  Christians  are  the  key 
to  hundreds  of  millions  of  Mohammedans,  Pa- 
gans, and  other  non-Christian  sects.  Their 
wide  geographical  dispersion  among  these 
sects,  and  their  similarity  in  language  and 
customs,  render  them  the  fit  base  of  opera- 
tions for  working  upon  these  unevangelical 
hosts.  There  are  few  places  in  the  world 
where  direct  missionary  labors  can  as  yet  be 
carried  on  for  the  Moslems,  and  this  indirect 
method,  it  is  believed,  will  have  peculiar  ad- 
vantages in  the  future.  The  work  of  plant- 
ing and  training  a  new  Oriental  Evangelical 
Church  thus  rises  in  dignity  and  importance 
to  the  first  rank  among  modern  missionary 
enterprises.  It  is  no  longer  the  Maronites 
of  Lebanon,  the  Copts  of  Egypt,  the  Nesto- 
rians  of  Kurdistan,  or  even  the  great  Arme- 
nian nation,  but  we  aim  to  reach  hundreds 
of  millions  of  Mohammedans  and  Pagans,  ex- 
tending over  120  degrees  of  longitude,  from 
Liberia  to  Pekin. 

If  it  be  asked,  Why  are  not  these  Oriental 
Churches,  as  at  present  constituted,  already 
fitted  for  this  work  ?  The  answer  is,  "  In 
their  present  state  they  are  among  the  great- 
est obstacles  to  the  conversion  of  their  Pa- 
gan and  Mussulman  neighbors."  Islamisin 


was,  and  still  is,  in  one  sense,  a  protest 
against  the  creature  worship  of  both  the 
Eastern  and  Western  Churches.  Images,  pict- 
ures, and  saints  are  the  abomination  of  the 
Mohammedan  world.  Syria  is  strewn  with 
the  headless  trunks  of  ancient  statues,  and 
the  unrestored  ruins  of  ancient  churches, 
once  filled  with  pictures  and  images,  which 
have  been  destroyed  by  the  iconoclastic  zeal 
of  Islam.  The  Moslem  enters  a  so-called  Chris- 
tian church,  and  shrinks  back  with  revulsion 
from  the  sight  of  men  made  in  the  image  of 
God  bowing  down  to  gods  made  in  the  im- 
age of  men.  Christianity  thus  stands  self- 
condemned  and  silenced  in  the  presence  of 
its  Moslem  foes.  A  recent  convert  from  Mo- 
hammedanism in  Syria,  after  having  visited 
the  Greek,  Maronite,  and  Papal  Greek  Church- 
es of  Damascus  in  quest  of  a  faith  to  satisfy 
the  cravings  of  his  soul,  turned  away  sick 
at  heart  at  the  sight  of  so  much  abject  wor- 
ship of  the  creature  instead  of  the  Creator ; 
and,  having  learned  from  books  of  the  doc- 
trines of  Protestant  Christianity,  set  out  for 
Beirut,  a  voluntary  exile,  offering  as  he  went 
this  prayer :  "  Lord,  if  I  do  not  live  to  reach 
Beirut,  and  die  before  meeting  a  guide  to 
lead  me  to  a  true  knowledge  of  thee,  let  me 
die  in  the  Protestant  faith !" 

The  Church  of  Rome,  with  all  its  zealous 
propagandism,  the  Oriental  Churches,  with 
all  their  boasted  creeds  and  patristic  lore, 
can  never  meet  the  wants  of  the  Mohamme- 
dan world.  The  Pagans  of  the  second  cent- 
ury objected  to  Christianity  that  it  had  nei- 
ther altars  nor  images ;  the  Moslem  of  the 
nineteenth  century  objects  to  Christianity 
that  it  has  only  images  and  altars. 

Here,  then,  are  two  great  objects  to  be 
kept  steadily  in  view,  viz.,  the  immediate  ben- 
efit of  the  Oriental  Christians,  and  the  ulti- 
mate benefit  of  the  Pagans  and  Mohamme- 
dans. To  secure  these  two  points,  there  is 
requisite  a  peculiar  preparation.  This  prepa- 
ration must  include : 

1.  The  preaching  of  the  Gospel  in  the  ver- 
nacular language.    This  is  the  first  and  most 
important  agency.     It  is  that  ordaiued  by 
the  great  Head  of  the  Church,  and  without 
which  all  others  will  come  to  naught.     To 
this  end  the  foreign  missionary  should  mas- 
ter the  language  of  the  people.    But,  inas- 
much as  the  preaching  of  foreigners  is  neces- 
sarily more  or  less  associated  in  the  minds 
of  the  people  with  foreign  habits,  tastes,  and 
prejudices,  native  preachers  must  be  intrust- 
ed with  the  work  as  soon  as  possible. 

2.  The  Bible  must  be  given  to  all  these 
sects  in  their  own  vernacular.     Christianity 
is  the  religion  of  the  Bible.     The  fact  that 
the  ancient  Christian  Churches  lapsed  so  soon 
into  superstitious  and  idolatrous  usages  was, 
no  doubt,  owing  largely  to  the  fact  that  the 
neople  had  not  the  Bible  in  their  own  lan- 
guage.    Copies  of  the  Scriptures  were  few 
and  costly,  and  the  uninstructed  people  soon 


638 


CHRISTIAN  MISSIONS. 


became  satisfied  to  receive  "for  doctrines 
the  commandments  of  men."  To  secure  the 
future  Church  of  the  East  from  such  a  col- 
lapse, the  Bible  must  bo  translated  and  print- 
ed in  every  Eastern  tongue. 

3.  An   Evangelical   Oriental   Church    must 
be  formed  on  a  broad  Scriptural  basis,  eccle- 
siastically independent  of  control  from  Eu- 
rope and  America,  with  as  little  of  the  sec- 
tarian peculiarities  of  these   countries   as 
possible,  and  having  its  own  synods,  associa- 
tions, or  convocations  for  ecclesiastical  de- 
liberation composed  of  Orieutal  members. 
No  ecclesiastical  body  in  any  land  can  un- 
derstand the  circumstances  and  decide  the 
difficulties  of  churches  ten  thousand  miles 
away,  of  different  languages  and  customs, 
and  under  a  different  form  of  civil  govern- 
ment.    If  such  control  be  attempted,  the  re- 
sult will  be  only  confusion  and  alienation, 
whatever  be  the  form  of  Church  polity. 

In  the  founding  of  the  native  Church  in 
the  first  instance,  as  in  the  installation  of  the 
native  pastor,  the  foreign  Church,  through 
its  missionary,  must  have  the  control,  as  in 
apostolic  days.  But  wrhen  these  churches 
have  been  established,  and  assume  the  sup- 
port of  their  own  pastors,  the  ecclesiastical 
responsibility  should  rest  with  the  native 
churches.  Foreign  ecclesiastical  control  is  a 
virtue  only  when  a  necessity,  and  it  is  a  ne- 
cessity only  until  a  native  pastorate  is  de- 
veloped. 

4.  And  this  implies,  fourthly,  that  these 
churches  have  a  native  pastorate.    The  apos- 
tles were  not  pastors ;  the  foreign  mission- 
ary should  not  be,  any  longer  than  is  neces- 
sary for  the  training  of  a  native  pastorate. 
Where  the  growth  of  the  work  is  slow,  and 
the  pastoral  duties  are  long  performed  by 
the  foreign  missionary,  the  result  is  unfavor- 
able to  the  self-development  of  the  native 
Church,  if  not  disastrous  to  its  indepen- 
dence. 

The  training,  then,  of  a  native  ministry  is 
vital  to  the  work  of  restoring  Christianity 
to  the  East.  In  this  age  of  the  world,  this 
native  ministry  must  be  thoroughly  train- 
ed. Not  only  are  men  of  undoubted  piety, 
zeal,  and  consecration  needed ;  but,  in  the 
great  centres,  men  of  liberal  education  and 
good  talents,  prepared  for  the  conflict  with 
ritualism,  rationalism,  Romanism,  Islam- 
ism,  and  infidelity.  In  the  rural  districts, 
while  the  native  ministry  should  be  thor- 
oughly furnished,  the  aim  should  be  to  pur- 
sue no  system  of  education  which  will  alien- 
ate them  from  the  simplicity  of  their  peo- 
ple. The  instruction  should  be  thorough,  so 
as  to  leave  no  cause  for  dissatisfaction  — 
no  occasion,  on  the  part  of  the  young  men, 
for  the  perilous  undertaking  of  seeking  edu- 
cation in  foreign  lands.  There  may  be  in- 
stances where  Oriental  youth,  going  at  their 
own  expense,  have  been  benefited  by  a  course 
of  training  in  foreign  countries ;  but,  as  a 


rule,  it  has  been  found  to  bo  fatal  to  their 
disposition  to  enter  the  pastoral  office.  It 
may  fit  them  for  becoming  professors,  or  arti- 
sans, or  for  professional  life ;  but  it  is  too 
apt  to  alienate  them  from  sympathy  with 
their  own  countrymen,  or  to  destroy  their 
feeling  of  personal  responsibility  for  the  spir- 
itual growth  of  their  own  churches. 

The  instruction  given  to  these  young  men 
should  be  eminently  Biblical,  and  there  is  no 
place  where  Biblical  studies  should  be  more 
enthusiastically  and  effectively  pursued  than 
in  the  lauds  of  the  Bible.  It  should  in- 
clude a  good  acquaintance  with  Church  his- 
tory ;  and  where  can  this  be  better  studied 
than  in  its  ancient  seats  ?  Until  commen- 
taries and  other  evangelical  helps  are  trans- 
lated into  these  languages,  the  students 
must  be  taught  English  or  some  other  Eu- 
ropean language.  The  course  of  study  should 
be  connected  with  Christian  work.  The 
young  men  should  be  trained  to  evangelistic 
work,  expecting  to  endure  hardness  for  the 
sake  of  the  Gospel,  and  to  be  satisfied  with 
such  support  as  the  feeble  churches  of  their 
native  laud  can  provide.  The  support  of 
this  ministry  should  come  from  the  people. 
A  Gospel  supported  by  foreigners  is  regard- 
ed as  a  foreign  Gospel.  Pecuniary  aid  to 
those  who  do  not  absolutely  need  it  is  an  un- 
mixed evil.  Until  the  people  support  their 
own  ministry,  the  question  of  their  evangel- 
ization may  be  regarded  as  still  unsettled. 
Their  whole  spiritual  life  and  energies  will 
be  dwarfed  by  long  habits  of  dependence  on 
the  charities  of  others. 

'  The  theological  seminaries  should  be  lo- 
cated in  important  centres,  where  the  high- 
est educational  advantages  are  combined 
with  abundant  opportunities  for  evangel- 
istic work. 

5.  These  new  evangelical  churches  should 
be  trained  from  the  first  to  an  aggressive  mis- 
sionary spirit;  to  feel  that  they  are  called  to 
give  the  Gospel  to  their  Mohammedan,  Pa- 
gan, and  semi-Pagan  neighbors.  Without 
this,  the  work  will  stop  before  it  is  fairly 
begun,  and  the  result  will  bo  one  more 
weak,  inert  Oriental  sect — organized,  orthodox, 
and  dead.  The  ultimate  object  must  be  kept 
constantly  in  view,  by  missionaries,  native 
pastors,  and  native  churches.  Each  church 
should  be  a  missionary  society,  every  mem- 
ber giving  systematically  and  liberally  of  his 
income  to  the  Lord;  children's  missionary 
societies  be  formed  every  where,  and  young 
men  and  young  women  be  sought  out,  train- 
ed, and  encouraged  to  dedicate  themselves  to 
the  service  of  the  Lord.  In  the  cities,  city 
mission  work  should  be  done;  and  in  the 
villages,  the  church  members  be  encouraged 
to  go  around  two  and  two  to  the  adjacent 
villages,  preaching  the  Word. 

The  Native  Evangelical  Missionary  So- 
ciety of  Eastern  Turkey  has  set  an  example, 
in  founding  and  supporting  a  mission  to  the 


JESSUP:  MISSIONS  TO  THE  ORIENTAL  CHURCHES. 


639 


Kurds,  which  may  well  be  studied  and  imi- 
tated by  native  churches  in  all  lands. 

Yet  nothing  but  the  Spirit  of  God  can 
bring  those  once  members  of  the  various 
Oriental  Churches  to  feel  themselves  called 
to  labor  for  the  salvation  of  Mohammedans, 
Kurds,  Druzes,  and  Bedouin  Arabs. 

The  ecclesiastical  training  of  centuries  has 
taught  the  people  not  only  to  anathematize 
other  Christian  sects,  but  to  hate  all  Mos- 
lems, Kurds,  and  Druzes  with  the  most  san- 
guinary animosity. 

The  people  often  manifest  unfeigned  sur- 
prise on  hearing  the  prayers  offered  in  evan- 
gelical churches  on  behalf  of  Pagans  and 
Mohammedans. 

Oriental  society  has  crystallized  into 
spheres,  hard  and  hollow  as  the  geodes  of 
Lebanon  quartz.  Each  sect  is  exclusive, 
self-satisfied,  and  iudiffereut  to  the  welfare 
of  all  others. 

The  missionary  spirit,  which  had  its  birth 
on  these  shores,  returns  after  its  long  ab- 
sence of  centuries,  an  unrecognized  and  un- 
welcome stranger.  If  the  new  Evangelical 
Oriental  Church  receive  it  not,  and  be  not 
baptized  with  its  power,  its  own  candlestick 
must  ere  long  be  removed  from  its  place. 
The  work  of  evangelization  among  1lie  non- 
Christian  sects  must  be  done  by  the  native 
churches,  or  not  at  alL 

6.  Another  step  in  the  general  prepara- 
tion is  the  establishment  of  a  system  of  com- 
mon schools,  to  teach  the  people  to  read. 
Protestant  Christianity  is  a  religion  of  light. 
It  must  train  its  children  to  read  the  Bible. 
A   translated    and   printed    Bible,  without 
readers,  is  a  sealed  book.    -With  the  excep- 
tion of  the  Mohammedan  boys'  schools  at- 
tached to  the  mosques,  the  whole  of  Western 
Asia  was,  until  after  the  advent  of  foreign 
missionaries,  almost    entirely   destitute    of 
schools.     The  Levant,  in  this  respect,  is  ut- 
terly unlike  the  Chinese  Empire,  where  the 
majority  of  the  people  read. 

In  the  first  instance,  it  will  often  be  neces- 
sary to  support  these  schools  entirely  by  for- 
eign aid ;  but  this  branch  of  the  work,  too, 
should  be  thrown  upon  the  people  as  soon 
as  possible. 

The  common  school  is  to  be  regarded  as 
an  entering  wedge,  as  a  means  to  an  end,  but 
not  the  end  itself.  The  Bible  should  be 
taught  in  these  schools — thoroughly  taught — 
so  that  the  pupils  may  learn  to  see  Christ  in 
every  book  in  both  the  Old  and  New  Testa- 
ments. The  teachers  should  therefore  be 
trained  in  normal  training  schools,  in  which 
the  Bible  should  have  the  first  place.  Edu- 
cation without  the  Bible,  in  any  land,  is  dan- 
gerous and  incomplete.  In  uuevangelized 
lands  it  will  only  forge  and  polish  weapons 
against  the  truth. 

7.  A  Christian  literature  must  also  be  pre- 
pared in  the  languages  of  the  people.    From 
the  necessity  of  the  case,  this  work  must  be 


done  chiefly  by  foreign  missionaries,  and,  in 
the  first  instance,  at  the  expense  of  foreign 
societies. 

8.  Again,  in  order  to  secure  and  retain 
the  control  of  the  popular  mind  for  Chris- 
tianity, and  prevent  the  spread  of  infidelity 
among  cultivated  minds,  Christian  colleges 
and  female  seminaries  of  a  high  order  should 
be  established  in  the  various  controlling 
centres,  to  give  a  sound  Christian  education 
to  the  best  youth  of  the  land.  These  higher 
institutions  should  be  endowed  and  furnish- 
ed with  permanent  buildings  and  complete 
apparatus,  and  native  instructors  be  raised 
up  as  soon  as  practicable. 

The  matter  of  higher  education  can  not 
be  left  to  the  Imperial  universities  of  Egypt, 
Turkey,  and  Persia,  whose  controlling  influ- 
ence will  be  either  in  the  narrow  spirit  of 
Mohammedan  exclnsivism,  or,  if  Europeau- 
ized  at  all,  in  the  lax  morality  of  European 
infidelity.  The  course  of  study  should  be 
thorough  and  the  discipline  severe.  No- 
where is  a  little  learning  more  dangerous 
than  among  a  semi-civilized  people. 

The  Bible  must  be  the  very  foundation  of 
these  institutions.  A  course  of  instruction, 
not  in  a  controversial  spirit,  in  the  chronol- 
ogy, history,  ethnology,  physical  geography, 
poetry,  prophecies,  and  Christology  of  the 
Bible,  if  properly  conducted,  will  fix  the  at- 
tention and  enkindle  the  enthusiasm  of  the 
youth  of  all  sects  and  religions  in  every  Ori- 
ental land.  And  Orientals  will  hold  such  a 
school  in  far  higher  esteem  than  they  will  a 
purely  secular  institution  without  religion 
of  any  character. 

Again,  if  such  colleges  and  seminaries  be 
not  founded,  the  entire  higher  education  of 
the  East  will  fall  into  the  hands  of  the  Jesu- 
its and  other  narrow  sectaries. 

The  Lazarists,  Jesuits,  and  Dominican 
monks,  with  numerous  orders  of  nuns,  are 
founding  educational  institutions  through- 
out the  whole  of  Western  Asia.-  Abundantly 
supplied  with  men  and  means,  and  under  the 
ablest  strategic  leadership,  they  are  carrying 
on  a  campaign  whose  object  is  the  absorp- 
tion of  all  the  Churches  of  the  East. 

Special  Preparation. — We  have  now  men- 
tioned eight  points  in  the  general  prepara- 
tion, and  it  remains  to  consider  briefly  the 
special  preparations  with  reference  to  the 
Mohammedan  world. 

I.  The  first  step  is  the  translation  and 
printing  of  the  Bible  in  the  Arabic  language 
— the  sacred  language  of  the  Koran.  The 
Koran  can  not  be  lawfully  translated;  and 
all  Moslems  must  read  it  in  Arabic. 

The  Sultan  of  Turkey  speaks  the  Turkish 
as  his  vernacular,  but  reads  his  Koran  in  Ara- 
bic. The  Shah  of  Persia  speaks  Persian, 
but  must  read  his  Koran  in  Arabic.  The 
Viceroy  of  Egypt  speaks  Arabic,  and  reads 
his  Koran  in  the  same  sacred  language.  And 


640 


CHRISTIAN  MISSIONS. 


so  the  princes  of  Northern  India,  the  tribes 
of  Northern  Africa,  and  tho  millions  of  Mo- 
hammedans in  Northwestern  China,  speak 
different  languages,  but  must  read  the  Koran 
in  the  one  common  sacred  Arabic  language. 
The  Arabic  language  is  thus  the  bond 
\vhich,  through  the  Koran,  binds  together 
one  hundred  aud  twenty  millions  of  our  race. 
Now,  if  these  millions  can  read  the  Koran, 
they  can  also  read  the  Arabic  Bible ;  and  a 
classical  translation  of  the  Scriptures  into 
the  sacred  language,  printed,  like  the  Koran, 
with  the  full  vowel  points,  will  be  a  potent 
means  for  commending  the  Word  of  God  to 
the  Mohammedan  world. 

II.  A  religious  literature  must  be  created  in 
the  same  language,  with  special  refereuce  to 
the  Mohammedan  mind.     The  Arabic  lan- 
guage is  full  of  erotic  poetry,  fragmentary 
history,  and  countless  works  on  grammar, 
rhetoric,  and  logic ;  but  it  lacks  the  life  and 
soul  of  sound  religious  truth.    Arabic  litera- 
ture is  as  radically  permeated  with  the  re- 
ligion and  philosophy  of  the  Koran  as  is 
English  literature  with  that  of  the  English 
Bible.    Up  to  the  present  time,  controversial 
works  against  Islamism  are  prohibited  by 
law ;  but  substantial  books  of  this  charac- 
ter should  be  prepared,  in  view  of  the  time 
when  the  door  shall  be  opened  among  the 
Moslems  themselves. 

III.  The  native  pastors  should  be  encour- 
aged to  familiarize  themselves  with  Moham- 
medan literature  and  doctrine,  so  as  to  be 
ready  to  meet  the  Moslem '  Utema  in  both 
oral  and  written  controversy. 

IV.  Every  thing  in  ritual,  worship,  and 
Church  architecture  associated  in  the  Mo- 
hammedan mind  with  idolatry  and  creature 
worship  should  be  studiously  avoided.     As 
already  stated,  the  idolatrous  practices  of 
the  Oriental  Churches  form  one  of  the  chief 
obstacles  to  the  conversion  of  the  Moslems, 
who,  on  the  other  hand,  are  attracted  by  the 
unadorned  simplicity  of  Protestant  places 
of  worship,  so  similar  to  what  they  are  ac- 
customed to  in  their  own  mosques. 

Such  is  the  tlwory  of  missions  to  the  Ori- 
ental Churches.  Such  are  the  immediate  and. 
ultimate  objects  of  labor  among  them,  and 
such  was  the  work  to  be  done  when  mission- 
aries entered  the  Turkish  Empire  more  than 
forty  years  ago.  What  has  been  the  RESULT  ? 
Does  the  theory  stand  the  test  of  actual  ex- 
perience ? 

A  complete  view  of  the  results  already  at- 
tained would  be  impossible  in  the  limits  as- 
signed us.  We  must,  therefore,  content  our- 
selves with  a  mere  outline. 

I.  The  oral  preaching  of  the  Gospel  has 
been  carried  on  for  many  years,  and  is  still 
being  carried  on  by  not  less  than  eighty 
American  and  European  missionaries,  and 
three  hundred  and  fifty  native  preachers  and 
helpers,  in  Turkey,  Persia,  and  Egypt. 


II.  In  the  department  of  Bible  translation, 
the  work  already  done  is  as  follows : 

1.  The  Arabic  version :  Begun  in  1849,  by 
Dr.  EH  Smith ;  continued,  after  his  death  in 
1857,  by  Dr.  C.  V.  A.  Van  Dyck,  aud  com- 
pleted in  1865 ;  made  and  electrotyped  by 
the  American  Bible  Society,  and  duplicate 
plates  presented  to  the  British  aud  Foreign 
Bible  Society.     Six  different  editions  of  the 
whole  Bible  have  been  made,  and  eight  edi- 
tions of  the  New  Testament.   A  voweled  Bible 
has  been  finished  for  Mohammedan  readers, 
the  electrotyping  of  the  Old  Testament  por- 
tion being  done  by  the  British  and  Foreign 
Bible  Society,  and  the  New  Testament  by 
the  American  Bible  Society. 

2.  The  Turkish,  in  Arabic  character :   Re- 
translated by  Dr.  Schauffler.     The  New  Tes- 
tament and  Psalms  are  printed,  and  the  Old 
Testament  is  now  being  translated.     Done 
at  the  joint  expense  of  the  American  and 
British  and  Foreign  Bible  Societies. 

3.  The   Turkish,  in   Armenian   character : 
Translated  by  Dr.  W.  Goodell  and  Bishop 
Carabet.     The  New  Testament  was  revised 
and  printed  by  Dr.  Pratt,  who  had  com- 
pleted tho  revision  of  the  Old  Testament  to 
the  end  of  2  Samuel,  with  the  Psalms  and  a 
part  of  Job,  when  he  was  called  to  a  higher 
service. 

The  British  and  American  Bible  Societies 
have  recently  appointed  an  Editorial  Com- 
mittee on  this  version,  consisting  of  the  Rev. 
Drs.  Schauffler  and  Riggs,  and  Rev.  Messrs. 
Herrick  and  Weakeley,  as  working  mem- 
bers, and  Dr.  Schneider  and  Dr.  Keolle,  and 
Rev.  Mr.  Green,  as  consulting  members,  as- 
sisted by  three  native  Turkish  scholars. 
Done  at  the  joint  expense  of  the  two  Bible 
Societies,  the  text  belonging  to  the  American 
Bible  Society. 

4.  The  Bulgarian  version  :    Translated  by 
Drs.  Riggs  and  Long.     The  New  Testament 
electrotyped. 

5.  The  Armenian:  The  New  Testament  re- 
vised by  Dr.  Riggs,  and  the  Old  Testament 
translated  by  him.     The  whole  electrotyped 
by  the  American  Bible  Society. 

6.  The  Syriac:  The  whole  Bible  translated 
by  Dr.  Perkins,  and  the  New  Testament  elec- 
trotyped. 

7.  The  Modern  Greek:  Translated  by  Leeves 
and  Bambas.  Printed  by  the  British  and  For- 
eign Bible  Society,  and  the  New  Testament 
introduced  into  the  schools  of  Greece. 

8.  The  Persian :  The  New  Testament  was 
translated  into  Persian  by  Henry  Martyn,  and 
both  the  Old  aud  New  Testaments  translated 
by  Rev.  Mr.  Glen,  and  printed  in  1846  and 
1847  by  the  British  and  Foreign  Bible  So- 
ciety. 

9.  The  Kurdish:  The  New  Testament  has 
been  translated  into  Kurdish  by  an  American 
Protestant  pastor  (Stepan  Shimavonion),  and 
printed  in  Constantinople  at  the  expense  of 
the  British  and  Foreign  Bible  Society. 


JESSUP:  MISSIONS  TO  THE  ORIENTAL  CHURCHES. 


10.  The  Hebrew  Spanish:  By  Dr.  Schauffler, 
at  the  expense  of  the  American  Bible  So- 
ciety. 

11.  The  Grceco-Turkish :  By  Leeves,  at  the 
expense  of  the  British  and  Foreign  Bible  So- 
ciety. 

We  have  thus  eleven  different  versions  of 
the  Scriptures  ready  for  the  peoples  of  the 
East.  They  have  already  been  sent  to  nine 
different  empires  in  Asia,  Africa,  and  East- 
ern Europe.  They  have  found  their  way 
into  palaces  and  hovels,  into  barracks  and 
khans,  into  monasteries  and  schools,  among 
Moslems,  Druzes,  Nusairlyeh,  Arabs,  and 
nominal  Christians. 

III.  An  Oriental  Evangelical  diurch  has  been 
formed.    With  the  exception  of  the  churches 
connected  with  the  English  missions  in  Pal- 
estine   proper,  the   great    part    of  all  the 
churches  iu  Egypt,  Syria,  Asia  Minor,  and 
Persia  follow  the  polity  of  the  Presbyterian 
and  Congregational  Churches  of  the  United 
States  and  Great  Britain,  on  the  doctrinal 
basis  of  the  Westminster  Confession  of  Faith. 

It  is  the  policy  of  the  missionaries  to  in- 
sist upon  the  assumption  by  the  native  pas- 
tors of  all  ecclesiastical  responsibility  at  as 
early  a  date  as  possible.  The  native  pastors 
in  the  three  sections  of  the  empire  occupied 
by  the  Eastern,  Western,  and  Central  Turkey 
Missions  have  formed  Evangelical  Unions  or 
Synods,  for  the  transaction  of  ecclesiastical 
and  evangelistic  business ;  and  the  Synod  of 
Central  Turkey  has  demonstrated  its  ability 
to  manage  its  own  ecclesiastical  affairs,  by 
its  recent  independent  action  iu  declining, 
after  protracted  examination,  to  ordain  a 
theological  candidate  holding  what  it  re- 
garded as  unsound  theological  views. 

The  Churches  so  organized  are  ninety-five  iu 
number,  of  which  twenty  are  self-supporting, 
and  nearly  fifty  have  native  pastors.  The 
number  of  Church  members  is  about  four 
thousand  eight  hnndred,while  the  number  of 
enrolled  Protestants  is  nearly  twenty  thousand; 
and  to  these  should  be  added  thousands  of 
men  still  connected  with  the  old  sects,  who 
are  Protestant  in  sentiment.  The  commun- 
ion table  of  the  Evangelical  Church  is  the 
only  place  in  the  East  where  Moslem  and 
Christian,  Druzo  and  Jew  forget  their  old 
feuds,  and  exhibit  the  unity  of  a  common 
faith  in  Christ. 

IV.  For  the  training  of  a  native  pastorate 
there  are  six  theological  seminaries;   viz.,  at 
Osiout,  in  Egypt;  at  Beirut,  iu  Syria;  at  Mar- 
sovan,  Marash,  and  Harpoot,  in  Turkey ;  and 
at  Urumlyah,  in  Persia.     The  number  of 
theological  students  is  about  seventy-five. 

V.  The  contributions  of  these  churches  and 
congregations  amount  to  thousands  of  dollars 
annually,  and  there  is  a  growing  spirit  of  lib- 
erality. Missionary  societies  have  been  organ- 
ized in  many  of  the  evangelical  communities. 

VI.  The  number  of  common  schools  connect- 
ed with  the  missions  is  not  far  from  four  hun- 

41 


dred,  with  about  fifteen  thousand  pupils ;  and 
such  an  impujse  has  been  given  to  common- 
school  education  that  many  of  the  various 
native  sects  are  establishing  schools  at  their 
own  expense,  using  the  text-books  printed 
at  the  mission  presses.  In  Beirut  alone  there 
are  six  thousand  five  hundred  children  in 
schools  of  all  sects,  of  whom  two  thousand 
five  hundred  are  girls. 

VII.  In  Syria  there  are  six  evangelical  fe 
male  seminaries  of  a  high  order,  with  three 
hundred  and  fifty  pupils ;  in  Asia  Minor  and 
Eastern  Turkey  four,  with  one  hundred  and 
twenty  pupils;  and  in  Egypt  one — making 
eleven  in  all,  with  about  five  hundred  pupils. 

The  colleges  are  two  iu  number.  The  "  Rob- 
ert College,"  in  Constantinople,  has  about 
two  hundred  and  thirty  students,  old  and 
young,  of  nearly  a  dozen  nationalities  and 
languages,  so  that  the  English  language  is 
used  as  the  medium  of  instruction. 

The  "  Syrian  Protestant  College,"  in  Bei- 
rut, is  a  purely  Arabic  institution,  teaching 
the  English,  French,  Latin,  and  Turkish  lan- 
guages as  classics.  Its  course  of  study  is 
similar  to  that  in  the  colleges  of  New  En- 
gland. The  number  of  students  in  the  aca- 
demic department  is  fifty-eight,  and  in  the 
medical  department  twenty-eight,  making 
eighty-six  in  all.  There  is  also  connected 
with  it  a  dispensary  and  a  hospital. 

These  colleges,  theological  schools,  and  fe- 
male seminaries  should  be  sustained  by  the 
contributions  of  the  Churches  at  home.  They 
are  to  prepare  an  educational  and  scientific 
literature,  and  will  do  much  to  control  the 
intellectual  future  of  the  East.  Their  build- 
ings, apparatus,  and  corps  of  instructors 
should  be  complete.  Their  success  hitherto 
has  already  led  the  Mohammedans,  Druzes, 
Armenians,  Greeks,  and  Romanists  to  found 
academies  and  seminaries,  until  the  Sultan 
himself  has  directed  the  opening  of  a  female 
seminary  in  Constantinople. 

VIII.  In  religious  literature,  hundreds  of 
books  have  been  translated,  and  not  less 
than  four  hundred  millions  of  pages  printed, 
and  many  of  the  standard  English  religious 
classics  are  already  household  treasures  in 
Eastern  homes.     And  year  by  year  the  col- 
leges, theological  seminaries,  individual  mis- 
sionaries, and  educated  natives  are  adding 
to  the  number. 

What,  then,  remains  to  be  done  ? 

I.  The  Evangelical  Alliance,  as  the  only 
common  organ  of  the  United  Protestant 
Christianity  of  the  world,  should,  in  a  firm 
and  judicious  manner,  make  its  voice  heard, 
and  its  influence  felt,  in  securing  complete 
liberty  of  conscience  in  all  Pagan  and  Mo- 
hammedan empires.  This  work  has  been 
begun. 

The  public  utterances  of  the  Sultan  of 
Turkey  on  this  point  are  liberal  and  widely 
known,  as  are  the  recent  assurances  of  the 


642 


CHRISTIAN  MISSIONS. 


Shah  of  Persia;  and  this  growing  spirit  of 
liberality  should  be  recognized  aud  encour- 
aged, until  even  a  Turkish  Pasha  may  open- 
ly embrace  Christianity  without  loss  of  life, 
property,  or  office. 

The  right  must  also  be  secured  to  publish 
temperate  replies  to  Mohammedan,  Pagan, 
and  infidel  attacks  upon  Christianity.  At 
present,  Christian  presses  are  not  allowed 
oven  to  mention  the  Mohammedan  religion 
in  disapprobation,  upon  pain  of  suppression. 

II.  The  different  Churches  and  Societies  of 
Europe  aud  America  would  do  well  to  aid 
and  strengthen  the  agencies  already  in  oper- 
ation on  the  ground,  instead  of  establishing 
new  ones. 

The  existing  missions  c;in  readily  do  the 
work  in  the  entire  field,  if  properly  main- 
tained, though  it  should  be  remembered 
that  it  is  not  desirable  nor  possible  that 
every  interior  town  should  be  occupied  by 
expensive  foreign  agencies.  These  missions 
will  need  reinforcing  from  year  to  year,  in 
order  to  maintain  the  press,  the  theological 
and  higher  education,  and  a  certain  propor- 
tion of  the  preaching  work. 

Never  was  the  call  so  loud  for  Christian 
women  to  labor  as  teachers  aud  Bible  women 
in  schools,  families,  aud  harems. 

The  colleges  and  female  seminaries  will 
need  endowments,  buildings,  and  apparatus, 
for  their  work  must  be  continued  long  after 
the  pastoral  work  has  passed  entirely  into 
native  hands.  The  press  will  need  pecun- 
iary aid  to  print  the  growing  Christian  liter- 
ature. 

Let  the  Churches,  then,  of  all  branches  of 
the  great  Protestant  family,  operate  through 
the  existing  societies  and  agencies.  Let  us 
not  repeat,  on  the  territory  of  the  Oriental 
Churches,  the  needless  sectarian  diversities 
of  the  Churches  at  home,  or  embarrass  the 
work  dear  to  us  all  by  the  unintentional  com- 
plications of  seemingly  rival  societies.  On 
the  contrary,  let  the  new  Oriental  Evan- 
gelical Church  be  left  free  to  work  out  the 
problems  of  its  own  future,  unembarrassed 
by  the  minor  differences  of  Evangelical  Chris- 
tendom. 

III.  And  with  equal  force  we  may  ask  that 
these  Churches  be  allowed  to  control  their 
own  ecclesiastical  affairs  without  foreign  in- 


terference. The  Churches  at  home  should 
not  be  over-anxious  to  have  this  or  that 
party  name,  however  honorable  or  beloved, 
emblazoned  on  the  standard  of  the  Church 
of  Christ  in  the  East.  Let  us  aid  our  native 
Christian  brethren  by  wise  counsel  and  affec- 
tionate co-operation,  but  hasten  as  soon  as 
possible  their  own  national  ecclesiastical  au- 
tonomy. 

IV.  Let  us,  as  Protestauts,  learn  to  work 
together  in  the  cause  of  our  common  Master 
aud  Lord.     Let  us  not  imitate  the  unseem- 
ly strifes  by  which  Jesuit  and  Lazarist,  Do- 
minican aud  Capuchin,  Sisters  of  Charity 
and  Sisters  of  Nazareth  are  characterized 
throughout  the  East. 

May  this  age  of  union  and  co-operation 
at  home  be  also  the  age  of  a  more  liberal, 
broad,  aud  hearty  co-operation  in  the  work 
of  evangelization  throughout  the  world. 

V.  And,  lastly,  let  us  offer  earnest  and 
united  prayer.     The  foundations  are  already 
laid.     The  Bible  is  ready.     Institutions  of 
learning  are  established.     Living,  spiritual 
Churches  are  springing  up  like  fountains  in 
the  desert.   It  is  a  time  for  prayer — for  strong 
faith.    Let  us  cry  unto  God  for  a  baptism  of 
the  Spirit  —  that  these  Churches  be  living 
missionary  Churches  —  that   these  institu- 
tions be  nurseries  of  piety  and  true  wisdom 
— and  that  Kurd  aud  Armenian,  Druze  and 
Maronite,  Arab  and  Greek,  Moslem  aud  Chris- 
tian accept  of  Jesus  as  their  only  Prophet, 
Priest,  and  King. 

These  ninety  -  five  Oriental  Evangelical 
Churches,  standing  like  sentinels  on  the  dis- 
tant watch-towers  of  Ziou,  are  this  day  en- 
titled to  the  recognition  and  fellowship  of 
all  true  believers.  By  their  allegiance  to 
Christ  they  have  already  become  our  breth- 
ren. Infolded  \vithiu  them  is  the  germ  of 
the  future  living  Christianity  of  the  East. 
Before  them  lie  momentous  conflicts  and 
victories — purchased,  it  may  be,  with  their 
blood. 

By  all  that  is  sacred  aud  precious  in  the 
religious  legacy  bequeathed  us  by  the  East, 
let  us  this  day  pledge  to  our  brethren  of  the 
Oriental  Evangelical  Church  the  worthiest 
laborers,  the  heartiest  sympathies,  and  tho 
most  fervent  prayers  of  the  Evangelical 
Christendom  of  the  West. 


THE  EVANGELICAL  HOME  MISSION  OF  FRANCE. 


BY  THE  REV.  MATTHIEU  LELIEVRE,  FKOM  NIMES,  FRANCE, 

Editor  of  LSEvangeliste. 


FOR  the  first  time  the  French  Evangelical 
Home  Mission,  which  I  have  the  privilege  of 
representing  among  you,  has  its  place  in  one 
of  the  oecumenical  meetings  of  the  Evangel- 
ical Alliance.  Issuing,  as  it  "were,  from  our 
recent  national  calamities,  our  society  takes 
the  first  opportunity  of  affirming  its  rela- 
tionship with  the  Alliance,  whose  principles 
it  adheres  to,  and  which  it  proposes  to  real- 
ize practically.  Its  extreme  youth,  its  small 
beginnings,  ought  perhaps  to  keep  us  from 
bringing  it  forth ;  but  we  have  two  good 
reasons  for  pleading  its  cause:  the  want  it 
has  of  the  sympathy,  counsels,  and  prayers 
of  God's  people ;  and  our  conviction  that  the 
principles  which  it  represents  may  become 
the  source  of  great  spiritual  riches  to  the 
Church  in  France  and  elsewhere.  Although 
we  wish,  for  many  good  reasons,  to  be  very 
modest  as  concerns  us  personally,  we  have 
not  the  right  to  be  timid  when  speaking  of 
our  principles. 

I  shall  address  you  successively  on  the 
origin  of  our  society,  the  principles  upon 
which  it  is  grounded,  and  the  way  in  which 
we  have  tried  to  realize  these  principles. 

I.  The  Protestant  Church  in  France — so 
great  by  the  heroism  of  the  past,  but  so 
small  in  number  and  in  faith — seems  to  have 
understood  better  than  the  remainder  of  the 
nation  the  solemn  teachings  of  God  in  the 
calamities  of  the  last  years.  The  evangel- 
ical Protestants  have  been  conscious  that 
the  first  cause  of  the  sudden  shaking  of  mil- 
itary and  political  power  in  France  was 
its  intellectual  inferiority,  and,  above  all,  its 
moral  declension.  Their  preachers  and  the 
editors  of  their  religions  papers  have  all 
echoed  the  general  feeling,  and  have  cried 
out  incessantly  —  France  must  be  born 
again! 

This  was  the  conviction  so  eloquently  ex- 
pressed by  Pastor  Recoliu  in  a  report  on  the 
evangelization  of  France  read  at  the  Evan- 
gelical Conference  held  at  Nlmes,  in  Octo- 
ber, 1871,  at  which  one  hundred  and  thirty 
ministers  and  laymen  took  part.  After  show- 
ing the  manifest  weakness  of  Romanism  and 
philosophy,  he  laid  it  on  the  conscience  of 
evangelical  Protestants  to  bring  the  Gospel 
to  our  population.  He  wished  existing  so- 
cieties to  be  supported,  but,  acknowledging 
that  to  meet  unlimited  wants  new  means 
were  necessary,  he  proposed  the  creation  of 


a  "new  Home  Mission,  a  vast  association, 
whose  aim  should  be  the  evangelization  of 
France;  whose  members  should  be  Chris- 
tians from  every  denomination,  laymen  and 
clergymen,  adopting  its  statutes ;  and  whose 
means  should  be  the  various  ways  thought 
fit  by  that  association  to  attain  that  end." 

This  proposition  was  voted  with  enthu- 
siasm, and  a  committee,  named  on  the  spot, 
was  intrusted  with  the  beginning  of  the 
work.  Verily  that  was  a  solemn  time ;  the 
Holy  Spirit  breathed  upon  us,  and  we  all 
resolved  to  devote  ourselves  more  entirely  to 
the  service  of  our  God  and  Saviour,  and  to 
the  raising  up  again  of  our  beloved  country. 

All  were  unanimous  in  voting  the  statutes 
of  the  association,  in  which  the  general  feat- 
ures of  its  organization,  and  the  principles 
upon  which  it  was  grounded,  were  concisely 
indicated.  We  shall  now  state  briefly  what 
those  principles  are. 

II.  The  primary  purpose  of  this  "  Mission 
mte"rieure  "  is  to  bring  into  full  play  all  the 
lively  forces  of  the  Church.  We  are  an  in- 
significant minority  scattered  in  the  midst 
of  a  great  nation — partly  papist,  partly  infi- 
del— and  we  have  not  taken  hitherto  a  firm 
hold  on  our  people,  inasmuch  as  we  have  la- 
bored to  evangelize  the  country  by  proxy 
only,  i.  e.,  through  the  instrumentality  of 
pastors  and  evangelists.  What  are  eight 
hundred  or  a  thousand  ministers,  which 
our  various  churches  employ,  in  a  work  of 
such  magnitude,  in  presence  of  thirty-seven 
millions  of  souls  ?  Often  have  we  exclaimed, 
"  But  what  are  they  among  so  many  ?"  The 
only  way  of  compensating  for  this  numerical 
inferiority  will  be  in  a  realization  of  the 
wish  of  Moses,  "  That  all  the  Lord's  people 
were  prophets,  and  that  the  Lord  would  put 
his  Spirit  upon  them."  Besides  the  commit- 
tees which  send  laborers  and  provide  for 
their  maintenance,  besides  the  ministers 
who  preach  the  Gospel,  there  ought  to  be  a 
general  lev^e  en  masse  of  Christians  to  wage 
war  against  infidelity  and  superstition.  The 
idea  is  itself  as  old  as  Christianity,  but  our 
Home  Mission  has  succeeded  in  giving  it  a 
precise  and  practical  form,  and  in  bringing 
it  out  at  the  time  that  it  was  most  wanted. 
The  special  aim  of  the  undertaking,  and 
which  has  been  so  far  successful,  has  been 
to  endeavor  to  organize  what  it  is  most  diffi- 
cult to  organize — individual  initiative. 


644 


CHRISTIAN  MISSIONS. 


The  method  which  it  has  adopted  to  real- 
ize this  most  excellent  principle  is  the  same 
•which  has  presented  itself  whenever  there 
have  been  revivals,  and  which  Spener  and 
Wesley  have  so  admirably  worked  out — the 
gathering  together  in  every  place  of  the  liv- 
ing members  of  the  Church,  and  the  forming 
of  those  collegia  pietatis —  those  ecclesiola; — 
which  have  been  the  nursery  of  all  the  great 
religious  movements  in  the  world.  Such  a 
local  meeting,  or  groupe  local,  is  not  a  com- 
mittee in  the  usual  acceptation  of  the  word. 
It  is  not,  indeed,  a  board  deliberating  or  di- 
recting certain  operations  in  the  name  of 
the  Church,  of  which  it  would  only  be  a 
representation ;  but  verily  the  Church  itself, 
taking  up  earnestly,  through  its  most  active 
and  living  members,  the  interests  of  the 
kingdom  of  God.  No  one  is  allowed  to  join 
one  of  those  groups,  according  to  the  statutes, 
who  does  not  pledge  himself  "  to  work  per- 
sonally for  the  advancement  of  the  Redeem- 
er's kingdom." 

The  work  by  the  groups  can  be  indicated 
in  two  words — praying  and  acting.  We  feel 
that  they  can  not  become  the  centres  of  ac- 
tivity unless  they  be  first  schools  of  deep 
piety,  and  unless  their  outward  manifesta- 
tion be  always  exactly  derived  from  their 
inner  life.  As  one  of  our  friends  has  said,  it 
is  necessary  that  the  Holy  Ghost  should  first 
accomplish  in  us  au  inner  mission,  in  order 
that  we,  in  our  turn,  should  be  able  to  carry 
on  around  us  the  real  inner  mission.  .There- 
fore, also,  do  we  feel  the  need  of  giving  the 
first  place  in  the  meetings  of  our  groups  to 
prayer  in  common.  It  is  prayer  alone  that 
will  always  inspire  and  regulate  any  effect- 
ive Christian  activity. 

With  respect  to  this  activity,  our  groups 
of  the  Home  Mission  aim  at  two  essential  re- 
sults— union  in  the  work,  and  division  of 
the  work.  One  of  the  weak  points  of  evan- 
gelical Protestantism,  in  a  Catholic  country, 
is  that  its  forces  are  too  much  scattered  in 
various  directions,  and  from  thence  arises  its 
powerlessness.  What  can  be  more  necessary 
than  to  unite  these  activities,  often  hesitat- 
ing and  discouraged,  and  to  raise  again  and 
excite  that  sentiment  of  brotherly  solidarity 
with  which  the  loins  of  the  Church  were 
girt  about  in  the  prosperous  days  of  its  his- 
tory ?  On  the  other  hand,  we  are  persuaded 
that  no  one  has,  as  yet,  understood  how  to 
sufficiently  utilize  in  the  Church  that  pow- 
erful element  of  action  which  is  called  the 
division  of  labor.  If  there  are  some  branches 
of  Christian  activity  around  which  the  good 
will  and  eagerness  of  every  one  gather,  how 
many  others  are  deplorably  neglected!  In 
our  position  as  a  minority  lost  in  the  midst 
of  a  large  mass,  either  indifferent  or  hostile, 
it  is  indispensable  that  we  should  make  the 
most  of  our  forces,  by  economizing  them 
with  the  greatest  care,  and  by  using  them 
all.  We-  are  a  small  army,  and  have  to  re- 


deem, by  our  discipline,  our  numerical  in- 
feriority. One  of  the  most  important  parts 
of  the  work  of  our  groups  is  to  choose,  there- 
fore, for  each  individual  member  the  work 
for  which  he  has  the  greatest  aptitude,  while 
respecting  the  liberty  of  every  one.  In  fact, 
in  the  army  of  Jesus  Christ,  liberty  and  dis- 
cipline are  two  terms  which  do  not  exclude 
each  other. 

A  special  article  among  the  statutes  of  the 
Home  Mission  formally  invites  "the  Chris- 
tian women  to  organize  themselves  in  the 
same  manner  and  for  the  same  end."  It 
adds :  "  The  committees  composed  of  women 
will  consult  with  those  composed  of  men,  in 
view  of  the  interest  of  the  common  work." 
On  this  point,  no  doubt,  as  on  many  others, 
we  do  not  seek  to  introduce  innovations; 
for  a  long  time,  thanks  to  God,  our  sisters 
have  proved  by  their  acts  that  they  have  a 
natural  place  among  all  works  which  relate 
to  charity  and  devotion.  But  it  was  neces- 
sary to  acknowledge  what  already  existed  in 
reality,  and  to  invite  all  Christian  women 
who  had  been  kept  back  by  an  exaggerated 
timidity  to  become  open  fellow-laborers. 

But  perhaps  the  most  novel  trait  of  our 
association  is  the  union  of  the  different  Chris- 
tian communions  in  a  common  activity.  It  is 
,by  this  that  we  closely  connect  ourselves 
with  the  Evangelical  Alliance,  and  that  we 
are  trying,  in  our  feebleness,  to  apply  its  ad- 
mirable principle.  The  Alliance,  in  proclaim- 
ing the  spiritual  and  living  unity  of  the 
Lord's  people,  in  opposition  to  the  false  un- 
ity of  popery,  has  answered  a  desideratum  of 
the  contemporary  religious  revival.  But  is 
this  manifestation  the  ne  plus  ultra  of  broth- 
erly love  ?  Is  it  not  lawful  to  desire  a  better 
and  more  thorough  method  of  bringing  near- 
er to  each  other  the  several  denominations 
of  Christians  than  that  which  creates  large 
oecumenical  conferences  such  as  this  is,  or 
even  more  frequent  meetings,  such  as  those 
which  every  year  are  devoted  to  united 
prayer  in  the  first  week  of  January?  We 
have  recognized  that  what  unites  us  is  in- 
finitely more  important  than  what  divides 
us ;  we  love  each  other,  and  we  feel  the  need 
of  declaring  it  to  the  world  and  to  ourselves; 
we  believe  in  the  communion  of  saints,  and 
we  must  strengthen  it  by  uniting  our  pray- 
ers. Why  should  AVC  not  take  another  step? 
Why,  after  having  prayed  together,  should 
we  not  work  together  ?  We  have  no  pre- 
tension of  saying  what  can  be  done  in  rela- 
tion to  this  in  other  countries,  but  we  have 
thought  that  the  moment  has  come  for  the 
French  Christians  to  try  something  in  this 
way.  We  belong  to  a  race  which  is  eager 
after  unity  in  all  things;  it  may  be  its  feeble- 
ness, in  it  resides  also  its  power;  false  re- 
ligious unity  has  undone  it,  but  true  unity 
might  save  it.  The  Evtingelical  Protestants 
of  France  ought  not,  according  to  my  opin- 
ion, to  seek  after  an  administrative  and  ex- 


LELIEVRE :  THE  EVANGELICAL  HOME  MISSION  OF  FRANCE. 


645 


terior  unification;  since  Christianity  as  it 
exists  in  the  United  States  has  demonstrated 
that  we  can  do  without  this.  But  it  is  of  the 
utmost  necessity  that  they  should  show  to 
Latin  and  Catholic  France  that  Protestant- 
ism is  a  principle  of  cohesion,  and  not  of  dis- 
solution. By  bringing  together,  on  the  ground 
of  Christian  activity,  disciples  of  Jesus  Christ, 
among  whom  exist  a  few  differences  on  sec- 
ondary questions  of  doctrine  and  organiza- 
tion, the  Home  Mission  prepares  the  way  to 
a  confederation  of  French  Protestant  church- 
es. By  doing  what  is  now  possible  in  that 
respect,  she  prepares  a  better  future. 

These  are  our  principles.  There  remains 
to  be  said,  in  a  few  words,  how  Ave  have  tried 
to  realize  them. 

III.  An  initiatory  committee  was  formed 
in  November,  1871,  at  Nlmes,  in  order  to  or- 
ganize and  propagate  this  Home  Mission, 
such  as  the  Evangelical  Conference  of  the 
South  has  conceived  it.  This  committee  in 
its  composition  was,  as  it  were,  the  proto- 
type of  what  should  be  the  local  groups 
which  had  to  be  created ;  its  seven  members 
belonged  to  the  three  principal  denomina- 
tions of  French  Protestantism — the  Reform- 
ed Church,  the  Free  Church,  the  Methodist 
Church.  We  can  say,  to  the  glory  of  God, 
the  members  of  this  central  committee,  dur- 
ing the  two  years  which  they  have  worked 
together,  have  never  troubled  themselves 
with  the  ecclesiastical  differences  existing 
between  them ;  they  have  scarcely  felt  that 
there  were  any.  An  appeal  was  addressed 
by  them  to  all  evangelical  Protestants  in 
France,  and  from  every  quarter  came  the 
most  cordial  adhesions.  Among  the  most 
important,  I  shall  instance  that  given  by  the 
Nestor  of  French  literature,  who  is  also  the 
patriarch  of  French  Protestantism,  our  illus- 
trious and  great  Guizot:  "Put  down  my 
name  among  the  members  of  the  Evangel- 
ical Home  Mission,"  he  wrote  to  one  of  our 
friends;  "I  will  devote  to  his  work  what 
amount  God  still  vouchsafes  to  me  of  vigor 
and  life.  I  will  feel  it  an  honor  to  serve  yet, 
in  the  midst  of  your  Association,  the  evan- 
gelical cause  which  is  the  cause  of  all  Chris- 
tians, whatever  may  be  the  differences  of 
opinion  which  God  has  in  all  times  suffered 
to  arise  and  allowed  among  his  most  sincere 
and  zealous  servants." 

What  gratified  us  still  more  than  such  ad- 
hesions, so  full  of  sympathy,  was  the  imme- 
diate creation,  in  several  localities,  of  a  num- 
ber of  Home  Mission  groups.  We  issued  at 
once  a  monthly  Bulletin,  as  their  organ  and 
connecting  bond,  and  of  that  periodical, 
which  is  edited  by  our  excellent  president, 
Pastor  Babut,  twelve  hundred  copies  are 
printed.  There  are  now  about  one  hundred 
of  these  local  groups;  a  small  number,  if  the 
size  of  France  be  considered,  but  not  if  the 
difficulties  always  encountered  by  a  new  en- 
terprise be  taken  into  account.  These  asso- 


ciations of  Christians  have  become  in  many 
places  very  precious  as  a  means  of  awaken- 
ing individual  zeal.  In  the  small  localities, 
they  have  gathered  together  the  pious  peo- 
ple whom  isolation  had  discouraged ;  in  the 
large  towns,  they  have  besides  organized 
schemes  of  a  general  character.  Lectures 
have  been  given  with  great  success  on  the 
questions  of  the  day  considered  from  the 
Christian  stand-point ;  ministers  and  laymen 
have  gone  frequently  two  by  two  preaching 
and  evangelizing  from  place  to  place ;  visits 
to  the  sick  have  been  multiplied,  and  made 
with  more  care  and  method ;  lessons  for 
adults  have  been  established  to  answer  the 
intellectual  wants  of  our  ignorant  popula- 
tion, which  are  generally  eager  after  instruc- 
tion ;  tracts  and  portions  of  the  Scriptures 
have  been  distributed  even  in  fairs,  markets, 
and  barracks.  In  short,  the  Christians  in 
France  begin  to  awake,  and  they  understand 
better  their  duty  to  work  personally  for 
Christ  by  all  the  means  which  are  in  their 
power. 

I  must  not  forget  the  Mission  2W2)ulaire  in 
Paris,  twin  sister  of  ours.  Among  the  works 
it  has  undertaken,  I  will  only  mention  the 
Ouvroirs,  opened  after  the  events  of  the  Com- 
mune, to  snatch  from  abject  misery  poor 
women  whose  husbands  were  dead  or  in 
prison.  A  lady,  as  gifted  as  she  is  noble- 
hearted,  Mme.  de  Presseuse",  has  devoted 
herself  to  that  work,  which  has  taken  a 
great-  extension,  and  met  with  important 
success.  It  is  not  a  small  result  to  have 
brought  together  through  love  classes  of  so- 
ciety which  our  civil  discords  had  separated ; 
but,  what  is  better  still,  schools  have  been 
created,  in  which  a  great  many  children  have 
been  placed  under  an  evangelical  influence  ; 
new  places  of  worship  have  been  opened  in 
the  working  classes'  districts,  and  true  con- 
versions have  proved  the  work  to  be  of  God. 

The  Central  Committee  of  the  Home  Mis- 
sion has  seen  its  task  increase  with  the  work 
itself.  The  committee  was  at  first  a  mere 
bond  between  the  different  groups,  but  un- 
der the  direction  of  Providence  it  has  been 
compelled  to  extend  its  field  of  labor.  With 
the  contributions  which  have  been  sent  in 
from  many  quarters,  including  the  United 
States,  the  committee  has  organized  preach- 
ing tours  and  lectures  in  different  places, 
which  are,  in  the  present  state  of  France,  an 
excellent  means  of  action.  It  has  commis- 
sioned district  agents — agents  regionaux — to 
propagate  the  work  by  regular  visits  to  the 
churches  and  by  an  active  correspondence. 
It  has  addressed  an  appeal  to  men  of  faith 
and  talent,  who  know  how  to  make  them- 
selves heard  by  the  people,  and  has,  of  course, 
promised  to  bear  the  expenses  they  might 
incur.  We  intend  multiplying  such  agen- 
cies. We  desire  to  create  a  body  of  lecturers 
and  itinerant  missionaries  who  will  go  from 
place  to  place,  preaching  the  Gospel  of  Jesus 


646 


CHRISTIAN  MISSIONS. 


Christ  in  its  simplicity  and  sublimity  to 


those  who  have  hitherto  refused  to  receive  it, 
for  this  reason  only,  that  they  knew  it  not. 

Dear  and  honored  brethren,  our  Home 
Mission  is,  as  yet,  as  you  have  seen,  in  the 
day  of  small  things.  But  we  believe  in  its 
future,  because  it  is  a  work  of  faith  and 


Christian  charity.     It  appears,  surely,  quite 


insignificant  by  the  side  of  the  great  works 
wrought  by  Christian  genius  in  America  and 
in  England.  But,  in  its  feebleness,  it  gives 
another  proof  that  there  is  in  France  a  little 
flock  which  does  not  despair  of  the  religious 
future  of  a  nation  from  which  have  arisen 
such  men  as  Coligny,  Calvin,  and  Pascal. 


CITY  MISSIONS. 


BY  THE  REV.  ROBERT  KNOX,  D.D.,  BELFAST,  IRELAND. 


I  ASK  the  attention  of  the  Conference  to 
the  moral  and  spiritual  condition  of  our 
great  cities.  The  masses  of  the  people  in 
the  growing  centres  of  population  are  being 
lost  to  the  Church.  The  Earl  of  Shaftes- 
bury  stated,  at  a  public  meeting,  not  long 
since,  that  not  more  than  two  per  cent,  of  the 
working  men  of  London  attend  any  house 
of  worship !  In  the  city  of  Glasgow,  the 
iion-church-going  amouut  to  130,000 — that 
is,  one-fourth  of  the  whole  population.  In 
Edinburgh  the  same  class  amount  to  60,000 
— that  is,  one-third  of  the  population ;  while 
in  London,  the  Capitol  of  Christendom,  this 
class  amounts  to  the  enormous  number  of 
1,500,000  — that  is,  about  half  the  popula- 
tion! It  may  be  assumed  that  the  condi- 
tion of  New  York  and  other  great  cities  of 
the  continent  of  America  is  not  more  sat- 
isfactory. Whatever  explanation  may  be 
given  of  this  state  of  things,  we  have  the 
melancholy  fact  staring  us  in  the  face,  that  in 
the  great  cities  of  Europe  and  America  the 
masses  have  fallen  away  from  the  Church, 
and  have  assumed,  with  more  or  less  inten- 
sity, an  attitude  of  hostility  to  the  Gospel. 
In  accounting  for  this  condition  of  things, 
some  trace  it  to  the  pressure  of  poverty. 
They  tell  us  that  many  families  who  went 
every  Sabbath  from  the  rural  home  to  the 
house  of  God,  when  they  pitch  their  tent  in 
the  great  city  and  get  disheartened  in  the 
terrible  struggle  for  existence,  sink  into  in- 
difference, and  are  buried  in  the  seething, 
godless  mass.  Some  trace  the  evil  to  the 
liquor  traffic,  and  those  habits  of  intemper- 
ance it  generates  and  fosters.  They  tell  us 
how  the  drink  beggars  and  degrades,  blunts 
the  edge  of  conscience,  quenches  the  spirit 
of  piety,  and  demoralizes  the  whole  man. 
Others  trace  the  evil  to  the  wretched  habi- 
tations of  the  people.  They  tell  us  that,  in 
the  sunken  regions  of  great  cities,  many  of 
the  poor  herd  together  like  beasts  and  not 
as  human  beings ;  that  the  young  grow  up 
in  surroundings  which  poison  the  springs 
of  life  and  render  all  delicacy  of  feeling  im- 
possible. Many  do  not  hesitate  to  trace  the 
infidelity  of  the  masses  to  the  spirit  and 
bearing  of  the  Church — to  her  want  of  life, 
and  holiness,  and  love.  Men  fail  to  see  in 
the  Church  that  pure,  compassionate,  un- 
selfish thing,  which  they  might  expect  to 
come  from  God.  They  charge  the  Church 
with  worldliness  and  pride,  and  insensibili- 
ty to  the  condition  of  the  poor  and  the  per- 


ishing, and  are  thus  led  to  give  up  all  faith 
in  the  reality  and  power  of  religion. 

Whatever  be  the  true  explanation,  we 
have  the  stern  fact  to  deal  with — Christian- 
ity has  lost  hold  of  the  masses  in  our  great 
cities.  In  dealing  with  this  fact,  we  must 
remember  that  cities  are  the  centres  of  In- 
fluence and  moral  power.  The  world  is 
ruled  by  its  great  cities.  The  thoughts,  and 
feelings,  and  principles  of  action  that  im- 
pregnate these  centres  spread  rapidly,  and 
poison  or  purify  life  in  the  remotest  hamlet. 
This  invests  the  subject  before  us  with  im- 
mense interest.  Leaving  heathen  nations 
out  of  view,  we  are  forced  to  the  conclusion 
that  the  cities  of  so-called  Christian  lands 
are  strongholds  of  drunkenness,  debauchery, 
infidelity,  and  ungodliness  in  its  most  hide- 
ous aspects.  Such  places  as  London,  Paris, 
Hamburg,  and  New  York  are  citadels  of 
vice.  From  these  issues  the  literature  that 
carries  death  in  its  wings  to  the  homes  of 
the  people. 

It  is  a  singular  fact  that,  in  the  revival 
of  missionary  zeal  which  marked  the  dawn 
of  the  present  century,  the  condition  of  the 
city  population  was  entirely  overlooked. 
Men  burned  with  holy  fervor  for  the  con- 
version of  the  heathen,  and  societies  were 
formed  to  send  the  Gospel  to  almost  every 
country  under  the  sun,  at  the  very  time 
when  home  heathenism  was  spreading  like 
a  malaria  among  the  sunken  masses  at  their 
own  doors.  A  time  came  when  these  masses 
began  to  show  signs  of  ability  and  eager- 
ness to  avenge  upon  society  centuries  of 
criminal  neglect.  The  Church  was  at  last 
roused  to  begin  the  work  of  saving  the  hea- 
then at  home.  It  was  almost  too  late,  as 
the  history  of  the  Paris  Commune  tells  with 
trumpet  tongue.  It  is  now  felt  by  all  Chris- 
tian men  that  to  preserve  the  very  frame- 
work of  society,  if  from  no  higher  motive, 
we  must  reclaim  the  lapsed  masses  in  our 
great  cities.  This  is,  in  some  respects,  the 
most  difficult  work  ever  undertaken  by  the 
Church.  The  heathen  may  be  ignorant,  be- 
sotted, and  low  in  the  intellectual  scale,  but 
the  heathen  are  usually  without  prejudice 
and  without  hatred.  The  lower  and  the 
lowest  strata  of  our  city  population  are 
largely  brutalized  by  drink  and  hostile  to 
religion.  Many  of  them  speak  as  if  they  had 
an  old  quarrel  to  settle  with  Christianity. 

The  great  practical  question  we  now  raise 
is  this,  What  can  be  done  to  save  these  mass- 


648 


CHRISTIAN  MISSIONS. 


es;  \vhcro  is  the  power  mighty  enough  to 
lift  them  out  of  their  misery  and  vice  T  In 
answer  to  this  question  I  have  three  obser- 
vations to  make. 

1.  In  our  judgment,  the  only  power  equal 
to  the  task  is  the  "  Gospel  of  the  Grace  of 
God."     This  is  "  the  power  of  God  unto  sal- 
vation to  every  one  that  believeth."     It  is 
the  greatest  moral  power  in  the  universe — 
the  living,  personal,  divine  Redeemer  can 
lift  up  and  purify  the  people.     No  other 
agency  is  equal  to  the  task.     No  mere  sur- 
roundings can  save  a  moral  being,  degraded 
and  lost.     Better  food,  better  houses,  even 
higher  culture,  can  not  do  it.     He  must 
come  under  an  influence  that  reaches  to 
the  very  fountain  of  his  being ;  he  must  be 
touched  by  one  who  can  quicken  into  new- 
ness of  life.     Jesus  says,  "  Bring  him  unto 
me."     This  is  our  work ;  we  must  bring  the 
lost  ones  to  Him  who  can  cast  out  the  un- 
clean spirit  and  fill  the  soul  with  a  new  and 
spiritual  life.     It  is  little  short  of  mockery 
to  offer  a  salvation  of  outside  appliances. 
These  may  be  good  and  precious  as  hand- 
maids to  the  higher  benediction,  but  they 
can  not  save.     They  may  alleviate  suffer- 
ing ;  they  can  not  ward  off  death. 

2.  My  second  observation  is  that  this  wo'rk 
can  not  be  achieved  by  proxy.     We  may  la- 
bor among  the  far-off  heathen  by  proxy,  as 
there  is  no  other  "way  of  reaching  them. 
We  select  men  and  send  them  forth  as  our 
representatives,  and  by  the  lips  of  these 
men  we  speak.     But  in  dealing  with  the 
home  heathen  we  need  more  than  depu- 
ties.    I  would  not  undervalue  the  labor  of 
the  city  missionary,  but  why  not  bring  to 
bear  on  this  work  the  whole  spiritual  pow- 
er of  the  Church?     Every  living,  earnest 
member  of  a  city  congregation  should  be- 
come a  missionary,  and  deal  directly,  per- 
sonally, with  sinners.   A  congregation  should 
not  dream  of  having  fully  discharged  its  ob- 
ligations by  paying  a  missionary  to  pene- 
trate the  lanes  and  alleys.     The  work  ia  too 
great  and  arduous  to  be  achieved  in  this 
way.     Every  saved  soul  should  become  a  mis- 
sionary.    It  is  the  chief  business  of  the  min- 
ister to  lift  up  Christ  in  the  pulpit;  it  is 
the  chief  business  of  the  elders  to  rule ;  it 
is  the  chief  business  of  the  deacons  to  man- 
age the  finances  of  the  Church ;  but  there 
is  a  great  work  common  to  all  and  binding 
on  all.     Surrounded  by  a  vast  population, 
virtually  heathen,  worse  than  heathen,  more 
guilty  than  the  heathen,  it  is  laid  on  minis- 
ters, elders,  and  deacons  to  assail  this  dense, 
compact  heathenism  personally,  with  per- 
sistent effort,  with  intense,  all -conquering 
love.     Every  minister,  elder,  and  deacon  in 
a  city  church  should  be  an  evangelist,  go- 
ing into  streets  and  lanes  in  search  of  the 
lost ;   not  by  deputy,  but  personally,  doing 
the  work  in  the  spirit  of  the  Master — self- 
forgetting,  self-sacrificing,  dealing  with  the 


lost,  closely,  earnestly — in  love,  faith,  and 
patience. 

And  what  of  the  great  body  of  the  saints 
in  our  city  churches?  Are  they  to  stand 
all  the  day  idle?  Here  is  work  for  them 
also — a  people  perishing  at  their  door :  the 
command  of  the  Master  to  every  one  of 
them  is, "  Go  work  to-day  in  my  vineyard." 
Never  shall  the  world  be  converted  till  the 
Church  gets  out  of  the  wretched  old  nit 
of  assigning  the  work  of  preaching  exclu- 
sively to  the  minister.  The  true  theory  of 
the  Kingdom  is  to  make  every  Christian  man 
and  woman  a  herald  of  the  glad  tidings :  "  The 
Spirit  and  the  Bride  say,  Come!" — the  Bride, 
that  is,  the  Church — the  saved  people,  men 
and  women — not  the  clergy  merely.  I  would 
neither  undervalue  nor  supersede  the  office 
of  the  ministry.  While  the  Church  is  mili- 
tant, there  should  be  a  class  of  men  who  should 
"give  themselves  wholly  to  these  things," 
lifting  up  Jesus,  and  "  feeding  the  flock  of 
God ;"  but  in  our  dispensation  no  order  of 
men  can  claim  an  exclusive  right  to  preach 
the  Gospel. 

A  man  saved  by  grace  feels  in  his  own 
conscience  both  the  obligation  and  the  au- 
thority to  tell  of  Jesus  and  his  work :  "  I 
believed,  therefore  have  I  spoken ;"  "  We 
also  believe,  and  therefore  speak."  Thus 
faith  is  made  by  prophets  and  apostles  the 
ground  of  utterance.  The  man  who  believes 
in  his  heart  has  Divine  authority  for  making 
confession  with  his  lips.  Such  a  man  will 
speak  for  Jesus  from  the  moral  force  of  love 
and  gratitude,  independent  of  all  human  au- 
thority. Even  the  apostles,  when  arraigned 
before  the  Jewish  parliament,  did  not  fall 
back  on  their  Divine  commission,  but  plead- 
ed, in  justification  of  their  work,  the  irresist- 
ible plea  of  their  own  experience :  "  We  can 
not  but  speak  the  things  we  have  both  seen 
and  heard."  They  stood  on  their  own  knowl- 
edge, their  consciousness,  their  own  experi- 
ence of  Christ.  This  experience  was  so  con- 
straining, it  laid  on  them  a  moral  necessity 
they  could  not  resist.  They  would  die  rath- 
er than  be  silent.  They  stood  to  their  pur- 
pose resolutely ;  not  so  much  in  the  spirit  of 
obedience  to  an  official  commission  as  out  of 
love  for  Jesus,  their  knowledge  of  the  riches 
of  his  grace,  their  own  experience  of  his 
saving  power.  What  preaching  comes  of 
such  experience !  No  men  speak  with  such 
powrer  as  men  fresh  from  the  divine  baptism. 
What  a  preacher  was  that  man  of  Gadara ! 
Jesus  sent  him  back  to  his  home  and  kin- 
dred to  tell  of  the  blessings  he  received. 
With  what  startling  power  and  fervor  would 
he  tell  his  story !  How  he  would  point  to 
himself,  and  remind  them  of  all  they  knew 
of  him  when  among  the  tombs,  and  cutting 
himself  with  stones — so  changed  now,  so  gen- 
tle, so  happy,  so  full  of  love !  No  apostle  vis- 
iting the  hills  and  city  of  Gadara  would  com- 
mand the  same  attention.  What  a  preacher 


KNOX :  CITY  MISSIONS. 


649 


was  thatwoman  of  Samaria!  When  the  spark 
of  holy  fire  was  kindled  in  her  heart,  she  had 
no  more  time  for  parley ;  leaving  her  water- 
pot,  she  ran  into  the  city ;  the  power  of  her 
glowing,  vehement  appeals  may  be  gather- 
ed from  their  effects.  Some  believed  on  the 
spot,  others  poured  out  of  the  city,  and,  meet- 
ing Jesus  at  the  well,  yielded  up  their  hearts 
to  him  there. 

The  best  preachers  for  the  masses  are 
brands  from  among  themselves  plucked  out 
of  the  fire — men  and  women  known  to  them, 
exhibiting  in  their  own  persons  the  trans- 
forming power  of  grace,  speaking  of  Jesus 
in  the  workshops,  at  the  corners  of  the  streets, 
and  at  the  fireside ;  the  most  hardened  and 
hostile  are  thus  made  to  feel  the  reality  and 
power  of  religion. 

For  the  special  object  of  reclaiming  the 
masses  there  should  bo  in  every  church  an 
organization  of  Christian  workers,  including 
minister,  elders,  deacons,  and  all  living  mem- 
bers— men  and  women.  To  this  earnest  baud 
there  should  be  assigned  a  portion  of  the  city, 
BO  that  every  soul  among  the  lapsed  in  that 
district  would  come  into  personal  contact 
with  Christian  love.  Till  this,  or  something 
like  this,  be  done,  the  conversion  of  the  world 
will  advance  slowly,  and  the  masses,  already 
fallen,  sink  deeper  and  deeper  in  misery  and 
crime.  Wealthy  Christians  must  be  taught 
that  we  need  more  than  their  money  to  evan- 
gelize the  world  —  we  need  their  personal 
service,  the  living  voice  and  the  loving  heart. 
We  ask  them  to  be  like  the  Master,  "  Who, 
though  he  was  rich,  yet  for  our  sakes  be- 
came poor,  that  we  through  his  poverty 
might  be  rich."  They  should  do  as  he  did 
— stand  in  the  midst  of  publicans  and  sin- 
ners. It  may  be  hard  and  trying  work,  but 
he  did  it,  and  he  did  more  than  all  this,  he 
laid  down  his  life  for  us.  We  must  teach 
the  poor  who  are  rich  in  faith  that,  though 
they  have  little  of  the  gold  and  silver  to  lay 
at  the  Saviour's  feet,  they  can  bring  an  offer- 
ing of  priceless  value — grateful,  loving  hearts 
— hearts  valiant  and  ready  to  work  for  him. 
We  must  show  them  how  grace  lifts  the 
poor  out  of  the  dunghill  and  sets  him  among 
princes,  making  him  an  ambassador  of  the 
King  of  kings. 

This  plan  of  engaging  the  whole  Chris- 
tian people  in  personal  service  for  Christ 
has  much  to  recommend  it.  It  is  God's 
plan.  It  would  at  once  augment  the  work- 
ing power  of  the  Church  a  hundred-fold. 
It  would  bring  untold  blessings  to  the 
Church  herself  by  its  reflex  power,  and,  be- 


sides all  this,  it  would  furnish  to  the  world 
what  the  cynical,  unbelieving  world  so  loud- 
ly demands  —  proof  of  self-sacrificing  love. 
The  world  asks  with  a  sneer,  "  Where  is  this 
love  which  you  tell  us  is  the  spirit  and  gen- 
ius of  Christianity  ?  The  poor  are  oppress- 
ed, and  you  don't  pity  them ;  they  are  ready 
to  perish,  and  you  don't  lay  it  to  heart ;  you 
are  selfish,  supercilious,  living  apart."-  We 
must  wipe  out  this  reproach  by  the  Chris- 
tian people  going  down  among  the  wretched 
and  the  poor,  at  any  sacrifice  of  time  and 
feeling,  under  the  promptings  of  a  love  that 
casts  out  fear,  and  counts  it  a  real  joy  to 
suffer  for  Christ.  Till  this  is  done,  you  can 
not  penetrate  worldly  men  with  the  convic- 
tion that  there  is  any  value  and  power  in 
the  faith  of  the  Crucified  One. 

3.  My  third  observation  is  that,  in  arriv- 
ing at  the  evangelization  of  the  world,  we 
should  follow  the  Divine  order.  We  must 
not  only  take  God's  agency,  but  God's  order — 
lay  hold  first  of  the  (jreat  cities.  Preach  the  Gos- 
pel to  every  creature,  beginning  at  Jerusa- 
lem. The  apostles  filled  Jerusalem  with 
their  doctrine,  and  then  passed  rapidly  to 
all  the  great  centres  of  influence  throughout 
the  Roman  empire — Corinth,  Autioch,  Eph- 
esus,  Home.  From  these  centres  the  Word 
passed  swiftly  as  on  the  wings  of  the  wind, 
so  that,  within  the  first  generation,  it  could 
be  said,  "  Their  sound  has  gone  into  all  the 
earth,  and  their  words  to  the  end  of  the 
world."  We  have  not  followed  this  plan. 
We  have  neglected  the  masses  in  our  great 
cities,  till  a  gigantic  evil  has  grown  up  in 
our  midst ;  and  it  remains  to  be  seen  wheth- 
er there  is  life  enough  in  the  Christianity 
of  our  day  to  grapple  with  the  evil  and 
redeem  the  waste  places,  so  that  the  tre- 
mendous moral  and  social  power  lodged  in 
the  heart  of  the  city  population  may  be  con- 
secrated to  Christ. 

The  first  requisite  is  a  living  Church — a 
Church  filled  with  faith  and  with  the  Holy 
Ghost.  A  dead  church  can  not  achieve  any 
thing.  It  is  the  most  useless  institution  on 
the  face  of  the  earth,  and,  like  salt  without 
savor,  is  fit  only  to  be  cast  out  and  "  trod- 
den under  feet  of  men."  The  working  po\v- 
er  of  the  Church  is  just  the  measure  of 
life  in  the  pulpit  and  in  the  pew.  What  we 
want  before  organization — above  and  better 
than  all  organization — is  life — to  be  filled 
with  life.  Without  life,  the  Church  is  a 
mere  skeleton ;  full  of  life,  she  rises  up,  an 
exceeding  great  army,  invincible,  and  all- 
conquering. 


MISSIONS   OF   THE   EVANGELICAL  CHURCH  OF 

PRUSSIA  AMONG  GERMAN  PROTESTANT 

CONGREGATIONS  ABROAD  * 

BY  THE  KEY.  W.  NOEL, 

Counselor  of  the  "Ober-Kircheiirath,"  nnd  First  Preacher  of  the  Louisa  Parish  Church  at  Berlin. 


THE  subject  for  which  I  want  to  claim 
your  attention  leads  you  into  the  narrow- 
ness of  a  quiet,  silent  work  of  love.  You 
have  taken,  in  these  memorable  days,  a  sur- 
vey of  all  the  different  departments  of  Chris- 
tian, Protestant  faith  and  struggle,  love  and 
suffering,  hope  and  victory.  I  have  to  speak 
to  you  of  the  work  of  love  which  the  Evan- 
gelische  Oler-Kircltenrath  in  Berlin,  the  first 
authority  of  the  Established  Church  in  Prus- 
sia, besides  its  great  tasks  at  home,  does 
for  German  Protestant  congregations  scat- 
tered in  foreign  lands.  Its  care  is  extend- 
ed over  all  those  congregations  in  Europe, 
Asia,  Africa,  and  America  that  seek  its  con- 
nection. 

You  know  that  every  year  thousands  and 
thousands  in  Germany  suppose  themselves 
to  be  called  with  the  words  once  spoken 
to  Abraham,  "  Get  thee  out  of  thy  coun- 
try, and  from  thy  kindred,  and  from  thy 
father's  house,  unto  a  land  that  I  will  show 
thee." 

The  tide  of  German  emigration  flows 
westward  into  the  United  States  of  Amer- 
ica, which  I  dare  say,  without  boasting,  may 
thank  the  German  emigrants  for  a  good  part 
of  their  wonderful  development.  The  emi- 
grants who  come  here  do  not  want  the  ec- 
clesiastical care  of  their  fatherland,  or  at  least 
not  so  much  as  anywhere  else,  for  the  conn- 
try  they  have  selected  for  their  new  home 
rejoices  in  the  religious  freedom  of  its  citi- 
zens, and  allows  them  to  live  according  to 
their  own  faith,  and  to  constitute  their  own 
churches.  There  is  here  no  preference  of 
any  denomination,  nor  are  the  professors 
of  any  faith  disregarded  before  the  common 
law.  Our  German  brethren  find  here  nu- 
merous, more  or  less  well-organized,  German 
Churches,  which  they  can  join,  and  where 
they  may  continue  in  the  faith  of  their  fa- 
thers and  the  customs  of  their  home.  Syn- 
odal regulations  and  a  standing  ministerial 
state,  whose  members  are  partly  gone  forth 
from  the  academies  of  this  country,  partly 
from  Germany,  give  them  the  security  of 

*  [This  address  was  delivered  by  the  author  in  Ger- 
man at  the  large  meeting  in  Cooper  Institute,  Oct.  12, 
but  it  belongs  properly  to  the  addresses  on  Mission- 
ary Work.— £ef.] 


the  regular  preaching  of  the  Gospel  and 
the  administration  of  the  means  of  grace. 

Quite  different  is  the  situation  of  emigrants 
in  countries  where  the  population  is  not  pre- 
dominantly Protestant.  It  may  be  that  they 
go  to  South  America,  where  the  Romish 
Church  does  not  suffer  any  religious  liberty, 
or  that  they  settle  in  the  Danubian  princi- 
palities, where  the  Greek  Church,  though 
not  so  intolerant  as  Popery,  still  is  averse  to 
the  Gospel  and  its  confessors.  Or  they  set- 
tle under  the  Government  of  the  Crescent  in 
the  East  and  in  Egypt,  or  they  seek  a  home 
in  the  great  European  cities,  where  language 
and  manners  are  foreign  to  them. 

There  our  German  brethren  form  small  num- 
bers, frequently  not  over  one  hundred  souls, 
who,  even  if  they  constitute  themselves  into 
congregations,  will  soon  pine  away,  because 
they  are  scattered  over  largo  districts,  have 
no  close  connection  with  one  another,  and  do 
not  possess  the  means  of  paying  ministers 
and  teachers  worthy  of  that  name.  There 
are  in  the  more  numerous  congregations  of 
South  Brazil,  almost  everywhere,  so-called 
ministers  of  the  Gospel ;  but  what  sort  of 
people  have  many  of  these  been,  and  what 
are  they  still,  here  and  there  ?  Reduced  ad- 
venturers, teachers  driven  away  on  account 
of  immoral  actions,  artisans  given  to  drink- 
ing, disbanded  soldiers,  who  make  the  Prot- 
estant Church  the  laughing- stock  of  the 
Romish  population.  Our  German  brethren 
feel  deeply  this  disgrace  and  mourn  over  it ; 
but  they  have  only  to  choose  between  the  Ro- 
man Church,  ready  to  devour  them,  or  such 
pastors  as  these.  Even  large  congregations, 
which  have  the  means  and  are  ready  also  to 
make  sacrifices,  are  depending  on  chance, 
owing  to  their  separation  and  disconnection 
from  a  larger  church  organization,  whether 
they  will  find  a  true  minister,  or  will  fall 
into  the  hands  of  unfit,  immoral  men. 

In  consideration  of  these  improprieties 
many  congregations,  first  a  few,  afterward 
more  and  more,  have  asked  the  permission 
I  of  the  Evangelische  Ober-Kirchenrath  in 
Berlin  to  join  the  Protestant  Established 
Church  of  Prussia.  Others  who  could  not 
do  this  on  account  of  their  unsettled  condi- 
tion have  asked  at  least  its  advice,  its  co-op- 


NOEL:  MISSIONS  AMONG  GERMAN  PROTESTANTS  ABROAD. 


651 


eration  for  getting  proper  ministers,  so  that 
now  Prussian  ministers,  sent  to  those  con- 
gregations, remain  in  connection  with  their 
church  at  home,  and,  after  having  worked 
for  some  years  in  the  "  Sia<nropa,"  are  called 
back  and  provided  for. 

The  providing  at  home  for  the  ministers 
sent  out  into  the  Siaairopd  is  of  great  conse- 
quence for  the  acquisition  of  qualified  per- 
sons. Able  ministers  are  seldom  ready  to 
leave  their  country  forever.  They  make  it 
a  condition  of  their  being  sent  forth  that 
they  may  not  only  return  to  the  exercise  of 
their  office  at  home,  but  even  that  they  be 
assured  of  a  like  provision,  after  having  offi- 
ciated for  five  or  six  years  abroad,  as  if  they 
had  worked  in  the  home  service  of  their 
church. 

The  smaller  Protestant  Established  Church- 
es of  Germany  are  not  able  to  give  that  as- 
surance, because  they  have  too  few  livings 
at  their  disposal.  Besides,  the  number  of 
candidates  is  so  small  in  most  of  the  German 
Protestant  Churches  that  they  have  scarce- 
ly enough  for  themselves.  Therefore  our 
German  brethren  abroad,  though  far  from 
coming  all  from  North  Germany,  but  in  great 
numbers  also  from  South  Germany,  and  even 
from  German  Switzerland,  do  not  look  for 
help  to  Saxony,  or  Hessia,  or  Wiirtemberg, 
but  ask  in  Berlin  for  assistance  in  their  spir- 
itual trouble. 

Besides,  there  is  still  another  point  to  be 
considered.  The  congregations  of  which 
I  am  speaking  consist,  with  a  few  excep- 
tions, of  members  belonging  to  different  de- 
nominations. In  the  same  colony  there  are 
Lutherans  from  Pomerauia  and  Mecklen- 
burg, with  reformed  Hessians  and  Swiss. 
Emigrants  from  Brandenburg  and  Baden, 
belonging  to  the  United  Church,  live  quietly 
together  with  those  from  Wiirtemberg,  who 
do  not  know  a  union.  Greater  still  is  the 
mixture  of  denominations  in  the  towns,  not 
only  in  the  great  commercial  cities,  where 
the  transatlantic  commerce  brings  together 
members  of  the  most  different  Protestant 
denominations,  but  also  in  the  inland  towns, 
where,  as  in  the  Danubian  principalities, Ger- 
man, Hungarian,  Sclavonian,  Swiss,  French, 
and  English  Protestants  belong  to  the  Ger- 
man congregation,  because  all  of  them  speak 
German.  In  the  East,  Germans  and  French 
Swiss  form  one  congregation,  and  the  pastor 
is  obliged  to  officiate  alternately  in  French 
and  German.  In  Italy,  North  German  Prot- 
estants and  Romance  Grisons  form  a  congre- 
gation, and  the  minister  officiates  in  the  Ger- 
man as  well  as  in  the  Romance  language. 
In  congregations  thus  composed  it  is  impos- 
sible to  take  care  of  a  particular  creed.  The 
particular  confession  of  the  individualCburch 
is  overpoised,  under  the  oppression  of  the  Ro- 
man and  Greek  Church,  by  the  common  Prot- 
estant confession  of  the  fundamental  truths 
of  the  Reformation — justification  by  faith, 


and  the  Bible  as  the  sole  rule  of  that  faith. 
Thus  the  true  evangelical  union  is  effectu- 
ated in  these  congregations,  which  does  not 
seek  to  absorb  the  Lutheran  confession  by 
the  Reformed  one,  nor  to  have  the  latter  op- 
pressed by  the  Lutheran  confession,  nor  to 
put  in  the  place  of  both  a  new  confession, 
but  which  leaves  to  every  confession  its  own 
right,  and  does  not  forget  in  the  differences 
of  the  creeds  all  they  have  in  common,  and 
takes  care  of  the  communion  of  faith  in 
word  and  sacrament.  Those  congregations 
can  only  have  pastors  who  themselves  be- 
long with  all  their  heart  to  that  Union, 
and  who  are  willing  to  preach  the  Gospel 
and  to  administer  the  sacraments  to  church- 
members  of  all  denominations.  And  our 
brethren  scattered  abroad  think  that  they 
can  ask  such  ministers  only  from  a  church 
government,  whose  task  it  is  to  take  care 
of  that  Union.  This  is  an  additional  reason 
why  our  German  brethren  come  to  Berlin, 
asking  assistance.  The  Evangelische  Ober- 
Kircheurath  in  Prussiahas  always  lent  a  will- 
ing ear  to  these  calls  for  help.  Remember- 
ing the  words  of  the  apostle, "  Let  us  do  good 
unto  all  men,  especially  unto  them  who  are 
of  the  household  of  faith,"  it  has  lent  its 
helping  hand  to  procure  pastors  and  teach- 
ers for  the  congregations  in  the  SiaaTropd,  to 
assist  them  with  its  advice  in  the  arrange- 
ment of  their  parish  concerns,  even  to  sup- 
ply them  with  the  necessary  means,  either 
by  donations  out  of  funds  collected  in  the 
Established  Church  of  Prussia,  for  its  OAVII 
most  urgent  need,  or  by  gifts  and  running 
subsidies  principally  granted  by  his  majes- 
ty the  emperor  and  king.  The  "  Gustav- 
Adolf-Stiftung,"  too,  has  given  its  assistance. 
From  all  that  has  been  said,  you  see  that, 
in  the  connection  of  congregations  abroad 
with  the  Evangelische  Ober-Kirchenrath, 
the  latter  seeks  no  expansion  of  its  church 
government  in  the  sense  of  Rome,  but  sim- 
ply fulfills  a  work  of  love,  a  service  for  the 
Lord's  sake,  that  is  often  rather  trouble- 
some and  not  seldom  paid  with  ingratitude. 
The  Evangelische  Ober-Kirchenrath  longs  for 
the  moment  when  all  those  congregations 
shall  no  longer  need  its  assistance  and  protec- 
tion ;  when  they  shall  have  grown  strong  and 
numerous  enough  to  organize  self-dependent 
churches,  as  it  is  here  in  the  United  States. 
Because  the  Evaugelische  Ober-Kirchenrath 
does  not  seek  its  own  advantage  in  all  these 
proceedings,  it  is  entirely  left  to  the  congre- 
gations themselves,  whether  they  will  form- 
ally join  the  Established  Church  of  Prussia, 
or  will  only  be  in  connection  with  it  on  ac- 
count of  its  providing  them  with  ministers. 
They  may  put  the  choice  of  their  pastor  en- 
tirely into  the  hand  of  the  Evangelische  Ober- 
Kirchenrath,  or  they  may  co-operate  in  his 
selection,  or  reserve  to  themselves  the  last 
decision.  The  hope  of  receiving  a  material 
assistance  can  be  no  motive  for  these  con- 


652 


CHRISTIAN  MISSIONS. 


gregations  to  apply  to  Berlin,  as  the  Evan- 
gelische  Ober-Kircheurath  Las  no  money  for 
propaganda  at  its  disposal,  like  the  bishops 
of  the  Roman  Catholic  Church,  and  the  small 
donations  which  it  makes  are  intended  only 
to  encourage  the  congregations  to  try  their 
own  strength,  and  are  continued  no  longer 
than  there  is  an  urgent  need.  We  have  not 
in  Prussia  the  benevolent  institution  of  En- 
gland, where  it  is  appointed  by  an  act  of 
Parliament  that  half  of  what  ia  necessary 
for  the  proper  maintenance  of  a  minister,  a 
hospital,  and  a  church  is  to  be  accorded  out 
of  the  public  revenues,  -wherever  abroad  an 
English  congregation  is  formed,  and  proves 
itself  able  and  willing  to  give  the  other  half. 

On  account  of  this  state  of  things,  it  must 
be  gratefully  acknowledged  that,  in  the  last 
conference  of  delegates  of  the  highest  Prot- 
estant Church  authorities  of  Germany,  held 
in  Eisenach  in  the  year  1872,  several  res- 
olutions were  adopted,  the  execution  of 
which  will  prove  very  beneficial  to  the  Ger- 
man Protestants  abroad.  The  conference 
thought  right,  on  the  motion  of  the  Prus- 
sian reporter,  to  assist  the  forming  and  de- 
velopment of  congregations  for  emigrants. 
Therefore  it  resolved  to  propose  to  every 
government  to  put  a  yearly  allowance  at 
the  disposal  of  their  church  authorities  for 
that  purpose,  besides  to  raise  a  regular  col- 
lection in  the  churches,  and,  if  possible,  in 
the  households  too,  at  least  every  two  years. 

After  these  general  remarks  about  the 
character  of  the  connection  between  those 
German  congregations  scattered  abroad  and 
the  Evangelische  Ober-Kircheurath,  I  will 
speak  of  the  congregations  themselves  in 
particular.  Their  number  amounts  to  41 
parish  churches,  with  more  than  40  under- 
parochial  churches.  They  form  five  groups : 

I.  The  churches  of  the  Dauubiau  Princi- 
palities. 

a.  In  Servia :  Belgrade,  400  souls. 

I).  In  Roumania: 

1.  Jassy,  550  souls,  with  the  under-paro- 
chial churches  Bacau,*  Botoschau,  Naamz, 
Peatra,  Roman. 

2.  Galacz,  350  souls,  with  the  under-paro- 
chial churches  Tecutsch,  Berlad,  Bortschak, 
Teraclia. 

3.  Braila,  250  souls,  with  Jacobsonthal, 
80  souls. 

4.  Pitesti,  130  souls,  with  Rimuicu  Valca ; 
Campulungu. 

5.  Crajova,  350   souls,  with  Tirgnjuilui, 
Caracall,  Schuteroia,  Slatina. 

6.  Turnul-Severiu,  150  souls.t 


*  The  congregation  in  Bacan  intends  to  constitute 
itself  into  a  self-dependent  church  under  the  patron- 
age of  Prince  Wittgenstein,  and  to  join  the  Establish- 
ed Church  of  Prussia. 

t  The  congregation  in  Bucharest  has  dissolved  its 
former  connection  with  the  Evangelische  Ober-Kirch- 
eurath since  the  last  election  of  a  minister.  The  con- 
gregation in  Plojest  is  dissolved. 


c.  In  the  Turkish  Dobrudscha :  Atinad- 
scha,  250  souls,  with  the  under -parochial 
churches  Tschukurova,  Catalui,  Tuldscha, 
Ismail,  Sarata,  Novitroizki,  Sulina. 

II.  The  churches  of  the  East : 

1.  Constantinople,  700  souls. 

2.  Smyrna,  165   souls,  \vith   Syra,  Miti- 
lene,  Pergamum,  Ismid,  Alaschehr,  Dchiim- 
Orassi. 

3.  Beirut,  150  souls,  -with  Damascus,  Am- 
Louis,  Aiiu-Hamad6,  and  Kurayah,  in  Leba- 
non. 

4.  Jerusalem,  100  souls,  with  the  Arabian 
Protestant  under-parochial  churches  in  Beth- 
lehem and  Bethschaleh. 

5.  Alexandria,  400  souls. 

6.  Cairo,  200  souls. 

III.  The  churches  iu  South  America : 
a.  In  the  Argentine  Republic  : 

1.  Buenos  Ayres,  2500  souls. 

2.  Dolores,  300  souls,  with  Nueva  Helvetia. 

3.  San  Carlos  and  San  Esperanza. 

4.  Montevideo,  350  souls. 
6.  In  South  Brazil : 

1.  Porto  Alegre,  1200  souls,  with  Teutonia, 
Estrella,  Couventos,  Estaucia  Tamanca,  Ta- 
quary,  Triumpho,  San  Jerouimo,  which  lat- 
ter seven  congregations  will  soon  form  a 
separate  parish,  San  Josephine,  San  Luiz, 
Colony  Bismarck,  and  New  Berlin. 

2.  San  Lorenco,  900  to  1000  souls,  with 
Rio  Grande  and  Pelotas,  152  families. 

3.  San  Leopoldo,  with  Lomba  Grande,  74 
families. 

4.  Hamburger  Berg,  280  families,  with  3 
under-parochial  churches. 

5.  Neu-Petropolis.  1100  souls,  with  the  pi- 
cadas  (clearings)  of  Neu-Sclineids  and  Por- 
tugieser  Schneids. 

6.  Baum-Schneids,  with  1  under-parochial 
church. 

7.  Sauta  Cruz,  with  2  under  -  parochial 
churches,  500  families. 

8.  Ferraz,  with  3  under-parochial  church- 
es, 192  families. 

9.  Mundo  Novo,  1500  souls,  with  3  under- 
parochial  churches. 

10.  San  Angelo,  126  families,  with  2  under 
parochial  churches. 

11.  Ferro  Mecco,  with  3  under-parochial 
churches,  590  souls. 

12.  Acht-und-Vierzig,  with  2  under-paro- 
chial churches. 

1  to  12  are  situated  iu  the  province  of  Rio 
Grande  do  Sul. 

13.  Petropolis,  1500  souls,  in  the  province 
of  Rio  de  Janeiro,  with  the  under-parochial 
churches  in  the  province  of  Minus  Geraes, 
colony  of  Don  Pedro  II.,  near  Juiz  de  Fora 
and  Mar  de  Hespanha.* 


*  The  congregation  in  Rio  de  Janeiro  dissolved,  in 
1804,  the  former  connection.  The  present  minister  is 
desirous  to  enter  into  it  again.  The  congregation  in 
San  Isabel,  in  the  province  of  Rio  de  Janeiro,  asked, 
at  its  last  vacancy,  a  missionary  of  the  mission-house 
in  Basle. 


NOEL :   MISSIONS  AMONG  GERMAN  PROTESTANTS  ABROAD. 


653 


14.  Desterro,    in    the    province    of    San 
Catharina. 

15.  Curitiba,  in  the  province  of  Parana, 
1500  souls. 

c.  In  Chili : 

1.  Puerto  Mont,  800  souls,  with  the  colo- 
nies of  Llanquihue",  Coihuiu,  and  Ilque. 

2.  Osorno,  500  souls,  with  Rio  Bueno  and 
La  Union. 

IV.  The  churches  in  South  Europe : 

1.  Rome,  250  souls. 

2.  Florence,  600  souls, with  Figline,Monte- 
varclii,  Porto,  Empoli,  Pistoja,  Siena. 

3.  Genoa,  with  Pegli,  Neroi,  Pra.* 

4.  Lisbon,  230  souls,  with  Oporto. 

5.  Athens,  150  souls. 

V.  The  churches  in  the  Netherlands  and 
England: 

1.  Hague,  300  souls,  with  Scheveuingeu 
and  Leyden. 

2.  Rotterdam,  320  souls. 

3.  Hull,  1000  souls. 

Between  these  congregations  there  are 
manifold  differences  in  regard  to  their  con- 
stitution and  administration.  The  only  thing 
common  to  all  is  a  statistical  report  sent  ev- 
ery year  to  the  Evangelische  Ober-Kircheu- 
rath  about  the  "  casualia"  and  a  report  con- 
cerning the  religious  and  moral  condition 
ofthe  congregations,  by  which  the  latter  is 
able  to  advise  and  warn  the  congregations 
and  their  ministers,  and  even  to  settle  dif- 
ferences between  them. 

Let  me  now  show  you  in  different  ex- 
amples out  of  the  five  groups  the  manner 
of  their  connections  with  the  Established 
Church  of  Prussia. 

I  begin  with  the  Danubian  Principalities. 
One  of  the  oldest  German  congregations  in 
Roumania  is  Jassy,  besides  which,  in  the 
vast  dominions  of  European  Turkey,  there 
was,  till  1853,  only  in  Bucharest  a  German 
Protestant  Church,  with  one  minister,  while 
we  have  now  eight  churches  there  with  nu- 
merous under-parochial  churches.  The  con- 
gregation in  Jassy,  consisting  for  the  great- 
er part  of  artisans  and  merchants,  has  al- 
ready, in  the  year  1844  and  1845,  joined  the 
Established  Church  of  Prussia,  and  put  it- 
self under  the  patronage  of  our  king,  who 
grants  an  addition  of  300  thalers  to  the  min- 
ister's salary.  The  church  regulation  of 
1870  says  (§  1)  that  the  congregation,  which 
is  under  the  protection  of  the  North  German 
Union,  now  of  the  German  empire,  is  sub- 
mitted, in  all  its  ecclesiastical  concerns,  to 
the  Evangelische  Ober-Kirchenrath  in  Ber- 
lin. (§2)  This  latter  appoints  the  minister 
(§  3)  in  consideration  of  the  wishes  of  the 
congregation,  expressed  by  the  church-war- 
dens. The  congregation  has  the  right  (§  4) 
to  manage  its  own  affairs,  within  the  legal 

*  German  congregations  in  Italy  are,  besides,  in 
Venice,  Milan,  Leghorn,  Naples,  and  Messina,  whose 
pastors  are  about  to  join  the  pastors  of  the  above- 
mentioned  congregations  in  a  free  convention. 


limits,  by  the  church-wardens  and  the  con- 
vention of  its  members.  The  German  con- 
sul is  the  chairman  of  the  church-wardens 
(§  9),  and  the  pastor  is  superintendent  ofthe 
schools  (§  27).  These  are  the  arrangements 
as  well  as  the  engagements  into  which  a 
congregation  has  to  enter  that  joins  the  Es- 
tablished Church  of  Prussia.  You  see  how 
little  the  autonomy  of  the  congregation  is 
restricted. 

Less  fixed  is  the  relation  with  those  con- 
gregations which  are  only  in  connection 
with  the  Evangelische  Ober-Kirchenrath, 
as  Atmadscha  in  the  Turkish  Dobrndscha, 
or  Pitesti  in  Wallachia.  Here,  as  well  as  in 
Crajova  and  Turuul-Severin,  the  pastor  is 
at  the  same  time  the  teacher  of  the  parish 
school,  and  the  only  one  by  whom  the  Evan- 
gelische Ober-Kircheurath  may  have  an  in- 
fluence on  the  congregation,  which  selects 
its  church-wardens  and  manages  its  affairs 
quite  independently.  These  congregations, 
who  could  not  exist  without  the  assistance 
of  the  "  Gustav-Adolf-Verein,"  having  such  a 
little  number  of  members  and  most  of  them 
poor,  would  never  find  pastors  without  the 
mediation  of  the  Evangelische  Ober-Kirch- 
enrath. Only  the  expectation  of  getting  a 
better  living  at  home,  after  five  or  six  years 
of  faithful  labor  in  the  trying  task  of  pastor 
and  teacher,  gives  the  courage  to  assiduous 
candidates  to  follow  the  call  of  their  author- 
ities to  that  thorny  field  of  labor. 

Of  quite  a  peculiar  manner  is  the  connec- 
tion of  the  congregation  in  Belgrade  with 
the  Prussian  Church.  The  Servian  Govern- 
ment gives  an  allowance  of  400  thalers  for 
the  pastor,  and  acknowledges  the  Evange- 
lische Ober-Kircheurath  as  the  first  church 
authority  of  the  congregation.  But  the  pas- 
tor must  enter  the  Servian  association  of 
subjects,  and  the  confirmatiou  of  his  appoint- 
ment lies  with  the  Servian  Government.  As 
the  allowance  is  not  sufficient  for  the  main- 
tenance of  the  pastor,  the  "  Gustav-Adolf- 
Vereiu  "  lends  a  helping  hand. 

To  hinder  as  much  as  possible  the  de- 
spondency that  is  to  be  feared  for  the  minis- 
ters of  the  Dauubian  Principalities  in  their 
isolation,  pastoral  conventions  are  held,  once 
in  two  years,  alternately  in  the  different  con- 
gregations.    The  transactions  of  these  con- 
ventions are  partly  public,  partly  private. 
In  the  public  sessions,  a  picture  of  the  con- 
dition of  the  other  congregations  is  given 
to  the  one  in  whose  midst  the  convention  is 
held,  and  it  is  stimulated  loyally  to  adhere  to 
the  faith  of  the  fatherland,  not  to  get  weary 
!  in  well-doing.    In  the  private  sessions,  ques- 
I  tions  partly  theological,  partly  concerning 
;  the  practical  business,  arc  discussed,  to  cre- 
ate as  much  as  possible  a  harmony  of  action 
i  on  the  part  of  the  different  ministers,  and  to 
guard  them  against  a  narrow  view  of  things. 
The  conventions  begin  and  cease  with  church 
services,  that  reach  their  culmination  in  the 


654 


CHRISTIAN  MISSIONS. 


commoii  celebration  of  tho  Lord's  Supper, 
where  the  ministers  are  joined  by  many  of 
the  congregation.  The  means  for  these  con- 
ventions, which  lately  have  been  much  fa- 
cilitated by  railroads,  are  granted  by  the 
Evangelische  Ober-Kircheurath. 

Similar  conventions  take  place  among  the 
ministers  of  the  East,  only  with  the  differ- 
ence that  they  are  always  held  at  Jerusalem, 
after  the  example  of  the  apostles  (Acts  xv.). 
Among  these  congregations,  too,  there  is  a 
great  difference  concerning  their  connection 
with  the  Established  Church  of  Prussia. 
While  iu  Constantinople  there  is  a  chaplain 
to  the  embassy,  who  is  appointed  by  his  maj- 
esty the  emperor,  and  whoso  allowance  is 
paid  out  of  the  public  revenues,  there  is  in 
Jerusalem,  besides  the  English-German  bish- 
opric, a  German  office  for  the  little  German 
congregation  of  about  one  hundred  souls, 
whose  pastor  is  appointed  by  his  majesty 
the  emperor,  and  paid  out  of  the  collection 
of  the  year  1841,  for  the  bishopric  of  Jerusa- 
lem. In  Alexandria,  Cairo,  Beirut,  and  Smyr- 
na, the  pastors  are  paid  by  the  congrega- 
tions themselves,  with  the  assistance  of  the 
"  Jerusalem -Vereiu"*  in  Berlin,  the  "Gus- 
tav- Adolf- Verein,"  and  the  help  of  his  maj- 
esty the  emperor.  These  congregations  are 
all  in  organic  connection  with  the  Establish- 
ed Church  of  Prussia.  For  their  flourishing 
condition,  they  have  to  thank  especially  the 
boarding-schools  held  by  deaconesses  and 
the  hospitals  of  the  order  of  the  Knights  of 
St.  John  that  have  been  established  among 
them.  Particular  statutes  define  for  every 
one  of  these  congregations  their  connection 
with  the  Evangelische  Ober-Kirchenrath,  ei- 
ther as  self-dependent  congregations,  or  un- 
der its  patronage,  and  regulate  their  self- 
government  within  these  limits. 

Of  more  general  interest  may  be  a  remark 
concerning  the  church  edifices  of  these  con- 
gregations. The  congregation  in  Constan- 
tinople owns  a  splendid  house,  whose  first 
floor  contains  the  church,  while  the  school 
is  on  the  ground-floor.  This  house  has  been 
built  by  means  of  a  collection  raised  in  Prus- 
sia in  the  year  1855,  to  the  amount  of  65,000 
thalers.  In  Smyrna  there  have  been  col- 
lected funds  to  the  amount  of  10,000  thalers 
for  the  building  of  a  church  ;  meanwhile  the 
congregation  uses  the  Dutch  chapel.  In 
Beirut  the  congregation  is  a  guest  on  the 
Lord's  day  in  the  meeting-house  of  the  dea- 
conesses, and  for  the  Bible  lessons  on  week- 
days in  the  one  of  St.  John's  Hospital.  The 
congregation  in  Jerusalem  uses,  since  1871, 
a  chapel  belonging  to  the  German  emperor, 
which  was  built  on  the  "Muristan,"  or  St. 
John's  Place,  given  to  him  by  the  Sultan. 
The  erection,  on  this  same  place,  of  a  build- 


*  The  end  of  the  "  Jerusalem- Verein  "  is  to  assist  the 
German  Protestant  congregations  in  the  East  in  the 
diocese  of  Jerusalem. 


ing  to  be  especially  owned  by  the  congrega- 
tion, has  been  considered,  and  about  64,000 
thalers,  collected  in  Prussia  in  1870,  are 
ready.  The  congregations  in  Alexandria 
and  Cairo  have  their  own  churches,  for  which 
they  have  to  thank  the  liberality  of  the 
Khedive  of  Egypt  and  the  assistance  of  the 
German  emperor.  The  crown -prince  of 
Prussia  laid,  in  1869,  the  foundation-stone 
of  the  church  iu  Cairo. 

Of  the  congregations  in  South  Europe,  the 
Netherlands,  and  England,  two,  those  in  Rome 
and  Lisbon,  are  dependent  on  the  services  of 
the  chaplains  of  the  embassy,  of  Avhom  the 
latter  is  the  appointed  pastor  of  the  congre- 
gation, and  receives  an  allowance  out  of  the 
parish  revenues  besides  his  salary  as  a  chap- 
lain. For  these  two  congregations  the  em- 
peror appoints  the  ministers  proposed  by 
the  Evangelische  Ober-Kirchenrath,  while 
the  other  congregations  select  their  pastors, 
and  the  Evangelische  Ober-Kirchenrath  has 
only  to  sanction  it.  In  Athens  the  pastor 
of  the  little  German  congregation  is  the 
court  chaplain  of  the  King  of  Greece,  and 
the  connection  of  the  congregation  with  the 
Established  Church  of  Prussia  is  limited  to 
the  voluntary  subordination  of  the  minister 
(nearly  always  selected  from  the  number  of 
Prussian  candidates),  under  his  church  au- 
thorities at  home,  who  allow  him  the  right 
of  returning  to  the  office  at  home. 

I  come  at  last  to  the  German  Protestant 
congregations  iu  South  America.  Here  the 
congregations  of  the  Argentine  Republic  are 
first,  on  account  of  their  age  and  their  well 
organized  condition.  The  German  Protest- 
ant congregation  of  Buenos  Ayres  is  a 
member  of  the  Established  Church  of  Prus- 
sia. With  its  splendid  church,  its  two  pas- 
tors sent  forth  by  the  Evangelische  Ober- 
Kirchenrath,  of  whom  the  second  is  at  the 
same  time  head-master  of  the  school,  with 
its  flourishing  parish  school,  even  much  vis- 
ited by  Spanish  children,  it  takes  the  first 
place  among  the  South  American  congrega- 
tions, and  is  quite  self-dependent.  Its  un- 
der-parochial churches,  Dolores  and  Santa 
F<5,  have  constituted  themselves  into  sepa- 
rate congregations,  which,  like  their  mother 
church,  seek  and  find  the  support  and  ad- 
vice of  the  Prussian  Church. 

In  Montevideo  the  pastor  is  also  the  head- 
master of  the  parish  school,  with  about  six- 
ty children.  The  congregation  is  a  guest  iu 
the  English  Church,  but  is  trying  to  get 
one  of  its  own ;  it  has  joined  the  Establish- 
ed Church  of  Prussia,  and  receives  a  yearly 
assistance  of  250  thalers  from  his  majesty 
the  emperor  and  king. 

The  ministers  of  the  Argentine  Republic 
meet  once  a  year  for  a  pastoral  convention 
iu  Buenos  Ayres. 

In  Chili  the  congregations  of  Puerto  Mont, 
Llanquihu6,  and  Osorno  had  united,  and  with 
the  assistance  of  the  "Gustav-Adolf-Verein" 


NOEL :   MISSIONS  AMONG  GERMAN  PROTESTANTS  ABROAD. 


655 


they  had  appointed  a  minister  of  whose  serv- 
ices they  partook  alternately  for  half  a  year. 
Now  they  are  strong  enough  to  form  separate 
congregations,  notwithstanding  their  strug- 
gles with  the  Jesuits,  who  are  alarmed  by 
the  growth  of  the  Protestant  creed,  and  try 
to  subdue  it  with  all  their  might.*  Each 
congregation  has  now  its  own  pastor  and 
teacher,  who  are  sent  forth  by  the  Evange- 
lische  Ober-Kirchenrath.  All  the  congrega- 
tions mentioned  hitherto  are  only  like  isl- 
ands in  the  ocean.  They  struggle  for  their 
existence  in  the  midst  of  populations  of  for- 
eign nationality,  and  have  not  a  little  num- 
ber of  members  who  belong  to  them  only 
temporarily,  and  who  long  for  the  moment 
when  their  affairs  allow  them  to  return 
home.  But  the  congregations  in  South 
Brazil,  especially  in  the  province  of  Rio 
Grande  do  Sul,  hold  firmly  together.  They 
are  a  New  Germany,  of  which  an  English- 
man, Michael  Mulhall,  says,  in  his  lately  pub- 
lished book,  "  Rio  Grande  do  Sul  and  its  Ger- 
man Colonies :"  "  The  wonder  of  the  prov- 
ince are  the  German  colonies,  summing  up 
60,000  people,  who  have  converted  virgin 
forests  into  waving  corn-fields,  interspersed 
with  neat  farm-houses,  and  all  the  appli- 
ances of  agricultural  life.  The  German  set- 
tlers, as  a  rule,  speak  their  own  language 
exclusively,  their  children  preserving  this 
bond  of  nationality  the  same  as  if  born  in 
the  father-land.  The  settlers  and  their 
children  have  a  warm  regard  for  the  coun- 
try; they  are  forgetful  of  returning  to  the 
father-land,  making  themselves  heart  and 
soul  identified  with  their  adopted  country. 
There  are  three  newspapers  published  in 
German ;  even  the  negroes  often  talk  Ger- 
man. The  advancement  of  the  country  is 
mainly  due  to  these  industrious  settlers, 
who  have  earned  for  it  the  name  of  '  Gran- 
ary of  the  Brazilian  empire.'  Imagine  to 
yourself  a  country  nearly  as  large  as  Bel- 
gium or  Holland,  cut  out  of  these  Brazilian 
forests,  where  the  inhabitants  are  exclusive- 
ly German,  and  speak  no  other  language ; 
where  chapels  and  schools  meet  you  at  ev- 
ery opening  of  the  wood ;  where  the  mount- 
ain sides  have  been  in  many  cases  cleared 
to  make  room  for  corn-fields;  where  women 
travel  alone  with  perfect  security;  where 
agricultural  and  manufacturing  industry 
flourish  undisturbed;  where  crime  is  un- 
known, and  public  instruction  almost  on  a 
level  with  that  of  Prussia.  The  harmony 
between  Catholics  and  Protestants  is  so 
great  that  intermarriages  are  frequent. 
Most  of  the  Germans  who  come  hither  are 
from  Pomerania  or  the  Rhineland." 

Till  here  we  agree  with  the  English  re- 
porter.    But  when  he  proceeds  that,  though 


*  The  Protestant  Chnrch  iu  Puerto  Mont  has  been 
bnnied  down  by  incendiarism,  and  public  opinion  ac- 
cuses the  Jesuits. 


in  Brazil  the  Roman  Catholic  is  the  Estab- 
lished Church,  and  the  Bishop  of  Alegre  is 
diocesan  of  the  province,  there  seems  to  be 
no  religious  disagreement  and  perfect  toler- 
ance in  behalf  of  the  Protestants  —  if  he 
states,  besides,  that  the  public  instruction 
is  on  a  level  with  that  in  Prussia,  I  am 
obliged  to  contradict  him. 

I  reminded  you  in  the  beginning  how  poor- 
ly it  was  ten  and  fifteen  years  ago  with  the 
so-called  pastors.  It  was  the  same  with 
the  teachers  and  schools.  But  the  Rev.  Dr. 
Borchard,  sent  forth  to  San  Leopoldo  and 
Lomba  Grande  in  1864,  by  the  Evangelische 
Ober-Kircheurath,  in  answer  to  the  request 
of  these  congregations,  expelled  the  pseudo- 
pastors  with  zeal  and  skill,  and  brought  into 
their  places  men  who  had  completed  their 
studies  and  passed  their  theological  exam- 
ination at  a  German  university,  or  who  re- 
ceived their  education  at  one  of  the  mission 
seminaries — at  Barmen  or  Basle.  He  suc- 
ceeded, too,  in  uniting  all  the  congregations 
to  a  synod,  and  in  giving  them  an  excellent 
Presbyterian  synodal  rule.  At  the  second 
meeting  of  the  synod,*  the  13th  to  the  15th 
of  June,  1870,  at  San  Leopoldo,  where  twen- 
ty-six congregations  were  represented,  he 
could  state  that  all  the  congregations  had 
converted  ministers,  whose  work  in  their 
parishes  was  blessed,  and  that  it  was  now 
their  task  to  work  with  one  accord,  and  to 
stand  firmly  to  one  another,  according  to 
the  exhortation  of  the  apostle,  "  Endeavor, 
ing  to  keep  the  unity  of  the  Spirit  iu  the 
bond  of  peace'-'  (Eph.  iv.,  3). 

Lately,  however,  the  circumstances  have 
unfavorably  changed.  The  flourishing  con- 
dition of  the  Protestant  congregations  has 
aroused  the  jealousy  of  the  Roman  Church, 
especially  of  the  Jesuitical  Ultramontane 
party;  and  they  have  succeeded  iu  preju- 
dicing the  Brazilian  Government  against 
the  Protestant  movements,  and  in  pushing 
it  to  harassing  measures  against  them. 

The  Government  had  formerly  protected 
the  Protestants,  notwithstanding  the  laws 
of  the  country  were  unfavorable  for  them, 
and  recognized  no  parity  of  denominations 
in  regard  to  marriages  and  schools. 

Brazilians  of  clerical  disposition  have  been 
put  in  the  places  of  German  directors  of  col- 
onies. They  favor  the  Jesuits,  who  with  their 
rich  means  have  started  colleges,  with  which 
the  Protestant  private  schools  of  that  kind 
can  not  compete.  The  Brazilian  appointed 
I  in  the  place  of  the  dismissed  German  presi- 
j  dent  of  the  school  authorities  has  hastened 
to  give  new  school  laws,  unfavorable  for  the 
development  of  Protestant  schools.  The  su- 
perintendents of  the  public  schools  are  no 
longer  qualified  men,  well  recommended  by 
the  ministers,  but  persons  who  stand  well 
with  the  Romish  priests,  and  lend  a  hand 


*  It  meets  every  two  years,  according  to  its  statutes. 


656 


CHRISTIAN  MISSIONS. 


to  the  wished  -  for  Brazil ianization  of  the 
German  youth,  for  which  cud  ignorance 
seems  to  be  one  of  the  first  means.  Every- 
where there  is  the  endeavor  to  advance  the 
Jesuitical  proselytism,  and  to  awaken  the 
always  present  though  sleeping  distrust  of 
the  native  population  against  the  German, 
especially  the  Protestant  colonies. 

These  circumstances  have  prevented  the 
Evangelischo  Ober-Kirchenrath  from  con- 
senting to  a  formal  joining  of  those  congre- 
gations to  the  Prussian  Church,  because  it 
was  feared  that  their  subordination  under 
a  foreign  church  government  might  be  mis- 
used for  agitations,  and  bring  dangers  for 
the  development  of  their  ecclesiastical  af- 
fairs Avhich  would  not  be  outweighed  by 
the  advantages  of  their  joining  the  Church. 
The  Evangelische  Ober-Kirchenrath  has,  nev- 
ertheless, declared  that  it  is  willing  to  assist 
those  congregations  even  without  such  a  con- 
nection, and  to  help  them  wherever  it  can  ;  for, 
as  I  have  already  remarked,  it  does  not  look 
on  its  connection  with  the  churches  abroad 
in  the  light  of  an  enlargement  of  its  influ- 
ence and  authority,  but  as  a  work  of  love, 
which  it  feels  obliged  to  do  for  them  that 
are  of  the  household  of  faith  in  the  Siaairopa. 

The  Rev.  Dr.  Borchard,  who  is  the  first  ob- 
ject of  the  hate  of  the  adversaries,  has  asked 
his  recall  home,  after  eight  years  of  active 
labor,  which  has  been  granted  him  in  the 
most  honorable  manner.  The  future  will 
show  whether  his  successor  in  the  office  at 
San  Leopoldo  and  in  the  presidency  of  the 
synod  will  succeed  in  carrying  on  the  com- 
menced work  of  the  union  of  the  congrega- 
tions, grown  now  to  the  number  of  forty,  and 
in  holding  down  the  independent  inclinations 
of  several  ministers,  that  must  lead  to  a  dis- 
persion of  the  Protestant  community,  the 
more  to  be  deplored,  as  contrasted  with  the 
Roman  Catholic  Church,  which  holds  so  firm- 
ly together. 

If  we  are  thus  not  without  misgivings  as 
to  the  further  development  of  the  congrega- 
tions in  Rio  Grande  do  Sul,  the  congrega- 
tion of  Petropolis,  in  the  province  of  Rio  de 
Janeiro,  which  lately  joined  the  Prussian 
Church,  is  the  source  of  great  joy  and  thanks- 
giving. Established  in  the  year  1846,  the 
colony  has  had  long  to  strive  for  its  exist- 
ence, as  Petropolis  is  not  suited  for  agricul- 
ture, and  it  owes  its  development  only  to  the 
circumstance  that  it  has  become  the  sum- 
mer residence  of  the  emperor,  and  has  adopt- 
ed more  and  more  the  character  of  a  wa- 
tering-place. Inner  disputes  had  brought 
the  congregation  near  to  its  dissolution, 
when  the  Rev.  Dr.  Borchard,  invited  by  the 
German  ambassador  in  Rio,  undertook  its  re- 
organization and  happily  brought  it  about. 
Made  wiser  by  experience,  the  congregation 
has  engaged  itself  by  statutes  to  ask  its  min- 
ister from  the  Evangelische  Ober-Kirchen- 
rath, and  raises  his  salary  in  connection  with 


the  colony  Don  Pedro  II.,  near  Jiiiz  de  Fora, 
and  the  German  emperor  joins  an  allowance 
of  250  thalers,  having  regard  to  the  embassy, 
which  generally  resides  at  Petropolis.  The 
pastor  sent  there  last  year  has  already  in- 
duced the  congregation  to  begin  the  build- 
ing of  a  parsonage  and  a  school-house,  and 
seems  to  be  the  right  man  for  that  office,  in- 
teresting but  difficult,  and,  on  account  of  the 
travels  to  Juiz  de  Fora,  most  troublesome. 

Here  I  will  finish  the  survey  of  the  con- 
gregations scattered  about  which  are  in 
connection  with  the  Established  Church  iu 
Prussia.  I  thank  you  for  the  indulgent  at- 
tention you  have  paid  to  this  subject,  and  I 
should  be  very  glad  if  I  might  hope  to  have 
roused  your  interest  in  the  work  of  love  of 
our  native  Church  for  its  children  iu  the 
Siaffiropd.  I  dare  scarcely  ask  the  co-opera- 
tion of  the  German  Protestant  churches  of 
this  country,  because  I  know  how  much 
they  still  want  assistance,  and  partly  re- 
ceive it,  from  the  Church  at  home.  Not 
only  voluntary  societies,  as  the  "Rhenish 
Society  "  in  Langenberg  and  the  "  Berlin  So- 
ciety for  providing  the  German  colonists  in 
the  United  States  with  pastors  and  teachers," 
aid  in  supplying  the  spiritual  necessity  of 
our  brethren  living  here,  but  the  Prussian 
Church,  too,  shows  them  its  warm  interest 
by  two  collection  funds,  with  the  adminis- 
tration of  which  the  Evangelische  Ober- 
Kirchenrath  is  charged.  One  of  these  col- 
lections was  raised  on  the  suggestion  of  Pas- 
tor Wall  in  St.  Louis,  in  1854,  for  the  sake  of 
the  theological  seminary  in  Marthasville, 
(Missouri),  to  the  amount  of  about  6000  tha- 
lers,  and  is  administered  to  the  academies 
of  the  German  Protestant  Synod  of  the 
West.  The  other  was  raised  on  the  sugges- 
tion of  the  senior  of  the  Synod  of  Wiscon- 
sin, Johannes  Miihlhauser,  in  1865,  to  the 
amount  of  7500  thalers,  for  the  establish- 
ment of  a  seminary  for  pastors  and  teachers, 
and  should  have  founded  a  pro-seminary  iu 
Germany,  where  they  might  be  educated  for 
that  seminary  of  the  Synod  of  Wisconsin. 
Unhappily  it  could  not  be  employed  for  that 
purpose,  as,  in  1868,  the  Synod  of  Wiscon- 
sin rejected,  in  a  fatal  dogmatical  blindness, 
every  communion  of  sacrament  and  pulpit 
with  the  United  Protestant  Church,  which, 
as  they  say,  "  contradicts  the  doctrine  and 
practice  of  the  Lutheran  Church."  The  rev- 
enues of  this  fund  are,  therefore,  used  for  the 
education  and  sending  forth  of  aspirants  for 
the  church  and  school  office  of  those  German 
Protestant  congregations  in  North  America 
which  adhere  to  the  Union,  especially  for 
the  above-mentioned  Synod  of  the  West,  as 
long  as  the  Synod  of  Wisconsin  perseveres  in 
its  hostility  against  the  Union.  These  as- 
pirants are  educated  in  the  "  Sternenhans  "  of 
the  "Johannes-Stift,"  founded  near  Berlin  by 
Dr.  Wichern,  out  of  which  four  pupils  have 
already  been  sent  forth,  of  whom  two  have 


NOEL:  MISSIONS  AMONG  GERMAN  PROTESTANTS  ABROAD. 


657 


entered  the  service  of  German  congregations 
in  Minnesota,  one  in  Iowa,  one  in  Indiana, 
and  five  are  waiting  to  be  sent  forth. 

I  have  felt  bound  to  mention  this  assist- 
ance of  the  Prussian  Church,  and  I  add  the 
hope  that,  as  a  collection  is  raised  every 
two  years  in  Prussia  and  in  the  congrega- 
tions abroad  who  are  in  connection  with  it, 
(the  amount  of  the  last  being  about  100,000 
thalers),  the  German  Protestant  congrega- 
42 


tions,not  only  of  Germany,  but  of  this  coun- 
try too,  may  join  in  this  work  of  love.  Thus 
a  bond  of  love  would  unite  all  the  German 
Protestant  congregations  all  over  the  earth, 
such  as  St.  Paul  wished  for  among  the  con- 
gregations of  the  apostolic  time,  when  he 
writes  to  the  Corinthians,  "  Now  concerning 
the  collection  for  the  saints,  as  I  have  given 
order  to  the  churches  of  Galatia,  even  so  do 
ye"  (1  Cor. xvi.,  1).  Amen. 


VIII. 

CHRISTIANITY  AND  SOCIAL  REFORMS. 

Saturday,  October  llth,  1873. 


DIVISION  VIIL-CONTENTS, 


PAGE 

1.  JONES  :    Christianity  as  a  Reforming  Power 661 

2.  STEVENSON  :    The  Working  Power  of  the  Church 666 

3.  ALLEN  :    The  Labor  Question 670 

4.  AVELING  :    Christian  Philanthrophy 675 

5.  GASPARIN  :    The  Care  of  the  Sick 681 

6.  NELSON  :   Intemperance  and  its  Suppression 689 

7.  WINES:    Christianity  in  its  Relations  to  Crime  and  Criminals....  695 

8.  ROBIN:   Industrial  Schools..  .  701 


CHRISTIANITY  AS  A  REFORMING  POWER. 


BY  JOHN  HAERIS  JONES,  PH.D., 

Professor  in  Trevecca  College,  Wales. 
[Born  at  Mangeler,  Caermarthenshire,  August  28,  1827.] 


THERE  is  a  close  connection  between  re- 
ligion and  morality ;  the  higher  the  religion, 
the  purer  the  morality  it  produces.  We  can 
judge  of  the  one  from  the  other,  as  we  know 
the  tree  from  the  fruit,  and  the  fruit  also 
from  the  tree.  There  are  many  in  the  pres- 
ent time  who  deny  not  only  the  existence  of 
this  connection,  but  also  its  possibility,  and 
not  only  its  possibility,  but  its  desirableness. 
They  must  be  kept  apart,  inasmuch  as  they 
are  totally  unlike,  having  no  point  in  com- 
mon with  each  other,  the  one  referring  to 
the  world,  the  other  to  another  state  of  ex- 
istence. The  harmony  of  morality  is  dis- 
turbed by  connecting  it  with  the  foreign  ele- 
ment of  religion.  This  is  an  ancient  error, 
a  heresy  which  prevailed  to  a  considerable 
extent  in  the  ancient  world.  The  Greeks 
did  not  hesitate  to  attribute  to  their  gods 
the  most  heinous  crimes  and  the  most  dis- 
graceful sins ;  still  they  represented  them  as 
the  defenders  of  the  public  morals,  the  mo- 
rality of  the  state  being  under  their  protec- 
tion. Morality  accordingly  has  religion  not 
for  its  source,  root,  or  principle,  but  is  some- 
what externally  connected  with  it.  Such 
morality  can  not  be  of  long  continuance,  no 
more  than  a  tree  having  no  root,  but  tied  ex- 
ternally to  the  soil,  can  help  falling  at  the 
first  gust  of  wind  blowing  upon  it.  It  was 
impossible  for  the  Greek  to  form  a  correct 
idea  concerning  this  connection,  inasmuch  as 
his  conception  of  God,  as  well  as  of  man,  was 
wrong  and  incorrect.  Man  was  not  regarded 
as  of  importance  in  himself  individually,  but 
only  as  a  member  of  society,  a  subject  of 
civil  government ;  in  fact,  his  relation  to  God 
was  not  taken  into  account,  only  his  rela- 
tion to  the  universe,  to  the  state,  and  society. 
Again,  the  Greek  god  was  a  pantheistic  and 
not  a  personal  god.  It  is  no  wonder  that, 
under  such  circumstances  and  in  such  a  con- 
nection, neither  religion  nor  morality  flour- 
ished ;  and  at  the  time  Christianity  appeared, 
the  moral  and  religious  world  was  going  to 
wreck  and  ruin. 

The  ancient  world,  having  done  its  utmost 
to  found  morality  on  its  own  basis,  failed  in 
the  attempt,  and,  having  possessed  no  pow- 
er of  moral  elevation,  sank  by  its  own  weight, 
and  was  the  means  of  its  own  destruction. 
Christianity  breathed  a  new  spirit,  a  new 


moral  power,  into  a  world  actually  ruining 
itself.  We  may  regard,  as  the  fundamental 
thought  of  Christianity,  that  morality  should 
have  for  its  foundation  a  religious  element ; 
and  while  it  proved  the  absolute  necessity 
that  the  former  should  draw  its  nourishment, 
yea,  the  very  power  of  life,  from  the  latter, 
it  began  a  new  epoch  in  the  world's  history. 
Already,  in  the  moral  law  of  the  Old  Testa- 
ment, in  the  Ten  Commandments,  which  con- 
tain the  shortest  and  most  comprehensive 
compendium  of  ethics,  this  connection  of 
morality  with  religion  is  acknowledged,  the 
first  table  referring  to  our  duty  to  God,  and 
the  second  to  our  duty  to  man.  What  the 
Old  Testament  has  in  germs,  in  the  New  we 
find  in  full  growth  and  development.  In 
Jesus  morality  has  reached  its  culminating 
point.  In  being  so  thoroughly  incorporated 
in  his  character  and  history,  it  is  invested 
with  a  personal  and  living  interest.  The 
moral  law  found  in  him  a  tabernacle  to 
dwell  in.  But  his  life  in  the  service  of  man 
was  a  life  in  God ;  a  holy  source  of  his  life 
in  the  world  was  his  life  in  God. 

The  superiority  of  the  Old  Testament  re- 
ligion over  all  heathen  religions  and  moral 
systems  lies  in  the  truth  that  it  regards  the 
revealed  will  of  the  Holy  God  as  the  abso- 
lute positive  principle  of  morality,  by  which 
man  is  to  regulate  his  moral  conduct ;  but, 
inasmuch  as  this  principle  was  incorporated 
in  the  law  of  the  letter,  and  standing  over 
against  man  in  a  purely  outward  manner, 
its  character  was  necessarily  defective,  its 
form  unavoidably  temporary,  and  its  devel- 
opment historically  conditioned.  In  the 
New  Testament,  Christianity  is  represented 
as  the  completion,  and,  at  the  same  time,  as 
the  abolition  of  Judaism ;  it  is  the  fulfill- 
ment of  the  Old  Testament  religion  in  as  far 
as  the  latter  contained  true  essential  and 
unconditional  elements  of  God's  revealed 
will;  but,  in  fulfilling  these,  Christianity 
abolished,  at  the  same  time,  the  false  and 
temporary  form  which  was  assumed  by 
them.  What  was  life  to  the  one  was  death  to 
the  other.  At  the  completion  of  the  build- 
ing, the  scaffolds  are  removed.  Thus  it  is 
said,  on  the  one  hand,  that "  Christ  is  the  end 
of  the  law"  (Rom.  x.,4);  and,  on  the  other,  it 
is  said  by  himself, "  Think  not  that  I  am  come 


662 


CHRISTIANITY  AND  SOCIAL  REFORMS. 


to  destroy  the  law,  or  the  prophets :  I  am 
not  come  to  destroy,  but  to  fulfill."  The  body 
of  truth  revealed  iu  the  Old  Testament  is 
incorporated  and  beautifully  preserved  in 
Christianity,  whereas  the  dress  in  which  it 
was  clothed  is  rent  in  twain.  The  matter  is 
not  lost ;  the  form  only  is  removed.  The 
one  is  permanent  as  eternity,  immortal  as 
God;  the  other  is  transitory  as  time,  and 
evanescent  as  one  human  race  after  another. 
In  Christianity,  the  one  is  shown  to  great- 
er advantage,  and  brought  into  full  efficacy, 
the  other  is  thrust  into  the  background  and 
forced  to  disappear  wholly.  The  subject 
on  which  I  have  the  privilege  to  speak, 
"  Christianity  as  a  Reforming  Power,"  is  full 
of  meaning  and  importance.  Christianity 
supplies  life  with  new  motives.  We  have 
the  highest  motive  to  liberality  in  our  Lord's 
conduct  toward  us,  giving  himself  for  us. 
Christianity  has  not  only  directed  our  atten- 
tion for  the  first  time  to  humility  as  a  vir- 
tue, but  has  also  given  us  a  new  inducement 
to  be  humble.  "Let  this  mind  be  iu  you, 
which  was  also  in  Christ  Jesus :  who,  being 
in  the  form  of  God,  thought  it  not  robbery 
to  be  equal  with  God :  but  made  himself  of 
no  reputation,  and  took  upon  him  the  form 
of  a  servant,"  etc.  (Phil,  ii.,  5-7).  Chris- 
tianity has  also  exercised  a  reforming  influ- 
ence on  science,  art,  and  politics.  But,  in- 
stead of  entering  on  these  details,  we  shall 
call  your  attention  to  those  principles  which 
seem  to  us  to  constitute  the  quintessence 
of  the  reforming  power  of  Christianity. 

1.  In  the  idea  of  being  perfect  as  God, 
Christianity  has  set  up  an  absolute  stand- 
ard of  morality.     This  is  a  positive  ideal, 
which  is  to  be  the  end  as  well  as  the  form 
or  rule  of  all  human  effort. 

2.  In  the  consciousness  of  being  the  sons 
of  God,  we  have  real  power  given  us  to 
come  up  finally  to  this  high  standard  of 
morality  set  up  in  the  Gospel,  and  of  ac- 
complishing those  things  which  God  in  the 
New  Testament  commands  us  to  do.     The 
first  is  the  ideal  of  Christianity,  the  second 
is  the  religious  principle,  the  real  power  en- 
abling us  to  carry  out  the  principles  of  the 
highest  form  of  religion  into  our  life  and 
conversation. 

I.  The  moral  principle,  which  is  to  be  the 
end  as  well  as  the  rule  of  the  Christian  char- 
acter and  conduct,  is  to  be  perfect,  even  as 
our  Father  is.  This,  then,  requires  the  en- 
tire, unconditional  conversion  of  the  soul  to 
God  and  his  service ;  the  undivided  consecra- 
tion of  the  whole  man  to  God  as  the  highest 
good ;  the  concentration  of  all  faculties  in 
one  continuous  effort,  with  the  view  of  at- 
taining that  end ;  iu  short,  undivided  and 
unceasing  love  to  God.  This,  again,  as  in- 
volving the  entire  devotedness  of  the  heart 
to  him,  excludes,  on  the  one  hand,  all  love 
to  men  or  created  beings,  as  far  as  these  are 
loved  for  their  own  sakes,  or  as  far  as  they 


disturb  the  purity  and  abolish  the  absolute- 
ness of  our  love  to  God.  In  proportion  as  the 
human  heart  clings  too  fondly  and  unduly 
to  other  objects  of  affection  than  God,  it  con- 
verts them  into  idols,  and  is  actually  guilty 
of  idolatry.  God  requires  us  to  love  him  as 
intensely  as  if  there  were  no  other  objects 
of  affection  in  the  whole  world.  But,  on 
the  other  hand,  love  to  God  includes  love  to 
man,  in  so  far  as  God  is  in  man,  as  the  Crea- 
tor has  revealed  himself  in  the  creature,  and 
as  the  finite  in  right  and  proper  subordina- 
tion to  the  infinite  forms  only  his  medium 
of  revelation  and  acts  as  a  willing  instru- 
ment to  serve  his  purpose.  By  bearing  in 
mind  this  double  point  of  view  we  shall  be 
in  a  position  to  avoid  extremes,  and  under- 
stand rightly  those  remarkable  and  rugged 
forms  of  expression  in  which  a  superficial 
mode  of  thinking  has  discovered  an  imprac- 
tical rigorism  and  asceticism,  avoiding  all 
contact  with  the  world :  "  If  any  man  come 
to  me,  and  hate  not  his  father,  and  mother, 
and  wife,  and  children,  and  brethren,  and 
sisters,  yea,  and  his  own  life  also,  he  can 
not  be  my  disciple"  (Luke  xiv., 26);  "Sell 
that  thou  hast,  and  give  to  the  poor"  (Matt, 
xix.,  21);  "No  man  can  serve  two  masters" 
(Matt,  vi.,  24) ;  "  If  thine  eye  offend  thee, 
pluck  it  out "  (Matt,  xviii.,  9).  In  all  this 
we  have  simply  the  varied  modes  of  express- 
ing the  principle  which  may  be  regarded  as 
the  characteristic  of  the  ethics  of  the  Gos- 
pel, viz.,  that  God  absolutely  requires  the 
whole  heart.  Love  to  our  fellow-men  ought 
to  be  subservient  to  the  great  end  of  serv- 
ing and  loving  God  more  thoroughly  and 
perfectly.  Whenever  any  earthly  posses- 
sion would  take  away  and  captivate  the 
heart,  interfering  with  its  entire  devoted- 
ness  to  God's  service,  renderiug  it  incapable 
to  renounce  all  for  the  sake  of  the  Lord, 
then  we  should  not  hesitate  for  a  moment 
as  to  our  choice,  but  take  at  once  the  alter- 
native of  sacrificing  the  earthly  for  the  sake 
of  the  heavenly,  and  give  up  the  interest 
of  the  world  on  the  altar  of  God's  kingdom. 
But  we  are  by  no  means  to  draw  the  wrong 
inference,  that  earth's  possessions,  in  them- 
selves and  under  all  circumstances  and  con- 
ditions of  life,  unfit  us  for  the  service  of 
God,  preventing  us  from  yielding  our  hearts 
entirely  to  him.  This  would  presuppose  an 
irreconcilable  duality  between  God  and  the 
world, the  Creator  and  creation ;  this,  again, 
would  be  quite  inconsistent  with  the  Sav- 
iour's expressed  confidence  in  the  all -rul- 
ing providence  of  God  in  the  natural  world 
as  well  as  in  the  spiritual  universe.  Who 
ever  expressed  such  sympathy  with  the 
works  of  creation,  and  such  appreciation 
of  the  beauties  of  the  material  world,  as  our 
Lord  and  Saviour  Jesus  Christ  f  He  was  a 
great  student  of  nature,  and  from  this  he 
borrowed  his  exquisitely  beautiful  and  em- 
inently instructive  parables.  He  was  also 


JONES :  CHRISTIANITY  AS  A  REFORMING  POWER. 


663 


particularly  sociable,  enjoying  the  company 
of  friends,  even  of  publicans  and  sinners ; 
and  in  this  respect  Jesus  differed  widely 
from  John  the  Baptist,  the  preacher  of  re- 
pentance, with  whose  one-sided  asceticism 
he  had  little  or  no  sympathy. 

There  is  no  deep,  impassable  gulf  fixed  be- 
tween the  religious  and  the  worldly  spheres 
of  human  life,  between  life  in  God  and  life 
in  the  world.  Christianity,  far  from  igno- 
ring moral  life  in  worldly  spheres,  in  the 
State,  family  culture,  civilization,  sanctifies 
them  to  its  own  use,  making  them  all  serve 
as  organs  or  instruments  for  the  advance- 
ment of  the  kingdom  of  God.  Religion  has 
its  own  sphere ;  but  still  it  is  like  a  mighty 
stream,  which  does  not  always  care  to  con- 
fine its  waters  within  its  own  bed  or  chan- 
nel, but  lets  them  overflow  the  banks,  inunda- 
ting, enriching, andnourishiug  the  surround- 
ing fields  and  meadows.  Even  the  worldly 
elements  of  existence  are  to  be  well  bedew- 
ed with  waters  flowing  from  the  fountain 
of  life.  It  is  true  Christianity  has  its  spe- 
cially sacred  day,  sacred  places,  and  sacred 
meal;  still  such  is  its  transforming  power 
that  it  converts  all  the  days  of  the  week 
into  a  Sunday  or  Sabbath,  and  every  place 
under  the  canopy  of  heaven  into  a  place  of 
worship,  and  every  meal  into  a  sacrament. 
The  whole  earth  is  duly  consecrated  by  the 
Lord  and  Bishop  of  souls.  Religion  is  not 
to  resemble  the  priest's  gown  or  surplice, 
which  is  worn  only  on  Sunday,  and  is  left 
behind  in  church  until  a  similar  occasion 
would  call  for  its  use.  History  and  experi- 
ence bear  ample  testimony  to  the  fact  that 
genuine  disciples  of  Jesus  have  been  found 
in  all  conditions  and  offices,  in  every  kind 
of  human  occupation,  and  that  the  Spirit  of 
God  does  not  confine  his  operations  to  the 
halls  and  departments  of  the  church,  but  is 
also  working  with  silent  influence  in  the 
busy  market,  in  the  curious  studio  of  the 
artist,  in  the  silent  chamber  of  the  poet  and 
philosopher ;  that  he  accompanies  the  sailor 
on  his  long  and  perilous  voyages,  and  the 
soldier  in  the  very  heat  of  battle.  Piety  or 
Christian  spirit  does  not  adhere  so  much  to 
a  particular  occupation,  does  not  dwell  so 
much  in  a  particular  place,  but  takes  its 
seat  in  man's  heart,  in  his  inner  life ;  and 
there,  from  its  high  throne,  faith,  the  great 
ruling  principle  and  power  of  his  existence, 
issues  commands  and  exercises  a  silent  and 
mighty  influence  over  all  he  does  and  suffers. 

The  relation  of  Christianity  to  the  world, 
our  Lord  has  set  forth  in  two  parables. 
These  serve  to  illustrate  the  points  of  view 
we  have  just  been  considering.  The  king- 
dom of  heaven  is  like  unto  a  pearl  of  great 
price,  which  a  merchantman,  seeking  costly 
pearls,  bought,  selling  all  that  ho  had  (Matt, 
xiii.,  45, 46);  again, "  the  kiugdom  of  heaven 
is  like  unto  leaven,  which  a  woman  took, 
and  hid  in  three  measures  of  meal,  till  the 


whole  was  leavened"  (Matt,  xiii.,  33).  The 
first  of  these  parables  exhibits  the  kingdom 
of  God  in  a  purely  religious  sphere,  and  for 
which  every  thing  else  must  be  given  up 
and  sacrificed.  The  exclusiveness  of  relig- 
ion seems  to  be  the  great  point  in  this  para- 
ble. The  second,  on  the  other  hand,  mirrors 
the  kingdom  of  God  in  an  earthly  or  world- 
ly sphere,  showing  itself  as  a  transforming 
principle,  penetrating  with  its  mighty  in- 
fluence every  thing  it  conies  in  contact 
with.  The  important  spheres  and  powers 
of  life  which  Christianity  affects  with  its 
pervading  influence  are  the  State,  family, 
art,  science,  and  morals.  Into  this  manifold 
life  it  enters,  and,  as  a  leaven  dissolves  in 
every  particle  of  the  meal  in  which  it  is 
hid,  so  does  the  divine  and  Christian  ele- 
ment dissolve  in  the  worldly  spheres  of  life, 
leavening  the  whole  lump,  and  affecting  the 
very  centre  of  society  in  a  secret  and  mys- 
terious manner.  In  its  internal  essence  it 
is  not  perceptible  to  the  eye  of  sense,  but 
lets  itself  be  known  by  its  operations  and 
effects.  If  we  take  into  consideration  the 
contents  of  one  of  these  parables,  disregard- 
ing altogether  the  principle  involved  in  the 
other,  we  can  not  but  form  a  false  and  one- 
sided view  of  Christianity.  If  you  view 
Christianity  exclusively  as  a  pearl  of  great 
price,  for  which  you  must  sacrifice  every 
thing  else,  you  will  find  yourselves  under 
the  necessity  of  renouncing  the  world,  shun- 
ning all  intercourse  with  society,  retiring 
into  a  cloister  or  a  desert  place,  adopting 
the  views  on  life  and  religion  of  the  anch- 
orite friars  and  hermits,  who  dissociate  re- 
ligion from  secular  life,  regarding  as  strictly 
religious  only  what  belongs  properly  and 
immediately  to  the  sphere  of  religion  in 
contradistinction  to  what  is  commonly  call- 
ed the  worldly  sphere.  But  this  view  is 
antagonistic  to  the  letter  and  spirit  of  the 
words  in  our  Lord's  intercessory  prayer : 
"  I  pray  not  that  thou  shouldest  take  them 
out  of  the  world,  but  that  thou  shouldest 
keep  them  from  the  evil  "(John  xvii.,  15). 
The  monk  takes  himself  out  of  the  world. 
But  the  great  art  which  Christianity  teaches 
us  to  practice  is  to  lead  an  unblemished  life 
in  this  corrupt  world;  to  associate  even  with 
publicans  and  sinners  without  allowing  our- 
selves to  be  contaminated  by  the  contact. 

If,  on  the  other  hand,  wo  regard  Chris- 
tianity exclusively  as  a  leaven,  we  shall  be 
liable  to  the  danger  of  denying  the  impor- 
tance of  religion  in  and  for  itself,  and  of 
adopting  a  view  of  Christianity  according 
to  which  the  Church,  in  course  of  time,  be- 
comes superfluous  or  redundant,  and  reduces 
itself  into  the  State  morality  and  culture ; 
these,  being  thoroughly  leavened  by  its  spir- 
it, the  latter  is  deemed  no  longer  necessary 
as  a  separate  institution.  But  this  is,  again, 
a  one-sided  view  of  the  kingdom  of  heaven ; 
being  regarded  only  in  its  likeness  to  the 


664 


CHRISTIANITY  AND  SOCIAL  REFORMS. 


leaven,  tho  central  power  of  Christianity  is 
not  here  fully  recognized,  its  supreme  im- 
portance is  not  properly  acknowledged. 

According  to  the  high  standard  of  moral- 
ity set  up  in  the  Gospel,  we  are  to  love  the 
Lord  our  God  with  all  our  heart,  soul,  inind, 
and  strength — a  love  undivided,  absolute; 
but,  on  that  account,  not  abstract  and  emp- 
ty, inducing  a  man  to  lead  a  monkish  life, 
•withdrawing  from  the  world,  and  break- 
ing up  all  intercourse  •with  human  society. 
This  is  so  far  from  being  tho  meaning  of 
Jesus,  that  he  regards  love  to  God  as  the 
fruitful  root,  productive  of  active  love  to 
man.  Indeed,  in  its  chiming  in  and  subor- 
dination to  the  absolute  love  to  God,  love 
to  man  also  becomes  unconditional — that  is, 
our  love  to  man  is  not  to  be  limited  by  the 
natural  differences  of  race,  nation,  climate, 
and  country  which  prevail  among  men.  A 
neighbor  is  no  longer,  as  it  was  according 
to  the  interpretation  of  Moses,  a  companion 
of  the  same  people  or  nation,  but  any  man 
standing  in  need  of  help,  whoever  he  may 
be,  to  whatsoever  tribe,  or  nation,  or  race  he 
may  belong — a  man  in  need  is  our  neighbor. 
This  meaning,  which  Jesus  brought  out  of 
the  law  of  Moses,  the  lawgiver  had  never 
conceived  of.  This  is  plainly  taught  in  the 
instructive  parable  of  the  good  Samaritan : 
while  Jesus  himself  associated  with  publi- 
cans, heathen  companions,  and  Samaritans, 
heretics ;  while  he  helped  the  Canaanitish 
woman ;  while  he  held  up  the  faith  of  the 
Gentile  centurion  at  Capernaum  as  a  model 
even  for  the  people  of  Israel ;  and  while  he 
reminded  his  hearers  of  the  gifts  of  God  be- 
ing bestowed  without  distinction,  who  lets 
his  sun  shine  on  the  good  and  bad,  and  seud- 
eth  rain  on  the  just  and  the  unjust;  he  has 
by  all  this  overcome  and  removed  the  Mosaic 
oue-sidedness,  and,  instead  of  a  particular 
love  to  a  particular  man  of  a  certain  nation, 
he  has  placed  a  universal  love  to  man.  Na- 
tionality is,  in  this  question,  to  be  subordi- 
nate to  humanity. 

The  internal  boundlessness  of  love  to  man 
is  insisted  upon  in  the  grand  ideal  we  are  re- 
quired to  realize  in  our  love  toward  enemies. 
Simon  Peter  seems  to  me  to  have  proposed  a 
compromise  with  regard  to  our  love  to  man 
when  he  asked  the  question,  "  How  oft  shall 
my  brother  sin  against  me,  and  I  forgive 
him  ?  till  seven  times  ?"  The  Jewish  rabbis 
were  divided  as  to  the  number  of  times, 
whether  three  or  four  times.  Peter  did 
not  feel  inclined  to  join  the  Jewish  rabbis 
in  their  warm  and  long  discussion  on  the 
point,  but  proposed,  not  to  split  the  differ- 
ence, but  to  add  the'  factors  together,  to 
make  np  the  sum  total  of  seven — "  till  sev- 
en times."  Well  done,  Simon  Peter,  thou 
hast  proceeded  a  step  or  two  in  advance  in 
the  law  of  love  and  forgiveness.  I .  know 
of  no  other  Simon  who  comes  np  to  old  Si- 
mon Peter.  "After  all,  with  all  thy  faults, 


I  love  thee  still."  But  does  Peter's  law  of 
forgiveness  satisfy  the  Saviour  f  Far  from 
it.  Peter  had  added  the  three  and  four  to- 
gether to  make  seven.  Jesus  told  him  to 
multiply  the  seven  again,  not  by  seven,  but 
by  seventy:  "I  say  not  unto  thee, Until  sev- 
en times :  but,  Until  seventy  times  seven." 
That  is  the  Gospel's  law  of  forgiveness. 
One  man  is  to  forgive  another  who  has  of- 
fended him  70  X  7  =  490  times.  If  you  for- 
give him  so  often  as  that,  yon  may  as  well 
forgive  him  the  whole  at  once.  This  is  an 
indefinite  number;  it  is  not  intended  that 
the  exact  sum  should  be  counted.  Love 
does  not  know  the  way  to  count,  does  not 
understand  arithmetic,  has  never  studied 
the  multiplication  table ;  or,  at  least,  it  has 
an  arithmetic  of  its  own,  a  multiplication 
table  of  its  own  making.  Does  a  mother 
count  her  acts  of  kindness  to  her  wayward 
child?  Where  is  the  mother  who  would 
not  deem  such  a  question  an  insult  to  the 
feelings  of  her  heart  ?  Instead  of  requiting 
evil  for  evil,  we  should  suffer  a  double  injus- 
tice: love  our  enemies,  bless  them  that  curse 
us,  do  good  to  them  that  hate  us,  and  pray 
for  them  who  despitefully  use  and  persecute 
us,  that  we  may  be  the  children  of  our  Fa- 
ther who  is  in  heaven  (Matt,  v.,  44, 45).  We 
must  thoroughly  overcome  the  evil  by  the 
power  of  the  good  dwelling  in  us.  No  out- 
ward deed  of  performance,  measurable  by 
any  outward  standard,  can  any  longer  sat- 
isfy the  divine  will ;  but  the  moral  law  of 
the  Gospel  insists  upon  our  having  within 
us  a  holy,  unconquerable,  loving  disposition, 
which,  in  order  to  secure  its  own  glorious 
end,  is  not  to  be  overcome  by  any  evil,  how- 
ever great,  or  any  obstacle  however  difficult. 
In  possessing  this  principle  within  us,  wo 
have  a  true  copy  of  God's  moral  perfection, 
being  partakers  of  the  divine  nature. 

Who  can  conceive  of  any  thing  higher 
than  this  iu  morality  T  Who  can  deny  that 
Jesus  has  set  up  an  absolute  ideal  ?  "  Be- 
hold, I  make  all  things  new."  This  is  true 
in  a  moral  as  well  as  in  a  religious  sense. 
Jesus  is  the  great  Reformer  in  the  depart- 
ment of  morality  as  well  as  in  the  sphere 
of  religion.  In  the  Gospel  the  highest  good, 
or  minimum  lonum,  is  revealed  in  a  glory 
which  neither  Plato  nor  Aristotle  knew  or 
even  conceived  of. 

II.  Christianity  has  not  contented  itself 
with  setting  up  a  perfect  standard  of  mo- 
rality. By  doing  this  merely,  Jesus  would 
not  have  become  the  Reformer,  Regener- 
ator, and  Redeemer  of  the  world,  but  would 
at  furthest  only  have  contributed  something 
toward  the  purification  and  improvement  of 
Judaism,  developing  its  principles  to  their 
full  extent,  teaching  something  thoroughly 
new  out  of  the  moral  law,  even  to  the  law- 
giver himself,  and  those  most  conversant 
with  the  contents  of  the  law.  In  order  to 
become  the  Redeemer  and  Regenerator  of 


JONES :   CHRISTIANITY  AS  A  REFORMING  POWER. 


665 


the  world,  it  was  necessary  that  be  should 
carry  within  himself  a  new  religious  princi- 
ple, and  from  that  centre  to  implant  it  in  the 
hearts  of  his  people,  a  principle  in  the  posses- 
sion of  •which  we  have  real  power  to  do  that 
which  is  commanded  in  the  Word  of  God. 

But  this  new  real  principle  was  no  other 
than  the  consciousness  of  divine  worship, 
which  Jesus  had  in  a  manner  peculiar  to 
himself,  as  the  Only  Begotten  of  the  Father: 
"All  things  are  delivered  unto  me  of  my  Fa- 
ther :  and  no  man  knoweth  the  Son,  but  the 
Father ;  neither  knoweth  any  man  the  Fa- 
ther, save  the  Son."  Whatever  metaphysical 
background  is  to  this  peculiar  and  original 
consciousness  of  worship  on  the  part  of  Je- 
sus, this  purely  dogmatic  question  does  not 
concern  us  hero ;  but,  inasmuch  as  the  eth- 
ical consequences  of  the  religious  self-con- 
sciousness of  Jesus  are  here  spoken  of,  we 
have  simply  and  exclusively  to  adhere  to 
the  openly  revealed  fact  called  in  question 
from  no  dogmatic  point  of  view,  that  the 
divine  consciousness  of  worship  on  the  part 
of  Jesus  consisted  in  the  immediate  certain- 
ty of  communion  of  love  between  his  spirit 
and  God's  spirit.  The  incarnation  has  the 
original  condition  of  man  on  the  image  of 
God  for  its  presupposition,  and  the  manifes- 
tation of  the  Son  of  God  in  the  flesh  has  for 
its  natural  and  necessary  consequence  the 
bringing  of  many  sous  unto  glory,  or  the 
adoption  of  the  sons  of  men  unto  the  family 
of  God.  In  other  words,  the  religious  con- 
sciousness of  sonship  on  the  part  of  Jesns 
was  immediate,  as  far  as  he  was  personally 
concerned,  and  contained,  at  the  same  time, 
a  consciousness  of  the  general  Godsonship 
on  the  part  of  men.  He  made  actual  in  his 
own  case  what  human  nature  is  capable  of. 


The  original  destiny  of  the  race  was  fully 
realized  in  the  mightiest  and  purest  of  his 
sons ;  and  thus  a  good  and  grand  and  effica- 
cious beginning  was  made,  with  the  view 
of  enabling  mankind  to  attain  to  the  high 
end  for  which  they  were  created.  First,  in 
the  sonship  of  Jesus,  that  relation  corre- 
sponding to  the  essence  of  God  and  the  na- 
ture of  man  wras  given  as  an  actual  fact,  AVRS 
revealed  in  a  personal  history.  In  this  men 
saw  the  possibility  of  becoming  really  and 
actually  what  they  should  be,  but  were  not 
in  reality.  Man  becomes  an  actual  son  of 
God  by  accepting  the  revelation  of  God  in 
Christ  as  his  heavenly  Father. 

How  far  lies  in  this  a  new  real  principle  ? 
If  man  is  a  child  of  God,  the  divine  will  is 
no  longer  foreign  and  external  to  him,  to 
which  he  submits  from  force,  fear  of  punish- 
ment, or  hope  of  reward ;  but,  knowing  his 
essential  relation  to  God,  he  feels  that,  in  do- 
ing the  Avill  of  God,  he  is  fulfilling  his  des- 
tiny and  perfecting  his  nature.  Besides, 
when  a  child  of  God  comes  to  know  that  he 
is  the  object  of  God's  fatherly  care  and  love, 
not  only  ho  feels  joy  unspeakable  and  peace 
which  passeth  understanding,  but  earnestly 
desires  to  IOA-O  God  in  return.  He  is  now 
transformed  by  the  renewing  of  his  mind, 
and  proves  what  is  that  good  and  accepta- 
ble and  perfect  will  of  God.  The  moral  law 
is  now  written  on  his  heart,  and  is  no  long- 
er to  him  a  dead,  killing  letter,  a  condemn- 
ing law,  but  a  living,  quickening  spirit. 
God  worketh  in  him  both  to  will  and  to  do 
of  his  good  pleasure.  He  is  no  longer  sway- 
ed by  the  impulse  of  his  unspiritual  nature, 
but  willingly  obeys  the  dictates  of  God's 
Spirit,  and  does  all  from  love  and  for  the 
glory  of  God. 


THE  WORKING  POWER  OF  THE  CHURCH— HOW 
BEST  TO  UTILIZE  IT. 

BY  THE  REV.  W.  FLEMING  STEVENSON,  DUBLIN. 


WHEN  the  feast  was  over,  the  Master  said, 
"  Gather  up  the  fragments  that  remain,  that 
nothing  be  lost."  And  the  words  may  indi- 
cate both  the  place  and  drift  of  this  paper. 
It  does  not  pretend  to  add  to  that  rich  ban- 
quet you  have  shared  since  the  Conference 
opened ;  but  only,  before  the  Conference  dis- 
solves, to  preserve  some  simple  hints  for  the 
ordering  of  our  common  Christian  life,  such 
fragments  as  yet  remain.  That  nothing  be  lost 
explains  its  purpose  with  sufficient  clearness, 
that  all  the  energies  resident  within  the 
Church  be  turned  to  actual  account  without 
waste  and  without  miscarriage. 

The  Church  of  God  has  not  been  redeemed 
merely  to  be  a  depositary  of  truth.  When 
it  has  been  proved  to  be  in  accord  with  phi- 
losophy and  science,  that  is  not  all.  Its  aim 
is  not  reached  in  the  Communion  of  Saints. 
There  is  a  real  end  to  which  all  these  are 
preliminary.  It  exists  for  the  blessing  and 
conquest  of  men.  The  field  given  to  it  is 
the  world :  the  world  of  all  kindreds  and 
tongues,  but  also  the  world  of  human  sin,  and 
human  misery,  and  human  want.  All  this 
human  life,  with  its  stately  possibilities,  with 
its  ceaseless  thought  and  energy,  its  huge 
but  common  daily  toil,  its  cries  of  pain  and 
despair,  its  weakness,  and  crushed  hopes,  and 
awful  shame,  its  alleys  of  poverty,  its  dens 
of  vice,  its  wounded  spirits,  its  bleeding 
hearts,  its  pitiful  social  sores — to  win  this 
life  for  Christ,  to  penetrate  it  at  every  point 
like  the  light  of  the  morning — this  is  the 
mission  of  the  Church.  No  conception  of 
conquest  can  compare  with  this  for  magnifi- 
cence and  daring;  as  its  vastness  grows  upon 
us,  we  recognize  the  difficulty  in  the  way. 
To  meet,  not  only  rooted  evils  in  a  particular 
country,  but  the  evils  that  have  been  rooted 
iu  every  soil;  to  cope,  not  only  with  fixed 
diseases  that  are  the  product  of  sin.  but  with 
the  ever-multiplying  forces  of  sin  itself;  to 
confront  the  boundless  variety  of  human 
temperament  and  human  circumstance  with 
a  specific  for  each ;  not  merely  to  oppose  and 
resist,  but  to  overcome ;  and  to  do  this  by 
an  agency  that,  as  far  as  it  is  human,  is  it- 
self weak  and  variable,  and  exposed  to  a 
thousand  possibilities  of  derangement,  must 
impose  a  singular  strain  upon  the  forces 
within  the  Church. 

Yet  this  manifold  activity  is  the  natural 
growth  of  the  Church  and  the  expression  of 
its  mighty  inner  life.  The  Church  is  not  an 


artificial  society,  although  its  temptation 
has  always  been  to  err  in  that  direction — a 
temptation  to  which,  as  surely  as  it  yields, 
it  is  shorn  of  its  strength,  and  finds  itself 
fronted  by  the  revolt  of  souls  that  yearn  for 
liberty.  It  is  a  divine  creation,  and  there- 
fore natural,  growing  with  the  growth  of 
men,  feeling,  expressing,  and  meeting  the 
needs  of  expanding  civilization  and  ripening 
culture.  It  shares  the  burdens  of  the  peo- 
ple to-day,  as  truly  as  it  used  to  share  them, 
at  Corinth  and  Jerusalem  and  Rome.  And 
as  life  grows  more  complex,  and  wants  are 
multiplied,  and  new  relations  are  always 
added  to  the  old ;  as  new  desires  are  stirred, 
and  new  aspirations  kindle,  and  social  prob- 
lems rise  that  never  vexed  the  past,  the 
Church  keeps  eager  pace,  throbbing  under 
the  same  pressure  of  the  same  advancing 
life,  and  fronting  every  new  line  of  human 
care  and  every  new  growth  of  sin  with  the 
pitiful  love  of  Jesus  Christ  the  Lord.  It 
must  be  so,  for  the  Church  is  divine,  and 
brings  the  strength  and  wisdom  of  God  to 
man.  It  must  be  so,  for  it  is  human  and 
bears  the  weakness  and  danger  and  woe  of 
man  to  God. 

This  is  the  conception  of  the  work  of  the 
Church  to  which  we  are  advancing,  an  ideal 
that  we  see  as  yet  afar  off.  Home  and  for- 
eign missions,  charities  and  remedial  agen- 
cies, are  springing  out  of  our  Christian  life. 
Though  work  is  often  more  a  yearning  than 
a  fact,  yet  the  yearning  is  spreading  with  a 
swiftness  that  is  full  of  promise.  The  dan- 
ger nearest  us  is  not  so  much  of  work  unrec- 
ognized or  undone,  as  of  work  isolated,  frag- 
mentary, inconsiderate,  and  therefore  inhar- 
monious and  wasteful.  And  the  problem 
we  have  to  solve  is,  how  to  bind  these  modes 
of  Christian  service  into  a  gracious  unity, 
how  to  distribute  them  so  that  they  will 
cover  the  largest  area  of  human  need.  They 
represent  our  power  to  cope  with  the  evi? 
that  is  in  the  world ;  and  in  the  face  of  that 
gigantic  evil  we  must  be  very  careful  to 
utilize  them  to  the  utmost.  For  sin  mul- 
tiplies fast,  and  downward  as  well  as  out- 
ward. 

Yet,  lest  there  should  be  any  misapprehen- 
sion, it  may  be  said,  in  passing,  that  the  pow- 
er of  the  Church  is  iu  the  presence  of  the 
Holy  Ghost.  Without  him,  organization  and 
activity  will  not  produce  work  for  God.  We 
shall  work  in  proportion  as  he  seizes  us,  in 


STEVENSON :  THE  WORKING  POWER  OF  THE  CHURCH. 


667 


proportion  as,  by  faith,  we  realize  his  in- 
dwelling. The  Church  is  the  body  of  Christ, 
and  the  Holy  Spirit  is  its  energy,  its  vital 
force  flung  from  the  heart  to  all  the  members, 
so  that  each  movement,  each  work,  is  a  spir- 
itual movement,  a  spiritual  work.  Every  be- 
liever has  this  energy.  As  he  receives  the 
Holy  Ghost,  he  is  indued  with  power  from 
on  high.  And  the  working  power  of  the 
Church  is  the  power  of  the  Holy  Ghost  that 
every  child  of  God  receives,  acting  upon  the 
natural  endowments  which  God  has  redeem- 
ed, and  is  thus  the  combined  working  power 
in  all  God's  children.  Whether  our  spirit- 
ual conquests  shall  be  swift  or  slow  must 
largely  depend  on  the  right  use  and  direction 
of  our  spiritual  forces.  It  is  through  these 
that  God  works,  and  carries  out  his  vast  de- 
signs. It  is  by  them  that  the  objects  of  the 
Christian  Church  on  earth  are  to  be  fulfilled, 
that  sin  is  to  be  fought  and  smitten,  and  the 
Gospel  spread,  that  the  manifold  triumphs 
of  Christian  charity  are  to  be  won.  When 
we  seek  to  economize  their  expenditure,  to 
render  them  available  for  the  widest  service, 
we  are  acting  in  the  Hue  of  God's  will. 

To  utilize  the  working  power  of  the  Church, 
it  will  be  necessary  (and  I  do  not  venture  to 
do  more  than  throw  out  a  few  hints) : 

1.  That  every  member  of  the  Church  be 
taught  the  duty  and  urgency  of  work.  The 
Christian  receives  power  that  he  may  wield 
power.  He  is  to  be  an  active  force.  There 
is  no  waste  with  God,  and  there  has  been  no 
outpoured  waste  of  energy  on  him.  All  that 
he  has,  all  that  he  can  do,  is  absolutely  need- 
ed in  the  kingdom  of  Christ.  There  are  many 
who  are  content  when  others  are  working, 
who  are  seized  by  the  notion  that  the  bur- 
den is  to  be  carried  by  a  few  marked  out  for 
it  by  office,  who,  when  a  congregation  or  a 
mission  is  prosperous,  claim  their  share  in 
its  prosperity  by  this  vicarious  work,  though 
they  have  not  moved  a  little  finger.  There 
are  many  who  feel  unconscious  of  a  power  to 
work,  and  many  who  are  distrustful  of  their 
ability.  These  mistaken  conceptions  must 
be  removed,  and  the  absolute,  unavoidable 
duty  of  personal  service  and  personal  con- 
secration maintained.  Moreover,  the  work 
must  be  up  to  our  best,  so  that  whatever  the 
gift  the  most  may  be  made  of  it.  Though 
some  have  ten  talents,  there  is  no  Christian 
absolutely  without  one.  He  may  so  use  in- 
frequent opportunities,  watching  for  them 
through  unfavorable  circumstances,  that  his 
influence  grows  to  be  a  wonder.  Instances 
will  occur  to  every  one  of  the  power  of  lives 
shut  up  in  the  seclusion  of  a  sick-room.  The 
least  endowed,  the  worst  circumstanced,  can 
do  something,  and  has  the  gift  of  the  Holy 
Ghost  that  this  something  may  be  done,  and 
is  in  the  wrong,  sinning  against  God  and 
man,  when  he  does  nothing. 

"The  least  flower,  with  a  brimming  cup,  may  stand, 
And  share  its  dew-drop  with  aaother  near.*1 


2.  That  means  be  devised  to  prevent  work 
being  undertaken  for  which  the  worker  ia 
unsuitable.     It  may  probably  not  be  till  af- 
ter experiment  that  the  fitness  will  be  dis- 
covered.     The  process  may,  therefore,  be 
tedious.     But  though  there  is  urgent  need, 
there  is  a  haste  that  is  worse  than  delay. 
Uufitness  for  work  is  doubly  mischievous; 
it  hinders  what  is  done,  and  it  discourages 
the  doer.    There  are  persons  in  every  Church 
whose  lives  are  without  result,  whose  tem- 
pers are  worn  and  fretful,  simply  because 
their  Christian  activity  has  been  nin  into  the 
wrong  groove.     Every  one  has  his  specific 
duty,  just  as  every  member  of  the  body  has 
its  function.  We  must  search  until  we  find  it. 

3.  That  the  worker  be  trained.     A  gift  is 
not  to  be  put  out  to  interest  only ;  for  that 
marks  the  lowest  possible  condition  of  Chris- 
tian activity  and  life.    It  is  to  be  cultivated. 
There  is  no  divine  instinct  qualifying  men 
all  at  once  for  their  place.     We  recognize  a 
training  in  the  Providence  of  God,  and  how, 
through  years  of  sorrow,  hardship,  and  dis- 
appointment, he  has  been  fashioning  a  hu- 
man soul  to  be  his  instrument.     There  was 
a  training — a  slow  and  very  patient  training 
of  the  Twelve  who  were  to  witness  for  the 
Lord.     We  are  not  only  to  work,  but  to 
make  the  most  of  our  power  to  work.     The 
training  may  be  very  simple,  and  can  sel- 
dom be  elaborate ;  for  the  work  is  to  be 
done  by  those  whose  hands  seem  already 
full.     It  may  be  no  more  than  placing  the 
inexperienced  iu  the  company  of  the  expe- 
rienced.    Those  who  would  nurse  the  sick 
can  have  the   opportunity  of  a  hospital. 
Those  who  would  teach  in  a  Sunday-school 
can  have  lectures  and  attend  a  training- 
class.     Those  who   would  visit   a   district 
may  be  shown  the  most  effective  way.    Sucli 
help  and  culture  are  possible  without  im- 
posing a  strain  on  such  as  are  already  work- 
ing hardest.     It  does  not  involve  so  much 
additional  labor  as  a  better  distribution  of  it. 

When  these  suggestions  are  wrought  out 
in  the  Christian  congregation,  they  will  be 
linked  with  a  fourth  :  its  members  will  be- 
come a  society  of  workers,  each  of  whom 
will  undertake  some  definite  though  simple 
office — a  society  as  complex,  but  also  as  reg- 
ular, harmonious,  and  as  much  directed  to 
one  end  as  a  skillfully  contrived  machine. 

Yet  when  all  are  working  we  are  on  the 
verge  of  an  evil  which  will  grow  as  the 
workers  multiply.  Good  and  zealous  peo- 
ple are  apt  to  hurry  into  the  work  next 
them,  without  any  regard  to  what  others 
are  doing,  or  to  whether  the  post  they  choose 
is  the  most  needful  for  the  Church.  When 
one  Sunday-school  is  recruited  among  the 
same  children  as  another ;  when  the  poor  of 
a  district  are  visited  and  relieved  by  suc- 
cessive bodies  of  Christian  people  acting  in 
ignorance  of  one  another ;  when  church  af- 
ter church  is  planted,  and  the  ministers  are 


668 


CHRISTIANITY  AND  SOCIAL  REFORMS. 


starved,  in  a  quiet  village  that  could  accom- 
modate all  its  parishioners  under  one  roof; 
when,  in  the  fields  of  heathen  missions,  one 
society  competes  with  another  for  posses- 
sion of  the  same  slender  tribe,  the  working 
power  of  the  Church  is  squandered,  and 
grave  injuries  are  wrought  besides.  It  breeds 
a  guilty  shame  to  think  of  the  money,  and 
strength,  and  noble  faith  and  love  that  are 
thus  thrown  away,  recklessly  lost,  in  almost 
every  Christian  city.  Now,  then,  I  am  led  to, 

4.  A  further  suggestion :  that  conferences 
be  held  of  the  Christian  workers  of  the  dif- 
ferent churches  in  each  city  and  district. 
Some  arrangement  could  easily  be  come  to 
here  by  which  the  work  would  be  distrib- 
uted, and  that  unchristian  collision,  that 
jealous  rivalry  for  local  or  sectarian  influ- 
ence, at  which  irreligious  men  scoff,  and  by 
which  the  Lord  himself  is  wounded,  be  avoid- 
ed.    Misconceptions  would  be  removed,  dif- 
ferent modes  of  action  harmonized,  ecclesi- 
astical methods  tested  and  brought  nearer, 
the  denominational  frost  that  had  bound 
the  lips  of  common  Christian  workers  would 
be  thawed,  and  the  interchange  of  experi- 
ence would  help  forward  God's  kingdom. 
And  a  higher  step  still  would  be  taken  if — 

5.  Christian  Churches,  and  primarily  those 
within  the  same  country,  laying  aside  their 
long  disputes,  overcoming  their  hostility  of 
prejudice,  anxious  to  forget  that  their  mis- 
sion had  often  seemed  to  be  of  Ephraim  to 
envy  Juda.li,  and  of  Judah  to  vex  Ephraim, 
should  meet  around  Him  for  whom  they  live 
and  die,  lifted  up  in  their  midst  to  draw 
them  by  the  irresistible  attraction  of  his 
love  to  the  common  centre  of  his  cross ;  and 
there,  under  its  shadow,  should  consult  to- 
gether for  his  kingdom,  surrendering  what 
seem  to  be  their  interests  to  his,  not  yield- 
ing one  inch  of  ground  that  had  been  law- 
fully won   and  may  be  lovingly  retained, 
but  prepared  to  yield  to  one  another  in  a 
holy  Christian  charity,  and  to  preserve  their 
stiff,  unbending  front  against  the  forces  of 
sin  alone.    Missionary  conferences  must  put 
the  churches  to  the  blush.     The  privates 
ai-e  teaching  the  generals  how  to  fight.     It 
is  interesting  in  this  connection  to  notice 
three  experiments  that  have  already  been 
made  in  this  century,  that,  though  in  strict 
independence  of  each  other,  tend  toward 
solidarity  of  work.      Chalmers  taught,  in 
his  Glasgow  parish,  that  practical  power  of 
many  doing  each  a  little  that  has  been  re- 
vived with  such  brilliant  success  to  meet 
the  Avants  of  all  the  poor  in  German  Elber- 
feld.     Fliedner,  at  Kaiserswerth,  has  shown 
that  Christian  charity  may  have  as  complete 
control  over   its  forces  as  a  general  over 
his  army,  hurling  them  up  against  the  foe 
wherever  want  demands  them,  yet  without 
sacrificing   one  jot  of  evangelical  liberty. 
Wichern  has  followed,  gathering  up  the  iso- 
lated philanthropies   and  Christian  efforts 


'  of  a  country  into  one  comprehensive  sys- 
tem, and  showing  that  the  highest  and  most 
|  workable  philanthropy  is  born  within  the 
kingdom  of  God. 

Let  there  be  a  larger  experiment  still. 
Let  the  great  Christian  enterprises  of  the 
Holy  Catholic  Church  be  felt  to  be  one;  let 
the  great  Christian  heart  gather  them  to  its 
love  and  bear  them  on  its  prayers;  let  iis 
feel  we  have  a  stake  in  every  blow  that  is 
struck  at  sin,  a  share  in  the  triumph  of  ev- 
ery faithful  sect ;  let  us  seek  for  that  lofty 
self-consecration  that  is  the  very  mind  of 
Christ,  and  that  will  enable  us  to  say  heart- 
ily of  others  as  one  said  of  him,  He  must  in- 
crease, I  must  decrease:  so  that,  if  men  think 
it  Utopian  that  the  churches  will  ever  con- 
sult together,  they  will  at  least  themselves 
take  stones  of  stumbling  out  of  the  way. 
Alas !  it  will  be  an  experiment  even  now ; 
and  yet  it  will  be  returning  to  a  very  prim- 
itive and  apostolic  faith:  "Whether  one 
member  suffer,  all  the  members  suffer  with 
it ;  or  one  member  be  honored,  all  the  mem- 
bers rejoice  with  it ;"  "Endeavoring  to  keep 
the  unity  of  the  Spirit  in  the  bond  of  peace." 

Why  should  not  the  Protestant  Christians 
of  a  city  like  this  organize  a  common  effort 
to  look  after  the  Protestant  poor — look  after 
them  not  so  much  by  the  agency  of  societies, 
but  as  members  of  the  Church  of  Christ? 
Why  should  there  not  be  combined,  united 
efforts  of  the  Church  in  every  crusade  against 
vice,  against,  especially,  so  terrible  a  vice  as 
not  so  much  the  national  but  international 
vice  of  intemperance  ?  A  world  of  misery 
lies  about  us.  If  it  is  to  be  relieved,  the 
Christian  should  be  the  first  to  relieve  it. 
It  is  the  same  world  into  which  our  Lord 
Jesus  Christ  came.  Are  we  not  his  disci- 
ples, the  servants  whom  he  sends  upon  er- 
rands of  his  will,  the  friends  with  whom  he 
takes  counsel  by  his  Word  ?  Must  we  al- 
ways bo  content  to  see  the  same  dense,  broad 
circle  of  heathenism  wrapping  round  the 
Church  of  Christ,  the  same  terrible  sins 
spreading  and  rioting  in  Christian  lands, 
the  same  mass  of  unrelieved  or  ill-relieved 
poverty  and  woe  lying  helpless  at  our  doors  ? 
It  is  not  as  if  it  must  be.  Given  the  work- 
ing power  of  the  Church  at  present,  the  full 
employment  of  every  Christian  gift  and  en- 
ergy, and  their  wise  direction  (a  direction 
that  will  be  wise  if  it  be  left  to  the  broad 
catholic  love  and  unselfishness  which  the 
Holy  Ghost  will  bestow),  and  such  a  revolu- 
tion will  be  wrought,  such  a  scattering  of 
the  darkness  and  the  powers  of  it,  such  a 
flushing  of  the  glory  of  Jesus  from  end  to 
end  of  the  world,  as  has  never  yet  been  par- 
alleled, as  even  by  Christian  hearts  is  sel- 
dom conceived.  No ;  it  must  not  be  as  it 
is.  We  must  ask  for  holy,  consecrated  lives ; 
we  must  ask  for  faith;  we  must  ask  for  a 
sacrificial  will ;  we  must  ask  to  realize  the 
power  of  the  Holy  Ghost. 


STEVENSON:  THE  WORKING  POWER  OF  THE  CHURCH. 


669 


If  we  are  to  trust  the  rough  sketch  that  "soul  was  like  a  star,  and  dwelt  apart," 

is  sometimes  drawn,  the  Church  is  but  a  have  for  centuries  been  its  debtors ;  when 

handful  of  soldiers  at  bay,  actiug  on  the  de-  we  remember  the  literature  it  has  created, 

fense,  surrounded,  hard  pressed,  disorgan-  and,  unlike  all  other  systems,  that  it  is  cre- 

ized,  and  on  the  point  of  despair.      It  is  atiug  still  with  unimpaired  freshness  and 


true  that,  in  the  earlier  days  of  this  Confer- 
ence, our  attention  was  occupied  by  the  vi- 
tal truths  that  underlie  our  faith ;  by  the 
battle-cries  of  those  against  us,  by  a  candid 
and  patient  investigation  of  the  strength  of 
their  army,  and  their  weapons  of  attack. 
That  was  only  wise  and  necessary.  The 
front  lines  of  the  Church — its  lines  of  Chris- 
tian work — may  sometimes  be  broken ;  but 
so  long  as  the  lines  of  dogma  behind  them 
remain  firm,  so  long  as  the  Spirit  of  the  liv- 
ing God  vitalizes  that  dogma,  the  breach 
will  be  only  temporary ;  the  lines  of  work 
will  not  only  be  reformed,  but  advanced. 
It  is  a  blunder  when  they  tell  us  that  the 
Church  is  driven  to  act  on  the  defensive. 
For  every  blow  that  it  parries,  it  deals  a 


energy,  and  for  which  it  uses  every  lan- 
guage under  heaven;  when  we  remember 
the  nations  it  has  builded,  and  the  outcome 
of  their  national  life,  the  commerce  by  which 
it  crowds  the  restless  sea  and  binds  the  part- 
ed lauds ;  when  we  consider  its  liberating 
power,  the  energies  and  endowments  it  has 
set  free  for  the  service  of  the  race,  that  it 
has  struck  the  chains  off  the  slave,  and  smit- 
ten the  fetters  of  class,  and  proclaimed  lib- 
erty to  the  captive  mind  ;  when  we  remem- 
ber the  unworn  force  of  its  truths,  the  con- 
solations it  pours  into  numberless  strick- 
en hearts,  the  braveries  and  heroisms  with 
which  it  makes  common  lives  illustrious, 
the  untold  peace  with  which  it  stills  the 
trouble  of  conscience  and  the  trouble  of 


harder  in  attack.  Its  apologetics  are  in-  thought,  the  dying  agonies  it  soothes,  the 
stinct  with  assault.  Christianity  is  essen-  streams  of  joy  that  flow  from  it  to  poor  and 
tially  aggressive,  and  never  more  so  than  sad,  and  lonely  lives ;  and  that  there  is  no 


now.  Far  from  withdrawing,  it  is  mar- 
shaling its  forces  for  larger  conquest.  Re- 
gal potencies  are  in  it,  unfailing,  undecay ing, 


sign  of  decay  about  it,  of  being  set  aside 
when  it  has  served  its  turn ;  no  failure  to 
meet  fresh  needs,  no  lack  of  potency  to  rouse 


inexhaustible,  irresistible  —  potencies  that,  men  to  self-sacrifice,  no  weakness  to  resist 
because  they  are  of  God,  are  to  subdue  and  j  assault,  no  want  of  breadth  and  elasticity 
mould  our  human  life.  Have  they  no  history  ?  i  to  cope  with  novel  conditions  of  society, 
When  we  remember  what  Christendom  no  less  spiritual  grandeur  than  in  those  first 


was  when  it  began ;  the  handful  of  fisher- 
men and  peasants  that  preached  it;  the 
narrow  and  obscure  corner  of  the  earth  in 


days  when  the  Spirit  came  down  like  a 
mighty  wind — if  all  that  might  thus  be 
fairly  said  could  be  woven  by  some  skill  - 


which  they  lived ;  their  absolute  insigniti- '  ful  hand  into  one  broad  picture,  it  would 
cance,  measured  by  the  politics  or  thought  surely  represent  a  power  that,  for  splendor 
of  the  time ;  when  we  remember  their  per- ,  and  resource,  is  like  no  other  of  which  wo 
secution  by  their  own  countrymen,  and  that  have  any  knowledge  on  this  earth, 
the  few  persons  of  culture  who  joined  them  When  a  solitary  Christian  goes  down  into 
sank,  in  the  eyes  of  the  rest,  to  the  same  il-  the  filth  of  some  blind  alley,  seeking  for  the 
literate  level,  yet  how  soon  their  doctrines  lost,  or  climbs  the  dark  stair,  hoping  to  dry 
shook  and  overthrew  the  stablest  beliefs  that :  the  tears  of  the  poor  widow  whose  son  has 
then  existed,  and  climbed  upon  thrones  to  perished  in  a  winter  storm,  these  magnifi- 


rule  the  world  ;  when  we  recall  the  mighty 
march  of  Christendom  from  east  to  west, 


cent  forces  of  Christianity  are  behind  him. 
They  are  in  their  nature  aggressive,  iinpe- 


aud  now  back  again  from  west  to  east,  '  rious.  They  interpret  for  us  the  words  of 
noiseless  as  the  pillar  of  cloud,  luminous  as  Christ :  "As  Thou  hast  sent  me  into  the 
the  pillar  of  fire ;  when  we  reflect  on  the  j  world,  even  so  have  I  also  sent  them  into 
great  intellects  it  has  seized,  and  how  it  has  the  world."  We  have  found  already  our 
laid  every  art  under  tribute,  claimed  the  dogmatic  unity :  let  us  not  make  it  a  rest- 
homage  of  science,  and,  while  impressing  ing-place, but  a  starting-point.  Let  us  build 
upon  culture  its  own  stamp,  has  Avidened  it,  upon  it  the  temple  of  Christian  love,  not  in 
and  elevated  it,  and  made  it,  instead  of  the  word  but  in  deed.  Let  it  rise  softly  to  the 
badge  and  heritage  of  a  few,  as  universal  as  strains  of  that  heavenly  music  with  which 
itself;  when  we  remember  what  geniuses  '  the  quiet  airs  are  tremulous  these  well-nigh 
it  has  moulded,  what  wealth  of  eloquence'  1900  years,  "Peace  on  earth,  good-will  toward 
and  profound  thought  is  inseparable  from  men;"  rise  without  noisy  jarring  of  sectarian 
its  teaching,  in  what  majestic  and  immortal  strife,  Jesus  Christ  himself  the  corner-stone ; 
words  it  has  poured  its  aspirations  through  \  until,  in  the  likeness  we  have  caught  to  his 
the  lips  of  the  glorified  dead,  and  how  its  j  blessed  charity,  men  find  that  Real  Presence 
influence  has  been  felt  far  beyond  those  which  is  mocked  by  consecrated  wafer,  and, 
whom  it  may  claim  as  its  own,  so  that  the  instead  of  the  scoffs  and  taunts  that  are  flung 
greatest  poets  and  historians,  the  greatest  at  us  now  for  our  divisions,  one  word  will 
painters  and  sculptors, the  foremost  states-  j  break  from  the  lips  of  all,  "See  how  these 
men  and  orators,  the  solitary  thinker  whose  Christians  love  oneanother" — forGod  is  love. 


THE  LABOR  QUESTION. 


BY  THE  HON.  WILLIAM  H.  ALLEN,  LL.D., 

President  of  Girard  College,  Philadelphia,  Pa. 


THE  question  of  the  relations  of  labor  and 
capital  is  one  of  the  problems  of  social  sci- 
ence— a  science  whose  domain  is  humanity ; 
and  whatever  concerns  humanity  cau  not 
be  alien  to  Christianity  and  Christians. 

Working  men  are  dissatisfied  in  America, 
and  more  dissatisfied  in  Europe.  They  al- 
lege that,  while  they  are  the  producers  of 
all  wealth,  they  do  not  receive  a  fair  share 
of  the  products  of  their  labor ;  and  they  are 
groping  in  the  dark  to  discover  the  cause 
and  the  remedy. 

The  indictment  which  they  find  against 
the  existing  order  of  things  charges  that,  by 
means  of  unequal  legislation,  capital  takes 
the  lion's  share  of  the  products  of  industry ; 
that  the  power  of  money  to  coerce  men  is 
increasing  by  the  aggregation  of  wealth  in 
corporations;  and  that  the  rich  are  grow- 
ing richer,  while  the  poor  are  growing  poorer. 

The  struggle  of  individual  workmen 
against  the  alleged  aggressions  of  capital 
being  hopeless,  recourse  was  had  to  com- 
bination, and  trades-unions  wore  organized. 
The  leading  objects  of  these  unions  were 
higher  wages,  fewer  hours  of  labor,  and 
emancipation  from  the  tyranny  of  capital. 
The  unions  regarded  capital  as  their  enemy, 
and  declared  war  against  it.  They  armed 
themselves  with  the  strike — a  weapon  as 
dangerous  to  the  assailant  as  to  the  assail- 
ed. Capital  accepted  the  gage  of  battle, 
and  undertook  to  starve  the  strikers,  or  dis- 
perse them  by  employing  non-union  men, 
or  by  importing  workmen  from  neighboring 
cities  and  towns.  In  this  trial  of  strength 
capital  had  the  advantage.  The  next  step 
was  a  confederacy  of  the  unions  of  each 
trade  in  several  adjacent  counties  or  in  a 
State.  Great  strikes  were  then  ordered, 
and  these  Avere  sometimes  successful,  and 
sometimes  they  failed.  Men  could  still  be 
brought  from  adjacent  States,  if  protection 
from  violence  were  guaranteed. 

Finally,  a  national  industrial  union  has 
been  organized,  which  is  designed  to  em- 
brace all  classes  of  working  men  in  the 
United  States.  If  this  shall  be  sustained 
and  consolidated,  it  would  seem  that  noth- 
ing but  dissension  in  its  own  ranks  can  pre- 
vent the  victory  of  labor  in  the  battle  of 
strikes  in  this  country ;  for  a  strike  in  any 
branch  of  industry  in  one  place  would  be 
sustained  by  the  financial  and  moral  aid  of 


all  the  working  men  of  the  nation.  But  we 
shall  see  that  such  victories  lead  to  ruin. 

In  Europe,  however,  it  was  soon  discov- 
ered that  national  unions  were  inadequate. 
English  employers  starved  the  strikers  by 
importing  workmen  from  Belgium,  Holland, 
and  France.  A  logical  response  to  this  was 
the  organization  of  an  International  Socie- 
ty— an  alliance  to  proclaim  the  evangel  of 
labor ;  a  universal  brotherhood  of  working 
men,  which  should  ignore  political  and  re- 
ligious differences,  disregard  national  bound- 
aries and  languages ;  all  the  affiliated  hav- 
ing similar  interests  and  similar  grievances ; 
all  pledged  to  sustain  each,  and  each  to  sus- 
tain all,  in  any  authorized  conflict,  wheth- 
er just  or  unjust,  with  the  employers  of  la- 
bor. The  conception  was  grand,  but  many 
difficulties  have  been  encountered  in  its  re- 
alization. The  International  Association  is 
now  nine  years  old ;  it  has  held  some  four 
or  five  congresses,  in  which  opinions  were 
any  thing  but  harmonious ;  and  it  has  pro- 
mulgated doctrines  which  have  alarmed  so- 
ciety and  made  governments  hostile. 

If  the  International  Association  would 
confine  itself  to  legitimate  and  practical  ob- 
jects, it  might  do  much  to  ameliorate  the 
condition  of  the  working  men  of  Europe. 
But  if  it  has  no  higher  aim  than  to  organize 
and  sustain  strikes,  if  it  contracts  the  taint 
of  communism,  if  its  leaders  form  a  cabal 
hostile  to  property,  inheritance,  marriage, 
the  family,  and  God,  and  seduce  its  member- 
ship into  the  adoption  of  destructive  princi- 
ples and  measures,  it  will  perish  by  internal 
dissension  or  bo  ingulfed  in  the  vortex  of  a 
political  revolution. 

If  working  men  sought  only  to  advance 
wages,  and  to  make  strikes  for  that  end  suc- 
cessful, every  movement  in  the  organization 
of  these  societies  was  dictated  by  correct 
reasoning  and  made  in  the  right  direction. 
But  the  successive  advances  in  wages  which 
have  been  made  during  the  last  thirty  years 
have  given  working  men  only  temporary  re- 
lief, because  the  prices  of  commodities  have 
risen  with  the  rise  of  wages.  Working  men 
appear  to  have  overlooked  two  important 
facts  :  one,  that  they  are  consumers  as  well 
as  producers ;  the  other,  that  whatever  adds 
to  the  cost  of  the  products  of  labor  dimin- 
ishes the  purchasing  power  of  the  wages  of 
labor.  By  not  giving  thought  to  these  ob- 


ALLEN:  THE  LABOR  QUESTION. 


671 


vious  truths,  they  are  surprised  aud  indig- 
nant that,  while  their  wages  have  been  dou- 
bled within  thirty  years,  their  condition  is 
no  better  now  than  it  was  thirty  years  ago. 
The  cost  of  living  has  kept  even  pace  with 
wages,  and  the  unions  are  unconsciously  do- 
ing their  best  to  make  it  outrun  them. 

A  number  of  causes  over  which  the  unions 
have  had  no  control  have  doubtless  con- 
tributed to  the  general  advance  of  prices. 
Among  these  are  the  increase  of  gold  since 
the  discovery  of  that  metal  in  California  and 
Australia ;  the  excessive  issue  of  bank-notes 
before  the  late  war,  heavy  taxes  during  and 
since  the  war,  and  an  irredeemable  national 
currency. 

The  effect  of  the  increase  of  gold  has  been 
less  in  degree,  but  similar  in  kind,  to  that 
which  was  caused  by  the  influx  of  the  pre- 
cious metals  into  commerce  during  the  cen- 
tury succeeding  the  discovery  of  America. 
Without  any  scarcity  of  products,  prices  ad- 
vanced three  and  four  fold ;  and  it  will  al- 
ways be  found  that,  when  gold  is  produced 
with  less  labor  than  before,  its  value,  com- 
pared with  other  commodities,  will  be  re- 
duced ;  and  prices,  which  are  the  measure  of 
this  comparative  value,  will  advance. 

But  the  effect  of  the  increase  of  gold  on 
prices  has  been  exaggerated  by  an  irredeem- 
able currency.  Fortunately,  the  old  State 
banks  can  no  longer  flood  the  country  at 
will  with  notes  having  only  a  local  circula- 
tion. The  Government  of  the  United  States 
reserves  to  itself  and  its  national  banks  the 
privilege  of  issuing  notes  payable  on  demand, 
but  which  can  not  be  paid  on  demand. 

Money  has  a  twofold  character:  it  is  a 
medium  of  exchange,  and  a  commodity  hav- 
ing a  value  which  is  measured  by  the  labor 
of  mining,  refining,  and  coining  the  metal. 
But  bank-notes  and  government  notes  are 
not  money.  They  are  evidences  of  debt, 
promises  to  pay  money,  and  their  currency 
as  a  circulating  medium  will  depend  on  the 
supposed  ability  and  willingness  of  the 
drawers  to  fulfill  their  promises  on  demand 
or  at  some  future  time. 

But,  while  individuals  pay  interest  on 
their  debts,  the  banks  receive  interest  on 
theirs ;  and  they  consequently  have  a  pow- 
erful motive  to  issue  as  many  promissory 
notes  as  the  laws  permit.  The  national 
banks  not  only  receive  interest  on  their 
promises  to  pay  money,  but  also  interest  on 
the  government  bonds  which  are  deposited 
in  the  treasury  of  the  United  States  as  se- 
curity that  these  notes  shall  at  some  time 
be  paid. 

I  do  not  now  discuss  the  morality  of  the 
legislation  which  authorizes  a  corporation 
to  issue  promises  to  pay  two,  three,  or  four 
dollars  on  demand  for  every  dollar  which  it 
possesses  to  make  these  promises  good.  I 
only  allege  that  the  effect  of  such  issue  is 
to  make  money  cheap  and  other  commodi- 


ties dear.  If  a  given  quantity  of  coined 
money  be  sufficient  for  the  exchanges  of  a 
country,  and  that  quantity  be  doubled  with- 
out any  increase  of  products  to  be  exchang- 
ed, the  excess  would  be  exported,  and  prices 
would  not  be  seriously  disturbed.  But,  if  the 
increase  be  bank-notes  or  government  notes, 
the  excess,  not  being  exportable,  would  con- 
tinue to  circulate,  doubling  the  volume  of 
currency,  but  adding  nothing  to  its  purchas- 
ing power;  and, as  there  would  be  no  cor- 
responding increase  of  products  to  be  ex- 
changed, prices  would  be  doubled. 

This  inflated  currency  is  food  for  wild 
speculation,  and  an  instrument  to  facilitate 
"  cornering,"  forestalling,  and  the  making  of 
railroads  from  a  wilderness,  through  a  wil- 
derness, to  a  wilderness.  In  this,  also,  the 
cause  of  magnificent  failures  for  millions, 
and  wide-spread  suspension,  panic  and  ruin. 

In  the  financial  delirium  which  follows 
panic  aud  ruin,  men  clamor  for  more  cur- 
rency, just  as  the  poor  drunkard,  recovering 
from  a  debauch,  begs  for  more  of  the  stimu- 
lant which  prostrated  him,  to  brace  up  his 
shattered  and  trembling  nerves.  The  new 
dose  will  give  only  temporary  relief,  to  be 
followed  again  by  exhaustion  and  another 
clamor  for  more.  No  matter  to  what  extent 
the  currency  may  be  inflated,  there  will  nev- 
er be  enough  to  satisfy  debtors.  Like  the 
daughters  of  the  horse-leech,  they  cry,  "  Give, 
give."  But  while  the  debtor's  gain  is  tem- 
porary, the  loss  of  creditors  and  of  all  who 
live  on  fixed  incomes  is  permanent ;  for  the 
dilution  of  the  currency  enlarges  its  volume, 
but  adds  nothing  to  its  strength. 

This  dilution  is  a  potent  cause  of  the  de- 
pression of  labor;  and  working  men  have 
good  reason  to  anathematize  the  legislation 
which  reduces  the  value  of  their  wages  by 
depreciating  the  currency  in  which  they  are 
paid. 

Again,  although  taxes  are  paid  primarily 
by  property,  their  burden  falls  at  last  upoii 
labor.  The  owner  of  houses  and  stores  adds 
the  taxes  to  the  rent,  and  the  manufacturer 
who  has  paid  a  tax  on  his  materials  and  an- 
other on  his  product  adds  both  to  the  price 
which  consumers  pay.  The  profits  of  the 
capitalist  are  not  diminished  in  either  case, 
except  that  he  pays  the  same  advance  as 
working  men  on  the  cost  of  the  products 
which  he  consumes. 

Let  us  next  observe  that  the  trades-unions 
are  adopting  some  measures  and  recommend- 
ing others  which  will  have  the  same  effect 
on  prices  as  cheap  money  and  high  taxes. 
These  are  strikes,  the  proposed  reduction  of 
the  work-day  to  eight  hours,  and  in  some  of 
the  unions  opposition  to  piece-work,  restric- 
tions as  to  apprentices,  and  instructing  their 
members,  especially  those  who  are  employ- 
ed on  public  works,  or  by  corporations  and 
wealthy  institutions,  to  do  as  little  work  as 
possible  while  they  seem  to  work. 


672 


CHRISTIANITY  AND  SOCIAL  REFORMS. 


Strikes  are  either  successful  or  unsuccess- 
ful. If  successful,  they  advance  prices  by 
increasing  the  cost  of  production ;  and,  if  un- 
cessful,  by  diminishing  the  supply  of  prod- 
ucts. In  either  case  the  whole  body  of  con- 
sumers, not  capitalists  alone,  will  pay  the 
advance. 

The  eight-hour  rule,  if  adopted,  would 
have  a  similar  effect.  The  head  men  of  the 
unions  deceive  their  members  when  they 
make  them  believe  that  they  cau  live  as 
comfortably  by  working  eight  hours  as  they 
cau  by  working  ten  hours  for  the  same 
wages.  Whenever  the  eight-hour  rule  shall 
be  applied  to  all  branches  of  industry,  one 
of  two  things  must  result :  either  the  work- 
men must  do  ten  hours'  work  in  eight  hours 
— which  they  have  no  intention  of  doing — 
or  the  cost  of  all  products  of  industry  will 
be  enhanced  some  twenty  per  cent.,  without 
any  increase  of  means  to  purchase  them. 
Working  men  must,  therefore,  demand  and 
receive  twenty  per  cent,  more  wages  for  a 
day  of  eight  hours  than  for  a  day  of  ten 
hours,  or  deduct  twenty  per  cent,  from  their 
purchases  of  food,  clothing,  and  shelter.  In- 
telligent workmen  understand  this,  and 
some  of  them  have  the  frankness  to  admit 
that  they  will  first  establish  the  eight-hour 
rule  and  afterward  demand  more  wages. 
But  they  fail  to  perceive  that,  since  what- 
ever they  consume  is  a  product  of  labor, 
prices  will  advance  as  wages  rise. 

Working  men  want  cheap  rents,  cheap 
food,  and  cheap  clothing  —  not  cheap  in 
quality,  but  in  price.  The  eight-hour  rule 
would  make  these  dearer.  For  example,  a 
builder  will  contract  to  build  a  house  for 
four  thousand  dollars,  if  mechanics  will 
work  ten  hours  a  day  ;  but  if  they  and  the 
producers  of  materials  will  work  but  eight 
hours  a  day,  he  will  demand  five  thousand. 
The  capitalist  will  not  build  unless  he  has  a 
fair  prospect  of  a  rent  that  will  remunerate 
him.  He  will  not  let  a  five-thousand-dollar 
house  for  the  same  rent  as  a  four-thousand- 
dollar  one.  The  capitalist  will  lose  noth- 
ing, but  the  tenant  will  pay  twenty  per  cent, 
more  for  his  shelter. 

The  effect  of  the  eight-hour  rule  on  the 
cost  of  food  and  clothing  would  be  similar 
to  its  effect  on  rents. 

Let  us  next  observe  that  trades-unions 
which  exclude  all  boys  beyond  a  certain 
number  from  learning  their  handicrafts,  not 
even  excepting  the  sons  of  their  own  mem- 
bers, are  both  selfish  and  short-sighted.  Self- 
ish, because  they  practically  say  to  the  boys, 
"  You  shall  not  have  equal  chance  with  us  to 
earn  a  living."  Short-sighted,  because  they 
prevent  a  supply  of  skilled  labor,  adequate 
to  the  increasing  demands  of  population  and 
Avealth,  and  make  it  necessary  for  employers 
to  import  foreign  workmen,  while  they  com- 
pel great  numbers  of  American  youth  to  live 
by  their  wits,  consumers  of  the  earnings  of 


the  very  men  who  forbade  them  to  become 
producers,  and  in  one  form  or  another  a  tax 
upon  the  community,  and  therefore  a  tax  on 
labor. 

If  these  statements  are  true,  the  trades- 
unions  are  playing  a  losing  game.  They 
propose  and  pursue  plans  of  relief  which 
must  inevitably  operate  against  themselves 
as  consumers,  while  they  inflict  only  a  tem- 
porary loss  on  capital ;  that  loss  being  lim- 
ited to  contracts  made  before  an  advance  in 
wages  or  a  curtailment  of  the  work-day. 

What  then  ?  Shall  labor  be  ground  in  the 
dust,  helpless  and  hopeless?  Or,  like  the 
Hebrew  athlete,  strong  and  blind,  will  it 
pull  down  the  pillars  of  modern  society,  and 
crush  itself  and  its  oppressors  in  one  com- 
mon ruin  ?  There  is  no  need  of  either  alter- 
native. Capital  and  labor  are  reciprocally 
dependent.  Neither  can  be  profitably  em- 
ployed without  the  other.  It  is  as  impoli- 
tic in  capital  to  oppress  labor,  as  in  labor  to 
destroy  or  paralyze  capital.  And,  after  all, 
what  is  capital  but  labor  stored  up  for  fu- 
ture use  ?  As  the  fly-wheel  accumulates  force 
for  the  work  the  engine  has  to  do,  so  he  who 
has  the  industry  to  earn,  and  the  self-denial 
to  save,  becomes  a  capitalist :  accumulates 
labor,  and  converts  it  into  force  to  move  oth- 
er labor.  The  wealthiest  capitalists  in  this 
country  began  life  with  nothing  but  their 
hands  and  brains. 

The  wise  king  said,  "  He  that  would  have 
friends  must  show  himself  friendly."  We 
say  that  capital  and  labor  ought  to  be 
friends ;  then  let  their  representatives — the 
employers  and  workmen — show  themselves 
friendly.  If  employers  would  feel  and  man- 
ifest sympathy  for  their  workmen's  troubles 
and  sicknesses,  take  an  interest  in  their  wel- 
fare, rejoice  with  them  that  rejoice,  and  weep 
with  them  that  weep,  and  treat  them  as 
Christian  men  should  treat  human  beings 
having  the  same  sensibilities  as  themselves, 
aud  moving  on  to  the  same  eternal  destinies, 
it  is  quite  possible  that  the  envy  and  hatred 
which  the  poor  often  bear  toward  the  rich 
might  give  place  to  loyal  and  kindly  senti- 
ments. But,  unfortunately,  these  classes  do 
not  understand  each  other.  They  stand 
aloof,  and  misunderstanding  degenerates 
into  enmity. 

I  heard  a  printer,  in  a  great  publishing- 
house,  say,  "  We  seldom  see  the  proprietor, 
and  he  never  speaks  to  us." 

I  heard  a  master  machinist,  who  employed 
many  men  and  boys,  say  that  he  did  not  know 
the  names  nor  the  faces  of  his  apprentices. 

I  heard  coal-miners  say,  aud,  I  fear,  with 
truth,  that  the  operators  would  be  more  dis- 
tressed by  the  loss  of  a  mule  than  by  the 
killing  of  a  man. 

I  heard  a  gray-haired  forgcman  say,  "  I 
have  given  the  strength  of  my  manhood  to 
this  forge,  and  now  I  am  turned  out,  like  a 
broken-down  horse,  to  starve." 


ALLEN:  THE  LABOR  QUESTION. 


673 


Such  culpable  indifference  is  the  parent 
of  bitter  thoughts  and  bitter  words  on  the 
part  of  those  who  are  thus  thrust  out  of  the 
pale  of  humanity.  How  long  will  such  em- 
ployers contemn  the  precepts  of  him  who 
spake  as  never  man  spake,  and  whose  heart 
yearned  in  sympathy  for  the  lowly  and 
downtrodden  ? 

Le  Play,  in  his  work  on  "  The  Organiza- 
tion of  Labor,"  informs  us  that,  in  those 
industrial  establishments  of  France  where 
there  has  been  reciprocity  of  benefits  and 
courtesies  between  employers  and  workmen ; 
where  the  operatives  receive  constant  em- 
ployment from  youth  to  age,  and  have  no 
fear  of  being  discharged  in  times  of  finan- 
cial pressure  and  low  prices ;  and,  above  all, 
where  the  laws  of  God  are  obeyed  and  Chris- 
tian morals  prevail,  there  is  also  reciprocity 
of  confidence  and  good-will,  the  workmen 
and  their  families  are  comfortable  and  con- 
tented, and  the  proprietors  prosperous. 

Is  it  possible  that  envy,  which  has  been 
called  "  the  vice  of  republics,"  is  so  invet- 
erate in  the  United  States  as  to  be  proof 
against  kindness,  generosity,  and  sympathy  ? 
There  are  great  manufacturing  establish- 
ments in  this  country  in  which  the  aged 
and  disabled,  the  widows  and  orphans,  are 
not  driven  away  to  starve  or  to  seek  refuge 
in  an  almshouse.  They  are  humanely  cared 
for,  and  the  men  in  such  places  work  cheer- 
fully, and  strikes  are  not  thought  of.  There 
is  no  secret  about  this.  It  is  simply  grace 
instead  of  greed — the  grace  of  Christianity 
instead  of  the  greed  of  Mammon. 

In  July  last,  a  National  Industrial  Con- 
gress was  held  at  Cleveland,  Ohio.  It  was 
composed  of  delegates  from  the  trades-un- 
ions of  some  ten  or  twelve  States,  and  its 
proceedings  were  marked  with  a  moderation 
and  ability  not  always  manifested  by  simi- 
lar conventions.  The  Congress  adopted  a 
declaration  of  principles  which  contains  so 
much  good  sense,  combined  with  some  ques- 
tionable propositions,  as  to  challenge  the 
thoughtful  attention  of  students  of  social 
science.  The  declaration  gives  us  a  view 
of  what  the  sober  and  reasonable  class  of  la- 
bor reformers  fear  and  deprecate,  and  the 
remedies  which  they  prescribe. 

Their  platform  contains  the  following 
propositions  and  recommendations : 

The  consolidation  of  all  classes  of  produ- 
cers in  the  United  States,  preparatory  to  an 
appeal  to  the  ballot-box  whenever  such  ap- 
peal shall  be  needful. 

The  establishment  of  bureaus  of  labor 
statistics  by  the  State  and  national  govern- 
ments. 

Reservation  of  the  public  lands  for  actu- 
al settlers.  No  more  for  railroads  and  spec- 
ulators. 

The  adoption  of  measures  to  promote  the 
health  and  safety  of  miners,  manufacturers, 
and  builders. 

43 


Productive  and  distributive  co-operation. 

The  substitution  of  arbitration  for  strikes. 

The  enactment  of  equitable  apprentice 
laws. 

The  abolition  of  contract  labor  in  prisons. 

The  non-importation  of  Chinamen. 

Reduction  of  the  hours  of  labor. 

A  national  legal-tender  currency,  to  be  is- 
sued directly  to  the  people. 

With  the  exception  of  the  last  three,  we 
commend  these  propositions  to  the  favora- 
ble notice  of  all  classes.  And,  if  the  Con- 
gress intends  that  only  those  Chinamen 
shall  be  excluded  who  are  imported  on  spec- 
ulation and  farmed  out  as  quasi  slaves,  we 
believe  that  a  majority  of  the  American  peo- 
ple will  indorse  their  exclusion. 

But  there  would  be  inconsistency  in  the 
exclusion  of  voluntary  emigrants,  whatever 
their  country  or  race.  For,  if  the  members 
of  the  American  National  Industrial  Union 
accept  the  creed  of  the  International  Asso- 
ciation, and  we  fail  to  perceive  how  they  can 
logically  reject  it — that  is,  if  they  favor 
the  solidarity  of  labor  and  the  co-operation 
of  working  men  everywhere — they  can  not 
consistently  make  a  distinction  between 
Europeans  and  Asiatics,  provided  that  both 
seek  our  shores  of  their  own  free-will. 

The  financial  proposition  was  not  adopted 
without  opposition,  and  its  language  does 
not  clearly  express  what  its  advocates  mean.' 
The  proposed  "circulating  medium  is  to  be 
based  on  the  faith  and  resources  of  the  na- 
tion, and  issued  directly  to  the  people."  It 
is  not  clear  whether  the  people  who  receive 
this  national  currency  are  to  give  security 
for  it  or  not.  If  they  give  security,  the  cur- 
rency will  only  benefit  those  who  have  prop- 
erty to  pledge.  It  will  enrich  the  rich,  and 
inflate  prices.  If  no  security  be  given,  ev- 
ery one  will  have  plenty  of  money  to  pay 
debts,  but  the  money  will  have  no  purchas- 
ing power.  Debtors  will  flourish  on  the 
ruin  of  creditors,  but  no  new  debts  can  be 
contracted.  Credit  will  be  annihilated, 
commerce  will  relapse  into  barter,  and  so- 
ciety into  barbarism. 

Co-operation  and  arbitration  were  both 
recommended  by  the  Congress ;  and  both  are 
peaceful  and  worthy  of  trial.  But  in  large- 
industries  the  co-operation  of  working  men 
alone  will  be  likely  to  fail  through  deficien- 
cy of  capital,  or  through  want  of  financial 
skill  and  business  habits  in  the  managers. 
To  be  successful,  there  should  bo  co-opera- 
tion of  both  labor  and  capital ;  and  it  would 
bo  strange  if  the  wit  of  man  can  not  devise 
some  plan  for  an  equitable  division  of  the 
profits  of  such  co-operation.  Capital  would 
necessarily  assume  all  risks.  Compensation 
for  these,  and  living  wages  for  the  workmen, 
must  first  be  paid.  The  profits,  if  any,  over 
and  above  risk  and  labor  should  bo  divided 
between  the  capitalists  and  operatives  by 
some  rule  or  ratio,  to  be  agreed  upon  by  both 


(574 


CHRISTIANITY  AND  SOCIAL  REFORMS. 


parties  at  the  commencement  of  tbe  partner- 
ship. 

Co-operation  and  arbitration  may  prevent 
strikes,  and  settle  many  disputes  between 
employers  and  workmen  ;  but  they  do  not 
go  to  the  root  of  the  difficulty.  The  real 
causes  of  the  depression  of  labor  are  of  long 
duration,  and  are  so  wrought  into  the  frame- 
work of  society  that  they  can  not  be  sud- 
denly removed  without  convulsion  and  ruin. 
They  can  and  must  be  removed,  gradually 
and  safely,  by  wise  and  conservative  legis- 
lation. Among  these  are  an  inflated  pa- 
per currency,  extravagant  rates  of  interest, 
standing  armies,  wars,  and  national  debts. 
All  interest,  all  taxes,  all  armies,  wars,  and 
national  debts  are  paid  by  labor,  and  by 
nothing  but  labor.  Working  men  feed  and 
clothe  millions  of  soldiers,  supply  them  with 
all  the  modern  engines  of  destruction  to 
prepare  for  war,  fill  up  the  decimated  ranks 
when  war  is  flagrant,  and  pay  tbe  war  debts 
after  war  ends  in  peace.  If  the  Interna- 


tional Association  be,  as  it  claims  to  be,  a 
brotherhood  of  the  working  men  of  all  na- 
tions, let  it  employ  its  influence  and  power, 
if  it  have  any,  to  promote  peace  on  earth 
and  good-will  among  men.  Let  it  aim  to 
eradicate  international  jealousies  and  rival- 
ries ;  let  it  try  to  allay  the  fears  of  the  weak, 
and  check  the  ambition  of  the  strong ;  let  it 
teach  rulers  that  reason  is  a  better  arbiter 
than  force,  and  that  international  duels  are 
as  impotent  to  decide  questions  of  right  and 
justice  as  duels  between  individuals.  Then 
it  will  accomplish  a  work  worthy  of  its  im- 
posing name.  Then  standing  armies  might 
be  disbanded  ;  soldiers,  who  consume  every 
thing  and  produce  nothing,  be  enrolled  in 
the  grand  industrial  army ;  the  enormous 
cost  and  waste  of  war  be  saved  to  feed  the 
hungry  and  clothe  the  naked ;  a  heavy  bur- 
den be  rolled  off  from  the  shoulders  of  the 
toiling  millions,  and  nations  professing  the 
religion  of  Christ  be  indued  with  something 
of  the  spirit  of  Christ. 


CHRISTIAN   PHILANTHROPY. 


BY  THE  EEV.  T.  W.  AVELING,  LONDON. 


IF  the  excellence  and  value  of  systems 
aiid  men  are  to  be  judged  of  by  their  fruits 
— and  than  this  a  more  legitimate  and  equi- 
table test  of  worth  and  unworth  can  scarce- 
ly be  conceived — then  the  friends  of  Chris- 
tianity need  not  be  afraid  to  submit  it  to  the 
severest  scrutiny,  provided  that  the  rules  of 
honor  and  honesty  be  observed  in  the  judg- 
ment that  is  formed. 

Very  many  persons  are  to  be  found  who 
are  incapable  of  perceiving  the  moral  and 
spiritual  beauty  of  the  Christian  system,  but 
Avho  can  not  be  blind  to  the  material  advan- 
tages that  have  sprung  from  it.  Unwilling 
to  acknowledge  the  Divine  origin  of  the  re- 
ligion of  Christ,  they  show  themselves  among 
the  most  ready  to  take  a  share  in  the  indis- 
putable blessings  it  has  conferred  upon  the 
world ;  and  many  of  the  most  virulent  op- 
ponents of  Christianity  owe  their  ability 
and  opportunity  for  assailing  it  to  the  nour- 
ishment it  has  afforded  them,  to  the  fos- 
tering care  it  has  extended  over  them  — 
are  indebted  to  it,  in  fact,  for  half  their  or- 
dinary daily  mercies.  Strange  and  sad  it  is, 
but  not  uncommon,  to  find  that  the  feather 
which  directs  the  arrow  pointed  at  the  an- 
gel of  Truth  should  have  been  taken  from 
the  pinion  of  that  messenger  himself:  his 
wing  it  was  which  fanned  the  archer's  in- 
fant brow,  proved  a  covering  to  him  dur- 
ing the  development  of  his  boyhood's  pow- 
ers, and  is  even  now,  and  will  be  continu- 
ally, folding  its  veriest  foes  within  its  pro- 
tecting guardianship,  and  shedding  such 
dewy  fragrance  along  their  path  through 
life's  pilgrimage  that  it  will  be  as  though 
they  moved  amidst  the  breathings  of  a  per- 
petual spring. 

Many  of  these  antagonists  of  Christianity 
are  men  who  have  often  met  with  sad  and 
sorry  specimens  of  its  professors,  and,  acting 
on  the  principle  "  ex  uno  disco  omues,"  have 
hastily  and  illogically  concluded  that  the 
system  and  its  friends  were  like  these  ;  that 
religion  was  but  a  synonym  for  hypocrisy ; 
that  the  creed  was  composed  of  noble  words, 
but  the  conduct  made  up  of  ignoble  deeds ; 
and  have  come  to  clamor  for  its  suppres- 
sion and  extinction.  This  state  of  mind 
is  too  accordant  with  the  natural  enmity 
of  the  heart  toward  God  and  truth  to  sur- 
prise us.  Such  persons  are  more  ready  to 
fasten  on  the  failures  than  on  the  excellen- 
ces of  professors ;  as  men  are  more  inclined 


to  gaze  interestedly  on  the  sun  when  eclipsed 
than  when  shining  in  its  full  and  uncloud- 
ed splendor.  But  of  such  persons  we  beg 
an  arrest  of  judgment.  We  cry,  "Strike, 
but  hear !" 

It  is  not  my  design,  in  this  paper,  to  speak 
of  those  agencies  of  Christian  philanthropy 
which  contemplate  directly  spiritual  results — 
with  these  I  know  the  world  has  little  sym- 
pathy— but  rather  of  those  which,  as  I  have 
stated,  the  world  has  learned  to  some  extent 
to  value,  and  of  which  it  does  not  hesitate 
to  avail  itself.  I  want  to  show  to  what  it  is 
in  Christianity  all  men,  in  these  days,  are  in- 
debted for  the  benefits  they,  perhaps  uncon- 
sciously, enjoy.  Yet  must  I  say,  in  passing, 
that  the  mighty  spiritual  enterprises,  at 
home  and  abroad,  with  which  the  Church, 
and  to  a  great  extent  the  world,  is  familiar, 
are  but  the  natural  development  of  Chris- 
tian philanthropy  in  its  highest  phase.  It 
is  pity  for  immortal  souls,  perishing  in  ig- 
norance and  guilt,  as  well  as  obedience  to 
the  Divine  command,  "  Go  ye  into  all  the 
world,  and  preach  the  Gospel  to  every  crea- 
ture," which  has  led  to  those  grand  mission- 
ary operations  which,  as  with  a  chain  of 
golden  deeds,  are  girdling  the  globe,  and 
which  one  day  will  have  their  due  meed  of 
universal  acknowledgment  when  the  glori- 
ous issues  are  unveiled  before  an  awed  and 
admiring  world. 

While,  therefore,  it  is  ever  to  be  proclaim- 
ed, as  with  a  trumpet,  that  the  religion  of 
Jesus  is  a  spiritual  system,  commending  it- 
self to  cultivated  intellects,  and  yet  one  un- 
derstood by  the  humble  in  spirit ;  while  it 
supplies  ample  themes  for  meditation  which 
will  well  repay  the  student  and  the  recluse 
for  the  time  devoted  to  their  consideration, 
yet  it  is  also — and  this  wo  design  to  show 
— an  eminently  practical  and  humanely  be- 
neficent religion ;  one  which  was  intended 
by  its  Divine  Founder  not  only  to  draw 
men  back  to  God,  but  all  men  nearer  to 
each  other ;  which,  while  it  blesses  the  soul, 
blesses  the  body  also ;  which  is  not  only  to 
fit  man  for  the  enjoyment  of  heaven,  but 
for  that  of  earth  too — an  enjoyment  greater 
than  lie  could  possibly  have  realized  apart 
from  the  influence  it  exercises,  the  hopes  it 
inspires,  and  the  encouragement  it  affords. 
On  its  banners  it  has  emblazoned  for  its 
legend  the  words  that  formed  the  burden 
of  the  song  of  Bethlehem :  "  Glory  to  God  in 


676 


CHRISTIANITY  AND  SOCIAL  REFORMS. 


the  Ligliest,  on  earth  peace  and  good  will  to 
men." 

Philanthropy,  or  love  to  man,  did  not  be- 
gin with  Christianity  —  was  not  then  first 
inculcated — but  was  one  of  tho  earliest  les- 
sons enjoined  on  our  race.  It  was  a  call  to 
man  to  obey  the  original  instinct  which  God 
created  within  him,  but  which  sin  interrupt- 
ed in  its  development.  At  the  fall,  no  doubt, 
selfishness  was  one  of  the  principal,  and  per- 
haps the  very  earliest,  of  the  products  of  the 
deadly  upas-tree  theji  planted.  Each  of  the 
two  primary  offenders  was  ready  to  cast  the 
blame  of  the  first  transgression  on  the  oth- 
er ;  while  the  language  of  the  first  murder- 
er was  but  the  key-note  to  millions  of  similar 
scornful  repudiations  since  his  day — "Am 
I  my  brother's  keeper  ?"  Against  this  self- 
ishness the  Divine  protest  was  very  early 
made. 

The  injunction  to  show  love  to  one  anoth- 
er was,  we  believe,  part  of  the  normal  creed 
of  humanity  —  a  portion  of  the  unwritten 
law — as  surely  as  it  lies  embodied  in  the 
first  recorded  utterances  of  the  Divine  Ora- 
cle that  unmistakably  expressed  the  will  of 
God :  "  Thou  shalt  love  thy  neighbor  as  thy- 
self." 

God  has  laid  the  axe  to  the  root  of  this 
hateful  tree  of  selfishness,  by  the  most  signal 
act  of  self-denial  on  his  own  part  which  the 
universe  ever  beheld,  when  he  bestowed  the 
"  unspeakable  gift "  of  Jesus  Christ.  That 
the  Father  loved  the  Son,  we  know.  What, 
then,  his  pity  and  regard  for  us  which  led 
to  the  surrender  of  the  loved  one,  who  had 
dwelt  in  the  bosom  of  the  Father,  for  ns  men 
and  our  salvation  !  That  Christ  might  offer 
a  sacrifice  for  the  sin  of  the  world,  he  must 
needs  become  one  of  us.  "  Forasmuch  as  the 
children  are  partakers  of  flesh  and  blood,  he 
also  himself  likewise  took  part  of  the  same ; 
that  through  death  he  might  destroy  him 
that  had  the  power  of  death."  Here  is  the 
grand  illustration  of  Divine  philanthropy ; 
and  from  the  vantage-ground  of  the  cross 
Christ  teaches  men  to  love  one  another, 
henceforth  making  his  own  love  to  them 
the  standard  by  which  they  are  to  measure 
theirs  toward  each  other.  So  that  now  the 
highest  form  of  human  excellence  in  human 
relationships  is  to  love  our  neighbor,  not 
merely  as  ourselves — that  was,  perhaps,  tho 
loftiest  standard  by  which  to  regulate  the 
duty  before  Christ  came — but  now  the  sen- 
timent is  of  a  more  elevated  character,  the 
standard  an  immeasurably  superior  one :  his 
teaching  is  "that  ye  love  one  another,  as  I 
HAVE  LOVED  YOU."  His  was  the  love  of 
one  "  who  maketh  his  sun  to  rise  on  the 
evil  and  on  the  good,  and  sendeth  rain  on 
the  just  and  on  the  unjust;"  who  did  not 
wait  till  he  could  love  us  with  tho  love  of 
complacency,  could  pronounce  ns  perfect, 
but  who  "remembered  ns  in  our  low  es- 
tate." He  loved  us  because  he  had  be- 


come one  of  us ;  nay,  he  became  one  of  us 
because  he  loved  us ;  and  herein  is  a  .tre- 
mendous mystery :  while  wo  are  to  love  one 
another  because  we  are  brethren,  involved 
in  one  common  calamity,  but  interested  in 
one  grand  scheme  of  deliverance — falling, 
all  of  us,  through  our  relationship  to  "  the 
first  man,  who  is  of  the  earth,  earthy" — re- 
deemed, all  of  us,  through  "  the  second  man, 
who  is  the  Lord  from  heaven." 

As  one  practical  and  easily  discernible  evi- 
dence of  his  love  to  us,  and  as  an  example 
which  we  are  to  follow,  the  great  Founder  of 
Christianity  "  went  about  doing  good."  He 
appealed  to  his  works,  as  well  as  his  words, 
as  a  proof  that  should  satisfy  John  the  Bap- 
tist he  was  "  He  that  should  come."  In  bless- 
ing others  as  we  are  able,  we  are  to  be  imi- 
tators of  him.  An  order  of  true  nobility — the 
Order  of  the  Cross — has  been  instituted  by  Je- 
sus Christ.  Its  insignia  are  simple, "having 
this  seal,"  "None  of  us  liveth  to  himself;" 
and  on  the  obverse,  "As  we  have  therefore 
opportunity,  let  us  do  good  unto  all  men,  es- 
pecially unto  them  who  are  of  the  household 
of  faith."  While  on  the  broad  ribbon  to 
which  this  seal  is  attached  is  seen  inwoven, 
in  golden  threads,  a  sentence  which  unfolds 
the  secret  of  the  inspiration  to  a  true  phi- 
lanthropy, "  The  love  of  Christ  constraiueth 
us." 

Our  proposition  is  that,  of  all  the  blessed 
agencies  which  have  been  at  work  for  the  mel- 
ioration of  the  condition  of  humanity,  Chris- 
tianity stands  pre-eminent,  in  the  majesty 
of  an  unrivaled  supremacy.  It  has  been  the 
parent  of  almost  every  kind  of  organized 
agency  by  which  men  have  benefited  one  an- 
other. It  learned  its  lesson  from  the  Divine 
Master,  and  caught  its  inspiration  from  the 
cross.  He  who  washed  his  disciples'  feet 
said,  "  I  have  given  you  an  example  that  ye 
should  do  as  I  have  done  to  you :"  not  repeat 
literally  the  act  just  then  performed,  but 
cherish  and  exhibit  the  spirit  it  embodied. . 

While,  as  might  be  expected,  the  primary 
attention  of  the  Church  of  Christ  was  direct- 
ed to  those  who  sought  the  friendly  shelter 
of  its  sacred  inclosures — when  the  rich  gave 
of  their  substance  to  the  poor  for  Jesus' 
sake ;  when  "  those  that  had  possessions  sold 
them,  and  parted  them  to  all  men,  as  every 
man  had  need  " — yet  Christians  soon  under- 
stood that  they  were  to  exhibit  compassion 
and  kindness,  and  render  help  to  others  who 
were  not  of  their  fold,  and  in  forms  and  on 
a  scale  to  which  men  were  utterly  unused. 
In  the  palmy  days  of  paganism  the  poor  and 
wretched  found  few  or  none  to  help  them. 
The  system  that  could  originate  and  foster 
tho  cruelties  of  the  amphitheatre  was  hard- 
ly likely  to  create  and  nourish  gentle  and 
pitiful  emotions.  If  tho  priest  and  the  Le- 
vite,  among  the  Jews,  could  and  did  pass  by 
the  wounded  and  helpless,  much  more  did 
the  flamen  and  the  priest.  It  was  reserved 


AVELING:  CHRISTIAN  PHILANTHROPY. 


677 


for  Christianity  to  inaugurate  a  new  era  in 
the  history  of  humanity.  When  from  Cal- 
vary the  cry  went  forth,  "  I  lay  down  my  life 
for  the  world,"  and  the  proclamation  made 
within  the  shadow  of  the  Acropolis, "  God 
hath  made  of  one  blood  all  the  nations  that 
do  dwell  upon  the  face  of  the  earth,"  found 
its  echo  amidst  the  columned  splendors  of  the 
Forum,  and  was  understood  alike  by  Onesi- 
nms  the  slave  and  by  the  nobles  of  Caesar's 
household,  then,  as  "  in  Christ  Jesus  there 
was  henceforth  to  be  neither  Greek  nor  Jew, 
circumcision  nor  uncircumcision,  barbarian, 
Scythian,  bond  nor  free,  but  Christ  was  all 
and  in  all,"  they  learned  to  "  put  on,  as  the 
elect  of  God,  holy  and  beloved,  bowels  of  mer- 
cies, kindness,  humbleness  of  mind,  meekness, 
long-suffering,"  girding  around  them  "  chari- 
ty, as  the  bond  of  perfectness ;  and  whatso- 
ever they  did,  in  word  or  deed,  doing  all  in 
the  name  of  the  Lord  Jesus." 

If  we  be  asked, "  What  good  has  Christian- 
ity done  to  the  world  ?" — and  we  know,  from 
the  quarter  whence  the  question  comes,  what 
is  meant  by  good — we  point  to  the  works 
of  charity  and  benevolence  and  mercy  with 
which  the  world  abounds,  and  answer,  "  Be- 
hold the  good:  for  these  are  the  genuine 
offspring  of  the  Christian  system.  '  Can  a 
corrupt  tree  bring  forth  good  fruit  ?' — fruit 
like  this  T" 

We  ask  men  to  look  round  at  the  hospitals, 
dispensaries,  convalescent  homes,  reforma- 
tories, schools,  alms-houses,  orphanages,  asy- 
lums for  the  blind,  the  deaf,  the  dumb,  the 
idiot,  the  insane,  the  inebriate,  the  refuges 
for  the  fallen  and  for  juvenile  delinquents, 
and  other  agencies  for  overtaking  and  alle- 
viating the  thousand  ills  to  which  flesh  is 
heir,  and  inquire,  "Whenca  sprang  they 
all?" 

'  Hospitals,  history  tells  us,  owe  their  ori- 
gin to  Christianity ;  for  the  first  the  -world 
ever  saw  was  erected  at  Constantinople,  un- 
der the  direction  of  the  bishop  of  that  city. 
Neither  there,  nor  at  Athens,  nor  Rome — the 
high  places  of  civilization,  of  political  wis- 
dom and  power,  the  chosen  abodes  of  philos- 
ophy, eloquence,  poetry,  and  artistic  skill — 
was  its  prototype  to  be  found,  "  unless  it  be 
the  small  temple  of  Esculapius,  on  an  island 
in  the  Tiber,  where  the  maimed  and  sick 
were  left  to  struggle  in  solitude  in  the  pangs 
of  death."  Christianity  showed  "a  more 
excellent  way." 

In  all  the  centuries  that  have  passed  over 
the  earth  since  the  first  proclamation  of  the 
Gospel,  in  the  darkest  as  well  as  in  the 
brightest  periods  of  the  Church's  history, 
Christian  philanthropy  has  never  passed 
away.  The  monastic  institutions  of  media> 
val  times  were  distinguished  for  the  exercise 
of  charity  to  the  sick  and  poor,  so  that,  if  the 
ignorant  multitude  Avere  very  imperfectly 
acquainted  with  the  mysteries  of  the  faith 
of  their  inmates,  they,  at  any  rate,  wove  able 


to  comprehend,  to  some  extent,  the  worth  of 
a  religion  that  brought  forth  in  them  such 
fruits,  and  certainly  learned  to  esteem  and 
share  many  of  the  material  advantages  it 
secured.  Men  were  "  a  hungered,  and  they 
gave  them  meat ;  thirsty,  and  they  gave 
them  drink  ;  strangers,  and  they  took  them 
in ;  naked,  and  they  clothed  them ;  sick,  and 
they  visited  them ;  in  prison,  and  they  came 
unto  them." 

It  was  assuredly  to  the  inspiration  of  the 
religion  he  had  learned  from  the  New  Tes- 
tament that  Howard  owed  the  impulse  that 
sent  him  forth  on  his  embassies  of  mercy 
through  all  the  countries  of  Europe,  to  dis- 
cover and  expose  the  appalling  secrets  of 
their  prison-houses,  until  the  indignant  cry 
of  insulted  humanity  inaugurated  a  change ; 
and  nothing  inferior  to  such  an  influence 
could  have  led  the  gentle  Elizabeth  Fry  to 
subject  herself  to  the  self-denial  and  person- 
al peril  to  Avhich  her  visits  to  Newgate  ex- 
posed her  in  her  attempted  and  happily  suc- 
cessful efforts  to  overcome  the  demoniac  fury 
and  wickedness  of  its  miserable  inmates. 

In  all  public  calamities  the  genius  of 
Christian  philanthropy  has  passed  among 
men  as  an  angel  of  light.  ".When  Alexan- 
dria was  visited  with  the  plague,  during  the 
reign  of  Gallienus,  the  pagans  deserted  their 
friends  on  the  first  symptoms  of  disease. 
They  left  them  to  die  in  the  streets,  without 
even  taking  the  trouble  to  bury  them  when 
dead ;  they  only  thought  of  escaping  from 
the  contagion  themselves.  The  Christians, 
on  the  contrary,  took  the  bodies  of  their 
brethren  in  their  arms ;  waited  upon  them 
without  thinking  of  themselves  ;  ministered 
to  their  wants,  and  buried  them  with  all 
possible  care :  even  while  the  best  people  of 
the  community,  presbyters  and  deacons,  lost 
their  own  lives  by  their  self-denying  gener- 
osity. And  when  Carthage  was  ravaged  by 
a  similar  pestilence,  in  the  reign  of  Gallus, 
the  pagans  deserted  the  sick  and  the  dying, 
and  the  streets  were  filled  with  dead  bodies, 
which  greatly  increased  the  infection.  No 
one  came  near  them  except  for  purposes  of 
plunder ;  but  Cyprian,  calling  his  people  to- 
gether in  the  church,  said,  '  If  we  do  good 
only  to  our  own,  what  do  we  more  than 
publicans  and  heathens  ?'  Animated  by  his 
words,  the  members  of  the  Church  divided 
the  work  between  them,  the  rich  giving  mon- 
ey, and  the  poor  labor,  so  that  in  a  short 
time  the  bodies  that  filled  the  streets  were 
buried.  Who,  before  Christianity  taught 
men  to  do  it,  ever  thought  of  redeeming 
captives  taken  in  war  ?  Yet  this  was  what 
churches  did  ;  and  even  sold  the  consecrated 
vessels  for  that  purpose,  as  was  done  by  Am- 
brose at  Milan."  (Rev.  J.  Lord.) 

Is  it  not  found,  now,  that  no  sooner  does 
a  calamity  happen  by  which  widows  and 
orphans  are  made,  no  sooner  is  it  known 
that  there  is  a  wide-spread  distress  arisiiig 


G78 


CHRISTIANITY  AND  SOCIAL  REFORMS. 


from  famine,  war,  or  pestilence,  oven  in  oth- 
er lands,  than  the  Christian  philanthropy  of 
this  country  and  of  England  is  stirred  to  its 
depths?  theirs  more  than  that  of  all  the  world 
besides ;  and  I  do  not  hesitate  to  say  it  is 
because  of  the  religion  which  has  made  the 
two  countries  what  they  are,  in  all  that  is 
good  and  great,  and  given  them  an  enviable 
pre-eminence  over  the  other  nations  of  the 
earth. 

In  preparing  this  paper  I  tried — but  the 
task  was  too  herculean  for  me  to  accomplish 
— to  ascertain  what  amount  of  money,  dur- 
ing the  last  half  century,  had  been  poured 
into  the  treasury  of  our  London  philanthrop- 
ic institutions,  for  that  city  may  perhaps  be 
regarded  as  the  centre  of  philanthropic  ac- 
tion ;  and  I  essayed  to  do  the  same  with  your 
own  city  of  New  York,  taking  this,  as  I  pre- 
sume I  may,  as  the  counterpart  of  London 
in  the  old  country;  but  I  failed  from  the 
very  magnitude  of  the  inquiry.  One  fact, 
however,  I  elicited,  for  which  I  was  hardly 
prepared,  and  which  speaks  volumes.  In 
London  I  ascertained — and,  if  I  were  as  fa- 
miliar with  New  York  as  with  the  more  an- 
cient city,  I  doubt  not  I  should  be  able  to 
assert  something  similar  as  existing  here — 
there  are  nine  hundred  different  charities 
formed  to  benefit  men,  and  the  vast  majority 
of  these  relate  to  the  body,  its  ailments  and 
wants,  embracing  every  form  of  disease  and 
misery ;  including  among  them  the  aged,  the 
helpless,  the  infirm,  the  incurable,  the  orphan, 
and  the  widow. 

With  one  department  of  Christian  philan- 
thropy— that  of  aid  to  the  orphans  of  re- 
spectable parentage — I  am,  perhaps,  from 
the  official  position  I  have  held  for  the  last 
twenty-six  years,  as  honorary  secretary  to 
the  Asylum  for  Fatherless  Children,  at  Reed- 
ham,  near  London,  more  familiar  than  many 
here.  I  select  eight  of  the  oldest  or  best 
known  orphanages,  five  of  which  are  in  or 
near  London,  and  offer  the  following  statis- 
tics with  reference  to  them : 

St.  Ann's  Society,  which  has  sent  forth  dnr-) 
ing  its  existence  3000  children,  and  re-  >  £500,000 
ceived  from  the  public ) 

The  Orphan  Working  School,  4000  children, 
and  received  from  the  public 


The  London  Orphan  Asylum,  3708  children, 
and  received  from  the  public 


The  Wanstead  Infant  Asylum,  3000  children, 
and  received  from  the  public 

The  Asylum  for  Fatherless  Children,  Reed- 
ham,  800  children,  and  received  from  the 
public '. 

The  Crossley  Orphanage,  Halifax,  toward) 
which  the  three  brothers  Crossley  gave  > 
£127,500 ) 

Mason's  Orphanage,  near  Birmingham,  built) 


400,000 
C35,000 
512,000 

200,000 

152,500 
200,000 


1  and  endowed  by  the  founder,  at  a  cost  of. , 
Miller's  remarkable  institution*  at  Bristol,  j 
4n  which  have  been  received  4140  orphans,  >   115,000 
educated  at  an  expense  of ) 

As  an  illustration  of  what  Christian  philan- 
thropy in  the  heart  of  one  man,  and  he  a 


*  In  thirty  years  Mr.  Muller  has  obtained,  "simply 
in  answer  to  prayer,"  £580,000,  for  all  his  religious 
and  benevolent  operations. 


Christian  minister,  can  accomplish,  let  me 
call  your  special  attention  to  the  five  institu- 
tions founded  by  the  late  Dr.  Andrew  Reed, 
of  London,  whose  visit  to  this  country,  as  a 
deputation  from  the  Congregational  Union 
of  England  and  Wales,  thirty-six  years  ago, 
some  here  may  remember,  and  who  was  the 
father  of  the  honorable  member  for  Hackney, 
who  has  presided  at  more  than  one  of  the 
sessions  of  this  Conference.  He  founded  the 
London  Orphan,  the  Wanstead  Infant,  and 
the  Reedham  Fatherless  Asylums ;  the  Royal 
Hospital  for  Incurables,  and  the  Idiot  Asy- 
lum at  Earlswood,  Surrey.  The  former  has 
received  from  the  public  £263,216,  and  the 
latter  £300,000.  These  five  institutions,  up 
to  the  time  of  Dr.  Reed's  death,  ten  years 
ago,  according  to  a  table  given  in  the  life 
written  by  his  sons,  amounted  to  upward  of 
one  million  pounds  sterling.  In  his  will  he 
wrote  with  his  own  hands  these  memorable 
words :  "  I  bequeath  these  asylums  to  my  be- 
loved country,  with  an  earnest  prayer  that 
they  may  bo  watched  over  with  wisdom  and 
benevolence;  that  they  may  be  kept  free 
from  abuse  and  preserved  in  efficiency,  and 
remain,  age  after  age,  memorials  of  that  Di- 
vine charity  which  exalteth  and  glorifieth  a 
people." 

The  ten  institutions  I  have  enumerated — 
every  one  of  which  is  the  offspring  of  Chris- 
tian philanthropy  —  have  received  from  a 
benevolent  public  £3,802,716,  or  nearly  twen- 
ty million  dollars. 

Since  writing  the  above,  I  have  received 
a  publication,  which  has  emanated  from  the 
Bible  House,  designated  "  Christian  Work." 
From  it  I  find  that  last  year  the  "  local  so- 
cieties "  of  New  York,  the  great  majority  of 
which  embrace  philanthropic  objects,  raised 
$2,500,000,  while  it  mentions  in  a  note  that 
the  incomes  of  the  various  religious  and  be- 
nevolent societies  in  Great  Britain,  for  the  last 
year,  amounted  to  £1,450,000,  or  $7,250,000. 
This  is  far  below  the  mark,  for  it  does  n6t 
take  into  account  what  is  done  by  every 
well-organized  church  throughout  the  em- 
pire for'the  good  of  its  own  locality.  I  be- 
lieve the  sum  may  be  doubled,  and  not  fully 
represent  the  amount  annually  expended  for 
the  purposes  of  Christian  philanthropy. 

But  after  all  it  is  not  so  much  the  amount 
of  money  raised  for  philanthropic  purposes 
that  shows  the  strength  of  the  philanthropic 
principle,  as  something  else,  which  no  fig- 
ures in  arithmetic  can  represent.  Think  of 
the  personal  toil — unremunerated  and  unre- 
munerative — which  is  necessary  to  carry  on 
all  the  institutions  of  Christian  charity  and 
benevolence,  and  which  is  cheerfully  given 
by  hundreds  and  thousands  of  gratuitous, 
and  yet  often  sadly  misunderstood  and 
abused  laborers.  Think  of  the  instructions 
to  the  poor,  given  by  myriads  of  hearty  and 
loving  workers  whom  the  world  never  sees 
at  their  toils  ;  of  the  thousands  of  men  and 


AVELING :   CHRISTIAN  PHILANTROPY. 


679 


women  who  visit  the  bedsides  of  the  sick 
and  the  homes  of  poverty,  to  minister  to 
human  wants,  and  often  under  circumstan- 
ces of  the  greatest  peril  to  health  and  life ; 
and  remember  that  as  these  were  originated 
under  the  inspiration  of  Christianity,  by 
men  who  had  caught  its  spirit,  so  are  they 
still  maintained  and  perpetuated  by  such 
as  are  quickened  by  the  same  living  power, 
who  "  do  it  as  unto  the  Lord  and  not  unto 
men."  As  of  the  early  Christian  women  it 
was  said,  so  is  it  true  of  them  to  this  day : 
"  Matrons  especially  devoted  themselves  to 
these  works  of  charity,  feeding  the  poor  and 
ministering  to  the  sick.  They  visited  the 
meanest  hovels  and  the  most  dismal  pris- 
ons. 'But  what  heathen,'  says  Tertullian, 
'  will  suffer  his  wife  to  go  about  from  one 
street  to  another  to  the  houses  of  strangers  ? 
What  heathen  would  allow  her  to  steal  away 
into  the  dungeon  to  kiss  the  chain  of  the 
martyr?'  It  was  because  this  benevolence 
was  so  universal  that  the  pagans  were  struck 
with  wonder  and  admiration,  and  marveled 
at  the  potent  agency  that  could  effect  such 
results." 

Two  days  ago,  in  company  with  a  number 
of  other  delegates  to  this  Conference,  I  avail- 
ed myself  of  the  invitation  of  the  Mayor  and 
Common  Council  of  this  city  to  visit  the  in- 
stitutions which  are  maintained,  under  the 
direction  of  the  Commissioners  of  Chari- 
ties, in  the  islands  of  the  East  River.  In 
the  care  of  the  sick,  the  poor,  the  helpless, 
the  incurable,  the  insane,  even  of  those 
who  belonged  to  the  criminal  class;  in  the 
arrangements  for  the  comfort  of  the  soldier 
worn  out  in  his  country's  service;  and  es- 
pecially in  the  asylum  for  children  on  Ran- 
dall's Island,  where  so  many  of  the  little 
waifs  and  strays  of  society  greeted  us,  and 
in  whose  tiny  shouts  I  thought  I  heard  min- 
gled the  suppressed  cry  of  heart-broken  hu- 
manity that  had  begun  to  feel  the  warm 
touch  of  a  generous  benevolence — in  all 
these  I  saw  the  direct  and  indirect  effects 
of  Christiiiuity.  It  was  a  noble  exhibition 
of  that  Divine  charity  Avhicb,  as  Dr.  Reed 
said,  exalts,  honors,  and  purifies  a  people. 

To  all  infidels  and  impiiguers  of  the 
work  of  Christianity  as  a  remedial  agency, 
to  those  who  inquiringly  or  scornfully  ask 
what  good  it  has  ever  done  in  the  world, 
wo  reply :  "  Look  at  the  myriads  it  has  bless- 
ed in  relation  to  this  life  only — for  this  is 
surely  an  argument  yon  can  understand — 
listen  to  them,  who,  with  a  voice  like  the 
sound  of  many  waters,  acknowledge  the  mill- 
ion benefits  they  have  derived  from  it." 
With  a  mightier  emphasis  than  Job  used 
can  Christianity  say:  "When  the  ear  heard 
me  then  it  blessed  me;  and  when  the  eye 
saw  me  it  gave  witness  to  me ;  because  I  de- 
livered the  poor  that  cried,  and  the  father- 
less, and  him  that  had  none  to  help  him. 
The  blessing  of  him  that  was  ready  to  per- 


I  ish  came  upon  me,  and  I  caused  the  widow's 
heart  to  sing  for  joy.  I  put  on  righteous- 
ness, and  it  clothed  me;  my  judgment  was 
as  a  robe  and  a  diadem.  I  was  eyes  to  the 
blind,  and  feet  was  I  to  the  lame.  I  was  a 
father  to  the  poor ;  and  the  cause  which  I 
knew  not  I  searched  out."  These  things 
are  not  seen  in  merely  isolated  instances, 
but  in  multitudes  of  cases;  not  on  a  limit- 
ed, bnt  on  a  gigantic  scale,  somewhat  more 
commensurate  with  the  exigencies  of  hu- 
manity than  in  former  days,  and  a  little 
more  in  accordance  with  the  injunctions  of 
our  holy  religion  and  its  Divine  Head. 

Now,  is  it  too  much  to  ask  that  the  oppo- 
nents of  Christianity  would  show  us  some  of 
their  trophies,  won  without  any  help  from  the 
system  they  repudiate  ?  They  would  find  it 
a  hard  task  to  do  this;  for  at  every  step 
in  the  exhibition  we  should  lay  our  finger 
on  this  and  that  act,  and  claim  the  motive 
power  as  having  been  supplied  by  our  de- 
spised Christianity.  Men  of  the  world  have 
taken  of  the  things  created  by  it,  and  appro- 
priated to  themselves  the  credit  of  the  crea- 
tion. They  have  collected  the  medicaments 
which  have  been  distilled  in  the  laboratory 
of  a  divinely  instituted  religion,  and  labeled 
them  with  their  own  names.  But  it  is  very 
easy  to  discern  the  true  parentage  of  all  be- 
nevolent operations.  If,  in  helping  to  dis- 
possess poor  humanity  of  any  of  its  ills,  the 
children  of  the  world  claim  the  honor  of 
originating  the  thought  and  the  work,  AVC 
say,  "Thy  speech  bewrayeth  thee.  The 
voice  is  Jacob's  voice,  though  the  hands  be 
the  hands  of  Esau."  Such  persons  run  the 
risk  of  being  scornfully  repudiated,  as  were 
the  sons  of  Sceva,  who  wanted  to  have  the 
credit  of  casting  out  devils ;  for  as  misery 
and  evil  take  their  flight  from  the  homes 
and  hearts  of  myriads,  they  cry  to  the  mere 
imitators  of  Christian  benevolence,  "Jesus  we 
know,  and  Paul  we  know,  but  who  arc  ye  ?" 

The  day  is  not  far  off  when  those  who 
now  speak  evil  of  Christianity,  as  if  its  sa- 
cred books  were  but  a  collection  of  old  wives' 
fables,  will  have  to  make  the  acknowledg- 
ment that  they  contain  within  them  senti- 
ments and  principles  which  have  proved  the 
germinaut  power  of  all  that  has  stirred  hu- 
man hearts  to  noble  deeds ;  that,  instead  of 
its  domain  being  a  mere  paradise  of  dream- 
ers, it  is  a  nursery  of  noble  souls  that  have 
filled  the  world  with  their  achievements, 
and  that  will  continue  to  do  so  in  spite  of 
the  world's  ingratitude.  The  Church  of 
Christ  may  be  often  smitten  on  the  right 
cheek,  but  she  will  return  a  kiss  for  a  blow ; 
she  may  be  reviled,  but  she  will  not  revile 
again  ;  the  ribaldry  of  the  profane  may  pur- 
sue her,  but  she  wafts  back  her  blessings  in 
return.  She  remembers  the  injunction  of 
the  Divine  Oracle  :  "  If  thine  enemy  hunger, 
feed  him ;  if  he  thirst,  give  him  drink ;  for 
in  so  doing  thou  shalt  heap  coals  of  fire  upon 


680 


CHRISTIANITY  AND  SOCIAL  REFORMS. 


his  head.    Bo  not  overcome  of  evil,  but  over- 
come evil  with  good." 

I  take  my  cynical  brother,  therefore,  with 
me  into  the  noble  temple  of  charity  and  be- 
nevolence which  lias  been  reared  by  Chris- 
tian hands,  an  ever-eulargiug  temple  that  is 
composed  of  living  stones,  many  of  which, 
rough-hewn  originally  in  the  quarry  of  hu- 
manity, have  been  shaped  into  a  goodly  sym- 
metry, and  "  polished  after  the  similitude  of 
a  palace ;"  and  as  the  architect  of  St.  Paul's 


bids  the  visitor  to  the  metropolitan  cathe- 
dral gaze  on  the  glorious  structure  that  rises 
around  him,  to  discover  the  most  fitting  trib- 
ute to  the  genius  and  skill  which  produced 
such  a  building,  so,  pointing  to  the  grand  re- 
sults of  a  constructive  and  ever-growing  be- 
nevolence which  are  to  be  met  with  every- 
where, and  which  but  for  Christianity  would 
never  have  been  seen  blessing  the  world,  I 
say,  "Si  mouumentuni  ejus  requiris — Cir- 
cumspice." 


THE  CAKE  OF  THE  SICK. 


BY  THE  LATE  COUNT  AGENOK  DE  GASPARIN,  GENEVA,  SWITZERLAND. 

[This  essay  of  the  late  distinguished  Count  AGEKOB  DE  GASPARIN,  who  took  such  a  noble  and  hopeful  stand 
in  behalf  of  our  nation  and  country  at  the  time  of  our  greatest  trial,  was  prepared  at  my  request  for  the 
General  Conference  three  years  ago,  ten  months  before  his  lamented  death,  aud  was  intrusted  to  me  by  his 
widow  at  La  Pierreire,  near  Geneva,  to  be  used  for  the  object  he  had  in  view.  It  was  accordingly  read  in 
part  before  the  Conference,  and  is  here  inserted  in  full,  as  the  voice  of  one  who,  though  dead,  still  speak- 
eth.— JM.] 


GENTLEMEN, — I  desire,  in  the  first  place, 
to  express  a  sentiment  of  personal  regret. 
Not  only  should  I  have  been  happy  to  take 
part  in  this  truly  oecumenical  meeting  of  the 
representatives  of  Gospel  Christianity,  but, 
allow  me  to  tell  you,  a  feeling  peculiarly 
deep  binds  me  to  the  noble  country  in  -which 
you  are  now  gathered.  It  would  have  been 
a  great  joy  to  mo  to  shake  hands  with 
friends  whose  countenances  are  unknown  to 
me,  and  to  see  with  my  own  eyes  a  people 
which  has  set  us  such  a  noble  example,  and 
which  holds  the  foremost  rank  in  liberal  civ- 
ilization. Compelled  as  I  am  to  decline  the 
invitation  with  which  I  have  been  honored, 
I  have  felt  bound  to  do  as  much  as  lies  in 
my  power,  and  I  beg  you  to  receive  with  in- 
dulgence a  few  short  reflections  on  the  sub- 
ject I  have  been  called  to  treat. 

That  subject  is  the  care  of  the  sick  and 
of  the  poor,  as  it  stands  connected  with  the 
institution  of  deaconesses. 

Allow  me,  gentlemen,  to  call  your  special 
attention  to  the  care  of  the  sick.  It  is  for 
them  that  the  institution  of  deaconesses  has 
been  founded,  and  the  observations  which 
this  side  of  the  question  gives  rise  to  apply 
so  manifestly  to  the  care  of  the  poor  that  it 
would  be  but  a  repetition  of  the  same  ar- 
guments were  I  to  examine  the  subject  with 
regard  to  them.  We  shall  find  it  to  be  a 
case  of  a  fortiori. 

Wishing  to  simplify  and  shorten  as  much 
as  possible,  I  will  spare  you  extracts  and 
quotations,  and  have  no  recourse  either  to 
books  or  reports.  The  Gospel  alone,  expe- 
rience, and  facts  Avill  guide  me  while  I  en- 
deavor to  throw  light  upon  the  subject. 

I.  Nothing  is  more  striking  than  the  place 
assigned  by  the  Gospel  to  the  individual. 
Faith  is  individual,  conversion  is  individual ; 
the  Good  Shepherd  "  calleth  his  own  sheep 
1>y  their  name."  Every  man  individually  is 
responsible  before  God  ;  every  man  has  indi- 
vidual duties  to  fulfill ;  consequently,  no  or- 
ganization whatsoever — no  system  for  pro- 
moting obedience,  sanctification,or  salvation 
— can  supply  the  place  of  individual  effort. 

Now  this  applies  to  the  exercise  of  charity, 
as  well  as  to  every  other  manifestation  of 


Christian  life.  The  number  of  offices  insti- 
tuted by  the  apostles  was  very  limited — just 
what  is  necessary  for  the  maintenance  of 
order,  the  preaching  of  sound  doctrine,  and 
the  distribution  of  alms  in  the  name  of  the 
Church.  With  this  indispensable  excep- 
tion, the  apostles  maintain  the  fundamental 
principle  of  the  New  Covenant — individual 
activity.  "  Pure  religion  and  undefiled  be- 
fore God  and  the  Father  is  this,"  writes  St. 
James,  "to  visit  the  fatherless  and  widows 
in  their  affliction,  and  to  keep  himself  un- 
spotted from  the  Avorld."  When  the  Saviour 
is  describing  the  last  judgment  in  terms  in- 
expressibly solemn,  these  are  the  words  he 
addresses  to  the  elect :  "  I  was  naked,  and  ye 
clothed  me ;  I  was  sick,  and  ye  visited  me ; 
I  was  in  prison,  and  ye  came  unto  me."  He 
does  not  say,  "  You  gave  money  to  an  asso- 
ciation which  had  undertaken  to  clothe  and 
visit." 

II.  I  grant  that  no  one  says  these  very 
words.  No  one  thinks  of  giving  Christians 
a  permit  of  exemption  from  the  duties  of 
personal  charity.  By  creating  this  new  kind 
of  charity,  the  Romish  Church  by  no  means 
intended  to  do  away  with  individual  benev- 
olence. Nevertheless,  the  very  existence  of 
corporations  for  the  carrying  out  of  special 
objects  naturally  places  those  objects  al- 
most exclusively  in  the  hands  of  those  whose 
special  business  it  is  to  attend  to  them,  who 
are  most  familiar  with  them,  and  who  conse- 
quently appear  better  fitted  for  the  accom- 
plishment of  the  duty  than  you  or  I. 

And  observe  this  :  just  as  the  Gospel  prin- 
ciple which  applies  to  the  individual  is  spe- 
cially manifested  in  the  private  exercise  of 
charity,  so  the  Romish  Church,  starting  from 
a  general  principle  which  annihilates  the 
individual,  mutilates  or  destroys  the  indi- 
vidual manifestations  of  charity.  The  in- 
vention of  charitable  associations  is  only  one 
of  the  practical  consequences  of  that  prin- 
ciple. Every  one  knows  that  the  system 
which  places  the  priest  between  God  and  the 
soul  leaves  no  room  for  a  personal  faith,  for 
conscientious  self-government,  and  for  a 
candid  inquiry  after  truth.  If  the  Romish 
Church  undertake  to  rule  over  men's  con- 


682 


CHRISTIANITY  AND  SOCIAL  REFORMS. 


sciences  and  to'  promise  them  heaven,  it  is 
not  surprising  that  she  should  likewise  un- 
dertake to  perform  all  the  duties  of  obe- 
dience for  them.  The  development  of  char- 
itable corporations  in  her  midst  is  a  neces- 
sary consequence  of  her  system.  She  has 
some  men  specially  appointed  for  prayer, 
others  for  the  maintenance  of  pure  doctrine, 
others  for  the  guidance  of  consciences.  She 
could  not  do  without  specisil  men  for  alms- 
giving. Besides,  these  special  agents  are 
convenient,  and  we  are  glad  to  avail  our- 
selves of  them.  Let  mo  be  relieved  of  the  fa- 
tigue of  seeking,  and  the  trouble  of  coming 
to  a  decision.  Let  me  bo  told  what  I  ought 
to  believe,  and  what  I  ought  to  do.  Let  my 
duties  toward  the  sick  and  the  poor  be  ful- 
filled by  others  iu  such  a  way  as  shall  set 
my  conscience  at  rest.  Are  there  not  people 
whose  business  it  is  ?  It  is  not  mine.  Re- 
ligious or  charitable  associations  will  act  for 
me,  just  as  they  pray  for  me.  I  will  give 
the  alms  prescribed  to  me,  as  I  accomplish 
the  duties  commanded  me,  recite  the  formu- 
las drawn  up  for  me,  and  submit  to  the  pen- 
ances imposed  ou  me.  Here  are  my  dollars. 
Now  leave  me  alone. 

It  would  be  difficult  to  be  a  Christian  at 
an  easier  cost. 

III.  Such  are,  gentlemen,  the  two  tenden- 
cies which  have  been  in  antagonism  for  eight- 
een hundred  years — individual  effort  on  the 
one  hand,  a  mechanical  system  ou  the  other. 

To  confine  myself  to  the  question  under 
consideration,  I  come  to  this  conclusion.  In 
proportion  as  the  mechanism  of  good  works 
is  foreign  to  the  spirit  of  the  Apostolic 
Churches,  so  is  it  developed  from  century  to 
century,  iu  proportion  as  the  doctrines  of 
salvation  by  grace,  and  of  faith  in  Christ,  are 
lost  amid  outward  forms — as  the  different 
ways  of  meriting  heaven  are  multiplied — as 
the  worship  of  God  in  spirit  and  in  truth  be- 
comes materialized  —  as  the  immediate  in- 
tercourse of  the  soul  with  God  is  prevented 
and  the  way  into  the  Holiest  closed — and  as 
the  priesthood,  Avith  its  spiritual  guidance, 
rises  in  power  and  importance.  Charity  be- 
comes mere  almsgiving,  and  even  this  alms- 
giving is  the  business  of  the  priests  or  of 
the  corporations — that  is  to  say,  that  direct 
intercourse  between  man  and  man  is  at  an 
end,  quite  as  much  as  direct  dealings  with 
God. 

Now  Scripture  brings  man  into  contact 
with  man — the  poor  with  the  rich,  the  sick 
with  the  healthy.  If  such  contact  be  done 
away  with,  the  only  satisfactory  solution  of 
the  social  question  is  done  away  with  at  the 
same  time.  If  I  am  suffering,  and  I  see 
around  me  nothing  but  charitable  associa- 
tions— hospitals,  aid  given  officially,  special 
agents  accomplishing  the  duties  of  their  vo- 
cation—  my  heart  will  not  be  touched.  I 
shall  doubtless  sincerely  admire  and  deeply 
respect  the  devotedness  of  these  agents  of 


collective  charity ;  but  shall  I  not  be  more 
or  less  inclined  to  look  on  them  as  the  wheels 
which  set  the  charitable  machine  going,  by 
means  either  of  taxes  or  voluntary  contri- 
butions—  as  the  -workers  of  a  well  -regu- 
lated engine,  which  coldly  and  systematical- 
ly distributes  its  alms,  the  monotonous  drone 
of  which  I  can  easily  distinguish,  but  which 
is  destitute  of  a  heart  that  beats  and  feels. 

If,  on  the  contrary,  direct  intercourse  with 
my  fellow-creatures  is  restored  to  me  by  the 
Gospel,  every  thing  changes  at  once.  I  feel 
the  pressure  of  a  friendly  hand,  my  suffering 
awakens  sympathy  in  the  heart  of  another, 
I  see  the  countenance  of  my  helper,  and  love 
responds  to  love  in  my  own  bosom.  Thus 
is  mutual  affection  created,  and  thus  by  de- 
grees disappears  the  poison  of  those  social 
questions  which  threaten  our  Old  World,  and 
which  the  New  World  will  do  well  to  take 
into  consideration. 

The  weighty  subject  of  practical  charity 
would  carry  me  too  far ;  I  therefore  merely 
point  out  its  importance.  Two  facts,  how- 
ever, stand  out  prominently :  first,  the  pre- 
dominance of  individual  activity ;  secondly, 
the  limits  within  which  this  activity  should 
be  comprised.  Beyond  a  certain  boundary 
it  must  not  extend,  if  it  would  accomplish 
its  mission.  Our  individual  charity  becomes 
not  only  inefficient,  but  hurtful,  when  we 
scatter  our  help  right  and  left,  instead  of 
confining  ourselves  to  the  families  we  know, 
with  whose  wants  and  circumstances  we  are 
familiar,  and  with  whom  we  can  maintain 
an  interchange  of  sympathies.  Common- 
place charity,  alms  given  at  the  door,  dona- 
tions requested  and  forwarded  by  letter,  are 
quite  as  injurious  to  the  interests  of  real 
charity  as  is  official  help. 

NOTE. — In  several  of  our  towns  offices  for  re- 
lief and  reference  —  the  universal  adoption  of 
which  can  not  be  too  highly  recommended — 
have  been  established.  That  of  Geneva,  under 
the  direction  of  Mr.  Edward  Fatio,  is,  to  my 
mind,  a  model  worthy  of  imitation.  At  these 
offices  men  devoted,  enlightened,  and  charitable, 
in  the  true  sense  of  the  word,  receive  and  care- 
fully examine  a  mass  of  letters  dictated  by  pov- 
erty, and  full  of  its  urgent  requests  —  letters 
which,  before  they  undertook  the  office,  appall- 
ed the  inhabitants  of  our  towns,  unable  as  they 
were  to  get  at  the  truth. 

After  having  taken  a  general  survey  of  the  re- 
quests, the  party  to  whom  they  may  be  address- 
ed dispatches  them  to  the  office,  whither  he  like- 
wise sends  the  petitioner  when  the  latter  calls 
for  an  answer,  or,  rather,  when  he  comes  to  re- 
ceive the  help  he  has  extracted  from  the  donor's 
weariness,  from  his  idleness — nay,  from  his  very 
selfishness,  anxious  as  he  is  to  be  rid  of  impor- 
tunity— from  any  thing  rather  than  from  his  be- 
nevolence. The  office,  which  is  in  possession 
of  all  the  requests,  and  is  perfectly  well  acquaint- 
ed with  all  the  circumstances,  sometimes  gives 
a  positive  refusal,  when  professional  beggars, 
idlers,  or  vagabonds  arc  concerned.  At  others 
it  strongly  seconds  the  petitioner,  especially 
when  a  family  in  distress  needs  a  helping  hand 
for  a  shorter  or  longer  period ;  when  a  child  is 
to  be  apprenticed  or  sent  back  to  his  native  land 


GASPARIN :  THE  CARE  OF  THE  SICK. 


683 


—while,  at  the  same  time,  the  office  places  at 
the  employer's  disposal  both  its  experience  and 
its  good-will — to  help  him  in  finding  a  suitable 
situation,  and  in  watching  over  the  prote"ge. 
We  may  add  that  the  chief  endeavor  of  the  office 
is  to  provide  work  for  the  indigent,  and  by  that 
means  to  draw  them  up  out  of  that  miry  slough 
which  bears  the  name  of  mendicity. 

It  would  be  long  to  tell  the  evil  these  offices 
have  prevented,  the  base  imposture  they  have 
unmasked,  the  moral  putrefaction  cleansed,  the 
deep  misery  relieved,  the  efficient  help  given, 
the  real  bonds  of  union  cemented  between  rich 
and  poor  through  their  means,  the  undisputed 
good  they  have  done  and  are  doing  to  this  hour. 

But  one  thing  is  necessary :  it  is  that  on  both 
sides  the  same  perseverance  and  the  same  ener- 
gy should  be  displayed.  If  the  office  meet  with 
idleness  and  hesitation,  and  its  activity  be  dis- 
turbed by  continual  inconsistencies ;  if  the  re- 
ceivers of  letters,  instead  of  sending  them  to  the 
office,  and  watching  the  progress  of  the  affair, 
give  their  alms  without  reflection,  to  repent  of 
it  at  their  leisure — one  day  because  an  importu- 
nate beggar  wearies  them  with  his  solicitations; 
the  next,  because  they  are  seized  with  a  fit  of 
ill-judged,  misapplied  sensibility — the  office,  in 
spite  of  all  its  exertions,  will  be  impeded  in  its 
movements,  and  the  results  of  its  labors  will  be 
compromised.  We  feel  persuaded  that  the 
founders  of  the  office  for  relief  accomplish  an 
excellent  work,  and  render  untold  service  to  the 
poor  and  to  society  at  large.  Having  seen  these 
good  Gospel  daily  laborers,  who  so  courageously 
bear  the  heat  and  burden  of  the  day,  sometimes 
give  way,  both  under  the  fatigues  of  their  task 
and  under  the  inconsistencies,  we  may  add,  the 
blinded  incomprehension,  and  the  very  blame 
of  those  who  should  encourage  them  by  every 
means  in  their  power — we  desire  here  to  bear 
a  solemn  testimony  to  their  devotedness,  to 
their  work  itself,  and  to  its  utility. 

IV.  I  have  mentioned  hospitals,  and  you 
will  have  seen,  gentlemen,  that  I  am  not 
very  fond  of  them.  Of  course,  some  are  nec- 
essary. A  limited  number  of  hospitals,  of 
limited  size,  are  certainly  required.  But  let 
us  set  aside  as  much  as  possible  the  tradi- 
tions of  the  Latin  Church,  which  has  covered 
Europe  with  those  immense  shelters  of  pov- 
erty, the  building  of  which  was  long  consid- 
ered the  most  excellent  of  good  works.  In 
the  Middle  Ages,  every  thing  was  comprised 
in  these  two  forms  of  charity  —  corpora- 
tions and  hospitals.  People  gave  to  corpo- 
rations and  built  hospitals ;  then,  through 
the  medium  of  these  hospitals  and  corpora- 
tions, they  took  care  of  their  sick  and  re- 
lieved their  poor.  Succeeding  centuries  have 
followed  in  the  same  track.  Such  a  course 
is  so  convenient  —  so  much  in  accordance 
with  the  systematizing  spirit  of  Europe ;  this 
systematic  charity  allows  private  individ- 
uals, and  society  at  large,  to  be  so  easy  and 
comfortable. 

Wo  ourselves  are  more  under  the  influence 
of  Romish  tradition  than  we  are  perhaps 
aware.  Every  day  we  see  new  hospitals  ris- 
ing, which  true  charity  would  not  require, 
but  which  are  essential  to  selfishness.  Ex- 
cept in  special  cases,  which  need  special  rem- 
edies, it  is  a  lamentable  thing  to  take  away 
a  sick  person  from  domestic  care,  and  thus  to 


free  his  family  from  the  duties  God  had  giv- 
en them  to  fulfill.  Our  duties  are  our  priv- 
ileges ;  we  must  be  careful  not  to  deprive 
ourselves  of  them.  A  family  w  ill,  perhaps,  feel 
relieved  when  its  sick  member  is  carried  to 
the  hospital ;  but  dare  we  affirm  that  such  a 
relief  is  a  blessing  ?  On  the  contrary,  do- 
mestic care  is  so  valuable,  so  much  more  cal- 
culated to  promote  recovery  than  that  be- 
stowed in  the  best-regulated  hospitals,  that 
at  Paris,  for  instance,  the  public  administra- 
tion has  at  length  acknowledged  its  incon- 
testable superiority.  Every  year  the  above 
administration  gives  increasing  proofs  of  the 
importance  it  attaches  to  home  care. 

I  shudder  when  I  see  asylums  for  the  aged, 
though  founded,  of  course,  with  the  best  in- 
tentions. What  an  accumulation  of  infirm- 
ity, of  debility,  of  dejection !  If  any  need 
the  family,  it  is  the  aged.  They  need  to  be 
surrounded  with  the  cheerful  voices  of  the 
young,  and  the  merry  laughter  of  children. 
They  love  children,  and  are  loved  by  them. 
Now  can  there  be  any  thing  easier  than  to 
place  old  people  who  are  friendless  and  poor 
in  private  families  ?  With  one  quarter  of 
the  money  which  is  expended  in  building, 
furnishing,  and  maintaining  an  almshouse, 
aged  persons  could  be  supported  in  villages 
where  they  would  enjoy  the  free  country 
air.  Such  a  proceeding  would  not  make  so 
much  show,  but  it  would  do  more  good.  The 
principle  which  substitutes  individual  char- 
ity and  the  influence  of  the  family  for  me- 
chanical systems  and  hospitals  is,  when  put 
into  practice,  of  a  much  more  extensive  ap- 
plication than  would  at  first  be  supposed. 
With  regard  to  lunatics,  and  even  confirmed 
madmen,  whose  state  seems  absolutely  to  re- 
quire the  special  care  of  an  asylum,  we  be- 
lieve the  privacy  of  the  family  would  soothe 
and  quiet  them.  In  Belgium,  for  instance, 
there  is  a  custom  of  long  standing,  and  which 
is  frequently  put  into  practice.  There  are 
villages  in  which  persons  in  every  stage  of 
madness  are  received  and  taken  care  of. 
They  are  made  to  feel  at  home,  and  engaged 
in  manual  labor.  The  effect  is  most  bene- 
ficial, and  often  they  are  completely  cured. 

V.  Must  it  then  be  inferred  that  Gospel 
laborers,  peculiarly  fitted  for  the  work,  pos- 
sessed of  the  requisite  knowledge,  and  hav- 
ing a  decided  taste  and  aptitude  for  it  — 
men,  in  a  word,  who  are  clearly  called  to  it 
— must  it  be  inferred  that  such  should  not 
receive  the  necessary  course  of  preparation 
for  the  care  of  the  sick  ?  By  no  means.  How- 
ever limited  the  number  of  hospitals  may 
be,  the  persons  who  are  over  them  must  be 
capable  of  fulfilling  their  duties,  and  this  re- 
quires a  certain  amount  of  training.  All  the 
good-will  in  the  world  will  not  be  a  substi- 
tute for  science  and  skill.  We  may  add  that 
the  more  home  care  is  practiced,  the  more 
necessary  will  it  bo  to  have  well-qualified 
nurses  at  hand,  and  llms  to  secure  under  our 


684 


CHRISTIANITY  AND  SOCIAL  REFORMS. 


own  roofs  that  aid  for  which  we  ouce  had  to 
apply  to  public  establishments.  For  both 
these  reasons,  persons  should  be  trained  to 
nurse  rich  or  poor,  as  occasion  should  pre- 
sent. 

Experience  has  shown  the  mistake  of 
those  who  imagine  that  onr  nurses  can  not, 
without  risk,  penetrate  into  certain  quarters 
of  large  towns  unless  invested  with  the  name 
and  dress  of  a  Sister  of  Charity.  The  Bible 
women  daily  visit  the  dens  of  London.  At 
Paris  I  have  seen  young  Christian  ladies  go- 
ing up  the  dirtiest  staircases,  in  the  most 
miserable  dwellings,  and  every  where  they 
were  respected.  Besides,  gentlemen,  does  not 
the  city  in  which  you  are  assembled  possess 
a  valiant  army  of  charitable  ladies,  who 
never  shrink  from  their  labors,  even  before 
the  Five  Points  ? 

VI.  This  simplicity  of  action,  considered 
good  for  the  apostles'  days,  was,  of  course, 
insufficient  when  men  endeavored  to  improve 
the  Gospel,  and  Avhen  the  great  Romish 
mechanism  was  organized.     Then  appeared 
the  monastic  orders.    I  do  not  intend  to  give 
you  their  history ;  I  only  make  the  follow- 
ing statement :  The  Protestant  Sisters  of 
Charity,  who  are  so  numerous  iu  Europe, 
and  whom  it  is  wished  to  introduce  among 
you,  are  modeled  upon  the  Roman  Catholic 
sisterhoods.    I  know  what  are  the  differences 
which  exist  between  the  Roman  Catholic 
and  the  Protestant  sisters.    I  know  also  that 
the  similarities  exceed  the  differences,  and 
that  the  latter  are  more  apparent  than  real. 
Do  not  imagine  that  I  allow  myself  to  be 
carried  away  by  a  spirit  of  malevolence.     I 
sincerely  respect  the  Protestant  sisters,  and 
their  devotedness.     Among  the  founders  of 
these  new  institutions  I  have  friends  and  rel- 
atives ;  and  I  understand  the  impulse  upon 
which  they  act  so  much  the  better  because 
I  began  by  giving  way  to  it  myself,  and  by 
encouraging  the  work.     I  have  therefore, 
perhaps,  the  right  to  hope  that  my  opinion, 
which  is  the  result  of  a  serious  and  consci- 
entious examination  of  the  subject,  will  be 
of  some  weight  in  the  eyes  of  impartial  men. 

VII.  In  the  first  place,  I  notice  that  the 
title  of  deaconess  is  misapplied  to  the  Sisters 
of  Charity  in  question.     Only  one  deaconess 
— Phoebe — is  spoken  of  in  the  writings  of 
the  apostles;  and  assuredly  nothing  can  au- 
thorize us  to  suppose  that  she  belonged  to  a 
corporation,  governed  by  principles  entirely 
contrary  to  those  which  regulated  the  oth- 
er offices  in  the  primitive  Church.    We  may 
gather  from  analogy  that  the  duties  of  the 
deaconess  were  similar  to  those  of  the  dea- 
con.    She  fulfilled  the  same  requirements, 
at  once  so  simple  and  so  large,  and  which  so 
decidedly  maintain  the  established  order  of 
existence.     "Let  the  deacons  be  the  hus- 
bands of  one  wife,  ruling  their  children  and 
their  own  houses  well"  (1  Timothy  iii.,  12). 
Nothing  here  indicates  a  state  of  service 


which  would  place  those  engaged  in  it  out- 
side the  pale  of  ordinary  existence,  and  un- 
der an  authority  entirely  free  to  dispose  of 
their  persons. 

It  is  worthy  of  remark  that  the  true 
Church  deaconesses  still  exist.  The  little 
Free  Church  to  which  I  belong  elects  not 
only  elders  and  deacons,  but  deaconesses 
also.  The  latter — who  may  bo  either  sin- 
gle, married,  or  widows — attend  specially  to 
the  visiting  of  the  sick  and  the  poor.  They 
act  in  concert  with,  and  are  upheld  by  the 
Church,  and  in  difficult  cases  have  recourse 
to  its  advice.  The  life  they  lead  is  like  that 
of  every  one  else.  Lastly,  their  exertions  do 
not  prevent  the  manifestation  of  individual 
charity  any  more  than  do  those  of  the  dea- 
cons. They  have  a  household  to  superintend, 
children  to  bring  up,  and  they  are  not,  like 
the  sisters,  so  special  a  personification  of 
charity  that  one  feels  authorized  to  leave 
the  exclusive  care  of  it  to  them.  The  follow- 
ing historical  fact  is  also  worthy  of  observa- 
tion :  The  Puritan  refugees  at  Leyden  drew 
up,  under  the  direction  of  their  Pastor,  Rob- 
inson, a  remarkable  system  of  Church  gov- 
ernment, which  contains  the  germ  of  several 
of  the  great  improvements  since  realized  by 
America.  By  this  constitution  five  offices 
were  established  in  the  Church,  and  the  sub- 
jects of  the  fifth  class,  who  came  after  the 
elders,  doctors,  evangelists,  and  deacons,  were 
the  deaconesses — that  is,  our  own  Bible  dea- 
conesses. On  this  point,  as  on  many  others, 
the  Puritans  walked  in  the  footsteps  of  the 
apostles ;  and  imitated  that  simplicity  so 
fruitful  in  its  effects,  and  which  alone  pre- 
serves from  error. 

VIII.  We  here  meet  with  an  objection.  By 
my  own  confession,  it  will  be  urged,  neither 
the  Church  deaconesses  nor  individual  char- 
ity will  suffice  in  certain  emergencies.  I 
have  myself  acknowledged  the  necessity  of 
training  persons  specially  qualified  for  the 
work.  Will  not  this  bring  us  back  to  the 
institutions  recently  founded,  and  to  the  sis- 
terhoods ? 

For  a  time  such  may  have  been  the  con- 
clusion. Many  a  true  Christian  was  con- 
vinced that,  except  by  copying  Rome,  it  was 
as  impossible  to  find  devoted  nurses  as  to 
organize  well-regulated  hospitals;  and  yet 
the  want  of  such  nurses  was  unceasingly 
felt.  But  now  experience  has  given  iu  its 
verdict.  Recent  facts  have  plainly  proved 
that  we  need  not  borrow  from  Rome's  adul- 
terated Christianity,  and  that  a  pious  nurse, 
under  the  guidance  of  the  pure  Gospel,  ful- 
fills the  duties  of  her  vocation  far  better 
than  if  she  were  enslaved  by  conventional 
regulations.  To  mention  only  one  exam- 
ple :  For  twelve  years*  an  establishment  for 
training  nurses  has  been  in  existence  at  Lau- 
sanne, in  Switzerland.  Twice  a  year,  after 
having  given  serious  proofs  of  their  piety 
*  Fourteen  at  the  present  moment. 


GASPARIN :  THE  CAEE  OF  THE  SICK. 


685 


and  call  to  the  work,  eight  pupils  are  admit- 
ted. For  five  months  they  receive  lessons 
in  the  theory  of  nursing,  and,  above  all,  go 
through  a  practical  training,  paying  visits 
to  the  hospital,  sitting  up  -with  the  sick  at 
night,  and  watching  by  their  bedsides  in  the 
daytime.  A  serious  examination  before  com- 
petent judges  terminates  their  apprentice- 
ship ;  and  brevets,  according  to  their  differ- 
ent abilities  and  acquirements,  are  given  to 
the  pupils,  who  are  then  placed  either  in 
our  Protestant  hospitals,  or  as  independent 
nurses  in  different  cities  and  villages.  Some 
are  employed  by  the  Church,  others  by  some 
charitable  institution  —  all,  in  a  word,  are 
actively  engaged.  The  work  is  one  of  liber- 
ty, and,  therefore,  with  the  apprenticeship 
ceases  the  superintendence.  The  most  friend- 
ly intercourse  is  kept  up  between  the  head 
of  the  establishment  and  the  pupils.  He 
aids  and  protects  them  with  pleasure ;  but 
there  his  control  is  at  an  end ;  their  inde- 
pendence is  respected,  and  each  of  them  goes 
her  own  way  upon  her  own  responsibility. 
If  continual  superintendence,  the  "sine  qua 
non"  of  the  sisterhoods,  is  not  indispensa- 
ble, that  celibacy  de  facto,  which  not  only 
characterizes  them,  but  is  their  very  essence 
and  bond  of  union,  is,  of  course,  not  indis- 
pensable either.  The  nurses  in  the  school 
at  Lausanne  are  single,  married,  or  widows. 
There  is  scarcely  a  class  in  which  these  three 
descriptions  of  persons  are  not  represented. 

Need  I  say  they  are  distinguished  by  no 
particular  dress.  Often  during  their  five 
months'  residence  at  the  establishment,  per- 
sons of  different  classes  in  society  are  thrown 
together.  It  might  seem  necessary  to  adopt 
a  special  costume  in  order  to  prevent  un- 
comfortable feeling,  and  to  obliterate  cer- 
tain differences.  But  this  uncomfortable  feel- 
ing has  never  existed,  and  the  differences 
are  looked  upon  as  perfectly  natural.  The 
young  lady  and  the  peasant  girl — both  neat- 
ly dressed,  and  in  a  way  suitable  to  their 
respective  positions  —  have  always  worked 
together  in  Christian  harmony,  and  no  so- 
cial difficulties  have  arisen  in  their  minds 
by  contrasting  the  fine  material  and  elegant 
cut  of  the  lady's  dress  with  the  coarse  stuff 
gown  of  the  peasant. 

No  one  thinks  of  giving  them  any  other 
name  than  that  of  their  noble  profession. 
They  are  nurses,  not  sisters ;  or,  rather,  they 
are  sisters  in  the  truly  Scriptural  and  en- 
larged sense  of  the  word.  It  is  the  Romish 
system,  with  its  classifications  so  contrary 
to  the  Gospel,  its  different  grades  of  sanctity, 
its  priests  and  monks  accounted  nearer  to 
God  than  ordinary  Christians,  which  has  de- 
'prived  the  latter  of  their  family  name — of 
the  title  which  belongs  to  all  the  members 
of  Christ's  body  —  and  has  bestowed  it  on 
the  religious  orders  as  their  exclusive  privi- 
lege. 

The  pupils  of  the  Lausanne  school,  in  re- 


pudiating a  particular  dress,  feel  that  He 
who  commands  us  not  to  let  "  our  right  hand 
know  what  our  left  hand  doeth,"  does  not 
call  us  to  proclaim  our  good  works  by  out- 
ward signs,  and  they  are  resolved  not  to  at- 
tract attention  or  solicit  respect  by  wearing 
a  badge  of  their  consecration.  The  same  hu- 
mility is  evidenced  in  their  setting  aside  the 
prestige  Avhich  accompanies  nursing  when 
apparently  gratuitous.  When  our  nurses 
leave  the  school,  they  earn  their  own  liveli- 
hood, and  receive  a  modest  remuneration  for 
their  services. 

We  live  so  much  under  the  influence  of 
that  false  sanctity  invented  by  the  Church 
of  Rome,  and  it  seems  so  necessary  to  us  that 
our  self-denial  should  be  seen  and  known, 
that  wo  look  upon  a  salary,  if  not  as  a  dis- 
honor, at  least  as  despicable,  vulgar,  and  in- 
compatible with  fervent  consecration  to 
God's  service.  This  refinement  of  self-de- 
nial was  unknown  to  the  apostles.  They 
were  too  siugla-eyed  and  too  upright  to  im- 
agine such  a  thing.  "  The  workman,"  said 
they,  "is  worthy  of  his  hire;"  and  they  even 
commanded  that  certain  elders  "should  be 
counted  worthy  of  double  honor." 

Do  we  not  take  it  as  a  matter  of  course 
that  magistrates,  clergymen,  missionaries 
should  be  paid  ?  Yet,  when  charitable  cor- 
porations are  concerned,  Romish  traditions 
reappear,  with  the  tenacity  which  charac- 
terizes erroneous  notions,  and  a  modest,  law- 
ful remuneration,  sanctioned  by  the  Gospel, 
appears  to  us  a  humiliation.  Besides,  gen- 
tlemen, that  gratuitous  nursing,  so  greatly 
honored,  as  practiced  by  some  associations, 
does  not  really  exist.*  The  board  and  lodg- 
ing of  the  sisters  are  the  expense  of  those 
who  employ  them,  and  when  their  labors  are 
ended,  a  pension  which  will  secure  them 
against  want,  and  provide  for  them  in  case 
of  sickness,  fatigue  from  over-work,  or  in- 
firmity, is  guaranteed  them  till  death.  The 
slight  remuneration  which  our  nurses  re- 
ceive is  far  from  being  equivalent  to  this. 

We  desire  only  to  go  back  to  true  evan- 
gelical simplicity,  and  to  have  done  with 
that  pompous,  noisy  self-denial  in  which 
Rome  is  so  skillful,  and  which  she  has  organ- 
ized so  artfully.  All  special  appellations 
and  special  dresses  are  set  aside,  pretended 
gratuitous  service  disappears ;  but  what 
remains  is  a  true,  modest,  unostentatious 
devotedness,  and  that  suffices  us. 

We  may  add  that  persons  in  comfortable 
circumstances  have  often  been  numbered 
among  the  pupils.  Their  time  of  probation 
over,  they  devote  themselves  to  the  care  of 


*  It  is  easy  to  have  the  poor  gratuitously  nursed  by 
the  formation  of  a  special  committee,  which  takes  into 
its  service  one  or  more  nurse?,  and  sends  them  to  the 
necessitous  at  its  own  expense.  Snch  a  committee  ex- 
ists at  Lausanne.  At  other  places  unassuming  private 
associations  engage  a  nurse,  and  employ  her  as  need 
requires. 


CHRISTIANITY  AND  SOCIAL  REFORMS. 


the  sick,  of  course  without  accepting  a  re- 
nmueratiou  which  they  do  not  need.  But 
you  may  be  sure  that  while  acting  thus, 
they  do  not  for  a  moment  suppose  that  their 
gratuitous  service  is  more  acceptable  than 
the  requited  labors  of  their  poorer  compan- 
ions, who  are  less  favored,  but  quite  as  de- 
voted to  the  Lord.* 

IX.  If  I  have  dwelt  at  some  length  on  the 
Lausanne  institution — assuredly  a  most  un- 
assuming one — it  is  because  it  furnishes  the 
demonstration  of  many  disputed  truths.  It 
proves  that  in  their  care  of  the  sick  Chris- 
tians need  not  borrow  from  the  Church  of 
Rome,  and  that  the  Gospel,  in  its  simplicity, 
possesses  a  power  upon  which  we  do  not  suf- 
ficiently reckon. 

Less  organization  and  more  life ;  an  ap- 
peal to  free,  individual  action ;  the  develop- 
ment of  the  fund  of  strength  which  faith 
puts  at  the  disposal  of  charity — such  is  our 
programme. 

Instead  of  speaking  to  you  of  a  small 
Swiss  establishment,  I  ought  to  have  put  be- 
fore yon  the  noble  example  set  us  by  Amer- 
ica. During  the  civil  war,  who  nursed  the 
sick  and  wounded  soldiers  ?  Who  founded 
those  admirable  asylums  —  those  soldiers' 
homes  scattered  along  the  route  from  Wash- 
ington to  Texas  ?  Who  made  those  asylums 
so  happy  that  the  poor  soldiers  felt  as  if  they 
were  breathiug  the  air  of  home?  Who  found- 
ed that  wonderful  organization,  the  Sanitary 
Commission  ?  Who  collected  all  the  dona- 
tions— not  only  money,  linen,  and  lint,  but 
garments,  wine,  cordials,  books,  paper,  games, 
flowers  and  fruits,  the  perfume  and  flavor  of 
which  reminded  the  sufferers  of  their  native 
village?  You  know  as  •well  as  I  do — the 
American  women  (for  in  such  cases  women 
play  the  chief  part)  devoted  themselves — 
they  set  charity  by  proxy  on  one  side.  They 
wrote  letters  for  the  wounded  soldiers,  their 
tender  hands  administered  to  their  wants, 
they  surrounded  them  with  comforts,  nay, 
with  luxuries  and  delicacies  such  as  a  wom- 
an's heart  alone  can  devise.  My  friend,  Mr. 
Laboulaye,  in  a  work  which  is  in  every  one's 


*  The  superintendents  of  the  Lausanne  training- 
school  are  parents— Mr.  and  Mrs.  Reymond ;  the  fam- 
ily circle  ha?,  therefore,  only  been  widened.  Mr.  Rey- 
mond is  an  established  Christian,  highly  gifted  for  the 
work.  His  lectures  are  greatly  appreciated,  his  power 
of  penetration  is  remarkable,  and  his  character  is  most 
amiable.  All  this  peculiarly  fits  him  to  develop  the 
minds  of  his  pupils.  He  brings  to  his  work  extreme 
delicacy  of  conscience,  all  the  kindness  of  an  upright 
tender  heart,  aud  all  the  experience  he  has  acquired 
by  the  bedsides  of  the  sick  and  in  the  houses  of  the 
poor.  Lastly,  the  establishment  possesses,  in  the  per- 
son of  Dr.  Jain,  a  professor  whose  learned  lectures, 
adorned  sometimes  by  flashes  of  wit — the  fruit  of  a 
mind  at  once  original  aud  acute,  and  fed  by  the  assid- 
nous  study  of  the  discoveries  daily  made  in  the  med- 
ical world— not  only  captivate  the  pupils  instructed 
by  them,  but  attracts  a  good  number  of  externs,  happy 
to  acquire  knowledge  which  finds  immediate  use  in 
the  service  of  charity. 


hands,  has  given  our  European  world  the 
history  of  the  "Hospital  Days:"  the  diary 
of  a  lady  who  during  the  war  was  at  the 
head  of  the  Fairfax  Hospital,  near  Washing- 
ton.* He  has  told  us  also  of  Mrs.  Barlow. 
On  her  wedding-day  she  started  for  the  army 
with  her  husband.  Mr.  Barlow  was  elevated 
to  the  rank  of  General.  Each  new  campaign 
saw  Mrs.  Barlow  at  her  post  in  the  hospitals, 
aud  at  length  she  died  in  her  work  under 
the  walls  of  Petersburg.  What'  a  union! 
How  noble,  though  brief,  was  their  married 
life !  Is  not  that  an  example  of  true  devoted- 
ness,  of  supremo  consecration,  of  the  care  of 
the  sick  practiced  in  simplicity  and  by  the 
power  of  Christ  f 

During  the  American  struggle  the  Central 
Association  of  women  for  the  succor  of  the 
wounded  collected  a  vast  amount  of  money. 

It  enlisted  quite  an  army  of  devoted  la- 
dies. And  the  work  accomplished  by  women 
should  not  cause  ns  to  lose  sight  of  that  car- 
ried on  by  the  men,  particularly  the  great 
activity  displayed  by  the  Young  Men's  Chris- 
tian Associations. 

I  call  your  attention  to  these  particulars, 
gentlemen,  although  they  are  well-known  to 
you,  because  they  prove  unquestionably  that 
sisterhoods  are  not  needed  in  your  midst, 
and  that  their  absence  has  been  the  cause  of 
no  drawbacks. 

Have  our  hospitals  full  of  sisters  been 
any  where  crowned  with  such  success  as 
your  temporary  barracks  attended  by  the 
volunteers  of  charity  —  as  those  spacious, 
well-aired  buildings  from  which  the  typhus 
and  scurvy  were  excluded,  and  where  the 
bill  of  mortality  was  far  lower  than  could 
ever  have  been  expected  ?  There  improve- 
ment succeeded  improvement,  thanks  to 
wonders  of  intelligence  and  kindness,  such 
as  the  best  regulated  systems  will  never  pro- 
duce. Life  is  a  great  teacher,  liberty  is  a 
great  discoverer.  Through  its  influence  vast 
hospitals  breathing  infection  and  death  were 
replaced  by  small  asylums  in  sunny  situa- 
tions. By  its  hand  gardens  were  planted, 
vegetables  cultivated,  flowers  made  to  blos- 
som ;  its  care  constructed  steamers  and  cars 
specially  adapted  for  the  conveyance  of  the 
wounded,  and,  what  is  still  better,  it  sur- 
rounded the  sufferers  with  solicitude  and 
love,  and  with  that  feeling  of  home  under 
the  influence  of  which  the  heart  warms  and 
the  body  is  healed. 

We  have  left  far  behind  us  wholesale 
charity — that  charity  always  more  or  less 
hackneyed  and  professional  which  charac- 
terizes the  most  sincere  and  devoted  cor- 
porations. 

X.  It  appears  to  me,  gentlemen,  that  the' 
conclusions  of  this  rapid  sketch  are  self-evi- 
dent. We  have  to  choose  between  the  two 


*  I  do  not  know  whether  it  is  allowable  to  name 
Miss  Jane  Stuart  Woolsey,  but  I  venture  to  do  so  iu 
this  note. 


GASPARIN:  THE  CARE  OF  THE  SICK. 


687 


tendencies  which  divide  the  history  of  Chris- 
tendom iuto  two  very  unequal  parts.  On 
one  side  are  those  mechanical  systems  so 
skillfully  organized  by  the  Romish  Church — 
hospitals  innumerable,  almsgiving  exclusive- 
ly in  the  hands  of  charitable  associations, 
corporations  signalized  to  public  respect  by 
their  dress,  their  title,  their  gratuitous  serv- 
ice, by  the  practice  of  celibacy,  by  devoted- 
ness  in  regimentals,  subservient  to  the  will 
of  a  central  superintendence,  and  marching 
with  that  uniformity  which  is  produced  by 
the  abdication  of  independence.  On  the 
other  side  we  see  individuals  in  full  posses- 
sion of  their  liberty,  the  care  of  the  sick  and 
the  poor  confided  to  the  spontaneous  activ- 
ity of  Christian  love,  each  child  of  God 
placed  before  his  duty,  and  unable  to  set  it 
aside  under  pretext  of  giving  it  up  to  more 
skillful  hands,  the  Gospel  the  sole  teacher, 
the  apostles'  example  the  sole  constitution. 
You  will  have  seen,  moreover,  that  this  lib- 
erty is  perfectly  consistent  with  decorum. 
Nothing  can  be  better  than  that  there  should 
be  Church  deaconesses  as  well  as  deacons, 
leading  the  life  of  ordinary  Christians.  Noth- 
ing can  be  better  than  that  intelligent,  able 
nurses,  who  will  exercise  their  noble  profes- 
sion with  as  much  experience  and  skill  as 
love,  should  be  trained.  Let  people  de- 
vise the  best  means  and  ways,  distribute 
among  themselves  the  care  of  poor  families, 
agree  to  prevent  abuses,  and  endeavor  to 
establish  between  employer  and  employed 
that  enlightened  and  direct  intercourse 
which  is  alone  productive  of  good — to  such 
proceedings  there  can  be  no  objection.  In 
times  of  great  extremity  let  extra  opportu- 
nities for  service  be  given  and  multiplied,  as 
was  the  case  in  the  United  States  during  the 
civil  war — for  such  activity  there  is  an  evi- 
dent necessity.  But  all  this  is  organization 
in  independence,  order  in  liberty.  Liberty ! 
Ah,  let  us  not  weaken  that  vital  principle 
which  the  Gospel  has  given  to  us.  Is  it  not 
our  duty  as  evangelical  Christians  to  work, 
to  fight,  to  bo  exempt  from  the  fulfillment  of 
no  one  duty  f 

"  See  how  these  Christians  love  one  an- 
other," was  once  said  of  the  disciples  of  the 
Saviour.  May  the  time  soon  come  when  we 
shall  constrain  the  world  to  exclaim  with 
regard  to  us,  "  See  how  they  love  one  an- 
other." 

Such  is  the  true  solution  of  Christian  phi- 
lanthropy; its  special  application  will  be- 
come clearer  and  clearer  to  us  by  practice. 
That  charity  which  is  true,  lively,  free,  and 
individual  will  discover  it;  she  will  be  ready 
for  each  day's  necessities,  however  serious 
and  diversified  the  circumstances  which  may 
arise.  The  important  thing  is  the  principle. 
It  is  so  much  the  more  necessary  to  main- 
tain it,  because  Rome,  that  personification 
of  progressive  departure  from  the  Gospel, 
will  ever  tempt  us  to  copy  her  charitable  in- 


stitutions after  modifying  them  for  our  own 
use.  Her  mechanical  organizations,  so  clev- 
erly got  up  and  possessed  of  all  the  prestige 
of  popularity  and  success,  must  be  avoided 
by  us. 

Let  us,  gentlemen,  have  courage  to  up- 
hold our  principles;  let  us  have  faith  in 
the  power  of  truth  and  love.  And  if  Rome 
hold  up  before  us  her  Sisters  of  Charity, 
we  will  hold  up  before  her  our  Churches  of 
Charity. 

XI.  In  fulfilling  the  delicate  task  imposed 
on  me,  I  hope  I  have  been  faithful  to  the  pa- 
cific, brotherly  spirit  of  the  Evangelical  Al- 
liance. The  endeavor  has  been  easy,  for  my 
heart  contains  nothing  but  feelings  of  affec- 
tion and  profound  respect  for  the  devoted 
brethren  who  have  founded  the  Protestant 
sisterhoods.  I  am  persuaded  that,  far  from 
seeking  to  imitate  Rome,  it  has  been  their 
earnest  wish  to  serve  the  Protestant  cause 
by  clearing  it  of  the  reproach  of  callousness, 
by  putting  an  end  to  a  state  of  inferiority 
from  which  its  honor  was  suffering.  We  had, 
indeed,  a  gap  to  fill  up ;  our  sick  were  often 
without  the  Christian  love  and  care  they 
need  so  much.  And  let  us  acknowledge  that 
many  suffering  beings  have  met  with  tender 
care,  and  many  souls  have  found  peace  and 
salvation  in  the  hospitals  superintended  by 
sisters. 

I  even  go  further.  "We,  who  are  the  adver- 
saries of  a  system  which  our  consciences  con- 
demn, are  indebted  to  these  institutions,  for 
we  have  been  roused  to  action  by  the  very 
error  we  combat.  If  we  train  pious  nurses, 
is  it  not  for  the  honor  of  the  truth  and  of 
the  simplicity  that  is  in  Christ  ?  Is  it  not 
that  all  may  clearly  see  the  absolute  suf- 
ficiency of  a  pure  Gospel  in  the  domain  of 
Christian  activity,  as  in  matters  of  faith  and 
doctrine?  Let  us  not  be  unmindful  of  the 
service  thus  rendered  us.  The  argument  of 
necessity,  which  was  the  basis  of  the  sister- 
hoods, has  collapsed  before  the  evidence  of 
facts.  Facts  have  shown  that  there  may  be 
a  real  call  to  service,  and  a  holy  consecration 
to  the  relief  of  suffering,  without  the  help 
either  of  corporations,  or  of  superintendence, 
or  of  distinction  of  dress,  or  of  celibacy. 

In  bringing  a  controverted  question  thus 
openly  before  you,  the  committee  who  pre- 
pared the  meeting  of  the  Alliance  have  given 
proofs  of  a  faith  truly  American  in  its  hardi- 
hood and  firmness. 

Your  committee  was  right,  gentlemen ; 
our  unity  fears  not  to  come  to  the  light. 
There  can  be  no  real  unity  if  discussion  is 
avoided,  and  only  in  proportion  as  the  mani- 
festation of  diversity  is  allowed,  can  it  be 
solid. 

Compare  with  that  false  unity,  boasted  of 
by  Rome,  the  unity  of  our  Evangelical  Alli- 
ance, in  which  there  is  room  for  the  free  as- 
pirations of  all  hearts  filled  with  the  love  of 
Christ,  and  for  the  unimpeded  soaring  of  all 


CHRISTIANITY  AND  SOCIAL  REFORMS. 


understandings  penetrated  by  the  same  Holy 
Spirit. 

Rome  decrees  dogmas  which  she  imposes 
on  all — at  one  time  the  Immaculate  Con- 
ception, at  another  the  Papal  Infallibility. 
If  these  dogmas  wound  the  conscience,  it 
must  bo  silenced.  If  the  Bible  raise  its 
voice,  it  must  be  closed.  If  common-sense, 
convictions,  truth  should  object,  common- 
sense  must  be  set  aside,  convictions  must  be 
ignored,  truth  must  be  smothered,  and  Rome's 
disciples  must  walk  on  blindfolded  in  the 
dark  night  of  Roman  unity. 

We  desire  no  such  artificial  uniformity — 
no  such  bondage.  We  seek  after  liberty  and 
truth,  in  an  open  Bible  and  with  awakened 
consciences.  Yes !  truth  is  our  aim.  Truth 
is  the  subject  of  our  earnest  supplications  at 
the  throne  of  grace,  the  object  of  our  most 
intense  desires. 

Diversities  arise  precisely  because  our  un- 
ion is  real,  because  it  is  strengthened  by  an 


ardent,  persevering  search  after  truth,  and 
because  each  aspiration  after  truth  draws 
the  bond  closer.  They  arise  because  we  have 
a  horror  of  those  expedient  falsehoods  which 
do  violence  to  the  conscience,  and  for  that 
very  reason  destroy  union.  They  arise  be- 
cause we  all  desire  to  possess  that  faith 
which  is  honest,  upright,  and  always  accom- 
panied by  a  good  conscience.  Our  union — 
which  has  nothing  to  conceal,  which  knows 
neither  constraint  nor  reticence — loses  noth- 
ing by  being  thus  brought  into  contact  with 
liberty. 

As  the  children  of  one  God,  the  redeemed 
of  one  Saviour,  the  disciples  of  one  Holy 
Spirit,  and  as  obedient  to  one  Gospel,  do  we 
not  see  the  hour  drawing  near  when  our  Re- 
deemer's prayer  shall  be  fulfilled:  "That 
they  all  may  be  one ;  as  thou,  Father,  art  in 
me,  and  I  in  thee,  that  they  also  may  be  one 
in  us :  that  the  world  may  believe  that  thou 
hast  sent  me  I" 


INTEMPEKANCE  AND  ITS  SUPPKESSIOK 


BY  THE  REV.  HENRY  A.  NELSON,  D.D., 

Professor  in  Lane  Theological  Seminary,  Cincinnati,  Ohio. 


THE  earth  was  riot  yet  dry  from  the  wa- 
ters of  the  deluge  TV  hen  the  mischief  and  the 
shame  of  drunkenness  first  appeared.  In 
the  evening  of  its  nineteenth  century,  Chris- 
tianity finds  intemperance  still  a  giant  evil 
oppressing  the  human  race. 

No  age,  no  land,  no  people  have  been  free 
from  its  miseries — from  its  fearful  aggrava- 
tion of  all  miseries.  It  every  where  con- 
fronts the  active  philanthropy  of  this  age, 
opposing  its  beneficent  progress,  obstructing 
every  good  endeavor  to  ameliorate  the  con- 
dition of  mankind.  The  Christian  Church 
finds  it  every  where  a  hiuderance  to  the 
spread  of  the  Gospel — an  obstruction  to  the 
entrance  of  sanctifying  truth  into  the  hearts 
of  men — a  seducing  and  corrupting  power, 
making  humiliating  and  destructive  en- 
croachments even  within  her  own  inclosure. 

Not  unfitly  has  this  representative  coun- 
cil of  Protestant  Christendom  appointed  this 
as  a  theme  for  deliberation. 

INTEMPERANCE  AND  ITS  SUPPRESSION. 

The  form  of  the  title  by  which  the  Com- 
mittee assigned  this  topic  is  significant  of 
the  spirit  which  characterizes  the  Christian- 
ity of  our  age.  The  Church  of  Christ,  recov- 
ering her  consciousness  of  unity  in  him,  re- 
covers also  her  consciousness  of  his  power 
residing  in  her,  his  body,  and  designed  by 
him  to  go  forth  from  her  into  and  through 
human  society.  She  strives  to  realize  the 
unity  for  which,  in  sympathy  with  her  Head, 
she  longs  and  prays — not  alone  by  investi- 
gation and  contemplation  of  truth,  seeking 
to  find  acceptable  and  intelligible  words  for 
the  statement  of  the  truth  —  but  also,  and 
eminently,  by  uniting  her  members  in  the 
common  work  of  her  Lord,  realizing  a  union 
of  beneficent  and  holy  activity. 

Contemplating  the  actual  evils  which  op- 
pose themselves  to  the  salvation  in  which 
she  believes,  she  proposes  to  herself,  in  her 
Lord's  name  and  strength,  nothing  short  of 
the  suppression  of  them.  She  devoutly  be- 
lieves that  "  for  this  purpose  the  Son  of  God 
Avas  manifested,  that  he  might  destroy  the 
works  of  the  devil."  She  expects  that  her 
own  right  and  successful  manifestation  of 
him  will  have  this  effect.  If  the  evil  works 
of  the  Evil  One  can  prosper  and  prevail  in 
her  presence,  she  justly  apprehends  that  she 
lacks  his  power  and  his  indwelling.  As  she 
44 


becomes  more  devoutly  and  thankfully  con- 
scious of  his  indwelling,  she  the  more  confi- 
dently trusts  that  his  virtue  will  go  out  of 
her  for  the  healing  of  the  world's  sicknesses. 

Scarcely  does  the  evil  of  which  we  treat 
need  definition.  A  term  of  general  import 
and  various  application,  implying  excess  of 
indulgence  or  lack  of  suitable  self-regula- 
tion, INTEMPERANCE,  has  long  ago  come  to 
the  more  specific  signification  which  points 
to  indulgence  in  the  direction  of  inebriety. 
This  philological  fact  is  highly  suggestive 
of  the  pre-eminence  which  this  form  of  vi- 
cious indulgence  has  attained,  of  its  wide 
prevalence,  and  of  its  fearful  effects. 

These  effects — the  morbid  conditions  of 
the  body,  the  enfeebling  and  debasement  of 
the  intellect,  the  debauching  of  the  moral 
nature,  the  hardening  of  the  heart,  the  blight- 
ing of  all  pure  affections,  the  aggravation  of 
every  impure  and  unholy  impulse,  the  utter 
desolation  of  home,  the  multiplication  of 
crimes,  the  loading  of  society  with  burdens 
of  taxation,  and  the  enfeebling  of  society  by 
enervating  vices,  the  hopeless  ruin  of  souls 
by  rendering  them  incapable  of  receiving 
the  Gospel — these  are  too  well  known  every 
where  to  all  thoughtful  and  observant  men. 

Indulgence  in  intoxicating  drinks  —  in- 
dulgence of  that  appetite  and  of  those  con- 
vivial practices  which  tend  to  drunkenness 
— this  is  unquestionably  the  form  of  self-in- 
dulgence to  the  consideration  of  which  this 
hour  is  devoted,  and  which  the  Committee 
have  indicated  by  the  word  intemperance,  in 
accordance  with  the  usage,  now  well  estab- 
lished, of  the  language  in  which  the  discus- 
sion is  to  be  conducted. 

I  shall  speak,  first,  of  the  efforts  which 
have  been  made  in  past  years  for  the  sup- 
pression of  this  evil. 

The  wise  men  of  all  ages  have  recognized 
drunkenness  as  a  vice,  and  have  warned  their 
contemporaries  against  it.  It  has  always 
been  understood  that  the  expressed  juices 
of  certain  fruits,  especially  the  grape,  become 
capable,  not  only  of  gratifying  the  palate, 
but  of  producing  exhilaration ;  and  that,  if 
this  exhilaration  is  prolonged,  it  will  give 
place  to  sottish  prostration  of  all  the  powers 
both  of  body  and  mind.  It  has  also  been 
understood  that  such  intoxication  operates 
as  an  incentive  to  crime,  to  lust — to  what- 
ever is  debasing  to  the  individual  and  de- 


690 


CHRISTIANITY  AND  SOCIAL  REFORMS. 


structive  to  the  family  and  to  society.  At 
the  same  time,  it  was  believed  that  moder- 
ate degrees  of  that  exhilaration  might  pru- 
dently be  enjoyed,  while  all  hurtful  excess 
of  the  indulgence  should  be  avoided.  With 
this  view  men  were  warned  against  excess; 
were  exhorted  to  set  rational  limits  to  their 
indulgence ;  to  restrain  convivial  enjoyment 
within  such  bounds  as  experience  might 
show  to  be  safe.  The  drinking  of  wine  was 
placed  in  the  same  category  with  the  eating 
of  fooxl ;  moderate  indulgence  was  allowed, 
excess  was  stigmatized  as  shameful,  harm- 
ful, sinful. 

The  art  of  distilling  spirits  greatly  in- 
creased the  evils  of  intemperance,  by  fur- 
nishing liquors  iu  which  the  intoxicating 
principle  is  much  more  concentrated,  and 
which  could  be  produced  in  much  greater 
abundance  and  cheapness.  These  liquors  be- 
came known  under  the  general  designation 
of  ardent  spirits — a  name  fearfully  significant 
of  their  h'ery  energy,  their  withering  and 
consuming  power. 

The  evils  and  miseries  which  resulted  from 
the  use  of  these  liquors  were  engaging  the 
attention  of  Christian  and  philanthropic 
men  in  the  early  years  of  this  century  more 
widely  and  more  earnestly  than  ever  before. 
Those  evils  were  ascribed  to  the  excessive  and 
immoderate  use  of  such  liquors.  Christian 
ministers  and  ecclesiastical  bodies,  teachers 
and  physicians,  counseled  moderation  in  the 
use  of  spirituous  liquors ;  and  temperance 
societies  were  formed  for  the  purpose  of  sup- 
pressing "  the  too  free  use  of  ardent  spirits." 
In  a  sermon  preached  "  at  the  General  Elec- 
tion, Hartford,  Conn.,  May,  1807,"  the  Rev. 
Amos  Bartlett  forcibly  said :  "  Through  the 
frantic  influence  of  these  spirits,  rational  be- 
ings are  transformed  into  furies ;  the  peace 
of  society  is  broken,  and  many  crimes  are 
wantonly  committed.  To  procure  this  liquid 
poison,  families  of  the  poor  are  deprived  of 
their  necessary  food  and  clothing ;  and  not 
a  season  passes  in  which  many  victims  are 
not  registered  in  the  bills  of  mortality."  Yet 
this  vigorous  and  earnest  preacher  proposed 
nothing  more  radical  than  efforts  to  prevent 
the  "  excessive  use  of  spirituous  liquors." 

Not  long  after  this,  the  idea  began  to  pre- 
vail that  total  abstinence  is  necessary  for 
those  who  have  once  been  addicted  to  in- 
temperate drinking.  Dr.  Rush,  of  Philadel- 
phia, said  :  "  My  observation  authorizes  me 
to  say  that  persons  who  have  been  addicted 
to  the  use  of  spirits  should  abstain  from  it 
suddenly  and  entirely.  'Taste  not,  touch  not, 
handle  not,'  should  be  inscribed  npon  every 
vessel  that  contains  spirits  in  the  house  of  a 
man  who  desires  to  be  cured  of  intemper- 
ance." 

In  the  course  of  the  third  decade  of  this 
century,  many  friends  of  temperance  adopt- 
ed the  opinion  that  total  abstinence  from  ar- 
dent spirits  not  only  is  necessary  for  the  re- 


covery of  the  intemperate,  but  is  a  prudent 
safeguard  against  the  formation  of  intem- 
perate habits ;  that  it  involves  the  sacrifice 
of  no  real  good ;  and  that  benevolent  regard 
for  the  safety  and  welfare  of  others  demand* 
it  of  those  who  are  not  sensible  of  any  dan- 
ger to  themselves.  This  conviction  soon  led 
to  the  formation  of  societies  whose  bond  of 
union  was  the  mutual  pledge  of  their  mem- 
bers to  abstain  entirely  from  the  use  of  ar- 
dent spirits  as  a  beverage  Such  societies, 
although  meeting  with  much  opposition,  not 
only  from  the  intemperate,  but  from  con- 
servative friends  of  temperance,  who  regard- 
ed that  movement  as  extravagant  and  fa- 
natical, nevertheless  rapidly  extended  their 
influeuce,  and  enrolled  large  numbers  in 
their  membership.  It  can  not  reasonably  be 
disputed  that  large  numbers  yet  living,  and 
many  who  have  gone  from  this  world,  have 
been  preserved  from  temptation  to  intem- 
perance by  means  of  that  pledge  taken  in 
their  early  youth. 

The  popular  movement  was  rapidly  pro- 
gressive ;  and  when  the  public  mind  had  been 
thoroughly  roused  to  the  rational  considera- 
tion of  the  evils  of  intemperance,  and  of 
their  causes  and  remedies,  it  was  not  long 
until  many  of  the  more  earnest  minds  arrived 
at  the  conviction  that  all  drinks  which  havo 
power  to  intoxicate  should  be  abandoned — 
as  well  those  which  derive  their  intoxica- 
ting power  from  natural  fermentation,  as 
those  in  which  that  power  is  intensified  by 
the  artificial  process  of  distillation. 

The  formation  of  societies  on  the  rnoro 
advanced  principle  of  abstinence  from  every 
thing  that  can  intoxicate  began  about  the 
year  1830 ;  and  it  is  worthy  of  remembrance 
that  the  emphatic  epithet  "teetotal"  was 
first  applied  to  such  societies  at  Preston, 
England.  The  term  is  said  to  have  been 
caught  from  the  lips  of  "  a  simple,  eccentric, 
but  honest  and  consistent  reclaimed  drunk- 
ard of  the  name  of  Dickie  Turner,"  who  em- 
ployed that  provincial  reduplication  to  em- 
phasize the  expression  of  his  purpose — "I'll 
be  right  down  teetotal  forever."* 

The  extensive  adoption  of  total  abstinence 
principles  wrought  a  happy  change  in  social 
customs.  Spirituous  drinks  very  generally 
ceased  to  be  regarded  as  necessary  to  im- 
part strength  to  the  laborer,  to  hasten  con- 
valescence, or  to  enhance  social  enjoyment. 
Fair  experiment  convinced  thousands  of  in- 
telligent laborers  that  fatigue  could  be  bet- 
ter sustained  without  alcoholic  stimulus ; 
and  testimony  was  multiplied  in  favor  of 
the  good  effects  of  abstinence  amid  expos- 
ures to  heat  and  cold,  excessive  exertion,  and 
epidemic  disease.  It  was  no  longer  neces- 
sary that  the  jug  of  spirits  should  accompa- 
ny the  farmer  daily  to  his  field,  or  be  always 
near  the  bench  of  the  mechanic ;  that  the 
shopkeeper  should  offer  the  glass  to  every 


*  See  "Temperance  Cyclopaedia,"  by  Rev.  W.  Keid. 


NELSON :  INTEMPERANCE  AND  ITS  SUPPRESSION. 


691 


customer ;  that  in  the  hospitable  mansion 
the  decanter  should  sparkle  in  the  sight  of 
every  guest ;  nor  that,  amid  the  solemnities 
and  the  raptures  of  the  bridal  hour,  libations 
should  be  offered  to  the  demon  most  hostile 
to  domestic  felicity. 

Temptations  to  intemperance  were  thus 
greatly  diminished.  It  became  possible  for 
youth  to  grow  up  without  continued  incite- 
ments to  dangerous  appetite,  alluringly  as- 
sociated with  all  their  most  pleasant  expe- 
riences. The  hope  of  those  who  led  the  re- 
form was  chiefly  in  this  better  training  of 
the  young — in  the  rearing  of  a  generation 
who  should  never  be  enslaved  by  appetite, 
nor  snared  by  convivial  customs.  There  was, 
thus  far,  little  to  encourage  expectation  of 
recovery  for  those  who  had  once  become  in- 
ebriates. 

In  the  fortieth  year  of  the  century  a  new 
phase  of  the  movement  began,  which  filled 
all  lovers  of  mankind  with  thankful  won- 
der. Its  visible  commencement  was  in  a  grog- 
shop in  Baltimore,  Maryland.  Six  wretched 
men,  accustomed  to  waste  there  their  earnings 
and  their  strength,  woke  suddenly  to  a  just 
sense  of  their  folly,  and  to  the  good  purpose 
of  reformation.  Associating  themselves  un- 
der a  mutual  pledge  to. drink  no  "  spirituous 
or  malt  liquors,  wine,  or  cider,"  they  imme- 
diately began  the  work  of  inducing  other 
victims  of  intemperance  to  join  them  in  the 
revolt  against  the  degrading  tyranny  to 
which  they  had  been  subject.  These  efforts 
were  attended  with  remarkable  siiccess.  In 
many  cities  and  towns  enthusiastic  meet- 
ings were  held,  at  which  reformed  men  re- 
hearsed their  thrilling  experiences,  and  in- 
temperate men,  coming  forward  to  sign  the 
pledge,  received  welcome  and  sympathy  and 
help  from  those  previously  reclaimed,  and 
equally  from  the  more  numerous  friends  of 
the  cause  who  themselves  had  never  felt  the 
drunkard's  woe  and  shame.. 

In  this  country  the  movement  speedily 
attained  national  dimensions,  and  no  true 
American  grudged  it  the  most  venerated  of 
American  names.  The  women  of  America 
also  associated  themselves  very  extensively, 
for  the  purpose  of  blessing  the  movement 
with  womanly  care  and  charity,  in  organiza- 
tions which  beautifully  took  the  name  of 
"  Martha  Washington."  In  other  lands  there 
was  no  reason  for  attaching  these  American 
names  to  the  movement. 

This  movement  did,  without  doubt,  restore 
hope  and  happiness  to  many  hearts  and 
homes,  but  it  fell  far  short  of  fulfilling  the 
bright  expectations  which  its  first  successes 
awakened.  It  failed  to  be  thoroughly  pene- 
trated with  the  spirit  and  power  of  evangel- 
ical religion.  Those  drunkards  were  perma- 
nently saved  from  drunkenness  who  hum- 
bly sought  salvation  from  sin  through  Jesus 
Christ.  Comparatively  few  who  sought  mor- 
al reformation  only,  by  moral  and  social 


forces,  without  invoking  God's  regenerating 
Spirit,  secured  permanent  moral  reformation. 

So  great  a  movement  of  the  public  mind, 
in  regard  to  a  great  public  evil,  must  neces- 
sarily lead  to  inquiry  concerning  the  duty 
of  the  civil  government.  From  the  earliest 
times  the  traffic  in  spirituous  liquors  had 
been  regarded  as  involving  such  peculiar 
perils  that  it  must  needs  be  restrained  and 
regulated  by  law.  A  system  of  licenses  ex- 
isted, whereby  no  one  was  permitted  to  sell 
intoxicating  drinks  without  deliberate  and 
written  permission  from  the  magistracy. 
This  system  was  in  logical  harmony  with 
the  belief  that  these  liquors  were  useful,  but 
dangerous — needed  in  every  community,  but 
liable  to  be  abused  by  the  unwary,  to  their 
own  hurt  and  damage,  and  to  the  hurt  and 
damage  of  society.  Like  gunpowder  and 
medicinal  drugs,  they  should  be  sold  only  by 
men  duly  qualified  to  guard  against  the  dan- 
gers of  indiscriminate  sale. 
•  When  the  opinion  became  general  that  all 
drinking  of  such  liquors  is  harmful,  and  tends 
not  only  to  the  debasement  of  the  drinker, 
but  to  the  diffusing  of  fearful  evils  through 
the  community,  the  logical  propriety  of 
licensing  the  traffic  was  called  in  question, 
and  the  logical  propriety  of  suppressing  it 
was  affirmed.  The  conflict  of  opinion  upon 
this  question  has  been  earnest  and  persist- 
ent. It  is  continued  to  the  present  time. 
This  is  a  question  which  necessarily  becomes 
complicated  with  politics,  not  only  in  that 
good  and  high  sense  in  which  it  is  well  that 
moral  questions  should  be  carried  to  their 
proper  issues  in  statesmanship,  but  also  in 
that  lower  sense  in  which  the  practical  work 
of  govern  went  is  so  sadly  damaged  by  selfish 
partisanship.  For  no  bad  uses  are  the  al- 
lurements and  excitements  of  rum  more  con- 
venient than  for  those  of  political  dema- 
gogues. Let  us  not  wonder  that  principles 
most  clearly  approved  to  unbiassed  reason 
are  exceedingly  slow  in  winning  their  way 
to  political  success.  Let  us  candidly  ac- 
knowledge that  honest  Christian  statesman- 
ship mnst  find  real  difficulty  in  carrying  the 
principles  of  this  beneficent  reform  into  leg- 
islative action  which  shall  be  unobjectiona- 
ble and  at  the  same  time  efficient.  There 
are  honest  differences  of  opinion  upon  the 
questions  how  far  and  by  what  methods  in- 
dividuals may  be  restrained  in  respect  to 
this  traffic,  without  endangering  the  rights 
and  liberties  of  all.  No  questions  of  polit- 
ical ethics  better  deserve  earnest  and  per- 
sistent study.  In  the  settlement  of  these 
questions,  and  in  the  practical  application 
of  the  true  principles  involved  in  them,  must 
not  the  temperance  reform  have  the  next 
stage  of  its  progress  f  Does  not  the  decade 
thus  to  be  distinguished  fitly  follow  that  in 
which  the  question  of  human  slavery  was  so 
decisively  settled  f 

I  venture  no  affirmation.     I  can  not  alto- 


692 


CHRISTIANITY  AND  SOCIAL  REFORMS. 


gether  repress  the  Lopeful  anticipation.  Let 
us  consider  how  far  such  hope  is  justified  by 
inquiring — 

I.  What  has  already  been  achieved  in  the 
temperance  reformation  of  this  century  ? 

II.  What  problems  remain  for  solution  f 

I.  WHAT  HAS  BEEN  ACHIEVED  ? 

1.  A  thorough  and  extensive  awakening 
of  the  public  mind,  especially  the  Christian 
mind,  to  the  evil  of  intemperance.     That 
there  is  still  much  apathy,  and  much  igno- 
rance and  sinful  inattention,  is  not  to  be  de- 
nied.    So  doubtless  it  is  in  all  departments 
of  moral  reform  and  Christian  work.     Still 
it  should  be  thankfully  acknowledged  that 
in  this  century  there  has  been  a  great  awak- 
ening to  serious  inquiry,  and  a  diligent  and 
earnest  prosecution  of  such  inquiry,  upon 
this  subject.     The  physiological,  the   eco- 
nomical, the  social,  the  moral  and  spiritual 
aspects  of  the  question  have  been  extensive- 
ly investigated  and  abundantly  illustrated. 
The  literature  of  the  subject  has  become  ex- 
tensive and  valuable.     This  is  not  all  of  un- 
exceptionable quality.     Upon  -what  subject 
do  not  the  literary  results  of  human  thought 
contain  admixtures  of  error  ?     Making  due 
allowance,  we  still  have  reason  to  rejoice 
that,  in  periodical  and  permanent  forms,  use- 
ful information  and  valid  argument  are  with- 
in the  reach  of  all  earnest  and  industrious 
investigators.  Parents,  teachers,  pastors,  leg- 
islators, have  ample  means  of  information  to 
aid  them  in  their  work  of  instruction,  admo- 
nition, protection. 

2.  The  power  of  social  organization  has 
been  largely  enlisted  in  behalf  of  this  cause. 
I  have  adverted  to  the  association  of  great 
numbers  under  the  mutual  pledge  of  absti- 
nence.   These  associations  have  been  of  va- 
rious forms  in  the  different  periods  of  the 
movement  and  in  different  regions. 

At  present  we  have  "  Sons  of  Temperance," 
"  Good  Templars,"  "  Templars  of  Honor  and 
Temperance,"  etc.,  which  have  adopted,  more 
or  less,  the  forms  and  usages  of  Freemason- 
ry. Their  system  of  lodges,  their  badges, 
their  secret  signs,  and  their  ceremonial  ren- 
der them  compact  and  manageable  organiza- 
tions, are  very  attractive  to  many  minds, 
and  give  them  a  certain  efficiency.  Many 
Christians  disapprove,  on  general  principles, 
of  such  secret  associations,  but  I  am  not 
aware  that  their  fidelity  to  temperance  prin- 
ciples is  any  where  questioned ;  nor  does 
there  appear  to  be  any  reason  to  doubt  that 
they  are  the  means  of  rescuing  some,  and 
preserving  many  from  intemperance. 

We  also  have  "  Bands  of  Hope"  and  "Ca- 
dets of  Temperance,"  etc.,  in  which  the  young 
are  associated  under  competent  supervision ; 
are  practiced  in  the  methods  of  conducting 
public  meetings ;  and  are  subjected  to  the 
wholesome  influences  of  song,  and  orderly 
social  intercourse,  consecrated  to  temper- 


ance and  virtue,  and  often  hallowed  by  the 
reading  of  Holy  Scripture  and  prayer. 

There  are  also  "Temperance  Leagues"  and 
"Temperance  Alliances,"  formed  for  the 
purpose  of  united  action  in  one  or  another 
department  of  the  general  work.  Some  of 
these  have  special  reference  to  movements 
for  legal  suppression  of  the  traffic  in  intox- 
icating drinks. 

Some  unhappy  dissensions  have  arisen  be- 
tween different  organizations  and  between 
distinguished  individuals,  marring  and  dam- 
aging the  work,  just  as  Christianity  herself 
has  been  wounded  and  dishonored  by  secta- 
rian and  personal  strifes.  Is  not  the  present 
a  favorable  time  for  seeking  such  compre- 
hensive views  and  such  charitable  adjust- 
ments as  will  harmonize  all  the  forces  which 
are  honestly  engaged  for  the  suppression  of 
intemperance  ? 

II.  PROBLEMS  YET  TO  BE  SOLVED. 

1.  The  Law  Problem. — How  can  civil  soci- 
ety, by  legislation  and  faithful  administra- 
tion of  law,  do  most  for  the  suppression  of 
intemperance  ? 

The  public  mind  is  now  extensively  and 
intensely  engaged  upon  this  problem  in  the 
United  States,  and  the  writer  believes  it  to 
be  true  in  some  other  countries  whoso 
churches  are  here  represented.  There  is 
still  much  diversity  of  opinion  among  states- 
men and  among  citizens.  Some,  insisting 
upon  the  immorality  of  the  traffic  in  intoxi- 
cating drinks,  and  its  utter  contrariety  to 
sound  public  policy,  demand  from  the  legis- 
lative power  its  absolute  prohibition,  and 
from  the  judiciary  and  executive  the  steady 
and  earnest  endeavor  to  suppress  it  entirely. 
Others,  equally  desirous  for  its  suppression, 
but  despairing  of  success  in  that  direction, 
study  methods  of  limiting  and  mitigating 
the  evil.  They  would  limit  it  to  licensed 
dealers ;  would  burden  it  by  heavy  taxa- 
tion ;  would  make  the  venders  responsible 
for  injuries  resulting  from  the  traffic.  There 
is  also  a  question  whether  a  uniform  law 
shall  be  enacted  for  the  whole  state,  or  each 
local  community  be  permitted  to  decide  the 
question  by  the  votes  of  its  electors.  States 
and  communities  are  experimenting  with 
these  various  methods  with  much  thought- 
ful earnestness.  Problems  of  law,  and  other 
practical  problems,  are  not  ordinarily  solved, 
like  problems  of  mathematics,  with  results 
demoustrably  perfect,  and  unchangeably  cor- 
rect for  all  times  and  all  places.  Tho 
friends  of  temperance  need  not  regret  to  see 
these  various  methods  pursued  simultane- 
ously in  different  localities  ;  and  all  should 
hold  themselves  ready  to  profit  by  the  ex- 
periments. It  is  not  proposed  to  discuss  the 
merits  of  any  of  these  methods  in  this  pa- 
per ;  but  it  is  believed  to  be  proper  to  make 
some  suggestions  in  regard  to  ethical  princi- 
ples applicable  to  them  all. 


NELSON :  INTEMPERANCE  AND  ITS  SUPPRESSION. 


693 


a.  The  rights  of  property  are  iiot  the  only 
rights  which  it  is  the  business  of  civil  gov- 
ernment to  protect ;  nor  should  it  be  as- 
sumed that  they  must  have  precedence  of  all 
others.  Let  it  be  granted  that  there  is  real 
difficulty  in  legislating  effectually  against 
the  traffic  in  intoxicating  drinks,  without 
some  ideal,  perhaps  some  actual  encroach- 
ment upon  the  rights  of  property.  But  let 
it  be  considered  whether  such  legislation  cau 
be  omitted  without  the  failure  of  society  to 
protect  other  rights,  no  less  sacred,  from 
more  certain  and  more  harmful  encroach- 
ment. The  right  of  property  in  a  manufac- 
tory which  emits  unwholesome  effluvia  is 
not  held  to  be  more  sacred  than  the  right 
of  neighboring  citizens  to  breathe  salubrious 
air.  Shall  the  rum-seller's  rights  of  proper- 
ty be  held  more  sacred,  be  treated  more  ten- 
derly, be  guarded  more  carefully  than  the 
right  of  the  young  wife  to  the  unimpaired 
strength,  the  untainted  breath,  the  uncor- 
rupted  love  of  her  husband ;  the  right  of  the 
mother  to  rear  her  boy  uuexposed  to  the  en- 
ticements of  the  grog-shop ;  the  right  of  so- 
ciety to  protect  itself  against  pauperism  and 
crime,  and  to  rear  for  itself  a  succession  of 
citizens  capable  of  defending  and  adorning 
and  perpetuating  the  State  1  Doubtless  in 
a  perfect  State,  under  a  perfect  government, 
all  rights  Avould  bo  fully  protected ;  for, 
doubtless,  in  their  true  idea,  all  rights  are  in 
perfect  harmony.  But  iu  practical  states- 
manship, in  .communities  of  depraved  beings, 
we  are  to  seek  bravely  and  take  contented- 
ly the  nearest  practicable  approximation  to 
such  an  ideal. 

It  is  proper  to  consider  the  comparative 
value  and  sacredness  of  the  rights  of  which 
civil  government  is  the  defender.  We  must 
not  let  that  which  clamors  most  loudly,  and 
most  readily  enlists  material  forces  iu  its  be- 
half, crowd  out  of  sight  those  which  shrink 
away  from  the  street  and  the  market-place, 
and  seek  the  privacy  of  home.  It  is  the 
hoarse  voice  of  materialism  that  shouts  for 
the  rights  of  property,  and  demands  for  them 
precedence  before  all  other  rights.  It  is  the 
calm  voice  of  Christianity  which  affirms  the 
higher  sacreduess  of  the  right  to  rear  chil- 
dren in  virtue  and  piety,  and  to  dwell  iu 
peaceful  homes,  and  to  have  those  homes 
protected  against  the  erection  among  them 
of  establishments  \vhich  regularly  and  sys- 
tematically emit  influences  more  baleful  than 
the  deadliest  pestilence. 

6.  The  drinker,  as  well  as  the  vender,  must 
be  restrained  by  the  civil  power.  It  surely 
is  time  to  inquire  whether  both  the  re- 
straining and  the  prohibitory  legislation 
have  not  too  much  proceeded  upon  the  as- 
sumption that  drunkenness  is  only  a  misfor- 
tune. Has  not  the  moral  sentiment  of  the 
people  been  wronged  and  damaged  by  direct- 
ing legislative  restriction  and  penalties  too 
exclusively  to  one  party  in  the  immoral  trans- 


action ?  The  Word  of  God  plainly  treats  in- 
temperate indulgence  of  appetites  as  a  sin — 
the  appetite  for  intoxicating  drink  as  surely 
and  as  sternly  as  any  other.  The  drunkard 
is  not  only  a  sinner  against  God,  but  a  crim- 
inal also  toward  civil  society,  withholding 
from  its  interests  his  duo  contribution  of 
productive  industry;  casting  upon  its  sys- 
tematized charities  the  burden  of  supporting 
his  family;  multiplying  the  probabilities 
that  he  will  be  an  inmate  of  almshouse  or 
prison ;  and  surely  diffusing  a  corrupting  in- 
fluence by  his  example.  If  the  tempter  to 
drunkenness  is  to  be  treated  as  a  criminal, 
surely  the  drunkard  should  share  the  guilt 
and  the  penalty.  And  should  not  those  who 
are  not  yet  drunkards,  but  who  patrouize  the 
grog-shops,  be  treated  as  accessories  to  that 
offense  against  society,  which  the  liquor  traf- 
fic is  held  to  be,  whatever  may  be  the  degree 
of  criminality  which  the  legislature  attaches 
to  it?  If  legislation  is  to  deal  at  all  with 
social  vices,  let  it  exemplify  that  impartial- 
ity which  belongs  to  the  very  idea  of  justice, 
never  charging  the  whole  blame  of  any  ac- 
tion in  which  two  or  more  parties  arc  asso- 
ciated upon  one  of  those  parties. 

2.  The  Church  Problem. — What  has  the 
Church  of  Christ  to  do,  at  the  present  time, 
to  promote  this  reformation  ? 

a.  It  belongs  to  the  Church  to  educate  the 
State  in  the  Christian  ethics  of  government. 
The  Christianity  of  the  world  must  elevate 
the  public  seutiment  of  the  world  above  the 
groveling  maxims  and  tendencies  of  materi- 
alism. The  questions  of  legislation  and  civil 
administration  can  never  be  rightly  settled 
in  communities  which  are  not  pervaded  by 
spiritual,  Christian  influences.  A  people  who 
have  only  earthly  and  carnal  aims,  who  know 
no  interests  that  can  not  be  estimated  in 
money,  will  never  have  rulers  who  cau  wise- 
ly direct  the  forces  of  government  on  such 
questions  as  this.  The  State  must  have  the 
Christian  temper,  tone,  spirit,  or  it  can  nev- 
er give  its  people  a  truly  Christian  regula- 
tion. 

Will  any  one  here  interpose  the  objection 
that  Christ's  kingdom  is  not  of  this  world, 
and  that  the  Christian  preacher  must  "not 
know  any  thing  save  Jesus  Christ  and  him 
crucified  f"  Wo  reply  that  the  great  apostle 
whose  iuspired  pen  gave  us  that  exalted 
maxim,  gave  us  also  luminous  interpreta- 
tion of  it  in  his  own  life.  We  should  not  be 
right  iu  taking  it  in  a  sense  contrary  to  that 
iu  which  he  practiced  upon  it.  Wo  must 
interpret  his  statement  of  what  he  deter- 
mined to  do,  by  what  the  sacred  record 
shows  that  he  constantly  did.  And  what 
Christian  writer,  inspired  or  uninspired,  has 
more  resolutely  carried  out  the  great  central 
truth  of  the  Gospel  to  its  manifold  deduc- 
tions, or  applied  it  to  all  ordinary  affairs  and 
all  various  duties  in  human  life,  more  freely 
than  the  apostle  Paul?  Doubtless  he  preach- 


694 


CHRISTIANITY  AND  SOCIAL  REFORMS. 


ed  Christ  and  Lira  crucified  to  Felix;  but 
Luke  expressly  tells  us  that  he  reasoned  of 
righteousness,  temperance,  and  the  judgment 
to  come,  till  that  lewd  despot  trembled  be- 
fore his  chained  prisoner.  Nor  did  he  neg- 
lect to  rebuke  licentiousness  and  disorder 
and  self-indulgence  among  his  Corinthian 
Christians,  and  to  inculcate  self-denial  for 
each  other's  welfare,  and  to  give  careful  and 
considerate  instruction  to  men  and  women 
how  to  keep  themselves  pure,  and  how  to 
make  their  lives  sweet  and  sacred  and  be- 
neficent, in  the  very  epistle  in  which  he  de- 
clares that  determination  to  know  nothing 
else  but  Christ  crucified  among  them.  The 
right  knowledge  of  that  central  truth  in- 
volves all  else  that  belongs  to  practical  as 
well  as  theoretical  Christianity. 

In  our  age,  as  in  that  and  every  other,  it 
must  be  the  men  and  women  to  whom  Christ 
and  his  cross  are  all  in  all,  even  as  they  were 
to  that  fervent  apostle — it  must  ever  be  such 
men  and  women  from  whose  thinking  and 
prayers  and  earnest  activity  those  influences 
will  emanate  which  penetrate  civil  society, 
and  vivify  it  unto  a  life  that  can  expel  moral 
disease  from  its  veins,  and  heal  its  ulcers  and 
its  sicknesses.  From  no  mere  ethical  basis 
can  depraved  humanity  reason  itself  up  to 
moral  integrity  and  purity.  The  movement 
must  be  from  the  evangelical  basis.  The  up- 
lifting power  must  be  "  the  truth,  as  it  is  in 
Jesus."  Neither  forgetting  nor  despising  the 
press  and  the  secular  platform  and  current 
literature,  we  believe  that  pre-eminently 
from  the  Christian  pulpit  must  be  sounded 
forth  those  mighty  truths  which  work  in  the 
bosom  of  society,  and  move  at  length  the 
whole  body  along  pathways  of  beneficent  re- 
form. Nor  should  it  offend  those  of  our  fel- 
low-laborers in  this  reform  who  agree. with 
us  in  our  views  of  Christian  ethics,  but  dis- 
sent from  our  views  of  evangelical  doctrine,  if 
we  solemnly  avow  our  belief  that  in  this, 
which  they  reject,  is  the  very  life  and  soul 
of  that  which,  with  us,  they  accept.  Here  is 
the  hiding  of  its  power — "  the  power  of  God 
unto  salvation." 

b.  In  order  thus  to  save  society,  the  Church 


must  sanctify  herself.  How  shall  Christian 
truth,  in  its  relations  to  this  subject,  fulfill 
itself  iu  the  Church  of  Christ  f 

For  no  specific  and  complete  answer  to 
this  question  is  the  Church  yet  ready.  Her 
watchmen  do  not  yet  see  eye  to  eye.  This 
is  no  place  for  vehement  assertion  of  individ- 
ual opinion  upon  specific  questions  of  Bibli- 
cal exegesis  or  of  Christian  casuistry,  upon 
which  godly  and  venerable  men  would  hon- 
estly and  strenuously  oppose  each  other. 
But,  brethren  and  fathers,  while  we  hold  all 
such  disputes  away  from  this  scene  of  broth- 
erly communing,  is  there  not  something  of 
truth  on  this  practical  theme  which  we  can 
agree  in  uttering?  —  something  which,  by 
our  united  utterance,  may  gain  some  added 
power  of  beneficent  influence? 

On  one  hand,  can  not  we  agree  in  advising 
that  reliance  be  not  chiefly  placed  in  Church 
authority?  Doubtless  we  could  not  now 
agree  iu  defining  the  limits  within  which 
Church  authority  might  scripturally  be  ap- 
plied. But  has  not  experience  taught  us 
that  at  least  it  is  not  expedient  to  press 
such  questions  of  authority  against  the  con- 
sciences of  dissenting  minorities?  Let  us 
not  hasten  to  uproot  the  tares,  while  it  is 
certain  that  we  should  thereby  uproot  or 
trample  down  good  wheat. 

On  the  other  hand,  can  not  we  agree  in 
now  recommending  iu  clear  and  earnest 
words,  to  all  who  "  profess  and  call  them- 
selves Christians,"  the  voluntary  self-denial 
(if  to  any  it  is  self-denial)  which  is  involved 
in  total  abstinence  from  intoxicating  bever- 
ages? Can  not  we  all  agree  in  henceforth 
exemplifying  this  self-denial  ?  If  we  are  not 
able  to  agree  in  the  opinion  that  the  Holy 
Scriptures  any  where  command  this,  are  we 
not  all  agreed  in  the  belief  that  the  Holy 
Scriptures  nowhere  forbid  it?  Can  we,  as 
honest  and  considerate  men,  doubt  the  salu- 
tary effect  of  such  an  example  ? 

Without  this,  whatever  we  may  say,  and 
whatever  else  we  may  do,  can  we  convince 
our  fellow-men  that  we  are  heartily  in  ear- 
nest in  seeking  for  the  suppression  of  intem- 
perance ? 


CHRISTIANITY  IN  ITS  RELATIONS  TO  CRIME  AND 

CRIMINALS. 

BY  THE  KEY.  E.  C.  WINES,  D.D.,  LL.D., 

Secretary  of  the  National  Prison  Association  of  the  United  States. 


THE  question  assigned  to  me  for  discussion 
before  this  Conference  is,  "  The  Relations  of 
Christianity  to  Crime  and  Criminals."  These 
two  relations  are  essentially  different.  The 
first  is  one  of  uncompromising  hostility ;  the 
last,  of  paternal  tenderness  and  love.  Sin, 
transgression,  crime,  is  that  "abominable 
thing  "  which  the  Lord  "  hates ;"  yet  in  the 
death  of  "  the  wicked "  he  declares  that  he 
has  "  no  pleasure  at  all."  The  spirit  of 
Christiauity  is  profoundly  benevolent ;  and 
in  nothing  is  this  quality  more  conspicuous 
than  in  its  compassion  for  prisoners.  Even 
in  the  Old  Testament  such  expressions  as 
these  abound :  '•'  Let  the  sighing  of  the  pris- 
oner come  before  thee ;"  "  The  Lord  despiseth 
not  his  prisoners;"  "From  heaven  did  the 
Lord  behold  the  earth,  to  hear  the  groaning 
of  the  prisoner."  But  it  is  in  the  New  Tes- 
tament that  the  compassionate  character  of 
Christianity  shines  most  lustrous.  In  his 
account  of  the  last  judgment,  our  Lord  even 
identifies  himself  with  the  wretched  outcast 
in  his  cell,  in  these  amazing  words :  "  I  was 
in  prison,  and  ye  came  unto  me."  The  scorn- 
ful taunt  of  the  Pharisees,  "  This  man  re- 
ceiveth  sinners,"  formed  the  glory  of  Him 
who  "  came,  not  to  call  the  righteous,  but 
sinners  to  repentance."  Publicans,  outcasts, 
criminals — those  covered  with  a  deeper  than 
any  bodily  leprosy — laid  bare  their  wounds 
to  the  great  Physician ;  and  as  conscious 
gnilt  and  timid  penitence  crept  abashed  and 
imploring  to  His  feet,  they  found  ever  a  gra- 
cious welcome  and  a  free  forgiveness. 

As  was  the  Master,  such  are  the  disciples, 
in  their  measure  and  degree.  We  have  a 
beautiful  illustration  of  this  in  the  liberation 
of  Jeremiah  from  the  dungeon  of  Malchiah, 
through  the  humane  interposition  of  Ebed- 
melech,  the  Ethiopian  eunuch.  That  the 
kindness  of  this  Gentile  convert  was  due  to 
his  religion  is  expressly  stated  in  the  his- 
tory. His  humanity  was  the  effect  of  his 
piety.  His  mercy  to  others  was  the  fruit  of 
God's  mercy  to  him.  And  so  it  is  ever.  To 
the  love  and  grace  of  God  in  his  Sou,  to  the 
vitalizing  power  of  Christianity,  to  the  fact 
that  we  live  under  a  dispensation  of  mercy, 
may  be  traced  every  development  and  every 
manifestation  of  humanity  seen  amidst  the 
ruins  of  the  fall.  To  the  revelation  of  a 


loving  and  redeeming  Saviour  we  are  in- 
debted for  our  best  civilization.  The  posses- 
sion of  this  revelation,  or  the  traces  of  it  in 
tradition,  are  the  source  from  which  have 
sprung  all  the  refinement  that  adorns  and 
sweetens  life,  and  all  the  exertions  that  men 
have  made  to  lessen  the  volume  of  human 
misery,  and  to  increase  the  sum  of  human 
happiness. 

Christianity  has  a  twofold  function  to  per- 
form iu  the  relations  under  which  we  are 
now  considering  it — a  function  of  preven- 
tion and  a  function  of  cure.  The  first  of 
these  topics  will  be  treated  by  the  Rev.  M. 
Robin,  of  Paris,  a  gentleman  abundantly  com- 
petent to  the  task.  Consequently,  my  part 
in  the  discussion  will  be  limited  to  an  in- 
quiry into  the  power  of  Christianity  with 
respect  to  men  who  have  already  fallen,  and 
are  undergoing  criminal  treatment  in  prison. 
Two  questions  meet  us  in  this  inquiry :  1st. 
Can  these  men  be  reformed?  2d.  If  yes, 
what  are  the  principles  and  processes  of  the 
treatment  most  likely  to  accomplish  that 
end? 

I  do  not  propose  to  argue  the  first  of  these 
questions  on  a  priori  grounds,  but  to  treat  it 
rather  as  a  question  of  fact  and  experience. 
Here  and  there  experiments  iu  reformatory 
prison  discipline  have  been  made,  and  al- 
ways with  results  as  cheering  as  they  have 
been  remarkable.  Germany,  France,  Spain, 
Ireland,  Australia,  and  Russia,  each  sends  to 
us  an  experience  showing  the  immense  bene- 
fits which,  so  far  as  fruits  of  reformation  are 
concerned,  result  from  substituting  for  the 
old  coercive  systems  of  penal  treatment  sys- 
tems impregnated  with  Christian  love  and 
kindness ;  an  experience  showing,  at  the 
same  time,  that  the  most  successful  prison 
discipline  is  a  discipline  of  diminished  re- 
straint and  of  increased  self-command,  self- 
dependence,  and  self-action  on  the  part  of 
the  prisoners. 

Forty  years  ago  or  more,  Councilor  Von 
Obermaier  was  appointed  director  of  the 
State  Prison  of  Bavaria,  at  Munich.  Into 
this  prison  were  received  the  worst  class 
of  convicts,  the  shortest  sentence  being  for 
eight  years,  and  from  that  to  life.  On  his 


696 


CHRISTIANITY  AND  SOCIAL  REFORMS. 


accession,  he  found  from  six  hundred  to  sev-  ' 
en  hundred  prisoners  in  the  \vorst  state  of 
insubordination  and  chronic  revolt.  The 
prisoners  were  chained  together  in  gangs, 
and  attached  to  each  was  an  iron  weight, 
which  the  strongest  found  difficulty  in  drag- 
ging. The  guard  consisted  of  one  hundred 
soldiers,  who  did  duty  in  every  part  of  the 
premises,  even  in  the  workshops  and  dormi- 
tories. Twenty  to  thirty  huge  blood-hounds 
were  let  loose  at  night  in  the  passages  and 
courts  to  keep  watch  and  ward.  Ober- 
maier  immediately  lightened  the  chains  and 
weights,  and  would,  if  allowed,  have  thrown 
them  aside.  The  dogs  and  nearly  all  the 
guards  were  dispensed  with.  Mr.  Baillie- 
Cochrane,  an  English  gentleman  of  great 
eminence,  who  visited  the  place  in  1852, 
found  the  gates  wide  open,  and  without  any 
sentinel  on  guard.  None  of  the  doors  were 
provided  with  bolts  and  bars.  The  only  se- 
curity was  an  ordinary  lock.  The  prisoners 
were  treated  so  justly  and  with  such  genuine 
Christian  regard  that  their  confidence  was 
won,  their  will  gained,  and  their  co-opera- 
tion secured  in  the  work  of  their  own  im- 
provement. Prisoners  of  the  best  character 
were  substituted  as  overseers  in  the  work- 
shops for  officers  from  outside.  If  a  prison- 
er transgressed  a  regulation,  his  comrades 
would  say  to  him,  "  It  is  forbidden,"  and  it 
rarely  happened  that  he  did  not  yield  to  this 
admonition.  Numerous  workshops  were  es- 
tablished, and  many  trades  taught,  and,  be- 
yond their  support,  all  their  earnings  be- 
longed to  the  prisoners  themselves.  In  their 
leisure  hours  they  associated  without  fur- 
ther check  on  their  intercourse  than  that 
which  arose  from  an  efficient  system  of  ob- 
servation, and  Obennaier  declared  that  the 
moral  effect  of  such  association  was  found 
beneficial  rather  than  the  reverse.  The  num- 
ber of  reformations  effected  under  this  sys- 
tem was  something  extraordinary.  Few, 
comparatively,  relapsed.  The  reality  of 
these  results  is  attested,  from  personal  ob- 
servation, by  Sir  John  Milbanke,  British  En- 
voy to  the  Court  of  Bavaria,  and  by  Mr. 
George  Combe,  of  Scotland,  who  speak  of 
this  prison,  under  Herr  Von  Obermaier's  ad- 
ministration, as  an  illustration  of  the  power 
of  the  moral  sentiments  (i.  e.,  of  applied 
Christianity)  to  govern  and  reform  crimi- 
nals, without  the  lash  or  any  severe  punish- 
ment. 

Take  now  the  case  of  Mettray,  near  Tours, 
in  France,  established  thirty-four  years  ago 
by  M.  Demetz,  who  is  easily  prince  among 
all  those  who  have  undertaken  the  work  of 
reforming  juvenile  delinquents.  There  are 
few  who  have  not  heard  of  the  wonderful 
success  of  Mettray  as  a  reformatory  of  young 
criminals,  for  the  boys  committed  to  that  es- 
tablishment are  not  mere  vagrants,  beggars, 
or  viciously  inclined  children.  They  have 


all  been  convicted  of  crimes,  and  prior  to 
the  establishment  of  Mettray  nearly  80  per 
cent,  of  this  class  receiving  their  punish- 
ment in  the  central  prisons  became  hard- 
ened offenders,  and,  on  their  discharge,  fol- 
lowed a  career  of  crime.  Mettray  is  what  is 
called  in  France  a  colonie  agncole  pcnitcnti- 
aire.  It  is  without  wall  or  inclosure  of  any 
sort ;  and,  except  temporary  confinement  in 
a  cell,  there  is  no  bodily  restraint.  The  life 
is  industrial.  The  chief  industry  is  agricul- 
ture. "  To  improve  the  earth  by  man,  and 
man  by  the  earth,"  is  the  motto  of  the  col- 
ony. A  vast  domain,  consisting  of  several 
farms,  is  cultivated  by  these  young  crimi- 
nals. Various  trades  have  also  been  intro- 
duced, but  chiefly  such  as  are  required  for 
the  production  of  implements  for  farm  work, 
or  for  articles  needed  in  the  establishment. 
All,  however,  without  exception,  work  on 
the  farm  in  summer.  A  portion  of  the  earn- 
ings belongs  to  the  boys  themselves.  Of  this 
a  moderate  part  is  placed  at  their  disposal 
for  immediate  use ;  the  rest  is  deposited  to 
their  credit  in  the  savings-bank  at  Tours. 
A  certain  amount  of  clothing  is  allowed  to 
each  inmate.  If  a  boy  requires  to  have  any 
part  of  his  dress  renewed  before  the  stated 
time  for  such  renewal,  he  has  to  pay  for  it 
with  his  own  money ;  but  if,  at  such  time, 
his  clothes  are  found  in  good  condition,  he 
receives  the  benefit  of  it  by  having  the 
money  which  would  have  been  laid  out  on 
clothes  placed  to  his  credit  in  bank.  Every 
thing  is  done  that  can  make  duty  attract- 
ive, and  induce  a  constant  habit  of  perform- 
ing it.  The  boys  are  not  pushed  forward 
with  rudeness.  Great  care  is  taken  not  to 
bruise  their  young  hearts,  already  frozen  by 
neglect  or  withered  by  vice,  before  they 
knew  any  thing  of  life.  They  are  carefully 
tended,  and  led  on  to  goodness  by  gentleness 
and  trust. 

The  result  is  that  less  than  five  per  cent, 
return  to  crime ;  all  the  rest  become  honest, 
industrious,  useful  members  of  society. 

From  1835  to  1850,  a  period  of  fifteen 
years,  an  experiment  in  prison  discipline  of 
extraordinary  boldness  and  success  was  con- 
ducted by  Colonel  Montesinos,  an  officer  of 
the  Spanish  army,  at  Valentia,  Spain.  The 
average  number  of  prisoners  under  his  care 
was  one  thousand.  Prior  to  his  incumbency 
the  system  had  been  one  of  stern  coercion, 
and  the  mean  proportion  of  relapses  had 
been  from  35  to  40  per  cent.  Gradually,  for 
this  coercive  discipline  he  substituted  a  dis- 
cipline by  moral  forces.  One  by  one  he  in- 
troduced new  trades,  till  the  number  prac- 
ticed amounted  to  forty-three;  and  he  al- 
lowed each  prisoner  to  choose  the  trade  he 
would  learn.  One-fourth  of  the  profits  of 
their  labor  was  given  to  the  prisoners  for 
their  immediate  use ;  one  -  fourth  was  re- 
served, to  be  paid  to  them  on  their  dis- 


WINES  :   CRIME  AND  CRIMINALS. 


697 


charge ;  and  only  the  remaining  half  went 
to  the  establishment.  So  great  was  the 
stimulus  to  industry  supplied  by  a  partici- 
pation in  their  earnings,  that  the  moiety  left, 
after  appropriating  one-half  to  the  prison- 
ers, sufficed  for  all  expenses,  without  a  dol- 
lar's aid  from  the  Government.  Now,  what 
was  the  effect  of  this  system  as  regards  re- 
lapses ?  For  the  first  two  years  no  impres- 
sion was  made ;  the  proportion  of  recommit- 
tals remained  as  before.  Aggregating  the 
results  for  the  next  ten  years  of  his  adminis- 
tration, not  more  than  one  per  cent,  return- 
ed to  a  life  of  crime ;  and,  during  the  last 
three  years,  not  a  solitary  man  who  had 
been  subjected  to  the  discipline  of  the  prison 
came  back  to  it.  Does  this  seem  wonderful 
to  any  ?  It  is  less  so  than  it  appears.  It  is 
simply  the  fruit  of  a  Christian  system  of 
penitentiary  training.  Colonel  Montesinos 
did  not  foolishly  attempt  to  repeal  the  laws 
of  Heaven.  He  seized  those  great  principles 
which  the  Creator  has  impressed  on  the  hu- 
man soul,  and  molded  them  to  his  purpose. 
He  aimed  to  develop  manhood,  not  to  crush 
it ;  to  gain  the  will,  not  to  coerce  the  body ; 
to  secure  the  co-operation  of  the  prisoner  by 
kindness,  not  to  awaken  his  hostility  by 
harshness  and  severity.  He  thus  employed 
the  law  of  love  in  his  work  of  reclaiming 
and  saving  fallen  men,  and  he  found  love  the 
most  powerful  of  all  laws.  He  acted  upon 
his  men  not  only  by  urging  them  to  self-con- 
trol, self-discipline,  and  self-reformation,  but 
by  giving  them  an  interest  in  these  great 
attainments.  He  encouraged  and  enabled 
them  to  raise  their  position,  step  by  step,  by 
their  own  industry  and  good  conduct.  And, 
finally,  he  discharged  them  before  the  expi- 
ration of  their  sentences  (and  the  hope  of 
this  was  ever  kept  before  them),  when  he 
had  satisfied  himself  that  they  desired  to  do 
well ;  that  they  had  acquired  the  power  and 
the  will  to  earn  an  honest  living ;  and  that 
they  had  attaiued  to  such  a  degree  of  self- 
command  as  to  be  able  to  say  "no"  to  the 
tempter.  In  which  few  leading  facts  do  wo 
not  clearly  see  that  the  essential  peculiari- 
ties are — no  more  restraint  than  is  absolute- 
ly necessary ;  self-support  as  far  as  possible ; 
extra  benefits  earned  by  extra  labor;  self- 
conquest  encouraged  and  re  warded;  increased 
comforts  resulting  from  increased  industry 
and  improved  character ;  and  as  much  grat- 
ifying exercise  of  the  faculties  as  prison  life 
will  permit  ? 

In  1840,  Alexander  Maconochie,  a  captain 
in  the  British  navy,  commenced  an  experi- 
ment in  prison  discipline  in  the  penal  colo- 
ny of  Norfolk  Island,  Australia,  which,  un- 
happily, was  terminated  in  1844  ;  but  within 
that  brief  period  of  four  years  moral  trans- 
formations were  wrought  which  seemed  little 
less  than  miracles.  At  that  time  Norfolk  Isl- 
and contained  one  thousand  five  hundred  cou- 


[  victs  of  the  very  worst  classes  sent  out  from 
the  mother  country.  Maconochie  was  a  man 
of  large  heart,  and  of  a  broad  and  penetrating 
intellect.  His  insight  was  intuitive  and  pro- 
found. He  saw  clearly  that,  as  regards  crim- 
inals, the  best  service  to  society  is  to  reform 
them ;  and  he  saw  just  as  clearly  that  they 
can  not  be  reformed  against  their  own  con- 
sent, nor  without  their  free  personal  co-op- 
eration. The  problem  was,  how  to  secure 
these  essential  conditions.  Captain  Macon- 
ochie can  not  have  been  the  first  to  see  that 
hope  is  the  only  power  competent  to  secure 
this  end ;  but  he  wlas  certainly  the  first  to 
feel  that  absolute  confidence  in  it  which 
was  needed  to  make  it  the  cardinal  work- 
ing principle  of  a  system  of  prison  disci- 
pline. He  said  to  himself,  What  is  the  fun- 
damental force  which,  in  free  society,  stimu- 
lates men  to  industry,  order,  virtue,  and  pie- 
ty? It  is  hope:  hope  of  a  living,  hope  of 
wealth,  hope  of  influence,  hope  of  ease,  hope 
of  the  respect  and  love  of  their  fellows,  hope 
of  forgiveness,  hope  of  heaven.  He  said  fur- 
ther, What  is  the  form  which  this  hope  or- 
dinarily takes  in  free  life  ?  It  is  wages  or 
money,  and  the  conveniences  which  money 
procures.  Take  away  the  hope  of  this  re- 
ward from  talent,  skill,  industry,  and  char- 
acter, and  you  paralyze  them  at  a  blow. 
Maconochie  then  inquired,  How  can  hope 
be  made  as  operative  in  prisons  as  in  free- 
dom? And  he  said  to  himself,  Only  by 
adopting,  in  some  form,  and  making  practi- 
cal, the  idea  and  the  inspiration  of  wages. 
He  therefore  devised  a  system  of  marks, 
whose  operation  in  prison  should  be  similar 
to  that  of  wages  outside ;  and  his  plan  pro- 
posed to  substitute  for  sentences  measured 
by  time  so  many  hundred  or  so  many  thou- 
sand good  marks,  to  be  earned,  as  the  solo 
condition  of  release,  by  diligence,  study,  and 
general  good  conduct.  He  thus  placed  the 
fafe  of  the  prisoner,  measurably,  in  his  own 
hands,  just  as  Providence,  within  certain 
limits,  puts  the  fate  of  every  mau  in  his 
own  power.  Such  a  system  makes  the  pris- 
on an  image  of  real  life.  It  brings  into  play 
aud  enlists  on  the  side  of  reformation  all  the 
motives  which  act  on  men  in  free  society  as 
stimulants  to  order,  industry,  and  good  mor- 
als. But  Maconochie  contrived  to  produce 
in  prison  life  a  still  closer  resemblance  to 
free  life,  by  giving  to  his  marks  a  financial 
as  well  as  a  moral  value.  He  would  give 
nothing  to  prisoners  in  health  but  what 
they  earned  and  paid  for  in  marks.  Thus 
his  marks  were  made  to  represent  money  as 
well  as  progress  toward  liberation.  A  pris- 
oner could,  by  diligence  in  work,  attention 
to  study,  and  good  moral  conduct,  earn  a 
daily  maximum  of  marks.  A  certain  pro- 
portion of  these  (say  one-half)  must  go  to 
supply  his  daily  necessities  of  food,  cloth- 
ing, bed,  schooling,  etc. ;  so  that  the  surplus 
only  of  his  earnings  —  the  savings,  so  to 


C93 


CHRISTIANITY  AND  SOCIAL  REFORMS. 


speak — counted  toward  his  release.  It  is 
seen  at  a  glance  that,  if  a  prisoner  failed  to 
earn  a  surplus,  either  by  falling  below  the 
maximum  or  by  expending  all  he  earned,  he 
became,  by  his  own  act  and  choice,  a  prison- 
er for  life ;  whereas,  by  denying  himself  lit- 
tle comforts  and  luxuries,  the  hour  of  liber- 
ty, the  sweetest  possession  of  man,  was  con- 
stantly approaching,  and  with  comparative 
rapidity. 

Now,  what  benefit  did  Maconochie  get 
from  this  system  f  First,  his  marks,  thus 
made  to  represent  money,  gave  him  wages, 
which  supplied  him  with  a  body  of  willing 
and  progressively  skilled  laborers.  Next, 
they  gave  him  fines,  which  saved  him  from 
the  necessity  of  imposing  brutal  and  demor- 
alizing punishments.  Thirdly,  they  gave 
him  school  fees,  for,  although  he  was  anx- 
ious to  encourage  education  among  his  pris- 
oners, nevertheless,  as  he  refused  thsm  ra- 
tions gratuitously,  so  he  compelled  them  to 
yield  marks  for  their  schooling  also.  Fourth- 
ly, they  gave  him  bail  bonds,  in  cases  of 
minor  and  even  of  great  offenses ;  a  period 
of  close  confinement  being  often  remitted  in 
consideration  of  a  number  of  other  prison- 
ers of  good  conduct  becoming  bound  for  the 
improved  behavior  of  the  offender,  under 
penalty  of  the  forfeiture  of  a  certain  num- 
ber of  marks  on  a  repetition  of  the  offense. 
Even  in  the  establishment  of  a  sick  club 
and  a  burial  club  he  applied  the  inflexible 
rule  of  "nothing  for  nothing;"  that  is  to 
say,  here,  as  in  all  things,  he  made  the  disci- 
pline of  the  prison  as  much  as  possible  like 
the  discipline  of  Providence  in  free  life.  The 
prisoners,  like  free  citizens,  were  thus  made 
to  depend  for  every  necessary  and  comfort 
on  their  own  industry  and  personal  deserts, 
Avhile  their  prison  offenses  were  restrained 
by  penalties  free  from  every  element  calcu- 
lated to  imbitter  or  degrade  them. 

Such  is  the  general  outline  of  his  plan. 
What  were  its  results  ?  Reformations  were 
effected  to  an  extent  and  of  a  character  un- 
known, either  before  or  since,  in  any  of  the 
penal  colonies  of  Great  Britain.  He  told 
the  whole  story  himself  when  he  said,  "I 
found  the  island  a  turbulent,  brutal  hell ;  I 
left  it  a  peaceful,  well-ordered  community." 

This  statement  might  be  questioned,  if  it 
rested  on  his  personal  authority  only;  but 
its  truth  is  attested  by  disinterested  wit- 
nesses, too  numerous  and  too  respectable  to 
leave  any  room  for  doubt.  He  modestly 
adds  that  the  results  accomplished  were 
not  nearly  so  wonderful  as  they  appeared, 
because  all  the  time  he  was  working  with 
nature  instead  of  against  it.  He  studied 
God's  plan  of  dealing  with  men,  and,  in  his 
humble  measure,  copied  it,  as  ho  was  able, 
making  always  most  especial  use  of  relig- 
ions instruction  and  culture! 

t     What  is  now  called  the  Croft  on  prison 


|  system,  but  was  formerly  known  as  the  Irish 
system,  is  an  outgrowth  from  that  of  Macon- 
ochie. Sir  Walter  Croftou,  an  English  gen- 
tleman of  high  administrative  powers,  was 
made,  twenty  years  ago,  chief  director  of  the 
Irish  convict  prisons,  then  in  such  a  deplor- 
able condition  that  the  Australasian  colo- 
nies had  refused  to  receive  any  more  con- 
victs from  them.  Sir  Walter,  in  devising 
a  new  prison  system  for  Ireland,  adopted 
the  mark  system  of  Maconochie.  with  modi- 
fications which  improved  it  in  some  respects, 
but  with  curtailments — no  doubt  resulting 
from  restrictions  imposed  on  him  by  the 
laws — which,  in  my  opinion,  weakened  its 
force.  The  Crofton  system  consists  of  three 
stages :  A  penal  stage  of  separate  imprison- 
ment, continuing  eight  months ;  a  reforma- 
tory stage,  longer  or  shorter,  according  to 
the  length  of  sentence,  with  separation  at 
night  and  associated  labor  by  day,  in  which 
the  principle  of  progressive  classification  is 
applied,  with  a  gradual  lifting  of  restraint 
and  enlargement  of  privilege,  including  an 
increased  share  in  his  earnings,  as  the  pris- 
oner advances  from  class  to  class ;  and  a 
testing  stage,  designed  to  verify  the  reform- 
atory power  of  the  preceding  discipline,  and 
also  to  serve  as  a  period  of  natural  training, 
which  is  intended  to  gradually  prepare  the 
prisoner  for  full  liberty.  I  have  enjoyed 
ample  opportunities  for  a  personal  study  of 
the  organization  and  working  of  this  sys- 
tem ;  and  while  there  are  some  things  in  it, 
as  practiced  in  Ireland,  which  I  could  wish 
to  see  modified,  it  has,  on  the  whole,  filled 
me  with  hope.  The  greater  part  of  the  pris- 
oners earn  their  promotion  from  class  to  class 
within  the  minimum  time,  leave  the  estab- 
lishment reformed,  and  become  an  industri- 
ous and  useful  element  in  free  society.  Lusk, 
the  prison  where  the  third  stage  is  passed 
— if  an  establishment  without  an  inclosing 
wall,  and  equally  without  bolts,  bars,  or 
grates,  yet  from  which  only  two  escapes 
bave  taken  place  in  seventeen  years,  can 
be  called  a  prison — I  look  upon  as  one  of 
the  grandest  achievements  of  the  nineteenth 
icntury,  worthy  to  take  rank  with  the  pow- 
T-loom,  the  steam-engine,  and  the  magnetic 
telegraph ;  and  the  name  of  Crofton  will 
have  as  honorable  and  bright  a  fame  in  the 
;omiug  ages  as  those  of  Arkwright,  Fulton, 
and  Morse. 

The  impression  made  by  the  Crofton  sys- 
;em  on  the  mind  of  the  late  Lord  Brougham, 
when,  a  few  years  before  his  death,  the  Brit- 
ish Social  Science  Congress  was  held  in  Dub- 
in,  was  expressed  with  his  customary  energy, 
n  the  declaration  made  from  the  President's 
2hair,  that  "Sir  Walter  Crofton  had  anni- 
lilated  crime  in  Ireland."  One  of  the  most 
difficult  of  the  problems  in  the  whole  range 
of  penitentiary  science  has  been  solved  by 
Sir  Walter's  method,  through  the  interme- 
diate prison  at  Lusk,  a  creation  of  his  owu 


WINES:   CRIME  AND  CRIMINALS. 


geiiius  and  completely  original ;  that  is,  how 
to  dispose  of  discharged  convicts,  so  that 
they  shall  be  quietly  but  successfully  re- 
absorbed  into  the  labor  market,  and  so  into 
virtuous  society.  The  labor  market  is  fully 
open  to  the  prisoners  discharged  from  Lusk, 
insomuch  that  the  demand  for  convict  labor 
is  often  greater  than  the  supply.  More  than 
one  employer  has  been  heard  to  declare  that 
the  men  whom  he  gets  from  the  convict  es- 
tablishment are  among  his  best  hands — a 
superiority  due  to  the  wise  and  kindly  train- 
ing which  they  have  received  in  the  prison. 

Russia,  too — a  country  from  which,  per- 
haps, we  should  hardly  have  expected  it — 
joins  her  voice  to  the  voices  of  the  countries 
from  which  we  have  already  heard.  Count 
Sollohub,  a  man  of  vigorous  intellect  and 
broad  sympathies,  some  six  or  eight  years 
ago  inaugurated  a  prison  system  at  Moscow 
which  has  yielded  remarkable  fruits.  In 
his  house  of  correction  and  industry  in  that 
city,  he  has  shown  what  may  be  done  by  a 
humane  and  Christian  treatment  in  the  way 
of  reforming  criminals.  The  distinguished 
count  devised  a  new  scheme  of  penitentiary 
labor,  which  would  take  too  much  time  and 
space  to  describe  in  detail  in  the  present  pa- 
per. I  can  only  say,  in  a  general  way,  that 
not  only  is  every  prisoner,  not  in  possession 
of  a  trade  at  the  time  of  committal,  required 
to  learn  one,  but  he  is  permitted  to  choose 
the  trade  which  he  will  learn.  So  long  as 
the  convict  continues  an  apprentice,  he  gets 
no  part  of  the  product  of  his  labor ;  but  as 
soou  as  he  is  adjudged  to  be  a  master-work- 
man, he  receives  a  proportion  equal  to  two- 
thirds  of  his  entire  earnings,  the  most  of 
which,  however,  is  reserved  for  him  against 
the  day  of  his  liberation.  So  potent  is  the 
influence  of  hope,  thus  applied,  that  instances 
are  not  rare  in  which  the  convict  appren- 
tices learn  their  trades  and  are  declared 
master-workmen  in  two  months.  The  first 
general  result  of  this  system  is,  that  niue- 
teuths  of  the  prisoners  master  a  trade  so 
completely  that,  on  their  discharge,  they  are 
capable  of  taking  the  position  of  foreman  in 
a  workshop ;  and  the  second  is,  that  there 
are  scarcely  any  relapses.  On  the  contrary, 
criminals  who  have  been  subjected  to  its 
discipline  and  have  been  discharged  are,  al- 
most to  a  man,  earning  an  honest  living  at 
the  trades  which  they  learned  in  prison.  Of 
two  thousand  one  hundred  and  twenty-eight 
prisoners  released  from  the  establishment  in 
six  years,  only  nine — less  than  half  of  one 
percent. — were  returned  to  it. 

There  remains  time  only  for  a  word  or 
two  on  the  second  branch  of  the  inquiry, 
viz.,  On  what  principles  must  a  reformato- 
ry prison  discipline  be  based,  and  what  are 
the  agencies  to  be  employed  in  working  it  T 
There  is  a  single  principle,  which  is  broad 


I  enough  and  strong  enough  to  bear  the  whole 
!  weight  of  such  a  discipline.  It  is  HOPE  im- 
planted in  the  breast  of  the  prisoner,  and 
kept  there  throughout  the  whole  term  of  his 
!  incarceration,  as  an  ever-present,  ever-act- 
ive, ever- living  force.  Hope,  as  we  have 
seen,  is  the  great  inspiration  of  all  human 
effort  in  free  society.  But  men  do  not  lose 
their  character  as  men  simply  because  pris- 
on doors  have  closed  behind  them,  nor  do 
they  cease  to  be  moved  by  that  supreme  force 
which  produces  all  the  activities,  struggles, 
and  competitions  of  the  busy  world  outside. 
It  follows  that  hope  is  just  as  vitally  at  the 
root  of  all  true  prison  discipline  as  of  all 
free  human  life.  Quench  hope  in  human 
society,  or  in  a  single  human  bosom,  and  you 
strike  with  instant  paralysis  the  will,  the 
conscience,  the  heart,  and  the  understanding. 
It  is  hope  that  exerts  the  broadest,  most 
constant,  and  most  stimulating  influence  on 
our  universal  humanity.  What  the  woo- 
ing light  and  air  are  to  plants,  hope  is  to 
the  human  heart  and  will ;  and  that  in- 
side as  well  as  outside  of  prison  bars.  The 
inscription  over  the  entrance  to  Dante's  In- 
ferno, "  Let  all  who  enter  here  leave  hope  be- 
hind," stood  for  ages  over  the  prison  gate, 
crushing  every  aspiration,  and  paralyzing 
all  effort,  except  the  effort  to  escape  from 
the  hated  hell,  in  the  hope  and  purpose  of 
wreaking  vengeance  on  society,  believed  by 
these  wretched  beings  to  be  the  great  wrong- 
doer. In  place  of  this  device,  so  contrary  to 
all  human  progress  and  elevation,  must  be 
written  henceforth  over  the  door  of  the  pris- 
on, "  Now  abideth  hope  "  for  the  convict  and 
the  prisoner,  as  well  as  for  all  God's  crea- 
tures. This  is  the  root  of  that  truly  Chris- 
tian scheme  of  prison  discipline  which,  with 
God's  blessing  and  earnest  work,  is  destined 
to  change  the  prison-house  into  a  moral  hos- 
pital, and  to  multiply,  to  a  number  without 
number,  histories  like  that  enacted  at  the 
scene  of  the  crucifixion,  when,  to  a  criminal 
of  deepest  dye,  now  penitent  and  believing, 
the  expiring  Redeemer  uttered  those  words 
of  kingly  grace,  which  so  lovingly  invite  the 
approach  of  all  other  criminals,  "To-day 
shalt  thon  be  with  Me  in  Paradise." 

As  regards  the  methods  or  agencies  to  be 
employed  in  applying  this  foundation  prin- 
ciple, a  branch  of  the  subject  which  has  al- 
most infinite  ramifications,  I  can  only  say 
here  that  work,  education,  and  religion  are 
the  three  great  forces  to  be  employed  in  the 
reformation  of  criminals,  as  they  are  in  the 
general  progress  of  society. 

The  necessity  of  labor  is  the  most  con- 
stant and  controlling  of  all  the  laws  of 
Providence  in  free  society ;  and  it  is,  at  the 
same  time,  the  most  benignant,  the  most 
educational,  the  most  disciplinary,  and  the 
most  elevating  of  all  human  necessities.  As 
Providence  creates  this  necessity  in  free  life, 


700 


CHRISTIANITY  AND  SOCIAL  REFORMS. 


so  the  State,  or  Christianity  acting  through 
the  State,  must  create  it  iii  prison  life.  And 
the  labor  of  the  prison  must  be  industrial 
— not  a  mere  grinding  of  the  wind.  Boot- 
less labor  is  as  distasteful  and  irksome  to 
a  prisoner  as  to  a  freeman.  Further,  pris- 
on labor  must  be  not  simply  industrial,  but 
voluntarily  industrial.  A  free  choice  of 
labor  by  the  prisoner  is  an  essential  condi- 
tion of  a  reformatory  prison  discipline.  The 
arrangements  of  the  prison  must  be  such 
that,  if  the  convict  work  diligently  and  be- 
have well,  he  will  have  a  comfortable  sub- 
sistence ;  but,  if  he  be  idle  and  disobedient, 
ho  will  suffer  hunger — just  as  it  happens  to 
the  diligent  and  the  indolent  outside.  This 
is  a  consideration  of  fundamental  impor- 
tance ;  it  is  a  condition  absolutely  essential, 
a  sine  qua  non,  if  wo  really  mean  to  change 
bad  men  into  good  ones.  When  a  prisoner, 
under  this  sharp  but  natural  spur,  begins  to 
exert  himself,  he  does  so  by  his  own  will. 
Ifc  is  an  inward  impulse,  not  a  mere  out- 
ward pressure,  that  moves  him.  This  little 
circumstance  makes  all  the  difference  be- 
tween an  automaton  and  a  man.  The  pro- 
cess which,  under  this  state  of  things,  induces 
in  the  prisoner  habits  of  labor,  is  a  process 
by  which  his  self-control  and  self-assertion 
are  strengthened;  and  this  is  precisely  what 
is  wanted  to  make  him  a  better  citizen.  It 
is  to  no  purpose,  or  to  a  bad  one,  that  you 
make  him  work  by  an  outward  coercion ;  for 
when  he  is  again  free,  and  the  coercion  is 
thereby  withdrawn,  he  will  be  what  he  was 
before.  The  force  which  impels  him  to  work 
must  be  an  inward  power,  which  he  shall 
take  with  him  out  of  prison,  to  abide  with 
and  control  him  in  his  after-life.  It  avails 
little  that  you  force  him  to  work ;  he  must 
force  himself  to  work.  This  is  the  law  which, 
like  a  decree  of  fate,  controls  free  life.  In 
freedom,  inactivity  entails  want ;  while,  con- 
versely, activity  assures  competence,  if  not 
abundance.  There  is  an  ordained  connec- 
tion in  ordinary  life  between,  exertion  and 
the  satisfaction  of  certain  imperative  needs. 
The  same  connection  must  be  established  in 
prison  life ;  yet  always  in  such  manner  that 
as  much  latitude  shall  be  given  to  free  agen- 
cy as  can  be  made  at  all  consistent  with  the 
maintenance  of  proper  discipline. 

Education  is  another  of  the  vital  forces  to 
be  employed  in  the  reformation  of  criminals, 
who  have  generally  sinned  through  some 
form  of  ignorance,  conjoined  with  vice.  Its 
tendency  is  to  quicken  intellect,  give  new 


ideas,  supply  food  for  thought,  inspire  self- 
respect,  excite  honorable  ambition,  open  new 
fields  of  exertion,  and  afford  a  healthful  sub- 
stitute forlow  and  vicious  amusements.  Need 
more  be  said  to  show  its  value  in  this  work  T 
But  nothing  can  supply  the  place  of  ear- 
nest, faithful,  religious  teaching, drawn  from 
the  Word  of  God,  and  based  on  its  everlast- 
ing verities.  I  have  a  profound  conviction 
of  the  incfficacy  of  all  measures  of  reforma- 
tion, except  such  as  are  based  on  the  Gospel, 
pervaded  by  its  spirit,  and  vivified  by  its 
power.  In  vain  are  all  devices  of  repression 
and  coercion,  if  the  heart  and  conscience, 
which  are  beyond  all  power  of  external  re- 
straint, are  left  untouched.  Religion  is  the 
only  power  that  is  able  to  resist  the  irritation 
that  saps  the  moral  forces  of  these  men  of 
powerful  impulses,  whose  neglect  of  its  teach- 
ings has  been  the  occasion  of  their  being  im- 
mured within  prison  walls. 

In  reflecting  on  this  subject,  it  has  seemed 
to  me  that  we  might  take  a  Araluable  lesson 
in  our  treatment  of  criminals  from  God's 
treatment  of  a  world  in  criminal  revolt 
against  his  law.  "With  loving -kindness 
have  I  drawn  thee,"  are  the  words  in  which 
he  declares  his  device  for  bringing  back  the 
wanderers  to  his  fold.  While  we  abhor  and 
punish  the  crime,  loving-kindness  is  the  only 
medicine  that  will  heal  and  restore  the  crim- 
inal. Sensibility  to  kindness  keeps  a  linger- 
ing hold  upon  our  nature,  even  in  the  last 
and  lowest  degree  of  human  wickedness. 
This  one  germ  of  a  dormant  manhood  is 
found  to  outlive  the  destruction  of  all  the 
others,  insomuch  that,  fallen  as  a  brother 
may  be  from  the  moralities  that  once  adorn- 
ed him,  the  manifested  good-will  of  his  fel- 
low-men still  carries  with  it  a  charm  and  an 
influence,  Avhich  are  well-nigh  omnipotent. 
There  lies  just  here  a  regenerative  and  re- 
demptive power,  which  no  degradation  can 
crush,  and  no  depravity  can  obliterate.  Since 
these  things  are  so,  and  since,  moreover,  one- 
fifth  of  our  convicts  are  minors,  and  two- 
thirds  under  thirty  years,  and  therefore  still 
in  the  plastic  and  impressible  period,  with 
Christian  principles,  Christian  methods,  and 
Christian  agents  in  our  prisons — the  first  two 
adopted  from  the  heart,  and  the  last  working 
with  the  heart — it  is  my  conviction  that  the 
mass  of  imprisoned  criminals  can  be  and  will 
bo  returned  to  society,  as  the  demoniac  was 
restored  to  his  friends, "  clothed  and  in  their 
right  mind." 


INDUSTRIAL  SCHOOLS  AS  AN  AGENCY  IN  THE 
PREVENTION  OF  CRIME. 

BY  REV.  E.  ROBIN,  PARIS. 


MR.  PRESIDENT  AND  BELOVED  BRETHREN, 
— The  first  thing  which  attracted  my  atten- 
tion after  setting  foot  on  the  soil  of  America 
were  the  words,  written  in  large  letters  over 
the  entrance  of  a  street-car,  "Beware  of  Pick- 
pockets." It  was  a  notice  dictated  by  pru- 
dence. I  do  not  say  that  such  a  notice  is 
more  necessary  in  America  than  in  any  oth- 
er country  of  the  world.  Pickpockets  are 
not  found  in  Ameriqa  only.  The  tribe  ex- 
ists elsewhere.  In  all  countries  the  army 
of  crime  is  organized  in  the  bosom  of  socie- 
ty. It  is,  iu  truth,  an  ARMY.  It  has  its  sol- 
diers, concealed  in  the  crowd,  who  live  only 
by  the  depredations  and  the  crimes  which 
they  commit.  They  elbow  us  in  our  streets, 
in  our  public  conveyances,  and  even  with- 
in the  precincts  of  our  temples.  Prudence, 
then,  is  not  a  needless  precaution,  since  it 
leaves  less  facility  to  malefactors  for  the 
commission  of  their  misdeeds. 

In  other  times,  when  society  succeeded  in 
seizing  one  of  these  enemies  of  its  safety,  it 
inflicted  upon  him  horrible  tortures.  In  our 
day,  manners  are  softened ;  the  prisoner  is  a 
brother  gone  astray,  who  is  to  be  won  back 
to  virtue.  A  notable  progress  that.  But  if 
we  could  keep  the  army  of  criminals  from 
recruiting  their  forces,  and  thus  destroy 
crime,  that  would  be  still  better.  This  proc- 
ess would  surely  bo  more  efficacious  and 
more  economical.  In  your  State  prisons,  the 
average  annual  cost  of  each  imprisoned  crim- 
inal is  two  hundred  dollars ;  and,  for  the 
most  part,  he  remains  a  criminal.  In  the 
lodging-houses  which  I  have  visited  in  New 
York,  and  which  are  institutions  of  a  pre- 
ventive character,  the  Children's  Aid  Socie- 
ty expends  only  two  dollars  a  year  on  each 
child,  and  makes  of  the  greater  part  of  these 
children  moral  and  industrious  citizens. 
Deducting,  in  both  cases,  from  these  expen- 
ditures, the  product  of  the  labor,  and  leav- 
ing wholly  out  of  the  account  the  injury 
done  to  society  by  the  criminals,  it  is  found 
that  forty-five  times  more  is  expended  for 
each  individual  in  the  prisons  than  in  the 
preventive  establishments,  and  that  with  lit- 
tle or  no  moral  results,  so  far  as  the  crimi- 
nals are  concerned.  The  preventive  meth- 
od is,  in  this  regard,  immensely  superior.  It 
has  been  said  with  truth, "  It  is  better  to  pre- 
vent crime  than  to  punish  crime."  It  is  of 
this  preventive  work  that  I  propose  to  treat 


in  addressing  you  on  the  subject  of  Indus- 
trial Schools. 

I.  While  placing  questions  of  doctrine  and 
of  religious  science  at  the  head  of  its  pro- 
gramme, the  Evangelical  Alliance  could  not 
neglect  to  give  their  due  importance  to  prac- 
tical questions ;  in  other  words,  to  works  of 
Christian  charity.  To  show  the  power  of 
Christian  principles,  when  applied  to  the 
evils  from  which  society  is  suffering,  is,  at 
the  same  time,  to  offer  the  best  defense  of 
Christianity  itself.  Two  of  these  evils  are 
formidable :  ignorance  and  idleness.  In- 
struction and  the  love  of  work,  penetrating 
to  the  lower  strata  of  society,  are  the  means 
by  which  alone  these  evils  may  be  averted 
from  future  generations.  Christianity  has 
power  to  raise,  has  strength  to  preserve,  from 
evil.  If  we  may  hope  for  the  moral  trans- 
formation of  a  man,  already  grown  old  iu 
ignorance  and  given  up  to  idleness  and  vice, 
this  work  will  be  yet  easier  if  it  be  under- 
taken in  favor  of  young  minds,  still  docile 
and  impressible.  The  whole  future  of  soci- 
ety depends  on  a  good  Christian  education, 
extending  to  all  children,  from  the  highest 
to  the  lowest  classes. 

All  can  not  aspire  to  the  advantage  of  a 
superior  education,  but  none  ought  to  bo 
deprived  of  the  minimum  of  instruction,  in- 
dispensable in  our  modern  life.  This  mini- 
mum, besides  the  moral  and  religious  prin- 
ciples which  are  its  essential  basis,  should 
contain  a  double  element :  primary  instruc- 
tion and  the  knowledge  of  a  profession  or 
business.  Among  all  the  nations  which  take 
thought  for  the  future,  persevering  efforts 
are  being  made  to  attain  this  twofold  object : 
to  give  to  the  rising  generation  a  general 
and  a  professional  education. 

As  to  France,  though  a  notable  progress 
has  been  realized  within  the  last  ten  years, 
much  remains  to  be  done  in  this  respect. 
In  1864,  at  an  annual  meeting  of  the  "  In- 
stitute,"* it  was  stated  that  out  of  one  hun- 
dred young  men,  twenty  years  of  age,  there 
were  more  than  twenty-seven  who  could 
not  read,  that  is,  nearly  one-third;  and  it 
appears  from  an  official  documcntt  that  out 
of  one  hundred  newly  married  people,  thir- 

*  Public  annual  meeting  of  the  five  Academies  of 
the  Institute,  the  16th  of  August,  1S64 :  Speech  of  Gen- 
eral A.  Morin,  President,  pp.  11, 12. 

t  Report  to  the  Emperor  (Monitcur),  March  6, 18C5. 


roa 


CHRISTIANITY  AND  SOCIAL  REFORMS. 


ty-fivo  could  not  sign  their  names.  Tlieso 
facts  do  not  go  so  far  back  even  as  ten 
years.  Since  then  important  reforms  have 
been  inaugurated.  The  position  of  school- 
masters and  school-mistresses,  whose  salary 
reduced  them  to  something  akin  to  indi- 
gence, is  improving ;  schools  are  multiply- 
ing; and  instruction  is  placed  within  the 
reach  of  all. 

There  arc,  however — and  here  I  speak 
particularly  of  the  state  of  things  in  my 
own  country — special  classes,  among  whom 
instruction  does  not  penetrate,  and  who  re- 
main complete  strangers  to  it. 

If  we  examine  the  different  categories  of 
children  for  whom  elementary  instruction 
is  designed,  we  can  distinguish  four  princi- 
pal divisions. 

Those  of  the  first  category,  belonging  to 
rich  families,  are  destined  to  receive  a  su- 
perior education,  and  to  occupy  the  highest 
places  in  society.  Those  of  the  second,  the 
children  of  shop-keepers  and  small  land-hold- 
ers, avail  themselves  of  the  special  instruc- 
tion instituted  for  them,  which  excludes, 
ordinarily,  classical  teaching.  The  third 
class  comprises  the  children  of  mechanics 
and  farm  laborers,  who  receive  only  prima- 
ry instruction,  more  or  less  complete.  In 
the  education  of  this  class  we  have  to  regret 
many  deficiencies ;  but  efforts  are  making  to 
bring  it  to  the  proper  standard.  There  re- 
mains a  fourth  category,  consisting  of  de- 
serted children,  vagrants,  and  beggars,  who 
are  allowed,  on  account  of  the  destitution 
or  the  neglect  of  their  parents,  to  grow  up 
in  the  most  absolute  ignorance  both  of  ele- 
mentary and  professional  instruction,  and 
who  thus  live  exposed  to  all  the  tempta- 
tions of  want,  idleness,  and  vice. 

Hitherto  no  measxires  have  been  taken  in 
France  to  secure  the  benefits  of  instruction 
to  this  class  of  children.  Compulsory  instruc- 
tion does  not  exist  among  us.  The  principle 
has  many  earnest  advocates ;  but  the  difficul- 
ty of  applying  it,  arising  from  paternal  au- 
thority on  the  one  hand,  and,  on  the  other, 
from  the  impossibility  of  obtaining  general 
consent  to  the  infliction  of  penalties  on  par- 
ents who  should  refuse  to  conform  to  its 
prescriptions,  has  raised  up  many  adver- 
saries. Yet  it  is  impossible  to  ignore  the 
fact  that  it  is  imperatively  necessary  not  to 
abandon  to  themselves  and  to  the  sugges- 
tions of  destitution  these  children,  whom 
the  absolute  want  of  guidance,  or  the  per- 
nicious influences  with  which  they  are  sur- 
rounded, must  infallibly  lead  to  vice,  and 
thence  to  crime  and  to  prison.  We  must 
protect  them  against  the  misfortune  of  their 
birth,  against  the  culpable  indifference  of 
their  parents,  were  it  but  in  the  interest  of 
social  order.  This  must  be  done  by  insur- 
ing to  them  the  benefit  of  instruction,  there- 
by obviating  the  danger  which  they  create 
for  society.  The  question  of  which  we  are 


treating  here  is  a  question  at  once  of  chari- 
ly and  of  public  security. 

These  children,  who  roam  about  onrhigh- 
I  ways  or  in  the  streets  of  our  cities,  are  un- 
i  deniably  those  who  most  need  elementary 
and  industrial  instruction.  If  such  instruc- 
tion ought  to  be  made  obligatory  for  any, 
it  certainly  should  be  for  them.  Yet  of  all 
the  children  comprised  in  the  different  cate- 
gories of  which  we  have  just  spoken,  these 
are  precisely  the  ones  who  have  no  share  in 
its  benefits,  and  who  derive  no  advantage 
from  the  improvement  of  our  present  or- 
ganization and  the  progress  that  has  been 
accomplished.  Refusing  to  receive  instruc- 
tion, they  must  be  constrained  to  accept  it. 
Eventually  constraint  will  be  necessary ; 
but  its  use  will  then  be  late  and  ineffectual ; 
the  evil  will  have  gained  strength,  and  will 
be  more  difficult  to  overcome.  For  then  this 
ignorant  young  vagabond  will  have  become 
vicious,  and  will  have-  taken,  perhaps  for- 
ever, a  fatal  path.  The  State,  in  the  end, 
takes  under  its  charge  the  child  frequently 
convicted  of  vagrancy  and  mendicity,  and 
places  him  in  a  house  for  correctional  educa- 
tion. It  would  be  better  to  begin  sooner, 
and  not  wait  till  the  evil  has  become  well- 
nigh  irreparable.  The  establishments  for 
correctional  education  are,  as  their  name  im- 
ports, repressive  institutions,  i.  e.,  prisons  ; 
and  it  is  not  in  prisons  that  children  should 
be  brought  up,  but  in  schools.  The  prison, 
designed  for  the  repression  of  evil,  often  in- 
creases it ;  the  school  only  can  effectually 
prevent  it. 

When  a  child  has  been  convicted  of  beg- 
ging or  vagrancy,  he  undergoes  a  first  com- 
mitment, which  exposes  him,  always  for  sev- 
eral hours,  and  often  for  several  days,  to  the 
most  demoralizing  association.  Until  his  case 
has  been  examined,  he  is  placed  with  preco- 
ciously depraved  children,  who  exert  the  most 
deplorable  influence  on  his  mind  and  heart. 
After  the  first  commitment,  he  is  generally 
given  back  to  his  parents.  Restored  to  lib- 
erty, he  commits  the  same  offense  again  and 
again,  until  the  court  sends  him  to  a  house 
of  correction.  Some  of  these  children  have 
been  taken  up  ten  times,  and  oftener,  before 
becoming  the  subjects  of  this  last  measure. 
Thus,  in  Paris  alone,  the  number  of  children, 
under  sixteen,  arrested  during  the  year  1872, 
was  3004,  of  whom  more  than  half — 1644 — 
were  apprehended  for  vagrancy  and  begging. 
Out  of  this  number,  2307  were  sent  into  the 
above-named  establishments,  i.  e.,  into  the 
houses  of  correctional  education. 

There  are  in  France  fifty-five  establish- 
ments, private  and  public,  of  this  nature,  in 
which  there  are  15,000  children,  of  whom 
4500  are  merely  vagrants  or  beggars.  There 
the  children  of  every  category — vagabonds, 
beggars,  and  young  criminals — are  mingled 
together,  most  generally  until  their  majori- 
ty. This  promiscuity  is  a  great  evil,  and 


ROBIN:  INDUSTRIAL  SCHOOLS. 


703 


aggravates  the  position  of  these  children, 
who  are  often  more  unfortunate  than  culpa- 
ble ;  and  it  must,  at  whatever  cost,  be  done 
away  with. 

The  State,  putting  itself  in  the  place  of 
the  parents,  undertakes  the  education  of 
these  children.  In  doing  so,  it  places  them 
among  these  unwholesome  surroundings, 
where  they  are  condemned  to  live  for  five, 
eight,  ten,  and  even  twelve  years  with  other 
children  who  have  already  reached  a  degree 
of  corruption  and  wickedness  which  makes 
their  influence  most  formidable.  The  State 
must  interfere  sooner  in  their  behalf,  and, 
without  waiting  for  the  evil  to  be  pact  rem- 
edy, it  must  apply  the  principle  of  obligation 
to  them,  creating  special  scholastic  and  in- 
dustrial establishments,  where,  without  in- 
curring the  risk  of  demoralizing  contact, 
they  may  receive  the  education  of  which 
they  have  been  deprived.  These  children 
require  establishments  of  a  strictly  pre- 
ventive character,  without  any  punitive  ele- 
ment, where  they  shall  be  protected  against 
the  contagious  influence  of  evil.  They  must 
have,  not  prisons,  but  schools,  as  we  have  al- 
ready said.  No  doubt  whatever  can  be  en- 
tertained as  to  the  danger  which  menaces 
society  from  the  administrative  measure 
which  places  these  children  in  the  midst 
of  the  imwholesome  influences  we  have  de- 
scribed. The  most  enlightened  solicitude, 
the  wisest  regulations,  and  the  most  vigilant 
supervision,  whether  exercised  by  the  direct- 
ors of  these  establishments  or  by  the  prison 
administration,  can  not  lessen  the  peril  of 
this  corrupting  contact.  The  only  effectual 
means  of  putting  an  end  to  the  evil  is  to 
separate  these  children  from  those  already 
criminal,  and  to  create  for  them  a  new  pop- 
ular educational  establishment,  where  they 
can  obtain  the  double  benefit  of  elementary 
and  professional — that  is,  industrial — educa- 
tion, without  incurring  the  dangers  we  have 
pointed  out. 

This  insufficiency  in  the  means  of  educa- 
tion provided  by  the  law  in  behalf  of  the 
category  of  children  now  under  considera- 
tion is  evident.  It  has  been  fully  admitted 
among  our  neighbors  in  England,  and  here 
in  America,  wherever  public  attention  has 
been  seriously  turned  to  their  condition.  In 
those  countries  the  separation  we  propose 
has  been  made,  and  special  establishments 
have  been  founded.  These  establishments, 
of  which  we  shall  speak  farther  on,  have  re- 
ceived, ill  England,  the  name  of  Industrial 
Schools,  to  indicate  that  the  children  learn  a 
trade  there,  as  well  as  the  elements  of  pri- 
mary instruction. 

Onr  French  establishments  for  correction- 
al education,  otherwise  called  agricultural 
colonies,  were  created  solely  to  supply  the 
want  which  was  felt  of  making  a  first  sep- 
aration in  our  prisons  between  the  adults 
and  the  young  prisoners.  They  laid  the 


foundation  of  a  first  progress,  of  which 
France  may  justly  claim  the  honor.  We 
had  our  excellent  law  of  1850  in  relation  to 
young  prisoners,  our  special  houses  for  chil- 
dren, provisional  liberation,  and  patronage, 
when  in  England  the  children  were  still 
mixed  in  the  prisons  with  criminal  adults. 
It  was  only  in  1854  that  the  separation  was 
made  in  that  country,  and  the  English  have 
acknowledged  that  the  adoption  of  the  prac- 
tice by  them  was  owing  to  our  example,  and 
that  their  reformatories  were  founded  in 
imitation  of  our  penitentiary  colonies.  But 
having  once  entered  on  this  course  after  us, 
they  have  made  a  step  in  advance.  They 
soon  perceived  the  necessity  of  a  new  sep- 
aration between  the  children  profoundly 
versed  in  evil  courses  and  those  whose  er- 
rors were  caused  by  want  of  a  good  educa- 
tion, including  in  that  term  religious  as 
well  as  secular  instruction.  Three  years 
after  having  separated  the  children  from 
the  adults,  they  separated  these  neglected 
children  from  the  young  criminals  by  insti- 
tuting for  them  industrial  schools.*  Since 
ten  years  the  number  of  reformatories,  which 
had  previously  been  increasing  every  year, 
has  remained  stationary,  the  number  being 
then,  as  now,  sixty-five;  whereas  the  indus- 
trial schools  have,  during  that  period,  mul- 
tiplied rapidly.  In  1860  there  were  forty  of 
these ;  fifty  in  1865 ;  ninety-one  in  1870 ;  and 
at  the  end  of  1872  the  number  had  reached 
one  hundred.  Similar  establishments,  strict- 
ly preventive  in  character,  have  also  been 
founded  in  the  United  States.  Each  State 
of  the  Union  which  joined  the  movement  for 
reform  has  opened  asylums  and  refuges  for 
this  class  of  children,  where,  besides  shel- 
ter and  food,  they  receive  the  instruction  in 
which  they  were  deficient,  and  often  learn 
a  trade  which  will  give  them  the  means  of 
earning  their  living  honestly.  We  French- 
men, in  our  turn,  ought  to  imitate  this  ex- 
ample by  founding  industrial  schools. 

II.  How,  then,  should  these  schools  be  or- 
ganized? The  object  of  the  new  institu- 
tion— to  give  the  children  admitted  to  it  an 
education  which  should  enable  them  to  pro- 
vide for  themselves  by  their  labor,  and  to 
become  useful  members  of  society — indicates 
the  nature  of  its  essential  organization.  It 
should  give  both  elementary  instruction  and 
industrial  training. 

The  elementary  instruction  should  be  the 
same  as  that  of  the  primary  schools.  The 
same  programme  should  be  followed,  the 
studies  should  be  subjected  to  the  same 
tests;  the  pupils  of  the  industrial  schools 
should  compete  with  those  of  other  schools, 
public  and  private,  viz.,  for  the  certificates 
of  instruction,  if  the  school  is  a  private  one ; 
or  for  the  savings-bank  credits,  attested  by 


*  "English  Efforts  to  prevent  Crime,"  by  Charles 
Ford,  Esq. 


704 


CHRISTIANITY  AND  SOCIAL  REFORMS. 


the  little  pass-books,  if  it  is  a  public  estab- 
lishment. Those  who  distinguish  them- 
selves in  these  examinations  should  be  en- 
titled to  gratuitous  admission  to  our  schools 
for  commercial  instruction.  The  industrial 
school  would  thus  be  put  on  exactly  the 
same  footing  as  the  primary  schools ;  and  j 
the  State  would  thus  insure  all  the  advan- 
tages of  a  complete  primary  education  to 
these  children,  who  would  have  their  share 
in  the  benefit  of  obligatory  instruction ;  and 
we  dwell  on  this  similarity  because,  accord- 
ing to  our  conception,  they  should  be  really 
schools,  and  not  penitentiary  establishments. 
This  would  be  the  first  part  of  their  education. 

To  primary  education  should  be  added 
industrial  teaching.  A  child's  education  is 
not  complete  until  he  has  been  made  fit  to 
provide  for  himself  by  learning  a  trade  or 
business.  The  apprentice  school  thus  be- 
comes the  complement  of  the  primary  school. 
The  city  of  Paris  has  recently  instituted  an 
apprentice  school,  and  has  thus  begun  to 
make  practical  the  idea  that  -general  in- 
struction must  be  completed  by  industrial 
teaching.  Various  establishments,  similar 
in  kind,  exist  already  both  in  Paris  and  iu 
the  departments,  under  the  name  of  profes- 
sional schools.  The  industrial  school,  found- 
ed for  a  special  object,  would  unite  the  two 
classes  of  establishments,  f.  e.,  the  primary 
and  the  professional  school,  but  with  this 
special  characteristic,  that  it  would  be  de- 
signed for  children  who  could  not  hope  for 
admittance  to  the  apprentice  schools,  which 
is  the  completion  of  primary  studies.  For 
the  apprentice  school,  in  accordance  with 
the  idea  which  led  to  its  institution,  is  des- 
tined for,  and  can  only  be  useful  to,  such 
children  as  have  already  received  good  pri- 
mary instruction,  and  are  thus  prepared  to  ac- 
quire general  professional  knowledge,  which 
may  qualify  them  for  the  position  of  foremen 
in  the  workshops,  and  for  becoming,  should 
circumstances  favor  them,  masters  in  their 
turn.  The  children  admitted  to  the  indus- 
trial schools  have,  on  the  contrary,  received 
only  very  imperfect  primary  instruction,  and 
often  none  at  all.  The  greater  number  have 
passed  the  usual  age  of  admission  to  prima- 
ry schools,  and  reached  the  age  for  learning 
a  trade.  They  must,  therefore,  have  the 
means  given  to  them  of  making  up  for  lost 
time,  and  for  acquiring  the  instruction  of 
the  school  and  that  of  the  workshop  togeth- 
er. Hence  the  double  character  of  the  es- 
tablishment for  popular  education,  of  which 
we  are  now  treating. 

We  do  not  enter  into  the  details  of  the 
organization  of  work  and  of  the  different 
trades  to  be  taught.  It  should  be  like  that 
of  other  similar  establishments.  The  time 
for  study  should  alternate  with  the  time  for 
work,  a  larger  or  a  smaller  share  being  given 
to  the  former,  in  proportion  as  the  pupil's  in- 
struction has  been  more  or  less  neglected. 


The  school  once  founded,  it  would  be  nec- 
essary to  regulate  the  conditions  of  admis- 
sion with  respect  to  morality,  age,  and  school 
fees.  The  industrial  school  being  instituted 
specially  for  children  who,  from  the  above- 
mentioned  causes,  would  remain  deprived  of 
the  benefit  of  instruction,  whether  general 
or  professional,  unless  it  were  forced  upon 
them,  it  is  necessary  that  this  class  should 
be  strictly  defined. 

The  English  law  originally  established 
four  categories,  the  children  belonging  to 
any  one  of  which  may  be  sent  to  an  indus- 
trial school,  viz.,  first,  beggars;  second,  va- 
grants ;  third,  destitute ;  fourth,  those  asso- 
ciating with  thieves  or  other  bad  company. 
To  these  four  categories,  meant  to  include 
the  various  classes  of  deserted  or  vagrant 
children,  the  law,  in  its  paternal  character, 
adds  three  others:  the  child  under  twelve 
years  of  age  guilty  of  an  offense  punishable 
by  imprisonment,  provided  he  be  not  con- 
victed of  felony;  the  child  disobedient  to 
his  parents.  [These  children  the  French 
law  sends  to  a  house  of  correction  if  the 
parents  desire  it.]  The  third  class  com- 
prises the  insubordinate  work -house  chil- 
dren, whom  also,  in  France,  the  administra- 
tion of  public  assistance,  representing  pa- 
ternal authority,  has  a  right  to  send  to  a 
house  of  correctional  education.* 

These  various  categories  of  children  com- 
prise all  those  for  whom  the  industrial  school 
is  designed.  It  would,  therefore,  receive 
children  taken  up  for  vagrancy  or  begging, 
those  without  means  of  support,  those  as- 
sociating with  people  of  ill  fame,  insubordi- 
nate children,  and  those  judicially  convicted 
under  the  age  of  twelve.  So  far  as  to  the 
moral  conditions. 

As  to  age,  the  Englisli  law  fixes  fourteen 
as  the  latest  period  for  a  child's  admittance 
to  the  school,  and  sixteen  as  the  extreme 
limit  of  his  stay  in  it.  There  would  remain, 
then,  only  to  fix  the  earliest  age  at  which  a 
child  can  be  admitted.  Without  wishing  to 
limit  strictly  this  minimum,  we  think  that 
the  industrial  school,  intended  solely  to  fill 
a  gap  in  our  system  of  national  education, 
ought  not  to  take  in  children  too  young. 
Ten  or  eleven  might  be  this  limit,  until 
which  time  they  would  have  the  resource 
of  the  primary  school. 

Here  an  objection  presents  itself,  prompt- 
ed by  the  fear  that  parents  might  yield  to 
the  temptation  to  free  themselves  from  the 
task  of  bringing  up  their  children  by  throw- 
ing them  on  the  care  of  the  State  or  of  char- 
itable institutions.  To  guard  against  this 
abuse,  it  would  be  necessary  to  exact  the 
payment  of  school  fees  from  all  parents  able 
to  afford  that  expense.  We  ask  to  have  in- 
struction made  obligatory  for  the  class  of 
children  of  whom  we  are  speaking,  but  not 


*  Act  relating  to  Industrial  School?,  August  10, 18CC. 


ROBIN:   INDUSTRIAL  SCHOOLS. 


705 


gratuitous  in  all  cases.  This  has  been  wise- 
ly decided  by  the  English  law,  which,  when 
the  circumstances  of  the  parents  justify  it, 
requires  payment,  which  may  go  as  high  as 
five  shillings  a  week. 

These  points  being  settled,  the  authority 
competent  to  order  a  child's  admission  to 
the  school  must  be  designated.  In  England 
it  is  the  magistrate,  justice  of  the  peace,  or 
alderman,  who  gives  this  order.  The  School 
Board  must  submit  the  case  of  every  child 
whom  they  propose  placing  in  the  indus- 
trial school  to  the  judge  chosen  by  the  law. 
This  wise  provision  of  the  law  is  intended 
to  guard  against  the  abuse  of  arbitrary  de- 
tention, and  to  provide  the  needful  guaran- 
ties for  the  child's  liberty,  as  well  as  for  pa- 
ternal rights.  In  France  it  will  be  neces- 
sary to  decide  to  whom  this  office  should  be 
intrusted  —  whether  to  the  justice  of  the 
peace,  or  to  the  president  of  the  civil  tribu- 
nal, in  concert  with  the  public  prosecutor, 
as  is  the  case  with  children  placed  under 
paternal  correction.  It  is  a  question,  to  be 
decided  by  the  legislator. 

English  law  very  prudently  provides  be- 
forehand against  an  objection  which  might 
be  raised  in  the  interest  of  religious  free- 
dom. It  requires  that  the  justices  or  the 
magistrates,  when  choosing  a  school,  shall 
ascertain  to  what  religion  the  child  belongs, 
and'shall  send  him  to  a  school  of  that  per- 
suasion [Art.  18],  and,  if  an  error  should  oc- 
cur, the  child's  parents  or  guardians  have  a 
right  to  protest,  and  may  themselves  choose 
a  school  where  the  child  shall  be  instructed 
according  to  the  principles  of  their  religious 
belief. 

The  school  being  thus  founded,  and  all 
the  conditions  of  admission  being  regulated, 
it  has  still  to  be  decided  whether  the  new 
establishment  should  be  a  boarding  or  a 
day  school.  Both  have  been  tried  in  En- 
gland, in  Scotland,  and  elsewhere.  England 
has  adhered  exclusively  to  the  former,  while 
Scotland  seems  to  prefer  the  latter.  The 
boarding-schools  are  organized  in  this  man- 
ner: They  are  generally  gotten  up  by  pri- 
vate enterprise  or  by  the  School  Board. 
Private  individuals  or  a  charitable  associa- 
tion establish  the  school  and  have  if  exam- 
ined by  legally  appointed  inspectors.  If 
the  needful  requirements  have  been  com- 
plied with,  the  school  is  "certified"  by  the 
administration,  which,  in  this  case,  pays  a 
fixed  sum  per  week  for  each  child.  It  is 
this  legislative  grant,  together  with  chari- 
table contributions,  which  defray  the  expen- 
ses of  the  boarding-school.  These  expen- 
ses comprise,  in  addition  to  the  cost  of  in- 
stallation, clothing,  food,  school  requisites, 
and  the  salaries  of  officials.  These  board- 
ing-schools not  being  prisons,  but  education- 
al establishments,  the  rules  and  the  law 
leave  a  certain  latitude  to  the  managing 
committee.  The  child  spends  there  only  the 
45 


time  necessary  for  his  education.  He  may 
be  apprenticed  out,  according  to  circum- 
stances, after  some  mouths,  a  year,  or  two 
years,  without,  however,  ceasing  to  belong 
to  the  establishment,  and  to  be  subject  to 
the  rules  of  the  school,  although  he  no  long- 
er lives  in  it,  so  that,  if  he  behaves  badly  at 
his  master's,  he  is  at  once  sent  back  to  the 
house.  He  may  be  restored  to  his  relatives, 
if  they  seem  able  and  willing  to  continue 
his  education,  but  he  remains  subject  to  the 
rules  of  the  house,  as  in  the  former  case. 

I  have  read  of  boarding-schools  in  Ameri- 
ca, though  I  believe  the  number  is  not  great, 
where  the  pupils  attend  public  lectures,  or 
learn  a  trade  in  neighboring  workshops  and 
come  back  to  the  establishment  at  night. 

In  the  day-school  system,  as  it  is  practiced 
in  Scotland,  and  particularly  at  Aberdeen, 
the  child  stays  in  the  school  the  whole  day, 
which  is  divided  into  two  parts,  the  one  part 
being  devoted  to  elementary,  and  the  other 
to  industrial  instruction.  The  children  get 
three  meals  in  the  school,  and  go  home  at 
night  to  their  parents.  Regular  attendance 
atschool  is  thus  insured.  The  School  Board 
is  authorized  to  appoint  a  special  agent,  or 
to  call  upon  the  police,  who  bring  back,  at 
the  beginning  of  each  week,  the  child  who 
has  missed  school  the  week  before.  But  the 
alimentary  diet  of  the  school  is  highly  ap- 
preciated by  these  children,  who  are  wretch- 
edly supplied  at  home,  and  it  is  sufficient  to 
insure  their  regularity. 

Each  of  the  two  systems  has  its  special 
advantages,  and  the  choice  between  the  two 
would  depend  on  circumstances.  The  board- 
ing-school withdraws  the  child  from  the  evil 
influences  of  his  family  and  from  the  tempta- 
tion to  vagrancy;  but  its  protection  is  only 
temporary  and  somewhat  artificial,  for,  soon- 
er or  later,  he  must  be  put  back  into  ordi- 
nary life,  where  he  will  continue  to  be  ex- 
posed to  former  temptations.  Then  it  breaks 
the  family  ties,  putting  the  authority  of  the 
school  entirely  in  the  place  of  that  at  home ; 
and,  finally,  it  has  another  drawback — it  is 
very  costly.  The  day-school  leaves  the  child 
in  every-day  life  among  his  family,  upon 
whom  he  may  exercise  a  good  influence ; 
and,  above  all,  it  has  the  advantage  of  cost- 
ing less.  We  think  both  systems  may  be 
adopted  according  to  the  locality. 

One  point  more  remains  to  be  considered. 
Who  is  to  take  the  initiative  in  the  creation 
of  this  new  establishment  of  popular  educa- 
tion— private  individuals  or  the  State  t 

In  England,  at  the  outset,  the  movement 
was  inaugurated  solely  by  private  enter- 
prise. The  law  merely  established  the  prin- 
ciples in  accordance  Avith  which  the  indus- 
trial schools  should  be  certified  and  aided 
by  the  administration.  Several  States  of 
the  American  Union  have  grunted  charters 
to  establishments  of  this  kind,  which  thus 
bear  the  character  of  quasi  public  iustitu- 


TOG 


CHRISTIANITY  AND  SOCIAL  REFORMS. 


tions.  There  can  not  be  an  unvarying  prin- 
ciple on  this  subject.  The  habits  and  cus- 
toms of  each  people  must  be  consulted.  Pri- 
vate effort  has  great  advantages,  when  it  is 
practicable,  and  when  it  only  needs  to  be  en- 
couraged by  law.  We  think  it  might  have 
its  share  in  this  work  of  national  education 
in  France,  provided  that  the  law,  as  in  En- 
gland, should  allow  for  each  child  regularly 
admitted  in  virtue  of  a  magistrate's  order,  a 
fixed  sum,  which  should  partially  compen- 
sate these  establishments  for  the  sacrifices 
they  make,  and  thus  cover  a  part  of  their 
expenses.  It  would  bo  the  contribution  of 
the  State  in  aid  of  charitable  efforts ;  and 
in  this  it  would  only  be  applying  to  the  new 
institution  of  industrial  schools  the  provis- 
ions of  the  law  relative  to  the  houses  of 
correctional  education,  founded  by  private 
individuals,  and  certified  by  the  State,  to 
which  the  administration  pays  seventy  cen- 
times a  day  for  every  child  it  places  in  them. 
There  is  no  doubt  that  private  initiative 
might  be  of  great  help  to  the  State  in  the 
founding  of  industrial  schools,  as  it  was  in 
that  of  the  penitentiary  colonies.  It  woiftd 
suffice  that  the  law  should  seek  and  should 
favor  it. 

In  our  country,  perhaps,  it  would  be  too 
much  to  expect  that  private  effort  should 
suffice  for  the  founding  of  these  schools. 
There  are  four  thousand  five  hundred  va- 
grants in  our  houses  of  correction,  and  this 
number  does  not  by  any  means  represent  all 
those  to  be  provided  for.  The  founding  of 
public  establishments  would  supplement  the 
deficiency  of  private  ones.  We  should  thus 
have  public  and  private  establishments  in 
this  new  category  of  scholastic  institutions, 
as  in  the  case  of  ordinary  primary  schools ; 
the  first  making  up  for  the  deficiency  of 
the  second,  and  each  completing  the  other. 
A  fruitful  emulation  would  thus  be  estab- 
lished by  the  union  of  various  efforts  tending 
all  to  the  same  end — that  of  saving  children 
from  ignorance,  idleness,  and  vice.  The  com- 


bined efforts  of  all  in  this  great  work  of  na- 
tional preservation  would  not  be  more  than 
is  needful. 

We  are  of  the  opinion,  therefore,  as  to  this 
point,  that  it  is  desirable  that  the  State, 
while  encouraging  private  initiative,  should 
itself  undertake  the  establishment  of  these 
institutions. 

In  brief:  The  necessity  of  industrial 
schools,  embodying  the  principle  of  com- 
pulsory instruction  —  elementary  and  pro- 
fessional— seems  to  us  demonstrated  by  the 
duty  of  protecting  an  entire  class  of  children 
who  are  liable,  through  the  neglect  of  their 
parents,  to  remain  without  the  advantages 
of  instruction,  and  thus  to  become  danger- 
ous to  society. 

The  new  institution  of  national  education, 
whose  outlines  we  have  just  traced,  ought  to 
be  placed  on  the  same  footing  as  our  ordina- 
ry scholastic  establishments,  whether  public 
or  private. 

Thus  would  be  accomplished  a  work  of 
vast  importance  for  the  protection  and  ele- 
vation of  society  by  the  moral  training  of 
those  children  who,  from  their  circumstances, 
as  already  explained,  would  be  likely  to  be- 
come an  element  of  disorder  and  peril  to 
the  State. 

I  recall,  in  concluding,  that  compassion- 
ate word  of  our  Savionr :  "  I  was  in  prison, 
and  ye  came  unto  me."  Our  Lord  regards 
as  done  to  himself  what  we  do  in  behalf  of 
prisoners.  We  ought  to  take  pity  on  them, 
because  our  visits  are,  for  them,  a  consola- 
tion and  a  relief.  In  reflecting  on  those 
poor  children  exposed  in  our  streets  to  so 
many  temptations  of  misery  and  of  crime,  I 
seem  also  to  hear  our  blessed  Saviour  repeat, 
with  a  slight  variation,  this  other  compas- 
sionate word :  "  Suffer  these  deserted  chil- 
dren to  come  unto  me ;  take  them  under 
your  care;  and  save  them  from  the  prison 
by  instructing  them,  and  by  teaching  them 
to  earn  their  living  by  honest  labor." 


FAREWELL  ADDRESS. 


BY  THE  REV.  NOAH  HUNT  SCHENCK,  D.D.,  BROOKLYN,  NEW  YORK. 

Delivered  at  the  close  of  the  Valedictory  Services  in  the  Academy  of  Music,  New  York, 
Sunday  night,  October  12,  1873. 


MR.  CHAIRMAN,  BRETHREN,  AND  CHRIS- 
TIAN FRIENDS  ; — For  the  first  time  since  the 
world  began  the  lovers  of  God  have  met  in 
Catholic  Council  on  this  Western  Hemi- 
sphere. That  Council  now  belongs  to  his- 
tory. To-night  we  gather  with  deep  emo- 
tion around  an  altar  we  have  all  helped  to 
build.  The  hymns  we  sing,  the  prayers  we 
put  up,  the  words  we  speak,  are  designed  as 
a  spiritual  libation  to  our  common  God,  and 
as  a  valedictory  office  for  those  who  part 
to-night,  no  more  to  meet  this  side  the 
grave.  I  can  but  feel  that  the  occasion  is 
august.  Memorable,  it  will  assuredly  bo 
held  by  all  who  are  now  within  these  walls. 
The  atmosphere  we  breathe  is  charged  with 
solemnity.  As  I  look  on  this  vast  audience, 
how  overwhelming  is  the  idea  that  the  thou- 
sands gathered  to  the  sessions  of  the  Con- 
ference now  closing,  and  assembled  here  and 
at  this  moment  elsewhere  in  New  York  in 
halls  crowded  like  this,  have  come  together 
obedient  to  a  common  attraction,  and  under 
the  gravitation  of  a  common  sentiment ;  that 
all  have  invoked  the  same  spiritual  bap- 
tism, and  all,  we  trust,  received  the  same 
blessing;  and  that,  as  they  separate  to- 
night on  their  various  lines  of  departure, 
each  faithful  man  may  bo  supposed  to  car- 
ry away  and  take  to  his  home,  be  it  near  or 
far,  a  gift  from  God,  dispensed  at  this  high 
altar  of  holy  catholic  communion  by  Him 
"  who  didst  preside  in  the  councils  of  the 
blessed  apostles,"  and  who  has  given  un- 
mistakable testimony  of  His  presence  with 
this  Conference,  from  first  to  last,  in  quick- 
ening grace  and  manifold  spiritual  power. 
Aud  upon  this  meeting  to-night,  constituted 
though  it  be  of  frail  and  fallible  creatures, 
I  would  fain  believe  that  the  eyes  of  angels 


look  almost  tearlessly.  For,  if  man  may 
present  a  spectacle  of  moral  grandeur  to 
the  vision  of  the  skies,  it  is,  as  here,  where 
thousands  of  minds  and  hearts  blend  and 
fuse  in  a  concerted  purpose  to  enthrone  re- 
ligious truth,  and  assert  a  world-wide  fra- 
ternity iu  Christ,  and  display  the  reality  of 
catholic  communion  in  the  Beloved — where 
all  are  marshaled  under  the  twin  sentiment 
of  giving  God  all  glory  and  helping  all  men 
heavenward. 

The  Sixth  General  Conference  of  the  Evan- 
gelical Alliance,  marking  as  an  epoch  the 
twenty -seventh  year  of  its  organized  life, 
now  ends.  Over  London  and  Paris,  over 
Berlin,  Geneva,  and  Amsterdam,  the  aureola 
of  the  Alliance  has  shone.  And  now  around 
the  brow  of  New  York,  the  Metropolis  of 
America,  the  great  entrepot  of  the  Western 
World,  is  this  girdle  of  grace,  this  spiritual 
corona.  We  would  hold  all  these  capitals 
as  thus  peculiarly  consecrated.  We  would 
thread  these  fair  cities,  as  so  many  goodly 
pearls,  upon  the  golden  chord  of  Christian 
love,  and  adorn  the  Bride  of  Christ  with  the 
precious  necklace. 

The  summons  from  New  York  for  the  as- 
sembling of  this  Conference,  the  call  for  the 
gathering  of  the  tribes,  has  gone  echoing 
round  the  world,  and  kindly  reverberations 
have  come  answeriugback  from  almost  every 
zone.  From  the  Peiho  and  the  Ganges  in  the 
far  distant  East,  rolling  westward  over  the 
high  table-lauds  of  Central  Asia,  rich  and 
romantic  in  Aryan  tradition,  across  the  per- 
turbed civilizations  of  Europe  to  where  the 
silvery  Seine  and  golden  Guadalquiver  pour 
their  sparkling  tributes  to  the  sea ;  from  the 
land  where  the  superstitions  of  Thor  and 
Odin  have  dissolved  before  the  march  of 


708 


SCHENCK:  FAEEWELL  ADDRESS. 


Christian  truth,  southward  to  the  continents 
and  islands  which  lie  under  the  starlight  of 
the  great  southern  Cross — from  every  quar- 
ter of  our  peopled  planet  the  responses  to 
the  call  for  this  Conference  have  been  as 
deep  calling  and  answering  to  deep. 

And  we  came  together  as  members  of  one 
great  family,  as  children  of  the  one  common 
Sire,  "after  whom  the  whole  family  in  heav- 
en and  earth  is  named."  The  membership 
of  this  Conference  is  a  representation  of  the 
Church  invisible,  still  on  earth,  and  mili- 
tant. We  have  not  come  clothed  in  the 
livery  of  bigoted  organization,  not  as  spokes- 
men of  conflicting  schools  of  thought,  or  as 
wearing  the  ecclesiastical  vestments  of  the 
several  religious  denominations  to  whom 
we  profess  allegiance.  We  represent  no  con- 
stituency save  that  of  the  elect  in  Christ, 
no  sentiment  save  that  under  which  the 
brotherhoods  of  the  Redeemed  are  coalesced 
in  Christ.  A  convention  thus  constituted  is 
one 

"Where  names  and  sects  and  parties  fall, 
And  Jesus  Christ  is  all  in  all." 

The  purpose  of  this  Conference  is  not  to 
organize  a  new  church,  or  indulge  vain  fan- 
tasies of  organic  unity,  or  sketch  ntopian 
pictures  of  unified  doctrine  and  uniform 
practice  in  religious  theory  and  ecclesias- 
tical method.  We  recognize  the  great  fact 
that  the  Church  on  earth  is  a  working 
Church,  and  therefore  not  a  incture  in  pro- 
phetic elements  of  the  Church  in  heaven, 
which  is  a  Church  at  rest.  Here  there  are, 
and  are  to  be, "  diversities  of  gifts,"  and  "  dif- 
ferences of  administrations,"  and  "diversi- 
ties of  operations ;"  but  there,  where  the  dis- 
tinctions between  the  Church  visible  and  in- 
visible shall  have  ceased,  in  the  "one  fold" 
and  under  the  "  one  Shepherd,"  there  shall 
be  no  variety  in  unity,  but  soul  shall  answer 
to  soul  in  the  exact  reflections  of  the  Divine 
likeness.  We  rally  here  for  no  purpose  that 
is  selfish  or  secular,  doctrinal  or  ecclesiastic- 
al. We  have  come  simply  for  God's  honor 
and  man's  help.  Wo  have  not  assembled 
for  the  defense  of  Protestantism.  The  ne- 
cessity for  that  is  passed,  thank  God !  Its 
great  principles  have  been  promulgated  and 
vindicated  in  trumpet  tones  of  triumph  all 


round  the  world,  and  to-day  arc  enthroned 
in  the  minds  of  the  world's  greatest  thinkers 
and  the  hearts  of  Christ's  most  loyal  serv- 
ants. The  Protestant  idea  has  a  following 
that  is  fully  adequate  to  every  exigency  of 
defense  and  every  purpose  cf  propagation. 

But  this  Christian  Convocation  has  been 
summoned  for  fresh  declarations  of  unity 
realized,  for  the  interchange  of  the  elements 
of  varied  Christian  civilizations,  for  debating 
and  arming  in  flefense  of  Christian  liberty, 
for  asserting  the  franchise  of  free  conscience, 
for  making  full  exposition  of  catholic  ortho- 
doxy in  applied  religion1,  proving  that  the 
Evangelical  Alliance  holds  and  enforces  those 
measures  of  truth  which  all  Christian  de- 
nominations confess  and  apply  as  essential 
for  righteous  rule  in  government,  the  cor- 
rect ordering  of  society,  and  the  salvation  of 
the  soul. 

It  is  not  a  part  of  the  office  I  fill  to-night 
to  speak  of  the  sweet  social  reunions  and 
the  hospitable  interchanges  we  have  enjoy- 
ed. Neither  is  this  the  occasion  for  review- 
ing the  programme  of  learned  disquisition 
and  dignified  debate  to  which  this  Confer- 
ence has  given  its  time  and  thought  for  the 
last  ten  days.  Let  it  suffice  that  the  most 
important  and  pressing  issues  in  religion  and 
morals  that  could  possibly  challenge  the  at- 
tention of  earnest  minds  have  been  discussed 
before  us  by  those  whose  native  gifts,  whoso 
specific  and  profound  research,  and  whose 
rich  and  well-ripened  thought  have  most 
abundantly  qualified  them  for  the  great 
didactic  office  they  have  filled. 

In  the  few  sentences  of  valediction  that  I 
have  to  offer,  my  supreme  desire  and  effort 
is  to  rise  with  you  now,  dear  friends  in 
Christ,  to  the  highest  spiritual  level  to  which 
our  Lord  may  be  pleased  to  lift  us,  that  wo 
may  realize  the  liberty  of  sous  of  God  — 
yea,  perfect  freedom  in  Christ,  and  oneness 
in  the  Beloved. 

The  immediate  influence  and  results  of 
this  Conference  are  quite  beyond  the  most 
sanguine  expectations  indulged  by  its  friends 
and  promoters,  and  are  simply  amazing  to 
those  who  looked  with  little  heart  or  hopo 
to  the  gathering  of  this  Protestant  Council. 
In  fact,  the  Conference  has  astonished  Amer- 


SCHENCK:  FAEEWELL  ADDRESS. 


709 


ica.  Here  in  New  York,  where  we  are  ac- 
customed to  the  rapid  succession  of  notice- 
able events,  even  here,  there  has  been  a 
strange  and  almost  unprecedented  kindling 
of  interest.  And  wherever  the  press  has 
conveyed  the  proceedings  of  this  body,  ev- 
erywhere the  public  eye  has  been  widely 
opened  to  read  and  mark  its  daily  deliver- 
ances. The  most  emphatic  indications  of 
the  immediate  influence  of  the  Conference 
is  to  be  observed  in  the  great  numbers  that 
have  thronged  the  different  halls  of  audi- 
ence to  give  ready  and  untiring  ear  to  the 
utterances  of  our  distinguished  delegates. 
The  interest  excited  and  the  personal  attend- 
ance given  to  the  daily  sessions  have  been 
something  unexampled  in  any  convention 
of  a  moral  or  religious  character  ever  held 
in  this  country.  Nor  may  we  omit  to  re- 
mark upon  the  voluntary  and  valuable  serv- 
ices of  the  secular  press.  Never  before  in 
the  history  of  religious  or  moral  movements 
on  this  side  the  Atlantic,  or  probably  the 
other,  have  the  important  offices  of  the  press 
been  so  largely  enlisted.  I  would  take  oc- 
casion here  and  now  to  make  befitting  ac- 
knowledgment for  this  grateful  contribution 
to  our  great  evangelic  enterprise.  There 
was  a  time  when  the  public  press  of  New 
York  was  stigmatized  as  "  satanic,"  because 
led  on  by  a  Journal  professing  neither  relig- 
ion nor  morals,  but  professedly  conducted 
upon  a  mere  mercenary  basis;  but,  if  we 
may  argue  from  the  posture  of  the  press  to- 
ward the  Evangelical  Alliance,  this  great 
power  has  experienced  a  glorious  regenera- 
tion. Whether  this  new  baptism  has  been 
of  its  own  seeking,  or  the  involuntary  result 
of  the  great  influence  freshly  created  and 
wielded  by  this  Conference,  is  not  for  me  to 
pronounce. 

The  immediate  influence  upon  those  of  us 
who  have  waited  day  by  day  upon  its  devo- 
tional and  business  Sessions,  in  the  personal 
experiences  of  our  souls,  is  something  quite 
too  important  and  memorable  to  pass  over 
without  a  word  of  thanksgiving.  I  may 
not  freely  speak  for  others ;  but  for  myself 
I  am  glad  and  grateful  to  confess  that,  for 
the  lighting  up  of  my  mind  and  the  lifting 
up  of  my  heart  in  the  things  of  Christ,  I 


have  had  no  experiences  surpassing  the  en- 
gagements at  Amsterdam  in  1867,  and  these 
at  New  York  in  1873,  since  I  first  attempted 
the  following  of  the  Master.  Under  the  sweet 
spiritual  influences  evoked  by  these  earnest- 
minded,  warm-hearted  Christian  men,  who 
have  come  together  "  out  of  all  lands "  to 
counsel  and  commune,  have  we  not,  day 
by  day,  and  night  after  night,  been  newly 
clothed  upon  of  Christ,  and  freshly  charged 
with  his  heavenly  Spirit,  and  largely  en- 
couraged for  all  the  valiant  ventures  of 
faith  ? 

Touching  the  permanent  results  of  this 
Conference  it  may  be  premature  to  speak ; 
but  never  yet  has  one  of  these  convocations 
of  the  Alliance  been  held  in  the  cities  of 
Europe  without  entailing  upon  the  locality 
appreciable  and  invaluable  consequences  to 
Christ  and  society.  My  brethren  from  abroad, 
I  know,  will  give  their  emphatic  testimony  to 
this.  Where  the  drum-call  of  the  Evangelic- 
al Alliance  has  summoned  the  faithful,  and 
the  banner  of  Jesus  waved  over  its  solemn  de- 
liberations, there  an  influence  has  been  born 
whose  sacred  vitality  has  developed  and  been 
disseminated  in  measures  of  blessing  to  the 
individual  and  to  society  as  enduring  as 
they  have  been  beneficent.  As  elsewhere,  so 
here,  how  many  "  who  came  to  scoff  remain- 
ed to  pray ;"  how  many  who  heretofore  have 
regarded  religion  as  a  professional  or  per- 
functory thing,  after  looking  upon  and  list- 
ening to  these  learned  and  pious  pilgrims 
who  have  come  to  us  from  regions  remote, 
who  have  crossed  laud  and  sea  to  give  their 
testimony  for  Christ  and  the  truth,  to  bow 
their  faces  before  the  altar  here  set  up,  for 
the  common  worship  and  catholic  commun- 
ion of  the  Christian  allies ;  how  many  are 
there,  I  claim,  who  will  henceforth  regard 
religion,  its  offices,  its  franchises,  and  its 
blessings,  as  objects  to  be  coveted,  and 
courted,  and  possessed — who  will  substitute 
veneration  for  indifference,  and,  it  may  be, 
devotion  for  defiance ! 

There  is  no  doubt  that  the  Conference  has 
created  or  produced  a  great  religious  influ- 
ence in  this  country.  The  question  is,  how 
this  influence  can  be  best  administered  for 
God's  glory,  the  Church's  welfare,  and  the 


710 


SCHENCK:  FAREWELL  ADDRESS. 


soul's  progress.  Ouly  yesterday  it  was  de- 
termined, at  a  general  meeting  of  the  United 
States  Alliance,  to  hold  a  biennial  session 
for  the  discussion  of  living  issues  in  relig- 
ion, morals,  and  sociology.  It  is  fondly 
hoped  that  this  meeting  on  alternate  years 
may  keep  the  Christians  of  America  "well 
armed  for  the  defense  of  religious  liberty — 
may  afford  satisfactory  exemplifications  of 
Christian  nuity,  and  give  ample  opportuni- 
ty for  the  great  ventures  of  orthodox  Chris- 
tianity to  be  faithfully  studied,  and  thor- 
oughly sustained,  and  actively  furthered. 

Will  you  pardon  me  for  again  referring 
to  the  Conference  as  an  event  of  magnitude, 
because  of  one  or  more  aspects  and  relations 
to  which  I  have  not  yet  adverted  ?  We  are 
wont  to  accept  the  Latin  proverb,  "Omne 
ignotum  pro  magnifico ;"  but,  in  the  instance 
before  us,  immediate  proximity  has  not  de- 
tracted from,  but  rather  augmented,  the 
idea  of  moral  grandeur ;  the  closer  our  pro- 
pinquity, the  greater  our  reverence  for  the 
elements  of  the  Conference,  and  the  richer 
our  enjoyment  of  its  sacred  atmosphere. 
May  I  ask  you  to  regard  this  meeting  of 
the  Alliance  as  the  sublimest  possible  ex- 
hibition of  true  internationalism  f  In  this 
age  of  political  convulsions,  and  when  the 
facilities  of  intercourse  are  bent  to  the  serv- 
ice of  secular  and  selfish  ends,  what  an  im- 
mediate assurance  is  it,  and  what  a  pledge 
to  the  future,  that  we,  as  a  body,  appeal 
from  all  that  is  individualistic  and  economic, 
and  ask  for  the  commerce  of  higher  sym- 
pathies as  between  Christian  nationalities 
all  over  the  world !  The  Evangelical  Alli- 
ance inaugurates  "the  era  of  good  feeling." 
The  sentiment  of  internationality  which 
dominates  in  the  Conferences  proposes  not 
to  communize  labor  interests,  or  fortify  the 
strongholds  of  capital,  or  accomplish  the 
peaceful  arbitration  of  political  differences ; 
but  rather  to  proffer  to  all,  whatever  each 
nation  has  that  is  excellent,  in  spiritual  re- 
ligion, in  practical  morals,  and  the  science 
of  society — so  dictating  and  directing  the 
free  interchange  of  all  that  is  cherished  and 
held  dear  by  each,  that  the  honor  of  God  may 
be  vindicated,  the  soul  advanced  in  spiritual 
culture,  that  civil  and  religious  liberty  may 


go  hand  in  hand,  and  every  franchise  that 
conditions  and  embellishes  our  noblest  man- 
hood may  be  asserted  and  conserved.  This 
is  the  internationalism  of  the  Evangelical 
Alliance,  not  only  proposed,  but  practiced. 

This  Conference  is  historic.  The  greet- 
ings which  it  has  received  from  so  many  and 
such  dignified  ecclesiastical  sources  must  se- 
cure for  it  noticeable  recognition  and  large 
space  in  the  Church  history  of  the  period. 
The  brave  reformers,  who,  under  fearful 
pressure,  are  now  prosecuting  a  great  in- 
ner mission,  laboring  to  restore  poor  blinded, 
bigoted  Rome  to  her  primitive  Christian  life, 
have  just  sent  to  us  from  the  very  spot  where 
Huss  was  martyred,  from  this  scene  where 
they  are  gathered  in  solemn  congress,  from 
the  shores  of  Lake  Constance,  again  vocal 
with  protests  against  papal  arrogance  and 
usurpation,  and  over  the  signatures  of  a 
bishop  and  others,  called  and  consecrated  un- 
der the  genius  of  Catholic  revival — thence 
has  come  to  this  Conference  a  greeting  and  a 
Godspeed,  the  reach  of  fraternal  hands,  and 
the  pledge  of  sympathetic  souls.  Similar 
salutations  from  the  Archbishop  of  Canter- 
bury and  the  Metropolitan  of  Canada  have 
been  borne  to  us  by  eminent  Christian  leg- 
ates. And  then,  from  the  churches  set  up 
in  the  heart  of  heathen  nations,  and  far  off 
in  the  islands  of  the  sea,  missionary  greet- 
ings have  come  that  have  gladdened  the 
hearts  of  the  Alliance  men,  and  linked  this 
Conference  with  the  history  of  the  Church- 
at-work  in  a  way  at  once  primitive  and 
Christly. 

That  this  Conference  should  have  had  of- 
ficial and  kindly  recognition  by  the  Em- 
peror of  Germany,  and  that  it  goes  to-mor- 
row to  our  National  Capital  to  be  formally 
received  by  the  Chief  Magistrate  of  this 
country,  gives  it  a  certain  political  relation 
which  of  itself  is  historic.  Nay,  more,  we 
have  good  reason  to  believe  that  it  has  at- 
tracted the  attention  of  many  of  the  great 
ruling  powers.  It  has  come  to  bo  recognized 
as  an  engine  of  such  great  moral  and  relig- 
ious force  that  no  one  can  afford  to  ignore 
its  existence,  despise  its  teachings,  or  bo 
careless  to  its  influence. 

And  would  to  God  that  in  immediate  spir- 


SCHENCK:   FAREWELL  ADDRESS. 


711 


itual  agency  it  might  also  be  historic !  and 
that  this  Evangelical  Congress  might,  under 
God,  be  empowered  to  excite  the  energies 
of  religious  revival,  and  inaugurate  a  new 
Pentecost ;  so  that,  after  our  continuing  for 
ten  days  with  one  accord  in  one  place,  in 
prayer  and  Christly  counsel,  the  Spirit  of 
God  might  descend  in  plenteous  showers  of 
grace,  and  accomplish  the  conversion  of  thou- 
sands to  the  saving  faith  of  the  Lord  Jesus ! 
And  now,  I  would  address  myself  espe- 
cially to  you,  dear  brethren,  who  have  come 
to  ns  from  various  parts  of  Christendom, 
and  give  you  our  formal  but  feeling  fare- 
well. You  have  come  hither  not  as  the  Ar- 
gonauts of  old  seeking  a  fabulous  amulet ; 
not  as  pilgrims  to  some  profane  Mecca ;  not 
as  Crusaders,  proposing  to  retrieve  by  mate- 
rial forces  for  Him  whose  kingdom  is  not  of 
this  world,  and  whose  triumphs  are  achieved 
neither  by  might  nor  by  power,  but  by  His 
Spirit,  that  which  shall  enhance  the  glory 
of  the  second  dispensation  of  Christ.  You 
have  come  not  as  the  Genoese  adventurer, 
stretching  away  from  Palos,  seeking  India 
and  stumbling  upon  a  continent ;  neither 
have  you  come  in  the  blind  infatuation  of 
the  Romish  pilgrims  of  to-day,  who  are 
flocking  to  French  shrines  to  make  their 
superstitious  devotions.  By  what  impulse 
driven,  by  what  magnetism  drawn,  under 
what  sublime  gravitation  are  you  here? 
What  other  than  the  love  of  God  in  Christ 
and  the  welfare  of  a  fallen  race  ?  You  have 
come  from  all  the  peopled  lauds  of  Christen- 
dom, bringing  in  the  banners  of  the  several 
army  corps  of  the  great  host  of  Christ,  and 
stacking  them  around  this  common  altar, 
while  high  above  all  is  lifted  the  imperial 
standard  of  the  Great  Captain  of  our  com- 
mon salvation.  Oh,  the  history  of  these  bat- 
tle-flags of  the  Church  militant !  How  mauy 
are  tattered  and  torn,  riddled  and  slit  with 
shot  and  shell !  How  many  are  banners 
rolled  in  blood!  How  many  have  been  ig- 
nominiously  trailed  through  the  corridors 
of  the  Inquisition,  and  struck  with  the  mil- 
dew and  the  death-damps  of  its  hideous  dun- 
geons! How  many  have  floated  triumph- 
antly upon  the  air,  in  lands  where  heroic 
hands  have  held  them  up  as  faith-flags,  and 


where  the  breath  of  God's  favor  has  played 
upon  their  graceful  undulations!  We  are 
here  bringing  together  the  several  ensigns 
under  which  we  and  our  churches  have 
contended  for  "the  faith  once  delivered 
to  the  saints."  There  is  a  missionary  who 
has  worked  for  Christ  twenty  years  in  the 
heart  of  China.  There  is  a  Christianized  Hin- 
doo, one  who  has  crowned  the  graces  of  gen- 
tle breeding  and  scholarly  culture  with  the 
diadem  of  the  religion  of  Jesus,  and  who  has 
just  given  us,  in  tones  almost  prophetic,  the 
pictured  realizations  of  the  Church's  hopes 
touching  the  evangelization  of  the  world. 
I  see  before  me  men  from  Spain  and  Mexico. 
Before  me  are  those  who  live  in  the  shad- 
ows of  the  snow-crowned  mountains  of  Eu- 
rope and  the  rocky  sierras  of  America.  All 
are  charged  with  the  sentiment  of  Christ's 
mission,  and  all  pledged  to  the  work  of  the 
Church  of  Christ.  All  have  the  same  office, 
and  all  are  braced  and  buoyed  by  a  common 
hope.  How  in  eternity  shall  we  rehearse 
Avith  rapture  this  gathering  of  the  regiments 
here  in  New  York,  in  the  year  of  grace  1873  ? 
In  what  triumphant  anthems  shall  we  fight 
our  battles  over  again  in  that  better  land, 
where  all  militant  notes  shall  be  lost  in  the 
grand  diapason  of  the  conquering  chorus  of 
the  Church  triumphant ! 

I  can  but  feel  that  the  Evangelical  Alli- 
ance, as  it  has  here  exhibited  its  principles, 
projects,  and  practical  character  in  the  pro- 
ceedings of  the  Conference  now  ending,  has 
unconsciously  exercised  a  prophetical  office. 
Who  can  fail  to  accept  the  idea  here  so  em- 
phatically yet  silently  suggested,  that  this 
Christian  Congress  is  a  prototype  of  the  com- 
ing civilization  of  the  world  ?  How  eloquent- 
ly does  it  declare  that  the  time  is  near  when 
there  is  to  be  a  catholic  civilization ;  when 
the  provincialisms  of  districts  not  only,  but 
the  provincialisms  of  nations  shall  end; 
when  there  shall  bo  such  free  trade  in  liter- 
ature, religion,  custom,  and  mechanical  art, 
in  every  thing  that  enters  into  moral,  so- 
cial, and  economic  life,  transfused  through 
the  nations,  and  races,  and  localities  under 
the  administration  of  new-born  and  newly 
adapted  science,  that  human  society  shall 
become  homogeneous,  characterized  every- 


712 


8CHENCK:   FAREWELL  ADDRESS. 


where  by  like  conditions  and  conduct  and 
purpose !  Even  now  we  behold  the  fulfill- 
ment of  the  prophecy  of  many  running  to 
and  fro,  and  knowledge  being  increased. 
The  scores  of  Orientals,  who  are  being  edu- 
cated in  our  seminaries,  or  otherwise  study- 
ing the  laws  and  developments  of  our  West- 
ern civilization,  is  sufficient  illustration. 
Ere  long  the  ends  of  the  earth  shall  be  as 
our  neighbors.  Through  the  marvelous  fa- 
cilities of  intercommunication  the  great  bar- 
ter of  intelligence  and  material  is  prosecuted 
each  year  in  a  ratio  rapidly  augmenting. 
Whatever  is  valuable  in  the  society  or  trade 
life  of  any  one  laud  is  now  being  promptly 
apprehended  and  practically  applied  to  the 
wants  of  every  other.  Representatives  of 
every  nation  are  abroad  gathering  up  and 
carrying  home  whatever  is  valuable  wher- 
ever found.  In  this  wise  shall  the  problem 
of  a  catholic  civilization  be  worked  out. 
And  this  Alliance  is  the  token  and  pledge 
of  the  golden  age  which  lies  onward.  Then 
the  dissonance  of  Babel  shall  be  lost  in  a 
common  speech  restored  for  the  free  com- 
merce of  the  world's  thought,  and  the  clash 
of  religious  sentiment  cease  in  the  univer- 
sal acceptance  of  the  religion  of  Jesus  Christ. 
Inasmuch  as  here  in  this  Christian  Confer- 
ence we  have  but  one  heart  and  one  tongue, 
one  principle  and  one  aspiration,  is  it  too 
much  to  claim  that  before  us  is  the  prophet- 
ic picture  of  the  one-voiced  Christian  civil- 
ization which  shall  ere  long  make  the  whole 
world  akin  ? 

I  love  the  Evangelical  Alliance,  not  so 
much,  because  it  provides  for  the  commun- 
ion of  saints.  This  I  can  find  elsewhere. 
Not  so  much  because  of  its  important  de- 
liverances in  the  great  issues  of  moral  sci- 
ence and  religious  culture.  There  are  other 
oracles  of  equal  wisdom  and  dignity  from 
which  these  tuitions  may  be  had.  Again,  I 
revere  this  organization,  not  so  much  because 
it  is  a  defender  of  religious  liberty  and  illus- 
trator of  Christian  unity.  I  might  point  you 
to  other  agents  of  the  one,  and  exemplifica- 
tions of  the  other,  though  possibly  inferior 
and  less  effective.  But  with  my  heart  of 
hearts  do  I  love  this  Christian  alliance,  be- 
cause it  is,  at  least  to  me,  an  antepast  cf 


heaven,  a  foregleam  of  the  soul's  supernal 
state.  Now,  as  it  is  true  that  "  God  is  no  re- 
specter of  persons,"  not  even  in  the  matter  of 
church-membership,  but  that  "  in  every  na- 
tion he  that  feareth  Him  and  worketh  right- 
eousness is  accepted  with  Him  ;"and  as  men 
"shall  come  from  the  east, and  from  the  west, 
and  from  the  north,  and  from  the  south,  and 
shall  sit  down  in  the  kingdom  of  God ;"  and 
as  there  are  sheep  of  various  folds  who  shall 
be  brought  in  by  the  great  Saviour,  that  there 
may  be  "  one  fold  and  one  Shepherd ;"  and  as 
all  who  love  the  Lcrd  Jesus  Christ  are  de- 
clared to  be  "no  more  strangers  and  for- 
eigners, but  fellow-citizens  with  the  saints, 
and  of  the  household  of  God ;  and  are  built 
upon  the  foundation  of  the  apostles  and 
prophets,  Jesus  Christ  himself  being  the 
chief  corner-stone ;  in  whom  all  the  build- 
ing, fitly  framed  together,  groweth  unto  a 
holy  temple  in  the  Lord ;  in  whom  ye  also 
are  builded  together  for  a  habitation  of  God 
through  the  Spirit;"  and  as  those  "whom 
God  has  cleansed"  no  man  may  without 
blasphemy  "  call  common ;"  and  as  there  is 
the  "  same  Spirit,"  and  the  "  same  Lord,"  and 
the  "  same  God,"  though  there  be  "  diversi- 
ties of  gifts,"  and  "  differences  of  adminis- 
trations," and  "diversities  of  operations;" 
and,  again,  as,  according  to  the  vision  of 
John  on  Patmos,  the  worshiping  host  who 
stand  "before  the  throne,  and  before  the 
Lamb,  clothed  with  white  robes,  and  palms 
in  their  hands,  and  cry  with  a  loud  voice, 
Salvation  to  our  God  which  sitteth  upon  the 
throne,  and  unto  the  Lamb,"  are  a  "  great 
multitude,  which  no  man  can  number,  of 
all  nations,  and  kindreds,  and  people,  and 
tongues" — of  a  surety  may  we  not  aver 
that  here,  in  this  Conference  of  the  Evan- 
gelical Alliance,  we  have  produced,  dear 
brethren  in  Christ,  before  heaven  and  among 
men,  the  richest  possible  realization  that 
earth  can  be  supposed  to  afford  of  the  ce- 
lestial life  to  which  we  all  aspire. 

It  only  remains  that  I  give  you,  cherished 
friends  in  the  faith  of  the  Lord  Jesus,  the 
farewell  of  America  to  its  honored  guests, 
the  Good-bye  of  the  United  States  Alliance 
to  the  Delegates  of  sister  Alliances  here  as- 
sembled in  solemn  Conference;  and  that 


SCHENCK :  FAREWELL  ADDRESS. 


713 


"  Good-bye  "  is  a  simple  but  soul-felt  "  God 
bless  you !"  I  "would  fain  reach  forth  my 
hand  and  lay  it  upon  your  heads,  and  pro- 
nounce for  each  one  the  Benediction  of 
Peace.  As  it  is,  I  give  you  my  heart,  and 
offer  the  exchange  of  throb  for  throb  in  the 
reciprocal  pulsations  of  Christian  affection, 
in  the  precious  brotherhood  of  a  common 
love  and  life  in  the  Blessed  Jesus.  Nay, 
more,  I  would  invoke  the  everlasting  arms 
to  wind  round  us  as  we  are  here  grouped 
together,  and  hold  us  now  and  forever  as  one 
in  the  Beloved.  Go  to  yonr  homes,  brothers 
in  the  love  and  work  of  Jesus,  and  carry  our 
hearts  with  you.  Here  we  have  "  taken  sweet 
counsel  together."  You  have  blessed  us  in 
your  presence  and  by  your  prayers,  and  now, 
as  you  go  hence,  we  give  you  Christian  God- 
speed. May  the  Spirit  of  Christ  always 
abound  in  your  hearts,  and  the  love  of  Jesus 
always  be  the  great  governing  law  of  your 
lives!  God  be  with  you  as  you  return  to 
those  who  are  waiting  for  you  with  loving 
eyes,  looking  westward  for  the  ship  that  shall 
bear  you  to  the  sweet  embraces  of  family  and 
home.  There  are  welcomes  awaiting  you 
beyond  the  sea,  wifely  and  filial  welcomes 
from  those  whose  "  eyes  will  watch  your 
coming,  and  grow  brighter  as  you  come." 


We  part  to-night  only  to  meet  beyond 
the  flood.  Some  of  us  will  doubtless  flow 
together  in  the  sweet  communions  of  earth. 
But  the  members  of  this  Conference,  as  a 
body  complete,  will  only  re-assemble  in  the 
New  Jerusalem.  God  grant  us  safe-conduct 
to  that  City  which  hath  foundations.  But  as 
we  linger  here  in  our  fond  farewells,  and  ere 
we  relinquish  the  loving  clasp  of  fraternal 
hands,  shall  we  not  send  to  God,  on  wings 
of  faith,  the  catholic  prayer,  that  He  who 
by  his  "Holy  Spirit  didst  preside  in  the 
councils  of  the  blessed  apostles,  and  hast 
promised  through  his  Son  Jesus  Christ,  to 
be  with  the  Church  to  the  end  of  the  world, 
will  have  been  so  present  with  the  Council 
of  his  Church  here  assembled  in  his  name 
and  presence,  as  to  save  them  from  all  error, 
ignorance,  pride,  and  prejudice ;  and  to  di- 
rect, sanctify,  and  govern  them  in  their  pres- 
ent work,  by  the  mighty  power  of  the  Holy 
Ghost,  that  the  comfortable  Gospel  of  Christ 
may  be  truly  preached,  truly  received,  and 
truly  followed  in  all  places,  to  the  breaking 
down  the  kingdom  of  sin,  Satan,  and  death  ; 
till  at  length  the  whole  of  the  dispersed  sheep, 
being  gathered  into  one  fold,  shall  become  par- 
talcers  of  everlasting  life,  through  the  merits  and 
death  of  Jesus  Christ,  our  Saviour.  Amen." 


APPENDIX  I. 

LETTERS  OF  GREETING. 


APPENDIX  L-CONTENTS, 


[The  following  letters  of  greeting  from  religious  societies  and  distinguished  individuals  were 
brought  before  the  General  Conference,  and  selected  for  publication.  A  large  number  of  private 
letters  were  also  received,  conveying  the  good  wishes  of  invited  guests  unable  to  attend.  Official 
communications  of  foreign  branches  of  the  Alliance,  and  letters  of  eminent  public  men  in  Europe, 
endorsing  the  objects  of  the  General  Conference,  were  published  in  connection  with  the  Editor's  re- 
port on  his  first  Alliance  mission  to  Europe,  18G9,  in  Document  No.  III.,  pp.  34-39. — Ed.~\ 


PAGK 

1 .  MEELE  D' AUBIGNE  :   Testamentary  Address 717 

2.  BRITISH  ALLIANCE  :  .Letter  of  Greeting 719 

3.  ARCHBISHOP  OF  CANTERBURY:  Letter  to  the  Dean  of  Canterbury. . .  720 

4.  GERMAN  CHURCH  DIET  :  Letter  of  Greeting 720 

5.  COMMITTEE  FOR  INNER  MISSIONS,  GERMANY  :  Fraternal  Salutations. .  721 
0.  EMPEROR  OF  GERMANY:  "Cordial  Greeting  and  Best  Wishes" 721 

7.  EVANGELICAL  OBER-KIRCHENRATII  :  Cordial  Greeting 721 

8.  RossEEuw  ST.  HILAIRE:  Letter  of  Regret  and  of  Fraternal  Greeting  722 

9.  DUFF  :  Letter  to  Hon.  George  II.  Stuart,  Philadelphia 723 

10.  DOEDES:-  "A  Word  of  Sympathy,  icith  my  lest  Wishes" 724 

11.  WINTHROP  :  Letter  to  the  Rev.  Dr.  Adams,  of  New  York 724 


TESTAMENTARY  ADDRESS 

OF  THE  LATE  DR.  MERLE  D'AUBIGNE",  OF 
GENEVA,  SWITZERLAND.* 

To  the  President  and  Members  of  the  Ecumenical 
•  Assembly  of  Evangelical  Christians  at  New 

York: 

DEAR  AND  HONORED  BRETHREN  IN  CHRIST, 
— There  are  many  reasons  which  would  have 
made  me  wish  to  be  among  you  at  present. 
The  assembly  which  brings  together  at  New 
York,  in  the  western  hemisphere,  Christians 
of  the  Old  and  the  NewWorld,  is  unique  of  its 
kind  in  the  history  of  Protestantism.  Also, 
when  your  zealous  deputy,  the  Rev.  Dr. 
Schaff,  invited  me  in  your  name  to  take 
part  in  it,  I  would  willingly  have  answered 
yes ;  but  my  age  was  an  obstacle  altogether 
insurmountable.  I  desire,  however,  to  ad- 
dress you  a  few  words  in  writing. 

If  the  meeting  for  which  you  have  assem- 
bled is  an  important  one,  the  period  at  which 
it  is  held  is  equally  so,  not  only  on  account 
of  the  great  things  which  God  is  accomplish- 
ing iu  the  world,  but  also  by  reason  of  the 
great  evils  which  the  spirit  of  darkness  is 
spreading  throughout  Christendom.  The 
despotic  and  arrogant  pretensions  of  Rome 
have  reached  in  our  days  their  highest  pitch, 
and  we  are  consequently  more  than  ever 
called  upon  to  contend  against  that  power 
which  dares  to  usurp  the  Divine  attributes. 

But  that  is  not  all.  While  superstition  has 
increased,  unbelief  has  done  so  still  more. 
Until  now,  the  eighteenth  century — the  age 
of  Voltaire — was  regarded  as  the  epoch  of 
most  decided  infidelity ;  but  how  far  does 
the  present  time  surpass  it  in  this  respect ! 
Voltaire  himself  protested  against  the  phi- 
losophy which  he  called  atheistic,  and  said, 
"  God  is  necessarily  the  great,  the  only,  the 
eternal  artificer  of  all  nature  "  ("  Dialogues," 
25).  But  the  pretended  philosophers  of  our 
day  leave  such  ideas  far  behind,  and  regard 
them  as  antiquated  superstitious.  Matcrial- 

*  [This  document  of  the  distinguished  historian  of 
the  Reformation  was  prepared  for  the  Conference  in 
13TO,  and,  after  its  postponement,  intended  for  the 
Conference  of  1873 ;  but  the  author  was  called  to  his 
eternal  reward  October  21, 1S72.  It  was  handed  to 
me  by  his  widow,  at  London,  in  July,  1873,  "as  a 
proof  of  the  great  interest  which  Dr.  Merle  d'Au- 
bign6  felt  in  the  proposed  Conference  and  in  his 
brethren  in  the  United  States."— P.S.] 


ism  and  atheism  have  taken  the  place  of  the 
true  God  in  many  minds.  Science,  which 
was  Christian  in  the  finest  intellects  of  for- 
mer days,  in  those  to  whom  we  owe  the 
greatest  discoveries,  has  become  atheistic 
among  men  who  now  talk  the  loudest.  They 
imagine  that  by  means  of  general  laws  which 
govern  the  physical  world,  they  can  do  with- 
out Him  from  whom  those  laws  proceed. 
Some  remains  of  animals  found  in  ancient 
strata  of  our  globe,  make  them  reject  the 
creation  of  which  the  Bible  inaugurates  the 
account  by  these  solemn  words :  "  In  the  be- 
ginning God  created  the  heaven  and  the 
earth." 

Eminent  literary  men  continually  put  for- 
ward in  their  writings  what  is  called  posi- 
tivism, rejecting  every  thing  that  goes  be- 
yond the  limit  of  the  senses,  and  disdaining 
all  that  is  supernatural.  These  evils,  which 
had  formerly  only  reached  the  upper  ranks 
of  society,  have  now  spread  to  the  working 
classes,  and  some  among  them  may  be  heard 
to  say, "  When  man  is  dead,  all  is  dead." 

But  there  is  a  still  sadder  feature  of  our 
times :  unbelief  has  reached  even  the  minis- 
try of  the  Word.  Pastors  belonging  to  Prot- 
estant churches  iu  France,  Switzerland,  Ger- 
many, and  other  Continental  countries,  not 
only  reject  the  fundamental  doctrines  of  the 
faith,  but  also  deny  the  resurrection  of  Jesus 
Christ,  and  see  in  him  nothing  more  than  a 
man  who,  according  to  many  among  them, 
was  even  subject  to  errors  and  faults. 

A  synod  of  the  Reformed  Church  in  Hol- 
land has  lately  decreed,  that  when  a  minis- 
ter baptizes  he  need  not  do  so  "  in  the  name 
of  the  Father,  and  of  the  Son,  and  of  the  Holy 
Ghost."  A  journal,  when  relating  this  fact, 
adds :  "  Will  they,  then,  baptize  in  the  name 
of  the  god  Abyss?" 

At  an  important  assembly  held  lately  iu 
German  Switzerland,  at  which  were  present 
many  men  of  position,  both  in  the  Church 
and  State,  the  basis  of  a  new  religion  was 
laid  down.  2fo  doctrines!  was  the  watch- 
word on  that  occasion.  "No  new  doctrines, 
whatever  they  may  be,  in  place  of  the  old. 
Liberty  alone."  Which  means,  liberty  to 
overthrow  every  thing ;  and  too  truly,  some 
of  those  ministers  believe  neither  iu  a  per- 
sonal God  nor  in  the  immortality  of  the 
soul.  For  a  portion  of  the  European  pop- 
ulation, there  is  no  other  gospel  than  that 


718 


APPENDIX  I. 


•    of  Spinoza,  and  often  much  less  even  than 
that, 

Gentlemen,  ought  all  this  to  make  us  lose 
courage  f  By  no  means.  "  Fear  not,  little 
flock,"  Bays  our  Lord, "  for  it  is  your  Father's 
good  pleasure  to  give  you  the  kingdom  " 
(Luke  xii.,  32).  The  Church  is  built  on  an 
immovable  rock,  which  is  Christ,  "  and  the 
gates  of  hell  shall  not  prevail  against  it " 
(Matt,  xvi.,  18).  "  The  word  of  the  Lord 
endureth  forever"  (1  Peter  i.,  25). 

Yes,  brethren  and  dear  sirs,  whatever  may 
be  the  shouts  of  triumph  of  the  champions 
of  infidelity,  there  will  always  be  on  earth 
thousands  who  have  not  bowed  the  knee  to 
the  image  of  Baal;  but  we  must  desire  more 
than  that.  We  must  defend  the  kingdom 
of  God  against  its  enemies  and  extend  it 
over  all  the  globe. 

Seeing  a  great  assembly  from  both  hemi- 
spheres about  to  be  gathered  at  New  York 
in  such  critical  ti  mes  as  the  present,  a  thought 
has  presented  itself  to  my  mind,  and  I  would 
desire  to  communicate  it  to  you.  Ought  not 
your  meeting  to  be  above  all  things  (excuse 
the  expression  that  I  employ)  like  a  council 
of  war,  in  which  to  determine  the  plan  of 
the  great  campaign  which  is  approaching, 
or,  rather,  which  has  already  begun  ?  You 
are  not  merely  an  academy  summoned  to 
hear  eloquent  essays ;  you  are  rather  an  as- 
sembly called  to  deliberate  upon  the  pub- 
lic affairs  of  Christianity.  I  can  not  banish 
from  my  mind  the  thought  that  such  has 
been  the  object  of  the  Divine  Head  of  the 
Church  in  bringing  together  this  Christian 
Congress.  At  all  times,  and  among  all  na- 
tions, whenever  great  dangers  have  threat- 
ened the  father-land,  recourse  has  been  had 
to  the  wisdom  of  the  most  enlightened,  in 
order  to  determine  what  are  the  best  means 
to  adopt  for  its  safety.  The  adversaries  of 
Christianity  are  now  in  many  places  taking 
able  counsel  with  one  another,  or  holding  tu- 
multuous meetings  for  the  purpose  of  plan- 
ning its  destruction.  Shall  not  we  also  unite 
to  consider  the  best  means  of  saving  it  ?  or 
shall  it  be  true  that  "  the  children  of  this 
world  are  in  their  generation  wiser  than 
the  children  of  light  ?"  (Luke  xvi.,  8).  The 
great  question  for  every  individual  is  al- 
ways this :  "What  must  I  do  to  be  saved  ?" 
The  great  question  for  the  Church  at  this 
time  is:  What  must  be  done  to  save  the 
Church?  He  who  saves  is  Christ.  "Nei- 
ther is  there  salvation  in  any  other"  (Acts 
iv.,  12).  But,  as  says  the  apostle,  "  We 
are  laborers  together  with  God"  (1  Cor. 
iii.,  9). 

Gentlemen,  there  is  now  an  important 
work  to  be  done ;  a  crisis  has  arrived,  per- 
ilous, decisive,  which  reminds  me  of  those 
words  of  one  of  our  French  .poets,  the  great 
Corneille : 

"Et  je  pnis  dire  enfin,  qne  jamais  potentat 
N'ent  ii  deliberer  d'un  si  grand  conp  d'etat." 


You  have  to  deliberate  upon  the  triumph 
of  the  Gospel  in  Christendom.  If  you  seek 
your  wisdom  from  Him  who  "  giveth  to  all 
men  liberally  "  (James  i.,  5),  there  will,  with- 
out doubt,  result  from  your  meeting  unex- 
pected light,  effective,  powerful  means  for 
remedying  the  ills  which  afflict  us.  It  is 
not  I,  gentlemen ;  it  is  not  a  man  of  times 
already  past,  who  can  find  here  the  guiding 
clue.  A  philosopher  has  said,  "In  periods 
of  great  difficulty  the  young  are  generally 
more  discerning  than  the  aged."  However, 
as  those  who  have  convoked  your  assembly 
have  asked  me  to  speak,  I  shall  address  you, 
not  some  advice,  but  a  few  questions. 

1st.  Ought  we  not,  in  order  to  triumph 
over  infidelity,  to  employ  science  itself, 
humble  and  healthy  science,  in  opposition 
to  a  partial,  proud,  and  sickly  science,  which 
seeks  the  knowledge  of  creation,  but  rejects 
the  knowledge  of  the  Creator,  from  whence 
result  moral  and  intellectual  enfeeblement 
and  continual  change?  A  system  lasts  a, 
few  years,  and  then  it  is  succeeded  by  an- 
other. A  scholar  will  affirm  that  we  de- 
rive our  origin  from  one  of  the  lower  ani- 
mals which  gradually  became  a  man;  and 
he  may  succeed  in  leading  many  superficial 
minds  to  adopt  his  theory,  and  then  he  will 
retract,  but  without  being  able,  most  likely, 
to  bring  back  those  whom  he  has  led  into 
error.  Men  of  genius  who  have  been  the 
great  lights  of  humanity — Bacon,  Kepler, 
Newton,  Pascal,  Leibnitz,  Euler,  Haller,  and 
many  others — studied  the  creation,  but  they 
also  acknowledged  the  Creator;  and  their 
theories  have  become  the  basis  of  all  our 
science.  Unfortunately,  some  of  the  learn- 
ed men  of  our  day  (I  do  not  say  all)  have 
not  such  elevated  minds.  The  knowledge 
of  visible  things  will  only  be  sound  when  it 
is  accompanied  by  the  knowledge  of  the  in- 
visible God  who  is  the  author  of  them. 

2d.  Is  it  not  important  to  uphold  ener- 
getically the  rights  of  the  mind,  in  contra- 
distinction to  the  extravagant  and  humili- 
ating pretensions  of  matter  t  Let  us  defend 
manfully  the  superior  attributes  of  man. 
Let  us  affirm  that  the  faculties  in  virtue  of 
which  he  is  capable  of  knowing  God,  the 
Invisible,  the  Infinite,  the  Origin  and  End 
of  man,  are  immensely  above  those  by  vir- 
tue of  which  he  crawls  upon  this  earth. 
How  paltry  is  humanity  if  deprived  of  com- 
munion with  the  eternal  God !  Fallen,  de- 
based, we  must  say  of  him  as  did  the  proph- 
et, "  The  crown  is  fallen  from  his  head." 

3d.  Should  not  reform  begin  in  the  min- 
istry of  the  Word?  The  princes  of  this 
world  seek  continually  to  remodel  their 
armies,  improve  their  soldiers,  their  rifles, 
their  cannon ;  and  shall  the  army  of  Jesus 
Christ  alone  do  .nothing  for  its  improve- 
ment? Many  are  the  changes  that  ought 
to  be  made  in  the  ministry,  but  I  shall  men- 
tion only  one,  and  that  in  the  words  of  our 


APPENDIX  I. 


719 


great  reformer,  John  Calvin.  Proofs  and 
arguments  are  necessary  with  unbelievers, 
but  that  is  not  sufficient.  There  must  also 
be  sound  doctrines,  and  there  is,  besides,  a 
right  way  of  presenting  them  to  the  peo- 
ple. Calvin  shows  that  the  minister  must 
not  be  satisfied  with  reading  a  sermon  cold- 
ly or  reciting  it  correctly.  "True  preach- 
ing," says  the  reformer,  "  must  not  be  dead, 
but  living  and  effective.  There  is  a  force, 
there  is  an  energy,  which  should  be  found 
in  those  who  desire  to  be  good  and  loyal 
ministers  of  the  Word.  No  parade  of  rhet- 
oric, but  the  Spirit  of  God  must  resound  in 
their  voice  in  order  to  operate  with  power" 
(V Esprit  de  Dieu  dolt  resonner  en  leur  voix, 
pour  tesoigner  en  vertu).  Thus  spoke  Calvin. 
Doubtless  one  sometimes  hears  such  voices, 
but  they  are  rare.  The  progress  which  we 
have  to  make  is  a  revival  of  the  ministry 
of  the  apostles  and  of  the  Reformation.  It 
was  for  the  Church  of  England,  and  to  the 
regent  of  the  kingdom,  the  uncle  of  Edward 
VI.,  that  Calvin  wrote  these  words  in  1548, 
but  they  are  applicable  to  every  church. 
May  the  Spirit  of  God  resound  in  our  voices ! 
4th.  Ought  not  Christians  in  the  times  in 
which  we  live,  the  faithful  and  the  pastors, 
to  attach  themselves  more  and  more  to  the 
person  of  JESUS  CHRIST  ?  We  must  do  so  in 
order  to  contend  against  infidelity,  and,  still 
more,  against  popery.  Let  us,  therefore, 
cleave  with  a  living  faith,  with  earnest  love, 
not,  indeed,  to  a  fantastic  ideal  of  Jesus,  in- 
vented by  unbelieving  imaginations,  but  to 
the  true  person  of  Jesus  Christ,  such  as  the 
Holy  Scriptures  alone  make  him  known  to 
us,  in  all  his  humility,  but  also  in  all  his 
beauty,  his  power,  and  his  glory.  Let  us  at- 
tach ourselves  to  him,  not  only  for  our  own 
peace,  but  also  for  the  salvation  of  the 
Church.  We  are  in  a  great  crisis,  I  would 
almost  say  in  great  distress ;  but  if  we  are 
under  the  eye  of  such  a  friend,  who  has  said 
with  truth,  "All  power  is  given  unto  me  in 
heaven  and  in  earth  "  (Matt,  xxviii.,  18) ;  and 
if  he  has  added,  "  I  am  with  you  alway " 
(Matt,  xxviii.,  20),  should  we  not  be  sense- 
less if,  in  this  pressing  danger,  we  did  not 
apply  for  help  to  that  friend  ?  Well,  those 
words  were  addressed  to  us  by  the  Son  of 
God.  *  We  are  full  of  confidence  in  the  real- 
ity of  his  promises;  let  us  act  accordingly. 


GREETING  FROM  THE  BRITISH  ALLI- 
ANCE. 

From  the  Council  of  the  British  Organization  of 
the  Evangelical  Alliance  to  the  Council  and 
Members  of  the  Evangelical  Alliance  of  the 
United  States  of  America. 

BELOVED  AND  HONORED  BRETHREN, — We 
avail  ourselves  of  the  opportunity  afforded 
us  by  our  delegates  proceeding  to  the  Gen- 
eral Conference  about  to  be  held  in  New 


York,  to  commend  them  to  your  fraternal  fel- 
lowship and  regard.  We  present,  by  them, 
to  yourselves  and  to  the  Christian  brethren 
gathered  together  from  different  lands,  our 
cordial  and  affectionate  greeting,  and  our 
sincere  congratulations  on  the  auspicious 
occasion  of  your  assembly. 

We  desire  gratefully  to  acknowledge  the 
hand  of  our  gracious  God  in  the  removal  of 
all  causes  for  further  delay  in  holding  in 
your  own  city  the  Sixth  General  Conference 
of  Christians  of  various  nations,  and  in 
bringing  to  a  successful  termination  the  ar- 
rangements made  in  many  different  coun- 
tries for  a  suitable  representation  being 
present  to  take  part  in  its  interesting  pro- 
ceedings. The  Conference  itself  and  its  re- 
sults will  be  regarded  with  deep  interest  by 
multitudes  in  this  and  other  lands  who  de- 
sire to  see  the  Christian  churches  both  of 
the  Old  and  New  World  brought  into  closer 
communion  and  co-operation,  for  the  de- 
fense of  religious  liberty  and  the  spread  of 
the  Redeemer's  kingdom  among  all  people. 

Profoundly  impressed  with  the  importance 
of  the  meetings  and  the  subjects  about  to 
be  brought  under  your  consideration,  we  in- 
vited the  members  of  the  Alliance  through- 
out the  United  Kingdom  to  make  special 
and  united  prayer  to  Almighty  God  for  his 
blessing,  that  the  approaching  Conference 
may  issue  in  results  greatly  to  his  glory, 
and  the  increase  of  unity,  peace,  and  concord 
among  all  true  Christians. 

To  move  the  springs  of  united  prayer  has 
been  one  of  the  peculiar  privileges  of  this 
Alliance,  and  on  no  previous  occasion  does 
it  appear  to  us  that  the  supplications  of 
God's  children  were  more  needed  or  more 
suitable  than  at  the  present  time,  when  wise 
and  holy  men  of  both  hemispheres  are  drawn 
together  for  fraternal  fellowship,  for  spirit- 
ual profit,  for  mutual  counsel,  and  for  com- 
bined effort  in  the  cause  of  truth  and  right- 
eousness throughout  the  world. 
•  May  the  Spirit  of  Grace  and  Supplication 
be  poured  out  upon  your  assemblies.  May 
the  Great  Head  of  the  Church  himself  be 
with  you. 

Allow  us,  beloved  brethren,  to  assure  you 
of  our  cordial  sympathy,  and  our  readiness 
at  all  times  to  co-operate  with  you,  and  with 
the  sister  organizations  in  various  countries, 
in  making  this  Association  increasingly  a 
power  for  good.  We  have  rejoiced  in  the 
formation  of  so  large  and  influential  an  Evan- 
gelical Alliance  as  the  one  already  establish- 
ed in  your  own  country,  and  of  which  the 
present  Conference  may  be  regarded  as  one 
of  the  good  fruits ;  and  we  record  with 
thankfulness  the  valuable  aid  recently  ren- 
dered by  yourselves  and  our  European  asso- 
ciations in  pleading  effectually  for  the  op- 
pressed in  a  distant  land.  We  are  thus  re- 
minded continually  of  a  great  and  holy 
work  committed  to  our  hauds — the  defense 


720 


APPENDIX  I. 


of  persecuted  Christians  suffering  for  right- 
eousness' sake ;  the  spread  of  the  Gospel  in 
all  lands ;  the  practice  of  Christian  charity 
among  ourselves,  and  commending  it  to  the 
sympathy  and  practice  of  our  fellow-believ- 
ers; conflicts  with  infidelity  and  ungodli- 
ness in  varied  forms — these  are  claiming  the 
most  serious  attention  of  Christians,  and 
pressing  upon  them  everywhere  to  unite, 
and  by  a  common  service  to  their  one  Lord 
draw  closer  the  bands  of  brotherly  love. 
Only  thus  united  in  holy  activity  can  we  be 
assured  that  doubts  as  to  the  divine  author- 
ity of  the  doctrines  we  hold  will  diminish, 
and  the  promise  of  our  Lord  be  not  far  from 
its  final  and  glorious  accomplishment — "  that 
the  world  may  believe." 

May  the  God  of  peace  and  love  enable  you 
with  one  heart  and  mouth  to  glorify  him 
who  is  the  Father  of  our  Lord  Jesus  Christ, 
and  so  make  manifest  that  the  Prince  of 
Peace  has  guided,  controlled,  and  blessed 
your  counsels. 

Again  we  offer  yon  our  paternal  and  affec- 
tionate salutations.  On  behalf  of  the  Couu- 
cil, 

EBURY,  President. 

CHICHESTER, 

EGBERT  LUSH, 

WILLIAM  ASHLEY, 

E.  J.  ROBERTSON  (Lord  Benholm), 
Vice-presidents. 

ALFRED  S.  CHURCHILL, 

Chairman  of  N.  T.  Conf.  Com. 

JOHN  FINCH,  Treasurer. 

JAMES  DAVIS,  Secretary. 

HERMANN  SCHMETTAU, 

Foreign  Secretary. 


to  me  in  that  Church,  which  has  generally 
been  regarded  as  the  bulwark  of  the  Eefor- 
mation,  without  praying  for  God's  blessing 
on  all  earnest  efforts  to  spread  the  great 
Gospel  doctrines  which  the  Reformation  vin- 
dicated. Never  since  the  Eeformation  has 
it  been  more  important  that  Christian  men 
should  learn  to  understand  and  co-operato 
with  one  another,  and  that  they  should,  by 
the  manifestation  of  their  union  in  faith  and 
good  works,  offer  an  effectual  opposition  to 
the  growing  progress  of  superstition  and 
iufidelity.  And  never  has  this  union  been 
more  earnestly  longed  for  than  in  the  pres- 
ent day. 

I  trust  that  the  Holy  Spirit  of  God  may 
guide  all  who  take  part  in  your  discussions 
at  New  York ;  and  that  the  solution  of  the 
great  social  and  religious  questions  of  which 
!  you  propose  to  treat  may  be  advanced  by 
i  the  mutual  intercourse  of  minds  accustomed, 
many  of  them,  to  regard  these  questions  in 
different  aspects,  according  to  the  peculiari- 
ties of  their  several  countries. 

That  God  may  hasten  the  time  when  the 
differences,  which  at  present  tend  too  much 
to  keep  Christians  asunder,  may  be  removed, 
and  when  all  who  love  the  Lord  Jesus  Christ 
sincerely  may  be  able,  without  compromise 
of  principle,  to  unite  both  outwardly  and  in 
spirit,  is  my  heart's  prayer. 

Believe  me  to  be,  my  dear  Dean,  yours 
very  sincerely,  A.  C.  CANTUAR. 

The  very  Reverend 

The  DEAN  OF  CANTEKBCEY. 


LETTER  FROM  THE  ARCHBISHOP  OF 
CANTERBURY. 

Addington  Park,  Croydon, 
August  1, 18T3. 

MY  DEAR  DEAN,  —  I  can  not  allow  the 
Dean  of  my  Cathedral  to  go  to  America  to  at- 
tend a  general  conference  of  Christians  of  all 
countries,  without  expressing  my  good  wishes 
and  earnest  hope  that  his  efforts  to  promote 
unity  in  Christ's  Church  may  be  blessed. 

In  1870  (before  the  proposed  Conference 
was  postponed,  owing  to  the  unhappy  war 
between  two  great  Christian  nations)  I 
wrote  a  letter  to  the  late  lamented  Bishop 
M'llvaine,  which  he  kindly  undertook  to 
present  to  the  Conference.  I  hope  that  you 
will,  on  the  present  occasion,  be  the  bearer 
of  my  good  wishes  in  the  place  of  one  whose 
loss  has  been  felt  by  Christian  men  wherever 
the  English  language  is  spoken. 

You  are  aware  that  I  have  never  been  a 
member  of  the  Evangelical  Alliance,  under 
the  auspices  of  which  the  Conference  is  to 
be  convened.  But  it  is  not  possible  for  me 
to  hold  the  position  which  God  lias  assigned 


GREETING  FROM  THE  GERMAN 
CHURCH  DIET.* 

Berlin,  September  1, 1873. 
THE  German  Evangelical  Church  Diet, 
represented  by  two  members  of  their  Exec- 
utive Committee,  viz.,  Professor  Dr.  Dorner 
and  Consistorial  Councilor  Noel,  send  broth- 
erly greetings  to  the  Conference  of  the  Evan- 
gelical Alliance  about  to  convene  in  New 

1  York  City ;  with  the  expression  of  their 
heartfelt  desire  that  in  the  battle  against 

I  the  dark  powers  of  infidelity  and  supersti- 
tion the  bond  of  peace  may  draw  closer  and 
closer  together  all  soldiers  of  the  Lord  on 

i  both  sides  of  the  great  deep,  and  that  to  this 
end  the  approaching  assembly  may  be  bless- 
ed in  its  testimonies,  prayers,  and  thanks- 

:  givings.          

*  [The  German  Church  Diet  was  founded  during 

i  the  revolutionary  commotions  of  1848,  and  met  for  the 

first  time  over  the  graves  of  Luther  and  Melanchthon 

in  Wittenberg.     It  is  a  free  society  of  Evangelical 

I  Christians  in  Germany,  meeting  from  time  to  time 

i  for  the  discussion  of  subjects  of  common  interest. 

I  It  is  the  same  for  the  various  evangelical  denomina- 

!  tions  of  the  German  nation,  that  the  Evangelical  Al- 

;  liance  is  for  Evangelical  Christians  of  all  nationalities 

I  And  tongues.    It  aimed  first  at  a  confederation  of 

churches,  but  this  idea  has  been  abandoned.— P.  S.] 


APPENDIX  I. 


721 


In  behalf  of  the  Executive  Committee  of 
the  German  Evangelical  Church  Diet,  the 
acting  Vice-president : 

D.  P.  RUD.  KOGEL,  D.D., 
Chaplain  to  the  King  of  Prussia. 


FROM  THE  CENTRAL  COMMITTEE  FOR 
INNER  MISSIONS  OF  THE  GERMAN 
EVANGELICAL  CHURCH. 

To  the  highly  venerable  Assembly  of  the 
Evangelical  Alliance,  to  meet  in  New  York 
in  October  next,  the  undersigned  Central 
Committee,  through  its  Vice-president,  Dr. 
Doruer,  of  Berlin,  and  its  worthy  friend  and 
agent,  Pastor  Krummacher,  of  Brandenburg, 
herewith  respectfully  bears  its  fraternal  sal- 
utations. 

These  gentlemen  have  at  our  request 
accepted  the  commission  to  express  to  the 
highly  venerable  Assembly  our  warm  inter- 
est in  the  deliberations,  especially  in  those 
which  pertain  to  the  great  work  of  Home 
Mission,  and  are  of  such  vast  importance  to 
the  Christian  nations  and  the  Evangelical 
Church  in  the  present  and  the  future. 

Above  all  do  we  earnestly  desire  that  the 
Assembly  may  be  in  the  condition  to  assist 
in  supplying  the  hosts  of  evangelical  emi- 
grants who  annually  arrive  at  your  shores 
from  all  parts  of  Germany,  with  the  bless- 
ings of  evangelical  worship,  evangelical  pas- 
toral care,  and  evangelical  schools,  and  to 
secure  the  same  unto  their  children  in  their 
new  home.  What  hitherto  was  possible  to 
be  done  for  these  purposes  in  North  Amer- 
ica, partly  by  the  joint  assistance  from  Ger- 
many, for  it  we  take  occasion  to  express  our 
sincerest  thanks  to  those  worthy  and  noble 
men  who,  with  faith  and  many  sacrifices, 
have  co-operated  with  us.  We  pray  them 
not  to  grow  weary  in  their  endeavors,  and 
assure  them  of  our  readiness  to  work  to- 
gether with  them  for  this  end  according  to 
our  strength  and  by  all  possible  means. 
We  beg  the  Assembly  to  furnish  these  gen- 
tlemen, Dr.  Dorner  and  Pastor  Krummacher, 
whom  you  will  also  recognize  and  cordial- 
ly welcome  as  our  representatives  in  your 
midst,  with  such  thoughts  and  wishes  as 
may  be  of  importance  for  the  spiritual  in- 
terests of  our  evangelical  countrymen,  and 
ought  to  claim  our  attention  and  demand 
our  action. 

We  pray  that  the  Lord  of  the  Church  will 
fill  the  Assembly  of  the  Evangelical  Alliance 
with  his  Holy  Spirit,  and  abundantly  bless 
and  direct  it  to  the  end  that,  in  the  midst 
of  these  serious  times  of  conflict,  his  holy 
work  of  peace  may  prosper,  and  among  all 
nations  the  kingdom  of  Jesus  Christ  be 
built  up,  to  the  praise  of  his  name. 

DR.  WICHEHN. 

Bci-liu  aud  Hamburg,  July  24, 1S73. 


46 


FROM  THE  EMPEROR  WILLIAM  OF 
GERMANY. 

AT  a  private  interview  with  his  Majesty 
W'illiam  I.,  Emperor  of  Germany  and  King 
of  Prussia,  held  at  Bad  Gastein,  August  10, 
1873,  the  Rev.  Dr.  Schaif,  acting  houorary 
secretary  of  the  American  branch  of  the 
Evangelical  Alliance,  after  a  full  and  free 
discussion  of  the  principles  and  aims  of  the 
Evangelical  Alliance  and  the  programme  of 
the  General  Conference,  was  authorized  and 
requested  to  convey  his  Majesty's  "  cordial 
greeting  and  best  wishes  (herzlichen  Gruss 
und  Segenswunsch)  to  the  General  Conference 
to  be  held  in  New  York,  and  to  assure  it  of  hi« 
entire  sympathy  with  the  evangelical  princi- 
ples and  union  efforts  (evangelische  Gnmdsdtzc 
und  Einlmtsbestrebungeri)  of  the  Alliance." 

The  Emperor  desired  it  to  bo  understood 
that  he  sustained  the  same  friendly  relation 
to  the  Alliance  which  his  brother,  King 
Frederick  William  IV.  of  Prussia,  had  pub- 
licly expressed  in  1857,  on  the  occasion  of 
the  General  Conference  then  held  at  Berlin, 
when  he  hospitably  entertained  the  delegates 
at  his  palace  in  Potsdam.  It  was  his  fervent 
wish  and  prayer  that  the  approaching  Confer- 
ence might  receive  from  above  the  spirit  of 
wisdom  and  power,  aud  lead  to  a  closer  union 
among  Christians  of  all  denominations  and 
countries,  which  his  Majesty  felt  to  be  of  the 
utmost  importance,  especially  in  these  times 
of  growing  conflict  with  infidelity  on  the 
one  hand,  and  with  superstition  on  the  other. 
Only  a  united  army  can  conquer  the  enemy 
and  enjoy  the  fruits  of  victory.  In  laboring 
for  true  Christian  union,  we  act  in  the  spirit 
of  Christ,  who  prayed  for  it  before  he  offered 
himself  as  a  sacrifice  for  the  sins  of  the  world. 
The  Emperor  also  expressed  his  gratification 
that  his  chief  chaplain,  Dr.  Hoffmann,  and 
Professor  Godet  (the  tutor  of  his  only  son, 
the  Crown-prince  of  Germany)  were  to  at- 
tend the  Conference  in  New  York,  and  said 
ho  would  give  Dr.  Hoffmann  every  facility 
to  do  so ;  but  this  distinguished  divine  was 
then  lying  ill  at  Berlin,  aud  died  a  few  weeks 
afterward  (August  28). 

These  expressions  of  interest  in  the  Alli- 
ance on  the  part  of  the  venerable  Emperor 
were  remarkably  frank  aud  cordial,  and  were 
repeated  afterward  by  his  Majesty  at  the 
dinner -table  before  several  distinguished 
guests.  They  do  credit  to  his  personal  char- 
acter, and  are  of  great  weight  in  view  of  his 
official  position  as  the  royal  patron  of  Evan- 
gelical Protestantism  on  the  Continent  of 
Europe. 

FROM  THE  EVANGELICAL  OBERKIR- 
CHENRATH  IN  BERLIN. 

THE  Rev.  Dr.  Dorner  conveyed  to  the  Con- 
ference a  message  from  Dr.  Herrmann,  Pres- 
ident of  the  ObcrkircJtcnralh  (which  is  the 


722 


APPENDIX  I. 


highest  council  of  the  United  Evangelical 
Church  of  Prussia),  sending,  in  behalf  of  this 
body,  a  cordial  greeting  to  the  General  Con- 
ference, with  the  prayer  that  it  may  be  rich- 
ly blessed  in  its  noble  efforts  to  bring  about 
a  closer  union  among  Christiana  of  different 
lauds  and  nations. 


FROM  PROFESSOR  ROSSEEUW  ST. 

HILAIRE,  VERSAILLES, 
Member  of  the  Institute  of  France. 

Neuchatel,  Sept.  12, 1S73. 
To  the  Kev.  Dr.  Schaff: 

DEAR  AXD  HONORED  BROTHER, — You  have 
asked  from  me  a  few  lines,  which  you  may 
submit  to  our  brethren  of  every  language 
and  of  every  country  whom  the  great  festi- 
val of  the  Evangelical  Alliance  is  about  to 
assemble  in  New  York. 

I  am  happy  to  accede,  were  it  only  to  be 
able  to  express  to  you  and  to  all  our  breth- 
ren my  deep  regret  at  not  being  able  to 
take  part  with  them  in  this  family  cele- 
bration, and  to  enjoy  upon  earth  that  fore- 
taste of  heaven  which  is  called  Unity  in 
Christ.  But  imperious  duties  detain  me  in 
France ;  they  are  all  comprised  in  one,  that 
of  devoting  myself  entirely,  in  my  impotence 
and  weakness,  to  the  regeneration  of  my  un- 
happy country. 

It  is  a  solemn  moment ;  never  has  union 
among  Christians  been  more  necessary,  more 
desired  by  God ;  never,  if  it  is  realized,  could 
it  bear  more  blessed  fruits ;  but  (we  can  not 
repeat  it  too  often)  the  world  has  its  eye 
upon  us.  Evangelical  Christians !  it  watches 
us,  it  studies  us,  to  see  what  we  will  do ;  to 
follow  us  if  we  advance  to  a  defined  and 
blessed  goal,  to  despise  and  disgrace  us  if 
we  remain  at  a  stanU-still  or  retreat. 

The  crisis  is  universal  in  every  domain — 
religious,  political,  and  social.  Here  we  have 
only  to  occupy  ourselves  with  the  first ;  our 
battle-field  is  religion.  It  is  there  we  must 
conquer  or  perish. 

Religion  has  already  passed  through  two 
great  crises :  that  of  its  founding,  and  that 
of  its  reform.  It  touches  now  upon  a  third, 
not  less  formidable,  not  less  decisive.  The 
question  is  to  know  if  it  is  compatible  with 
the  needs  and  the  tendencies  of  society  in 
our  days ;  if  it  has  run  its  course,  and  must 
abdicate,  to  yield  its  place  to  the  gross  ma- 
terialism which  aspires  to  succeed  it,  seeing 
whether,  putting  itself  at  the  head  of  mod- 
ern civilization  to  purify  it  and  permeate  it 
with  its  spirit,  it  will  conduct  it  toward  new 
destinies. 

It  has  converted  barbarians ;  will  it  suc- 
ceed in  converting  the  civilized  world  ? 

Romanism,  with  the  Council  of  the  Vati- 
can, has  exhausted  its  vital  principle.  It  has 
declared  war  against  all  the  aspirations  of 
the  century ;  it  has  alienated  from  itself  its 


most  intelligent  and  most  reasoning  adlrer- 
eiits ;  it  only  retains  blind  votaries :  in  a 
word,  it  has  ceased  to  be  a  religion  ;  it  is  no 
longer  any  thing  but  a  machine  of  war  and 
government.  And  we  Christians,  we  Prot- 
estants, are  we  fitted  to  inherit  its  privi- 
leges, to  try  and  fill,  in  hearts  and  con- 
sciences, the  place  it  has  left  vacant  f  I  do 
not  know  what  others  will  have  to  answer 
for  their  countries ;  but  for  France  I  answer, 
without  hesitation,  No !  I  say  it  in  deep  sad- 
ness, nothing  is  more  melancholy  than  the 
aspect  presented  by  Protestantism  in  the 
South,  which  I  have  twice  visited  and  thor- 
oughly examined  since  the  war.  Every- 
where infidel  pastors,  or  orthodox  pastors 
who  are  in  reality  dead,  doing  still  more 
evil  in  preventing  souls  starving  for  truth 
from  leaving  the  Church  and  going  else- 
where to  seek  the  life  they  could  not  find  in 
it.  And  if  the  pastors  are  dead,  what  shall 
I  say  of  their  congregations  T 

The  only  cheering  prospect  in  the  midst 
of  all  this  gloom  is  the  movement  which 
begins  to  work  in  several  of  these  dead 
churches  in  the  South  of  France.  Living 
souls  come  out  from  them  to  form  beside 
them  a  kind  of  free  church  to  which  the  name 
only  is  wanting,  and  they  group  themselves 
round  faithful  pastors,  supported,  not  by  the 
State,  but  by  the  congregation.  The  great 
question  of  Separation  of  Church  and  State 
is  floating  in  the  air,  and  propounds  itself 
where  no  one  would  dare  propound  it.  It 
is  everywhere  at  present,  but  above  all  in 
the  little  town  from  which  I  write,  Neu- 
chatel, in  Switzerland,  which  perhaps  will 
have  the  honor  of  being  the  first  to  present 
to  the  world  the  solution  of  this  great  dis- 
cussion. As  regards  Romanism,  it  must  no 
longer  be  studied  in  Rome,  but  in  France. 
In  Rome  it  stated  its  premises,  but  it  ap- 
plied them  and  put  its  maxims  into  prac- 
tice in  France.  It  no  longer  demands  be- 
lief, but  obedience  from  the  souls  it  has  en- 
thralled. It  is  at  variance  with  the  State, 
at  variance  with  the  century.  It  has  made 
a  waste  of  the  human  soul,  to  enthrone  it- 
self upon  the  ruins ! 

But  if  it  reigns  in  France  at  this  moment, 
it  is  an  ephemeral  reign  which  can  not  last, 
for  the  bent  of  the  spirit  of  the  century  is 
opposed  to  it.  This  does  not  mean  that  it 
is  less  to  be  feared  for  other  countries.  Ban- 
ished from  the  new  German  empire,  the  Jes- 
uits have  invaded  England,  and  threaten  the 
United  States,  notwithstanding  the  Atlantic 
which  separates  them.  In  these  two  great 
nations  (so  dissimilar,  and  yet  united  by  a 
common  tie,  the  Bible,  which  serves  as  a 
base  to  all  their  social  edifice),  Romanism, 
grown  more  powerful  beneath  the  shadow 
of  the  very  liberties  it  wishes  to  destroy, 
attacks  Protestantism  to  pervert  and  cor- 
rupt it.  Therefore,  we  will  say  to  our  dear 
brethren  assembled  at  New  York,  as  we  have 


APPENDIX  I. 


723 


said  for  fifteen  years  to  France,  Beware  of 
Romanism,  under  whatever  name  it  dis- 
guises itself!  Beware  of  that  descent  to- 
ward it,  strewn  with  flowers,  called  Ritual- 
ism !  But  take  care,  also,  not  to  imitate 
the  Latin  races,  who,  impeded  in  their  flight 
by  Romanism,  know  no  other  door  of  es- 
cape but  unbelief.  And  nevertheless,  even 
in  France  (which  now  is  forcing  itself  to  re- 
turn to  the  Middle  Ages,  and  to  imitate  ev- 
ery thing  belonging  to  them  except  their 
faith),  Romanism  has  lost  much  ground. 
The  Republic  has  given  it  its  death-blow, 
above  all  among  the  less  enlightened  class- 
es, where,  unhappily,  it  has  too  often  killed 
faith  at  the  same  time.  Our  radicals,  enter- 
ing as  if  from  below,  have  not  understood 
that  there  are  no  durable  liberties  but  those 
which  are  founded  on  beliefs.  Poor  France ! 
a  void  is  by  degrees  taking  possession  of 
souls.  Because  of  her  having  passed  from 
one  extreme  to  another,  and  having  built 
only  to  overthrow,  she  has  finished  by  be- 
lieving in  nothing,  not  even  in  herself, 
and  attacks  the  very  basis  of  society  in  the 
three  columns  which  support  it — God,  the 
family,  and  property.  Where  is  the  remedy 
for  all  these  evils  ?  There  is  but  one,  and 
you,  Christians  of  all  countries,  assembled  at 
New  York,  you  have  it  in  your  hands.  It 
is  the  Bible,  the  Word  of  God.  In  almost 
nineteen  centuries  that  the  Gospel  has  ex- 
isted, has  it  lost  its  vigor?  has  its  immortal 
youth  faded?  No;  it  is  the  same  yester- 
day, to-day,  and  to-morrow  —  the  same  for 
eternity.  If  it  no  longer  performs  mira- 
cles, it  is  not  Christ's  fault,  but  that  of  his 
disciples.  Jesus  walks  still  upon  the  wa- 
ters, but  Peter  no  longer  ventures  to  go  to 
him ;  ho  looks  at  the  tempest,  and  not  at 
his  Saviour;  and,  nevertheless,  when  all 
reels  around  us,  when  society  appears  to 
tremble  upon  its  foundations,  the  secret  for 
walking  with  a  firm  step  on  this  moving 
ground,  where  Peter  only  sinks  because  he 
doubts,  is  "  to  look  to  Jesus !" 

ROSSEEUW  ST.  HlLAIRE. 


FROM  THE  REV.  ALEXANDER   DUFF, 
D.D.,  LL.D. 

Extract  from  a  Letter  to  Hon.  George  H.  Stu- 
art, of  Philadelphia,  dated  at  Edinburgh,  llth 
September,  1873. 

MY  VERY  DEAR  FRIEXD  AND  BROTHER  IX 

THE  LORD, — From  what  you  state,  you  will, 
in  a  day  or  two,  be  leaving  the  shores  of  this 
"  Old  World  "  of  ours  for  those  of  your  own 
"New  World"  across  the  Atlantic.  Would 
that  it  were  in  my  power  to  accompany  you ! 
for  my  heart  always  warms  toward  Ameri- 
ca whenever  I  recall  to  mind  the  multiplied 
kindnesses  which  I  once  experienced  at  the 
hands  of  yourself  and  other  noble  Christian 
brethren  in  that  great  laud.  But,  from  pre- 


vious communications,  you  know  how,  un- 
der present  circumstances,  it  is  impractica- 
ble for  me  to  give  effect  to  my  wishes. 

Soon  in  New  York — "  The  Empire  City," 
as  I  was  wont  to  hear  it  called — will  assem- 
ble the  great  Evangelical  Congress,  toward 
which,  for  a  week,  will  be  converging  the 
eyes  of  all  Christendom,  as  toward  a  focus 
of  concentrated  light  and  influence.  And 
my  fervent  prayer  is,  that  the  presence  and 
illumination  of  the  Holy  Spirit  may  be  abun- 
dantly experienced  in  the  midst  of  it. 

In  the  programme  of  subjects  to  be  dis- 
cussed, I  find  that  the  subject  of  missions,  or 
that  of  the  world's  evangelization,  occupies 
a  deservedly  conspicuous  place.  Indeed,  if 
properly  viewed  in  the  light  of  Scripture,  it 
is  the  grandest  of  all  subjects ;  since  the 
accomplishment  of  the  object  contemplated 
therein  is  the  one  for  which  the  world  itself 
is  preserved  in  being,  and  in  the  consumma- 
tion of  which  alone  the  divine  and  glorified 
Redeemer  will  behold  of  the  travail  of  his 
soul  and  be  satisfied.  I  do  trust,  therefore, 
that  it  will  be  solemnly  viewed,  and  wor- 
thily treated  in  all  its  height  and  depth, 
and  length  and  breadth!  seeing  that  the 
world's  evangelization  includes  not  only  that 
of  avowed  heathendom,  with  its  eight  hun- 
dred millions,  but  also  that  of  nominal  Chris- 
tendom, with  its  hundreds  of  millions,  who 
are  members  of  superstitious  and  idolatrous 
communities,  or  wrapped  up  in  the  folds  of 
cold  indifferentism  or  open  infidelity,  or 
wallowing  in  the  filth  and  mire  of  abomiua- 
able  wickedness.  Yea,  more !  There  is  a  true 
sense  in  which,  according  to  the  remark  of 
one  of  the  holiest  of  your  own  divines,  now, 
alas !  no  more,  the  purest  of  even  our  Prot- 
estant churches  need  not  only  to  be  revived, 
but  reconverted,  or  converted  again ;  that 
is,  brought  back  to  a  state  of  real  Scriptural 
humility,  simplicity,  holiness,  and  love. 

Now,  the  difficulties  in  the  way  of  this 
twofold  evangelization  of  the  professing 
Church  of  Christ  and  the  heathen  world 
are  so  enormous,  alike  in  number  and  in 
magnitude,  that  I  do  not  think  they  can 
possibly  be  exaggerated.  I  say  this  em- 
phatically, because  if  there  be,  as  is  some- 
times alleged,  in  some  quarters  a  tendency 
to  depict  them  in  colors  that  are  too  dark, 
there  is  assuredly  in  other  quarters  a  tend- 
ency to  make  comparatively  light  of  them, 
and  so  to  magnify  partial  successes  as  to 
make  it  appear  that  the  whole  world  is  rap- 
idly on  the  highway  toward  easy  and  com- 
plete evangelization. 

The  latter  tendency  I  can  not  but  regard 
as  a  fatal  and  deadly  one,  fraught  with  al- 
most infinite  mischief;  lulling  the  Church 
of  Christ  asleep  in  the  bosom  of  inaction 
and  carnal  self-complacency,  instead  of  rous- 
ing it  into  tenfold  or  a  hundred -fold  greater 
activity  and  energy  in  confronting  the  mul- 
titudinous foes  that  are  now  marshaled  in 


724 


APPENDIX  I. 


battle  array  against  the  cause  of  truth  and 
righteousness  throughout  all  the  realms  of 
earth,  under  the  leadership  of  tbe  apostate 
spirit  who  now  "  worketh  in  the  children  of 
disobedience." 

Many  seem  to  be  afraid  of  looking  at,  or 
attempting  to  realize,  the  foruiidableuess  of 
these  opposing  forces,  lest  discouragement, 
depression,  and  dismay  should  surge  over 
the  ranks  of  the  sacramental  host,  under  the 
banner  of  our  adored  Emmanuel.  Such  ap- 
prehension, however,  is  not  only  an  indica- 
tion of  base  cowardliness,  but  of  feeble  faith, 
or  a  total  want  of  faith,  in  Jehovah's  eternal 
purposes  and  promises.  Looking  steadfast- 
ly at  these,  and  placing  implicit  reliance  on 
them,  as  revealed  in  his  holy  oracles,  we 
have  nothing  to  fear  or  dread,  even  if  the 
difficulties  in  the  way  were  vastly  greater, 
and  the  forces  arrayed  against  us  vastly 
mightier  than  they  really  are.  By  these 
we  are  assured,  in  terms  the  clearest  and 
most  positive,  that  the  most  glowing  visions 
of  the  prophetic  muse  relative  to  the  ulti- 
mate destruction  of  all  error  and  sin,  and 
the  universal  reign  of  truth  aud  righteous- 
ness, shall  one  day  be  triumphantly  realized. 

No  matter,  then,  though  now  there  may 
seem  to  be  oceans  of  difficulties,  and  mount- 
ains of  impossibilities  in  the  way,  faith — a 
living  faith  in  Jehovah's  purposes  and  prom- 
ises—  ought  to  prevail,  and  intensify  the 
assurance  that,  in  Jiis  own  way  and  time, 
God's  omnipotency  will  interpose  and  level 
these  mountains,  roll  out  these  oceans  into 
emptiness,  rend  the  heavens,  and  pour  down 
the  richest  effusions  of  the  Spirit's  grace 
over  a  ransomed  and  gladdened  world. 

While,  then,  gratefully  acknowledging 
God's  sovereign  goodness,  and  fervently 
thanking  him  for  any  blessing  which  he 
may  have  undeservedly  bestowed  on  her 
poor  and  unworthy  labors  in  times  past,  it 
surely  is  the  duty,  the  paramount  duty,  of 
the  Evangelical  Church  of  Christ  through- 
out all  her  borders,  in  obedience  to  the  Di- 
vine command,  to  awake  and  arise  from 
present  sloth  and  slumber;  and  forgetting 
the  things  that  are  behind  in  the  sphere  of 
evangelizing  operations  at  home  and  abroad, 
because  of  their  littleness,  and  paltriness,- 
and  utter  inadequacy,  go  forth  in  the  heroic 
spirit  of  prophets  and  apostles,  confessors 
and  martyrs,  to  the  spiritual  conquest  of 
the  nations,  resolved,  through  all -sustain- 
ing grace,  never,  never  to  relax,  but  rather, 
more  and  more  to  increase  her  self-sacrifi- 
cing efforts  until  the  citadels  of  sin  and  Sa- 
tan in  every  land  be  utterly  demolished,  and 
all  the  kingdoms  of  this  world  have  become 
the  kingdoms  of  our  God  and  his  Christ. 

And  now  "  Grace  be  to  you,  and  peace 
from  God  the  Father,  and  from  our  Lord  Je- 
sus Christ." 

Ever,  very  affectionately  yours, 

ALEXANDER  DUFF. 


FROM  PROFESSOR  J.  I.  DOEDES,  D.D. 

Utrecht,  Holland,  Aug.,  13T3. 
To  the  Honorable  President  of  the  General  Con- 
ference of  the  El-angelical  Alliance  at  Few 
York: 

HONORED  SIR, — I  can  not  abstain  from 
sending  the  Conference  now  held  at  New 
York,  a  word  of  sympathy  Avith  my  best 
wishes. 

Feeling  gratified  to  get  a  special  invita- 
tion to  attend  the  General  Conference  of  the 
Evangelical  Alliance,  I  should  have  liked 
very  much  to  meet  the  brethren  and  hear 
their  interesting  accounts,  and  to  take  an 
active  part  myself  in  all  that  is  to  be  done 
in  order  to  promote  the  glorious  aim  the 
Conference  has  in  view.  But  the  distance, 
as  well  as  my  academical  duties,  keeps  me 
back. 

However,  though  I  can  not  be  present,  I 
take  the  greatest  interest  in  the  labors  of  the 
Conference.  With  the  utmost  sympathy  I 
i  look  at  the  aim  aud  strivings  of  the  Evangel- 
i  ical  Alliance — the  more  so  in  these  days, 
!  now  that  in  Hollaud,  at  least,  not  a  few  try 
|  to  bring  about  an  ecclesiastical  alliance  be- 
twixt those  who  confess  the  Christ  of  the 
Holy  Scripture  and  the  adherents  of  mod- 
ern liberalism.  Averse  to  an  official  eccle- 
siastical alliance,  I  highly  approve  of  each 
endeavor  to  bring  together  and  fraternize 
those  who  love  the  same  Saviour  of  the 
world,  and  long  to  see  the  same  Gospel  of 
God's  grace  in  Jesus  Christ  preached  and 
professed.  No  amalgamation  of  the  hetero- 
geneous elements,  but  free  co-operation  of 
the  evangelical  churches,  and  spiritual  union 
of  all  who  desire  to  stand  firm  in  their  belief 
in  "  the  Divine-human  Person  and  atoning 
work  of  our  Lord  and  Saviour  Jesns  Christ 
as  the  only  and  sufficient  source  of  salvation, 
as  the  heart  and  soul  of  Christianity,  and  as 
the  centre  of  all  true  Christian  union  and 
fellowship."  By  this  we  truly  may  expect, 
with  God's  blessing,  prosperity  and  bliss  for 
the  evangelical  churches. 

And  now,  wishing  your  Conference  may 
not  be  in  vain,  but  may  strengthen  the 
hearts  of  all  who  are  present,  I  take  leave, 
and  remain  yours  in  Christ,  our  common 
Lord  and  Saviour, 

J.  I.  DOEDES, 
Prof.  ofTlicol,  Unit',  of  Utrecht. 


FROM  THE  HONORABLE  ROBERT  C. 
WINTHROP,  LL.D. 

A  Letter  addressed  to  the  7?er.  Dr.  William  Ad- 
ams, Chairman  of  the  Committee  on  the  Pro- 
gramme. 

Brookline  (Boston),  Oct.  11, 1ST3. 
MY  DEAR  DR.  ADAMS, — I  owed  to  your 
kindness  the  first  invitation,  which  I  re- 
ceived some  months  ago,  to  be  present  at 
the  meeting  of  the  Evangelical  Alliance, 


APPENDIX  I. 


725 


and  which  I  was  obliged  to  decline.  More 
recently  I  gave  my  consent  most  gladly  that 
my  name  should  be  included  in  the  organ- 
ization of  the  meeting,  with  the  full  under- 
standing that  it  would  be  out  of  my  power 
to  be  present.  But  as  I  have  read,  from  day 
to  day,  the  stirring  reports  of  what  has  been 
said  and  done  during  the  past  week,  I  have 
regretted  sincerely  that  I  could  not  have 
broken  away  from  a  complication  of  engage- 
ments at  home,  and  have  run  on,  even  at  the 
eleventh  hour,  to  manifest  my  sympathy  in 
the  objects  and  in  the  utterances  of  the  oc- 
casion. 

I  should  have  eagerly  embraced  the  op- 
portunity to  offer  my  most  grateful  acknowl- 
edgments to  those  who  had  thought  me  wor- 
thy to  bo  named  in  your  list  of  Vice-presi- 
dents— an  honor  which  I  could  not  but  hold 
all  the  more  distinguished  and  all  the  more 
dear,  as  associating  me  in  some  humble 
measure  with  the  venerable  President  of 
your  Assembly,  Dr.  Woolsey,  whose  signal 
and  most  successful  labors  in  every  good 
cause,  whether  religious,  literary,  educa- 
tional, or  international,  have  given  him  a 
deserved  pre-eminence,  which  I  should  re- 
joice to  have  publicly  recognized.  I  confess 
that  my  heart  burned  within  me  to  be  at  his 
side  when  those  thrilling  wrords  of  his  open- 
ing address  came  leaping  over  the  telegraph- 
ic wires:  "  We  are  here,  each  one  of  us,  what- 
ever our  form  of  worship,  whatever  our  dis- 
cipline, whatever  our  old  recollections  de- 
rived from  our  Christian  forefathers,  we  are 
here  as  one  body  ;  with  separate  badges  and 
banners,  it  may  be,  to  mark  our  national  or 
denominational  differences,  but  all  recog- 
nizing our  supreme  allegiance  to  one  great 
standard  of  the  Cross."  This  was  the  sub- 
stance, if  not  the  exact  language,  of  an  ad- 
dress which  gave  the  key-note  to  all  which 
followed. 

I  can  not  but  feel,  my  dear  sir,  that  there 
has  been  something  of  unspeakable  impress- 
iveness  and  grandeur  in  this  multitudinous 
gathering  from  all  quarters  of  our  country 
and  of  the  world,  which  New  York  has  been 
privileged  to  witness.  We  have  been  ac- 
customed of  late  years  to  vast  assemblies, 
here  and  elsewhere.  We  have  been  enter- 
tained, almost  to  satiety,  with  what  have 
been  called  "  monster  meetings,"  in  almost 
all  regions  of  the  earth,  and  especially  in  our 
own  region.  We  have  seen  grand  exposi- 
tions of  art  and  industry  in  the  principal 
cities  of  Europe  and  America — in  Paris,  in 
London,  in  New  York,  and  Boston,  and  more 
lately  in  Vienna.  We  have  seen  the  vota- 
ries of  agriculture,  on  our  own  and  other 
soils,  rallying  together  to  exhibit  the  tri- 
umphs and  to  advance  the  interests  of  their 
own  pre-eminent  department  of  labor.  We 
have  seen,  almost  annually,  British  associa- 
tions and  American  associations  of  Science 
meeting  together  to  compare  opinions,  to 


proclaim  results,  and  to  encourage  investi- 
gation and  research.  Grand  musical  jubi- 
lees, too,  for  which  the  most  accomplished 
and  renowned  artists,  and  the  most  gigan- 
tic chorus-bands,  have  been  enlisted,  are  no 
strangers  to  our  own  or  other  lands.  Al- 
most every  interest  among  worldly  occupa- 
tions and  pursuits,  civil  and  military,  polit- 
ical, literary,  scientific,  and  mechanic,  has 
heretofore  had  its  mass  meetings  or  conven- 
tions, and  has  challenged  and  chained  the 
attention  and  sympathy  of  mankind  by  ap- 
peals to  the  eye  or  to  the  ear. 

But  the  wonderful  gathering  at  New 
York,  which  is  just  now  about  to  separate, 
has  been,  I  need  not  say,  of  a  different  sort, 
and  in  a  different  spirit.  It  was  convened 
to  discuss  no  mere  secular  subjects,  to  ad- 
vance no  mere  material  interests.  It  as- 
sembled in  no  pride  of  human  invention  or 
human  intellect.  The  learning  of  Germany, 
the  piety  of  Switzerland,  the  roused  religious 
inquiry  of  France  or  Spain  or  Italy,  the  schol- 
arship and  eloquence  of  English  universities 
or  cathedrals  or  Independent  Churches,  met 
together  for  no  purpose  of  competition  or 
rivalry,  and  with  no  view  to  ostentations 
display.  No  contests  were  to  be  waged; 
no  triumphs  to  be  achieved ;  no  prizes  to  bo 
won,  save  only  that  "  prize  of  the  high  call- 
ing of  God  in  Christ  Jesus,"  toward  which 
the  great  apostle  represented  himself  as  so 
eagerly  pressing.  All,  all  came  together  to 
lay  aside  for  a  time  the  differences  which 
had  so  long  separated  them,  and  to  remem- 
ber only  the  better  and  higher  things  in 
which  they  agreed.  They  met  to  give  pub- 
lic and  united  recognition  of  the  truth,  that 
religion  is  above  all  dogmas,  precious  as 
some  of  those  dogmas  may  be ;  that  faith  is 
above  all  forms,  dear  as  many  of  those  forms 
may  be ;  that  postures  and  vestments  and 
prayer-books  are  secondary  matters,  strong- 
ly as  those  prayer-books  may  be  cherished, 
and  justly  as  they  may  be  prized;  that  uni- 
ty and  uniformity  are  two  different  things  ; 
that  there  may  be  separation  without  es- 
trangement ;  antagonism,  even,  without  al- 
ienation ;  and  that  the  cause  of  Christ  and 
his  kingdom,  and  his  Church  universal, 
"  which  is  the  blessed  company  of  all  faith- 
ful people,"  is  to  be  preferred  far,  far  above 
the  cause  of  any  particular  church,  however 
venerable  its  history,  or  however  valuable 
its  organization. 

Who  can  overestimate  the  importance  and 
the  influence  of  such  a  meeting — even  if  its 
only  effect  were  to  draw  men  out  for  a  time 
from  the  narrow  circles  of  their  own  denom- 
inations ;  to  impress  upon  them  that  those 
circles  are,  after  all,  concentric  circles,  whose 
radii  reach  back  alike  to  one  and  the  same 
great  Sun  of  righteousness ;  and  thus  to  give 
them  a  broader  margin  and  a  wider  circum- 
ference for  their  Christian  charity  and  their 
Christian  fellowship ! 


720 


APPENDIX  I. 


"Surely  it  ia  a  strange  fact,"  wrote  an 
Episcopal  clergyman  of  au  English  church 
to  me,  not  many  weeks  ago,  "  and  one  preg- 
nant with  hope  for  the  yet  unchristianized 
portions  of  the  earth,  tbat,  in  the  good  prov- 
idence of  God,  the  Sultan  of  Turkey,  the 
Khedive  of  Egypt,  ambassadors  of  Japan, 
and  the  Shah  of  Persia — potentates  hereto- 
fore shut  up  in  their  unapproachable  ex- 
clusiveness— should  be  moved  by  a  desire 
to  visit  the  nations  of  Europe.  But  how- 
should  it  shame  us  that  we  are  unprepared, 
by  our  unhappy  divisions,  to  exhibit  the 
oneness  of  the  '  truth  as  it  is  in  Jesus,'  and 
so  render  nugatory  our  blessed  Lord's  prayer 
that  his  disciples  may  '  all  be  one,  that  the 
world  may  believe  that  Thou  hast  sent  me !' " 

And  how  just  and  forcible  were  the  words 
of  the  excellent  Archbishop  of  Canterbury, 
in  the  letter  brought  over  by  our  friend  the 
learned  and  liberal  Dean  of  that  cathedral, 
whose  presence  has  added  so  much  to  the 
occasion :  "  Never,"  says  the  Primate  of  all 
England — "  never  since  the  Eeformation  has 
it  been  more  important  that  Christian  men 
should  learn  to  labor  with  one  another — 
that  they  should,  by  the  manifestation  of 
their  union  in  faith  and  good  wishes,  offer 
effectual  opposition  to  the  growing  purposes 
of  superstition  and  infidelity.  And  never," 
he  adds, "  has  this  union  been  more  earnest- 
ly longed  for  than  in  the  present  day." 


I  owe  you  an  apology,  my  dear  Dr.  Adams, 
for  so  long  a  letter,  recapitulating  what  is 
so  familiar  to  you  already.  But  as  you  had 
more  than  once  most  kindly  urged  my  at- 
tendance at  the  meeting,  you  will  know 
how  to  pardon  my  trespassing  upon  you.  I 
desired  to  show  you  how  deeply  the  meet- 
ing has  impressed  me  as  a  churchman  and 
as  a  layman ;  and  to  give  you,  too,  the  text 
upon  which  I  should  have  ventured  to  offer 
a  few  words,  if  I  could  have  succeeded  in 
getting  to  New  York  even  in  season  for  the 
closing  exercises  to-morrow  night. 

It  was  my  good  fortune  to  see  Professor 
Christlieb  for  a  few  moments  before  he  went 
on  to  New  York,  and  I  have  read  his  mas- 
terly essay  with  the  greatest  interest.  The 
Dean  of  Canterbury  passed  a  day  with  me. 

Let  me  only  hope,  in  conclusion,  that  the 
spirit  which  has  animated  the  delegates  may 
be  kindled  in  millions  of  other  hearts,  and 
that  to  this  great  meeting  in  New  York  may 
be  traced  hereafter  the  lighting  up  anew  of  a 
flame  of  Christian  faith  and  hope  and  chari- 
ty which  may  catch  and  spread  throughout 
the  world,  and  which  neither  superstition 
nor  infidelity  shall  be  able  to  extinguish  or 
withstand. 

Believe  me,  reverend  and  dear  sir,  with 
the  highest  respect  and  regard,  yours  sin- 
cerely, ROBERT  C.  WINTHROP. 
Rev.  WILLIAM  ADAMS,  D.D. 


APPENDIX  II. 

REPORT  OF  PROGRAMME  COMMITTEE, 

WITH 

ADDITIONAL  DOCUMENTS  AND  RESOLUTIONS. 


APPENDIX  II-CONTENTS, 


PAOE 

1.  COMMITTEE  ox  PROGRAMME  :   Closing  Report 729 

2.  PEACE  SOCIETY,  LONDON  :  Peaceful  Arbitration 730 

3.  LONG  :  England  and  Jtussia  in  Central  Asia 731 

4.  GENEVA  COMMITTEE  OF. Swiss  SOCIETY:    On  Sunday  Legislation ..  733 

5.  WORKING  MEN'S  LORD'S  DAY  REST  ASSOCIATION,  LONDON  : 734 

6.  VAN  OOSTERZEE:  International  Christian  Evidence  Society 734 

7.  ANTI-SLAVERY  SOCIETY,  LONDON:  Abolition  of  the  Slave- Trade. ..  735 

8.  BRAZIL  BRANCH,  EVANGELICAL  ALLIANCE  :  Protestantism  in  Brazil. .  736 

9.  TURKEY  BRANCH,  Ev.  ALLIANCE:  Religious  Liberty  in  Turkey...  736 

10.  TURKEY  BRANCH,  Ev.  ALLIANCE:  Memorial  on  the  Opium  Trade..   739 

1 1.  BERGH  :   Cruelty  to  Animals 740 

12.  HALL  :  American  Seamen"1 's  Friend  Society 741 

13.  SCHMUCKER:  Plan  for  a   General  Protestant   Union '  742 

14.  ADDRESSES  AND  RESOLUTIONS  OF  THANKS.  .  ,    .    746 


APPENDIX  II. 


CLOSING  REPORT  OF  THE  COMMIT- 
TEE ON  THE  PROGRAMME. 

AT  the  closing  session,  the  Rev.  Dr.  John 
Hall,  in  behalf  of  the  Programme  Commit- 
tee, made  the  following  report : 

Christian,  friends  have  forwarded  to  the 
Committee  on  the  Programme  papers  and 
suggestions,  on  which  it  is  deemed  proper 
and  respectful  to  make  a  report  here,  for 
the  satisfaction  of  those  who  have  opened 
communication  with  the  Alliance  in  this 
manner,  and  for  the  purpose  of  completing 
the  materials  of  the  volume  or  volumes 
which  will  constitute  the  permanent  record 
of  this  Conference.  And  it  is  proper  to  re- 
call, in  this  connection,  that  the  Conference 
does  not  pass  resolutions  of  a  legislative 
character.  It  is,  in  its  own  department, 
precisely  identical  with  those  great  assem- 
blies of  students  of  science  or  of  social 
reform  whom  observation  and  experience 
have  taught  that  comparison  of  views,  state- 
ment of  opinions,  and  consequent  impulse 
to  thought  and  inquiry,  are  adequate  results 
of  their  meetings  and  ample  rewards  for 
their  labors. 

In  making  their  final  announcements  to 
the  Conference,  the  Committee  on  the  Pro- 
gramme beg  leave  to  say  that  in  all  their 
preparatory  arrangements  it  was  their  hon- 
est aim  and  endeavor  to  exercise  the  utmost 
impartiality  as  regards  denominations,  na- 
tionalities, and  sections.  Few  can  bo  aware 
of  the  manifold  difficulties  to  be  snrmount- 
ed  in  realizing  such  an  ideal,  involving  fre- 
quent correspondence  with  persons  dispersed 
over  two  continents,  or  the  amount  of  time 
and  labor  actually  expended  on  the  general 
programme.  If  this  programme  does  not 
exhibit  such  an  exact  adjustment  and  bal- 
ancing of  devious  interests  as  is  entirely  sat- 
isfactory to  all,  it  must  be  borne  in  mind 
that  the  names  of  several  persons  for  whom 
an  appropriate  place  Avas  provided  do  not 
appear  in  this  document  solely  because  they 
disappointed  the  confident  expectations  of 
the  Committee  at  an  hour  too  late  to  ar- 
range for  substitutes. 

No.  1.  A  paper  has  been  presented  by  the 
American  Society  for  the  Prevention  of  Cru- 
elty to  Animals.  The  Committee  recom- 
mend that  an  opportunity  be  afforded  to 


Mr.  Henry  Bergh,  the  President  of  the  So- 
ciety, to  make  a  concise  statement  to  the 
Conference,  and  have  arranged  accordingly. 

No.  2.  In  regard  to  the  important  subjects 
of  war  and  peaceful  arbitration,  concerning 
which  several  memorials  from  England  and 
the  United  States  have  been  presented,  the 
Committee  report  that  these  topics,  togeth- 
er with  pauperism,  its  causes  and  remedies 
(too  important  to  be  overlooked  by  the 
Evangelical  Alliance),  had  been  committed 
to  persons  of  the  highest  ability,  whose 
presence  Avas  expected  till  within  a  few 
days  of  the  opening  of  the  Conference ;  and 
with  this  explanation  they  recommend  that 
the  memorials*  now  referred  to  be  printed  in 
their  proper  place  in  the  proceedings  of  the 
Conference. 

No.  3.  Three  papers  have  come  from  the 
Rochester  branch  of  the  Alliance  in  rela- 
tion to  infringements  of  the  law  of  tolera- 
tion in  a  nominally  Christian  country.  In 
the  judgment  of  the  Committee,  the  inter- 
ests of  the  sufferers  would  not  be  promoted, 
nor  the  cause  of  toleration  served,  by  giving 
publicity  to  this  report  at  the  present  time ; 
and  the  Committee  recommend  that  the  pa- 
pers be  handed  to  the  Alliance  here,  with  the 
request  that  they  be  the  subject  of  inquiry 
and  of  communication  with  the  British  Alli- 
ance, in  order  to  concerted  and  efficient  ac- 
tion, should  cause  appear. 

No.  4.  A  careful  paper  on  the  subject  of 
the  Church  of  Rome  in  Canada,  by  Mr.  Mur- 
ray, the  Committee  recommend  to  be  taken 
as  read,  and  handed  to  the  editor  of  the 
forthcoming  volume.t 

No.  5.  The  same  recommendation  is  made 
in  reference  to  a  communication  from  the 
Rev.  James  Long,  on  the  Christian  Aspects 
of  Russian  Progress  in  Asia — a  subject  lit- 
tle thought  of,  and  of  great  practical  impor- 
tance. 

No.  6.  A  communication  has  been  received 
from  a  newly-formed  Branch  in  Brazil,  con- 
ceived in  the  best  spirit,  and  expressing  re- 
gret that  a  personal  representative  could 
not  be  sent.  The  Committee  recommend 


*  [One  of  these  papers  came  to  the  editor's  hands 
incomplete  and  without  any  indication  of  its  author- 
ship, and  hence  hns  been  omitted.— Ed.~\ 

t  [This  paper  was  returned  to  the  author  at  his  own 
request.— i'd.] 


730 


APPENDIX  II. 


the  Branch  for  enrollment,  and  that  a  copy 
of  the  report,  when  issued,  be  sent  to  its 
Corresponding  Secretary. 

No.  7.  Two  connected  communications  in 
French  have  been  received  from  tbe  Sab- 
bath Committee  of  Geneva,  signed  A.  Lom- 
bard, with  a  plan  for  concerted  action  among 
Sabbath  Committees  in  Europe  and  Ameri- 
ca. The  Committee  recommend  that  these 
be  referred  to  the  Sabbath  Committee  of 
this  city. 

No.  8.  A  paper  from  the  Antislavery  Soci- 
ety of  London,  bearing  upon  the  slave-trade 
in  Egypt  and  elsewhere,  is  recommended  for 
insertion  in  the  volume  of  reports,  as  a  means 
of  keeping  this  fearful  evil  before  the  public 
mind,  and  promoting  that  civil  and  religious 
liberty,  the  furtherance  of  which  is  one  dis- 
tinctive aim  of  the  Evangelical  Alliance. 

No.  9.  The  same  recommendation  is  made 
as  to  a  paper  from  the  Turkish  branch,  on  the 
opium  trade. 


PEACEFUL  ARBITRATION. 

To  the  Conference  of  the  Evangelical  Alliance 

at  New  York: 

DEAR  FRIENDS, — We,  the  Committee  of 
the  London  Peace  Society,  representing  a 
considerable  body  of  persons  who  are  united 
together,  irrespective  of  religious  or  political 
distinctions,  for  the  one  sole  purpose  of  pro- 
moting peace  on  earth  and  good-will  among 
men,  venture  respectfully,  but  most  earnest- 
ly, to  call  the  attention  of  the  Conference  to 
a  question  scarcely  second  in  importance  or 
urgency  to  any  that  can  engage  the  delib- 
erations of  your  great  Assembly.  As  those 
who  are  associated  to  promote  Christian 
union  among  men  of  all  nations,  the  rela- 
tions which  exist  between  those  nations  as 
organized  communities  can  not  be  a  matter 
outside  the  province  or  the  sympathies  of 
such  a  body  as  yours ;  and  as  Christians,  it 
is  impossible  that  the  present  state  of  those 
relations  generally  can  be  regarded  by  yon 
with  any  other  than  feelings  of  profound 
humiliation  and  sorrow.  No  one  can  deny 
that  Christianity  is  emphatically  a  religion 
of  peace  and  charity  and  brotherly  love. 
No  one  can  deny  that  the  obvious  tendency, 
as  the  avowed  design  of  its  teaching,  is  not 
only  to  unite  men  with  God,  but  to  unite 
them  with  each  other,  without  regard  to  di- 
versities of  race  or  country  or  language,  by 
virtue  of  the  common  fatherhood  of  God 
and  the  common  brotherhood  of  Christ.  No 
one  can  deny  that  among  the  glorious  hopes 
of  the  future  on  which  it  has  taught  human- 
ity to  rely,  none  are  more  clear  and  precise 
than  those  which  relate  to  the  disappearance 
of  war  and  the  establishment  of  universal 
peace. 

But,  alas !  how  sad  is  the  contrast  of  what 
ought  to  be  and  what  actually  is.  Near  the 


end  of  the  nineteenth  century  of  the  Chris- 
tian era,  we  find  the  earth,  and  even  that 
part  of  the  earth  which  professes  to  submit 
to  Christian  authority,  tilled  with  violence 
and  blood.  Within  the  last  twenty  years, 
those  nations  who  collectively  call  them- 
selves Christendom  have  been  engaged  in 
six  desolating  and  sanguinary  wars,  which 
have  involved  the  sacrifice  of  between  two 
and  three  millions  of  human  lives,  while  the 
waste  and  destruction  of  property,  and  the 
suffering  and  demoralization  they  have  oc- 
casioned, are  absolutely  incalculable. 

And  what  is  still  more  sad  and  dishearten- 
ing, when  the  actual  conflicts  have  ceased, 
we  find  the  studies,  the  labors,  and  the  re- 
sources of  peace  incessantly  directed  to  ex- 
tending and  perfecting  an  enormous  war  or- 
ganization, as  though  the  chief  end  of  hu- 
man life  is  to  fight  and  to  prepare  for  fight- 
ing. It  is  estimated  that  there  are  between 
four  and  five  millions  of  the  picked  men  of 
Europe  dedicated  wholly  to  the  service  of 
war,  besides  as  many  more  who  are  partly 
trained  to  the  use  of  arms.  The  cost,  direct 
and  indirect,  to  European  nations  of  these 
armaments,  and  the  interest  of  their  war 
debts,  can  not  be  less  than  £500,000,000  ster- 
ling annually,  while  they  are  growing  and, 
according  to  the  present  race  of  emulation, 
must  grow  rapidly  year  after  year. 

It  is  hardly  possible  to  exaggerate  the 
evils  of  this  system  of  armed  rivalry.  It 
ulcerates  the  heart  of  nations  with  mutual 
terror,  hatred,  and  jealousy.  It  is  the  means 
of  diffusing  through  society  an  amount  of 
immorality  and  vice  which  it  is  fearful  to 
contemplate.  It  diverts  to  purposes  of  de- 
struction incalculable  resources  in  men  and 
money  which  might  otherwise  be  devoted 
to  the  moral  and  material  amelioration  of 
the  people,  and  to  the  furtherance  of  the 
great  objects  of  Christian  civilization.  It 
mocks  the  spirit  of  the  Gospel  and  belies 
the  hopes  it  has  held  forth  to  the  world, 
and  gives  ample  scope  to  the  infidel  and  the 
heathen  to  scoff  at  its  pretensions  and  prom- 
ises as  a  religion  of  peace. 

Is  it  not  time,  then,  that  the  Christian 
Church  should  gird  itself  to  confront  and 
resist  this  portentous  system?  Is  it  be- 
coming that  it  should  stand  as,  alas !  it  has 
too  long  stood,  dumb  and  cowed  in  the  pres- 
ence of  an  evil  so  appalling,  uttering  at  best 
only  faint  and  faltering  words  of  general 
lamentation,  too  often  conniving  at  it.  if  not 
using  in  reference  to  it,  language  of  direct 
apology  and  sanction  ? 

We  appeal  to  the  Conference  of  the  Evan- 
gelical Alliance  at  New  York  to  lift  up  its 
voice  like  a  trumpet,  and  that  with  no  un- 
certain sound,  in  favor  of  international  peace. 
A  signal,  a  glorious  illustration  has  been  re- 
cently given,  by  the  example  of  Great  Britain 
and  the  United  States,  of  the  fact,  that  there 
are  other  means  than  an  appeal  to  the  sword 


APPENDIX  II. 


731 


by  which  Christian  nations  can  settle  their 
differences — means  more  in  accordance  with 
reason  and  justice,  humanity  and  religion. 
And  still  more  recently  the  British  House 
of  Commons  has,  by  a  deliberate  vote,  recog- 
nized as  susceptible  of  general  application 
the  principle  which  in  that  instance  was 
applied  with  such  auspicious  results. 

May  we  not  hope  that  a  voice  may  issue 
from  the  bosom  of  your  Conference  which 
may  strengthen  the  hands  of  those  who,  in 
the  face  of  great  opposition  and  manifold 
discouragements,  are  laboring  to  establish 
the  dominion  of  right  over  might,  to  substi- 
tute the  reign  of  law  in  the  place  of  brute 
force,  in  regulating  the  relations  and  inter- 
course of  civilized  states  ? 

HENRY  PEASE,  President. 

CHARLES  WISE,  Treasurer. 

HENRY  EICHARD,  Secretary. 
Offices  of  the  Peace  Society, 
19  New  Broad  Street, 

London,  September  3d,  1ST3. 


ENGLAND  AND  RUSSIA  IN  CENTRAL 
ASIA,  IN  RELATION  TO  THE  SPREAD 
OF  CHRISTIANITY  AND  CIVILIZA- 
TION IN  THE  EAST. 

By  the  REV.  J.  LONG,  Church  Missionary  in  Calcutta. 

MUCH  has  been  written  on  the  political 
and  military  aspects  of  Russia  in  the  East, 
but  scarcely  any  thing  on  what  is,  for  Chris- 
tian men,  a  very  important  subject : 

THE  PRESENT  POSITION  OF  RUSSIA  IN  CEN- 
TRAL ASIA  IN  RELATION  TO  THE  SPREAD 
OF  CHRISTIANITY  AND  CIVILIZATION  IN 
THE  EAST. 

I  myself  having  labored  twenty -eight 
years  in  India  as  a  missionary,  and  having 
visited  Russia  twice — in  1863  for  five  months, 
and  lately  for  fifteen  mouths — the  above  ques- 
tion has  constantly  come  before  me  in  rela- 
tion to  mission  work.  I  have  discussed  it 
•with  many  Russians  as  well  as  Englishmen, 
and  have  published  several  pamphlets  on 
the  subject.  I  regret  it  is  not  in  abler 
hands,  but  I  will  do  my  best  to  open  it  in 
its  bearings  on  Christianity. 

The  present  position  of  Russia  in  Central 
Asia  is  practically  that  of  a  neighbor  to  En- 
gland in  her  Indian  dominions.  The  recent 
conquest  of  Khiva  and  Bokhara  has  given 
Russia  a  strong  point  on  which  to  move  ei- 
ther for  war  or  peaceable  development  in 
relation  to  England  and  the  East. 

Russia,  with  a  great  future  before  her  in 
respect  to  extension  of  dominion  down  to 
Eastern  Turkistan  and  the  Chinese  Wall, 
is  laying  slowly  but  surely  the  foundations 
of  a  mighty  Eastern  empire  in  connection 
with  Central  Asia,  as  England  has  already 
done  in  Southern  Asia. 

Arising  out  of  this  new  state  of  things, 
the  great  problem  is,  "Are  these  two  great 


empires  to  be  like  France  and  Germany, 
thwarting  and  impeding  each  other?  are 
they  to  be  military  rivals,  as  France  and  En- 
gland were  in  the  last  century,  pursuing  a 
policy  of  antagonism  destructive  to  the  real 
interests  of  both  in  the  East  ?  Or  are  they 
to  pursue  a  nobler  career  —  to  rival  each 
other  in  the  arts  of  peace,  in  improving  the 
native  races,  in  giving  that  protection  of 
life  and  property  so  necessary  as  the  basis 
of  missionary,  mercantile,  and  philanthrop- 
ic efforts ;  to  set  an  example  of  what  good 
Christian  government  is ;  and  to  extinguish 
the  last  glimmering  rays  of  hope  in  Asiatic 
feudalism  and  in  Islamism,  whose  strength 
has  been,  like  that  of  Romanism,  in  main- 
taining the  temporal  power? 

The  recent  conquest  of  Khiva  by  Russia, 
like  the  fall  of  Bokhara — "The  Holy"— is  a 
severe  blow  to  Mohammedanism.  England 
has  brought  down  Moslem  pride  in  Delhi 
and  Lakhran,  as  Russia  is  now  doing  in 
Samarcand  and  Khiva. 

Islam  is  struggling  to  recover  lost  power 
iu  Asia.  In  Central  Asia  the  Moslem  chiefs 
and  priests  proclaimed  a  jehad,  or  holy  war, 
against  Russia  that  has  signally  failed,  as 
has  the  corresponding  Wahati  movement  in 
India.  The  Euphrates  is  drying  up  for  the 
kings  of  the  East  to  pass  over.  They  have 
thrown  their  last  stake  now,  in  exciting  the 
mutual  jealousies  of  England  and  Eussia,  hop- 
ing, in  the  spirit  of  the  common  proverb, 
"  When  rogues  fall  out,  honest  men  come  by 
their  own." 

As  allies  with  the  Mohammedans,  in  mak- 
ing "  a  cat's-paw  "  of  England  and  Russia, 
are  all  the  millions  in  Asia  who  are  opposed 
to  regular  government  and  to  industrious 
habits,  and  who,  like  the  sipahis  of  the  In- 
dian mutiny,  owl-like,  shun  the  light  of 
Christian  civilization  —  the  adherents  of 
fallen,  worn-out  dynasties — the  priesthood 
of  a  decaying  idolatry  —  those  who  have 
nothing  to  lose  and  every  thing  to  gain  by 
revolution,  who  wish  for  a  life  of  plunder 
and  bloodshed — all  these  exult  like  the  pe- 
trel in  prospect  of  the  storm,  hoping  it  might 
redress  their  desperate  fortunes ;  they  look 
to  war  as  the  straw  for  the  drowning  man. 
With  these  are  allied  all  native  princes  and 
chiefs  who  wish  to  rule  their  subjects  with  a 
rod  of  iron,  like  the  Khan  of  Khiva,  who  ap- 
pealed to  England  for  support  against  Rus- 
sia ;  but  England  wisely  declined  to  take  any 
step  to  support  such  abarbarous  government. 

I  have  lived  in  intimate  intercourse  with 
natives  in  India  for  more  than  a  quarter 
of  a  century;  and  of  all  the  arguments 
brought  by  them  against  Christianity,  the 
one  I  found  most  difficult  to  meet  was  this : 
If  your  religion  be  so  good,  how  is  it  that 
Christians  have  acted  so  bad  ?  The  history 
of  Christian  nations  is  one  series  of  wars ; 
the  annals  of  Europe  are  written  in  blood. 
See  how  those  Christians  hate  one  another ! 


732 


APPENDIX  II. 


Should  two  such  empires  as  those  of  En- 
gland and  Russia  come  into  collision  in 
Asia,  or  maintain  a  hostile  policy,  what  ad- 
ditional food  will  be  given  to  these  objec- 
tions T 

England  is  doing  a  great  work  in  India 
in  promoting  Christianity  and  civilization, 
and  in  training  up  the  natives  for  self-gov- 
ernment :  much  of  this  would  be  paralyzed 
by  a  hostile  policy  between  England  and 
Russia. 

America  and  Germany  have  an  interest  in 
this  question  in  relation  to  their  mercantile 
and  missionary  establishments,  which  flour- 
ish under  the  aegis  of  British  protection. 

Russia  is  making  great  progress  since  her 
glorious  work  of  serf -emancipation.  The 
Russia  of  the  present  day  is  very  different 
from  the  Russia  of  Nicholas,  and  her  spirit  of 
reform  deserves  our  thorough  sympathy.  I  have 
made  the  tour  of  Russia  from  the  Caucasus 
to  Finland,  and  have  observed  with  deep  in- 
terest the  contrast  the  Russian  Church  pre- 
sents to  the  Romish,  in  her  having  an  open 
Bible:  everywhere  I  saw  encouragement 
given  to  the  circulation  of  the  Scriptures. 
The  Russian  Church  is  not  bound  by  a 
Council  of  Trent,  or  shackled  by  the  eccle- 
siastical despotism  of  a  papacy;  there  is 
no  law  of  celibacy  isolating  her  priesthood 
from  the  laity;  but  much  of  the  present 
and  proposed  reform  would  be  checked  by 
a  war,  or  mere  military  objects. 

It  is  obvious,  then,  what  advantages  would 
arise  from  a  good  understanding  between 
Russia  and  England — the  two  great  empires 
of  Asia — in  enabling  them  to  co-operate  with 
each  other  against  the  common  foe  of  igno- 
rance, feudal  oppression,  the  cruel  rites  of 
paganism,  and  the  destructive  tendencies  of 
Islamism. 

The  governments  of  England  and  Russia 
are  in  friendly  relations ;  and  were  the  peo- 
ples of  both  empires  to  know  each  other 
better,  they  would  be  still  more  so.  In  this 
respect  the  visit  of  the  Czarowitz  to  En- 
gland and  the  proposed  marriage  of  the 
Duke  of  Edinburgh  to  the  Emperor  of  Rus- 
sia's only  daughter,  are  auxiliaries  to  the 
cause  of  peace.  Englishmen  and  Russians 
should  see  more  of  each  other. 

But  the  shield  has  a  reverse.  While  the 
Russian  people  is  pacific,  and  the  Czar  a 
friend  of  peace,  there  is  a  strong  military 
party  in  Russia,  influential  in  the  press, 
whose  policy  is  aggressive  and  intriguing 
in  Central  Asia,  looking  forward  to  a  war 
ultimately  with  England  on  Asiatic  ques- 
tions. This  party  is  reckless,  for  it  has 
not  to  pay  the  costs  or  penalties  of  war. 
The  Russian  press,  ignorant  of  Asiatic  af- 
fairs, is  too  much  influenced  by  this  party, 
and  is  becoming  more  opposed  to  England, 
thinking  she  is  averse  to  Russian  progress 
in  Asia.  On  the  other  hand,  England  is 
jealous  of  any  Russian  encroachment  that 


may  endanger  the  stability  of  her  Indian 
empire  by  undermining  her  outworks,  and 
by  the  exercise  of  a  disturbing  power  in 
India,  while  little  is  known  in  England  of 
the  progress  of  peaceful  reform  in  Russia. 

I  am  neither  an  alarmist  nor  a  Russopho-. 
bist;  but  the  political  aspect  looks  lower- 
ing—  there  are  grave  issues  at  hand.  In 
our  present  relations,  ambitious  generals  or 
intriguing  diplomatists  may  any  day  endan- 
ger peace  between  the  two  empires. 

Many  pamphlets  have  been  written  on 
the  Central  Asia  question ;  the  majority  take 
only  the  military  aspect  of  the  question, 
that  England  and  Russia  must  some  day 
fight  about  Central  Asia,  ignoring  the  mu- 
tual interests  of  both  countries. 

If  Christian  men  leave  this  important 
question  in  the  hands  of  military  men,  tor- 
tuous diplomatists,  or  mere  secular  politi- 
cians, natural  animosities  and  susceptibili- 
ties may  be  so  inflamed  that  England  and 
Russia,  like  as  in  the  Crimean  war,  may 
drift  into,  or  be  driven  by  an  unenlightened 
public  opinion  into  war,  or  an  armed  peace 
almost  as  bad  as  war. 

The  friends  of  Christianity  and  civiliza- 
tion in  the  East  must  take  this  up.  We 
know  that  on  the  recent  Alabama  question 
their  influence  had  something  to  do  with 
the  peaceful  solution  of  the  difficulty,  which 
saved  two  kindred  nations  from  the  horrors 
of  war. 

An  enlightened  public  opinion  must  be 
brought  to  bear  on  the  action  of  diplomats, 
and  a  counter  action  must  be  used  against 
military  writers  on  both  sides  who  regard  a 
state  of  war  as  the  natural  condition  of  so- 
ciety. The  public  mind  must  be  indoctri- 
nated with  the  view  that  the  points  in  which 
England  and  Russia  agree  are  far  more  im- 
portant than  those  in  which  they  differ; 
that,  as  the  two  leading  Christian  empires  of 
Asia,  their  real  interest  is  to  welcome  each 
other  as  co-workers;  that  England  should 
not  view  with  such  jealousy  Russian  ad- 
vances in  Asia,  nor  should  Russia  encroach 
too  closely  on  the  Indian  frontier ;  that  both 
empires  have  sea-room  enough  in  Asia,  and 
they  should  so  act  that  contact  may  not  lead 
to  collision. 

As  one  of  the  means  for  rousing  public 
attention  to  this  side  of  the  question,  the 
plan  of  prize  essays  may  be  of  use.  A  prize 
of  from  £300  to  £500  might  be  offered  for 
the  best  essay,  or  essays,  on  the  following 
subject : 

A  good  understanding  teticcen  England  and 
Russia  on  the  Central  Asia  question  of  great 
importance  to  the  spread  of  Christianity  and 
civilization  in  the  East.  The  obstacles  to  this 
good  understanding,  and  the  lest  icay  of  remov- 
ing them. 

The  very  advertising  this  subject  in  the 
leading  journals  of  Europe  would  arouse  at- 
tention to  this  aspect  of  the  question,  which 


APPENDIX  II. 


733 


lias,  strange  to  say,  been  so  much  overlook- 
ed. Men  have  written  as  if  the  only  solu- 
tion of  the  problem  was  the  ultima  ratio  re- 
gum — war. 

The  present  time  is  favorable,  as  the  two 
governments  of  England  and  Russia  have 
shown  in  their  recent  correspondence  on  the 
Central  Asia  question  a  calm  and  peaceable 
spirit.  It  is  not  when  men's  passions  are 
inflamed,  and  the  storm  of  war  hushes  the 
quiet  voice  of  calm  discussion  that  the  ques- 
tion can  be  raised. 

The  writers  for  the  prize  essay  should  treat, 
not  of  mere  platitudes  on  the  advantages  of 
peace  in  general,  but  of  peace  between  En- 
gland and  Russia ;  they  should  point  out 
that  the  past  relations  of  England  and  Rus- 
sia have,  with  the  exception  of  the  Crimean 
war,  been  on  a  friendly  footing ;  that  in  Eu- 
rope commercial,  social,  literary,  and  relig- 
ious ties  tend  to  maintain  that  friendly  foot- 
ing, secured  still  more  by  the  spirit  of  re- 
form in  Russia;  that  in  Asia  friendly  rela- 
tions might  conduce  most  powerfully,  not 
only  to  the  moral  and  material  interests  of 
both  empires  in  Asia,  but  might  also  serve 
as  a  weapon  against  their  common  foe  — 
Asiatic  barbarism,  ignorance,  superstition, 
the  tyranny  of  native  princes  and  chiefs ; 
that  nations  may  be  on  friendly  relations, 
though  not  agreeing  in  all  points  of  pol- 
icy. 

But  the  writers  should  grapple  mainly 
with  the  best  modes  of  removing  the  chief 
obstacles  to  this  good  understanding — viz., 
the  influence  of  political  and  military  agents 
on  the  frontiers  in  intriguing,  sowing  dis- 
sensions on  both  sides ;  a  tortuous,  double- 
dealing  diplomacy,  which  regards  patriotism 
as  hating  other  countries  ;  the  Press,  fed  by 
correspondents  who  love  to  fish  in  troubled 
waters,  and  to  publish  sensational  articles ; 
the  Turkish  question  as  connected  with  the 
Central  Asia  one ;  the  Russian  public's  ig- 
norance of  the  great  moral  and  material 
improvements  carried  on  by  England  in  In- 
dia ;  the  English  public's  corresponding  ig- 
norance of  the  reforms  being  worked  out  in 
Russia,  and  of  Russia's  natural  and  necessa- 
ry tendency  to  development  in  an  easterly 
direction ;  the  unsettled  condition  of  the 
Persian  and  Afghan  frontiers. 

Much  of  the  future  progress  of  Christian- 
ity and  civilization  in  Asia  may  depend  on 
a  good  understanding  between  England  and 
Russia ;  the  points  in  which  they  agree  are 
far  more  important  than  those  in  which 
they  differ ;  and  both  should  remember  that 
the  eyes  of  the  Moslem  world  now  regard  a 
rupture  between  England  and  Russia  as  the 
only  means  of  their  regaining  lost  power. 
The  crescent  and  the  cross  are  placed  face 
to  face. 


CONCERTED  ACTION  ON  SUNDAY 
LEGISLATION. 

[A  communication  to  the  Conference  was  presented 
by  Professor  Pronier  from  Mr.  Alexander  Lombard,  of 
Geneva,  President  of  the  Swiss  Society  for  the  sanc- 
tiflcatiou  of  the  Lord's  day,  inviting  the  Conference  to 
take  some  action  in  favor  of  securing  to  the  working 
classes  of  Europe  the  benefits  of  the  weekly  rest-day, 
and  inclosing  a  draft  of  such  a  measure  as  it  was  hoped 
the  Conference  would  adopt.  As  the  Conference  was 
precluded  by  its  rules  from  recommending  or  taking 
such  action,  this  communication  and  the  accompany- 
ing paper  were  referred  to  the  New  York  Sabbath 
Committee ;  but  in  view  of  the  importance  of  the  sub- 
ject, and  iu  justice  to  the  author,  they  are  here  insert- 
ed.—^.] 

Geneva,  August  1, 1873. 
To  the  Committee  of  the  General  Conference  of 

the  Evangelical  Alliance  at  New  York  : 

DEAR  AND  HONORED  BRETHREN  IN  CHRIST, 
— As  I  am  unable  to  comply  with  the  kind 
invitation  of  the  Committee  of  the  Confer- 
ence about  to  be  held  in  New  York,  I  must 
transfer  to  others  the  duty  of  representing 
our  society.  I  can  not  do  better  than  to 
charge  with  this  mission  my  honored  friends, 
Professor  Pronier  and  Pastor  Couliu,  who 
are  delegated  to  your  Conference  by  the 
Evangelical  Alliance  of  this  city. 

They  will  be  very  glad,  I  am  sure,  to  car- 
ry word  to  you  in  our  name,  and  to  aid  in 
carrying  out  the  views  formally  expressed 
by  the  Conference  of  1867,  at  Amsterdam, 
which  I  with  certain  friends  proposed. 

It  is  a  result  more  and  more  to  be  desired, 
that  a  joint  arrangement  be  made  on  a  prac- 
ticable basis  for  an  energetic  and  united 
action  before  the  political  authorities  and 
the  managers  of  the  great  industries,  for  the 
purpose  of  securing  to  every  man  the  enjoy- 
ment of  his  weekly  rest-day,  and  the  ben- 
etits  temporal  and  spiritual  of  the  Lord's 
day. 

Since  it  is  not  permitted  mo  to  make  my 
feeble  voice  heai'd  among  you,  and  since  the 
thoughts  expressed  in  my  essay  on  "the 
State  and  Sunday  Laws,"  transmitted  at  your 
request,  in  1870,  do  not  fully  meet  the  pres- 
ent requirement,  I  dare  to  hope  that  at  any 
rate  the  essential  result  which  our  society 
proposes  will  be  reached  in  some  measure, 
and  that  the  questions  relating  to  the  Chris- 
tian and  social  functions  of  the  Lord's  day 
will  be  examined  with  the  attention  they 
deserve.  I  know  that  they  have  place  in 
your  Conferences,  and  that  Christian  men 
qualified  for  the  task  have  been  designated 
by  your  Committee  to  treat  them ;  but  what 
I  must  needs  wish  is  that  some  more  sub- 
stantial results  follow  from  your  Conference 
than  from  that  at  Amsterdam.  If  the  basis 
of  an  accord  is  once  fixed,  it  will  devolve  on 
you  to  carry  it  into  effect,  and,  with  the  help 
of  our  God,  we  lovo  to  hope  that  the  revival 
of  the  divine  institution  of  the  Lord's  day 
in  Europe,  and  everywhere,  will  date  from 
the  Conference  at  New  York. 


734 


APPENDIX  II. 


Receive,  dear  and  honored  brethren  in 
Christ,  the  expression  of  my  respectful  con- 
sideration, 

ALEXANDER  LOMBARD, 
President  of  the  Geneva  Committee,  etc. 

ACTION    PROPOSED    TO    BE    TAKEN    BY    THE 
GENERAL  CONFERENCE  AT  NEW  YORK. 

The  General  Conference  of  the  Evangel- 
ical Alliance  at  New  York,  in  view  of  the 
resolution  with  reference  to  the  Lord's  day, 
adopted  at  Amsterdam  in  1867,  and  desirous 
of  advancing  the  cause  of  the  weekly  rest- 
day  in  Europe,  and  of  obtaining  for  the  work- 
ing classes  a  participation  in  its  temporal 
and  spiritual  benefits,  resolves  as  follows : 

Resolved,  That  the  Committee  of  the  Evangelical 
Alliance  of  New  York  is  invited  to  put  itself  in  com- 
munication with  similar  committees  in  Europe,  and 
to  send  delegates  to  act  unitedly  with  them  in  suita- 
ble ways  for  the  purpose  of  obtaining  from  govern- 
ments and  the  managers  of  the  great  industries  some 
practical  measures  for  securing  respect  to  the  holy 
day,  and  for  granting  to  those  who  are  deprived  there- 
of their  enjoyment  of  its  privileges. 


WORKING-MEN'S  LORD'S  DAY  REST 
ASSOCIATION. 

Object:  To  secure  to  the  People  their  natural  and 
Scriptural  right  to  the  rest  of  the  Lord's  Day. 

President :  The  Eight  Honorable  The  Earl  of  Shaftes- 
bury,  K.G. 

To  the  Conference  of  Christians  of  all  Nations 

assembled  in  Neic  York : 

MR.  CHARLES  REED,  Member  of  Parliament, 
and  Vice-president  of  the  above  Association, 
and  Mr.  James  Girdlestone,  Chairman  of  its 
Committee  (tried  friends  of  the  cause),  hav- 
ing announced  their  intention  of  attending 
the  Conference,  the  Committee  commends 
them  to  the  brethren  assembled,  and  desires 
to  send  through  them  their  brotherly  greet- 
ing. 

The  Committee  recognizes  the  perpetual 
obligation  of  the  Divine  Law  of  holy  rest 
on  the  Lord's  day,  and  is  convinced  that  this 
rest  is  one  of  the  natural  and  Scriptural 
rights  of  man. 

The  Committee  acknowledges  with  grati- 
tude the  civil  laws  in  the  United  States  and 
England  that  preserve  the  day  of  rest  for 
the  people  of  both  nations,  and  believes  that 
much  of  their  prosperity  is  due  to  the  na- 
tional observance  of  the  day. 

The  Committee  deeply  regrets  that  in  so 
many  ways  the  Sabbath  is  desecrated,  and 
that  so  many  thousands  of  our  fellow-men 
are  unnecessarily  required  to  labor  on  that 
day,  and  earnestly  hopes  that  the  Confer- 
ence will  not  separate  without  a  declaration 
of  opinion  on  this  most  important  subject. 

[Adopted  at  a  special  meeting  of  the  Com- 
mittee, held  on  the  llth  September,  1873.] 
CHARLES  HILL,  Secretary, 

13  Bedford  Row,  London,  W.  C. 


INTERNATIONAL  ASSOCIATION  FOR 
THE  DEFENSE  OF  THE  CHRISTIAN 
FAITH. 

Proposed  by  the  Rev.  Dr.  VAN  OOBTERZEK,  Professor 
of  Theology  at  Utrecht,  Holland. 

THE  Rev.  Dr.  M.  Cohen  Stuart,  of  Rotter- 
dam, laid  before  the  Programme  Committee 
of  the  General  Conference,  at  the  request  of 
the  Rev.  Dr.  van  Oosterzee,  who  was  un- 
avoidably absent,  a  printed  communication, 
the  substance  of  which  is  contained  in  the 
following  extract : 

"  When,  in  the  month  of  July,  1871,  depu- 
ties from  different  branches  of  the  Evangel- 
ical Alliance  met  together  in  Stuttgart,  in 
order  to  make  an  effort  in  behalf  of  the  re- 
ligious freedom  of  their  fellow -Christians 
in  the  Baltic  provinces  of  Russia,  and  some 
days  went  by  while  we  were  waiting  for  the 
desired  audience,  the  suggestion  was  made 
by  one  of  those  present,  and  earnestly  sup- 
ported by  others,  that  the  exceptional  occa- 
sion of  Christian  friends  from  all  parts  of 
Europe  and  America  bound  to  each  other 
by  unity  of  spirit  being  met  together  might 
still,  in  another  way  and  for  another  aim 
than  that  which  had  brought  us  thither, 
be  made  useful  for  the  advancement  of  the 
kingdom  of  Christ. 

"All  unanimously  felt  the  high  impor- 
tance of  the  time  in  which  we  actually  live, 
and  acknowledged,  without  reserve,  that  nev- 
er, since  the  establishment  of  Christ's  Church, 
had  the  spirit  of  forsaking  and  assailing  the 
Gospel  been  so  daring  and  dangerous  as  in 
this  second  half  of  the  nineteenth  century. 
All  agreed  in  the  conviction  that  not  merely 
a  part  of  religious  truth,  one  or  other  dog- 
matic formula  or  Church  confession,  how- 
ever important  in  itself,  is  now  called  in 
question,  but  that  even  the  maintenance  of 
those  really  fundamental  truths  on  which 
the  whole  belief  in  Christian  revelation  at 
all  times  was  founded — yes,  of  those  great 
principles  on  which  necessarily  rests  every 
confession  of  religion  whatever  —  was  at 
stake.  They  all  felt  that  it  might  be  called 
a  good  and  holy  work  if  Christians  from 
different  parts  of  the  world  were  to  join  for 
the  defense  and  maintenance  of  the  faith  in 
these  days  of  struggle,  thereto  uniting  and 
concentrating  as  much  as  possible  all  the 
forces  which  Christian  science  in  various 
lands  and  churches  would  be  able  to  supply. 

"  The  motion  for  establishing  an  Interna- 
tional Association  for  the  defense  of  the  Chris- 
tian faith  against  its  actual  aggressors,  brought 
forward  by  the  writer  of  these  lines,  and 
eloquently  and  urgently  seconded  by  others 
with  various  arguments,  was  carried;  and 
the  undersigned  was  deputed  to  submit  to 
the  different  branches  of  the  Evangelical 
Alliance,  and  to  other  corporations  and  in- 
dividuals from  whom  sympathy  and  support 
might  be  expected,  the  suggestion  which  was 


APPENDIX  II. 


735 


made,  in  order  by  these  means  to  lay  the  first 
foundation  for  a  more  elaborate  plan. 

"This  International  Association,  accord- 
ing to  the  spirit  in  which  the  proposition 
was  made,  ought  to  rest  on  the  principles 
of  an  unshaken  belief  in  the  main  facts  and 
truths  of  the  Gospel,  but  at  the  same  time 
on  those  of  true  Christian  love  and  toler- 
ation, and  therefore  not  present  a  limited 
confessional,  but  a  universal  and  cosmopolite 
character.  As  its  aim,  it  ought  to  consider 
the  thetic-apologetic  maintenance  of  those 
foundations  on  which  religion  in  general, 
and  revelation  more  especially,  is  grounded, 
and  therefore  be  fixed  on  the  basis  of  the 
historical  revelation  of  God  in  Jesus  Christ,  in 
its  supernatural  and  ethical  character.  It  would 
be  its  task  to  take  notice  of,  and  join  with 
all  that  is  done  in  various  lands  and  churches 
for  the  furtherance  of  the  same  object,  in 
order  to  co-operate  with  these  as  much  as 
possible,  so  as  to  become  a  central  point  for 
divers  endeavors  now  often  too  much  iso- 
lated, taking  thus  an  independent  and  prom- 
inent place,  not  against,  but  among  others. 
The  Association  should,  moreover,  have  at 
its  disposal  a  fund,  which,  duly  administer- 
ed, might  serve  for  a  liberal  reward  for  prize 
essays  called  forth  by  the  Association,  and 
judged  by  the  most  competent  authorities. 
It  is  proposed  to  form  a  Board  consisting  of 
ten  or  twelve  men  from  different  countries 
in  Europe  and  America,  best  known  in  the 
domain  of  theological,  and  especially  apolo- 
getic science,  which  could  meet  perhaps  once 
a  year,  and  whose  duty  it  would  be  to  pro- 
mote the  publication  of  various  apologetic 
writings  bearing  a  popular,  but  at  the  same 
time,  truly  scientific  character.  Good  trans- 
lations of  different  existing  apologetic  works, 
now  often  confined  to  the  narrow  circle  of 
one  country,  Avould  seem  advisable  too.  In 
a  word,  an  international  apologetic  intercourse 
would  in  this  way  be  promoted  in  defiance 
of  the  power  of  unbelief,  for  the  strengthen- 
ing of  Christian  faith,  and  to  the  glory  of 
Him  who,  according  to  the  prophetic  word, 
"  shall  reign  in  the  midst  of  his  foes." 

J.  J.  VAX  OOSTERZEE, 

1'rofessor  of  Divinity. 

[The  Programme  Committee,  which  was  over- 
whelmed with  the  pressure  of  business  during  the 
sessions  of  the  Conference,  referred  the  paper  of  this 
distinguished  divine  to  the  Executive  Committee  of 
the  American  Branch  of  the  Evangelical  Alliance..  It 
was  accordingly  brought  before  this  body,  which, 
while  duly  appreciating  the  importance  of  the  sub- 
ject, saw  such  formidable  difficulties  in  the  way  of 
organizing,  under  the  auspices  of  the  Alliance,  an  In- 
ternational Apologetic  Association,  that  action  was 
indefinitely  postponed.  It  is  hoped,  however,  that 
the  plan  may  continue  to  receive  serious  considera- 
tion, and  be  brought  up  in  a  practicable  shape  and 
by  regular  appointment,  at  some  future  meeting  of 
the  General  Conference. — JEtf.] 


ABOLITION  OF  THE  SLAVE-TRADE. 

Antislavery  Society, 

Offices,  27  New  Broad  St.,  London,  E.  C., 
September  6, 18T3. 

DEAR  SIR, — The  Committee  of  the  Brit- 
ish and  Foreign  Autislavery  Society  have 
addressed,  through  the  Honorary  Secreta- 
ries, a  letter  to  the  Rev.  James  Davis,  the 
Secretary  of  the  British  Organization  of  the 
Evangelical  Alliance,  asking  that  the  atten- 
tion of  the  Conference  of  all  Nations  may 
specially  be  called  to  the  subject  of  the 
slave-trade  and  slavery,  with  a  view  to 
awaken  attention  to  .these  wide-spread  evils, 
and  to  take  such  action  as  the  Conference 
shall  think  best  in  this  matter. 

From  a  variety  of  circumstances  the  pub- 
lic have  till  lately  indulged  in  the  belief 
that,  save  in  one  or  two  places,  and  to  a  very 
limited  extent,  the  slave-trade  is  suppressed 
and  slavery  is  well-nigh  extinct.  How  such 
an  illusion  exists  is  to  some  of  us  difficult  to 
understand.  There  is  slavery  throughout 
Egypt,  Turkey,  Persia,  Muscat,  at  Zanzibar, 
in  Mozambique,  etc.,  where  tens  of  thousands 
are  deprived  of  their  birthright  of  personal 
liberty.  In  Madagascar,  I  have  reason  to 
believe,  there  are  thousands  of  slaves  held 
at  the  disposal  and  will  of  the  owners. 

These  markets  must  be  supplied,  and 
hence,  so  long  as  slavery  exists,  the  slave- 
trade  will  be  carried  on.  Accordingly,  this 
has  been  flourishing  at  Zanzibar;  and  though 
a  treaty  to  suppress  it  has  been  signed  by 
the  Sultan,  the  traders  will  seek  an  outlet 
elsewhere.  In  the  Upper  Nile  district,  slave- 
hunting  has  been  conducted  on  a  large 
scale  ;  and  last  year  over  30,000  slaves  were 
carried  away  from  the  interior  of  the  Gall  a 
country.  From  the  Lake  Tchad  district  it 
is  estimated  that  annually  at  least  4000 
slaves  are  taken.  We  grieve,  too,  to  see  that 
in  Cuba  there  are  350,000  slaves,  nearly  ev- 
ery one  of  whom  is  entitled  to  his  liberty 
under  British  treaty  rights;  and  in  Brazil 
there  are  1,500,000  human  beings  doomed  to 
a  life-long  bondage  ;  in  addition  to  this,  wo 
have  the  Portuguese  China  coolie  -  trade 
from  Macao  to  Peru  and  Cuba,  involving 
fearful  misery  and  sacrifice  of  life,  and  the 
importation  into  those  countries  of  from 
20,000  to  25,000  Chinese,  many  of  whom  arc 
in  a  more  wretched  state  than  the  negro 
slave  in  Cuba.  There  is  also  the  Polynesian 
kidnapping,  which  continues  to  flourish. 

With  all  this  evil  it  surely  becomes  the 
Conference  of  Christians  to  give  the  subject 
the  gravest  consideration,  and  to  take  suita- 
ble action. 

There  is  also  another  point  demanding  at- 
tention. Sir  Bartle  Frere,  in  his  memoran- 
da on  the  present  state  of  the  slave-trade 
and  slavery  in  Egypt,  says,  "  I  was  not  at 
all  prepared  for  the  very  general  testimony 
as  to  the  extent  of  the  slave -holding  among 
Christians,  especially  among  the  Copts,  Syri- 


736 


APPENDIX  II. 


ans,Abyssiuiaus,etc.,and  I  found  it  was  gen- 
erally regarded  by  residents  who  have  the 
means  of  knowing  as  a  practice  which  has 
.spread  in  iii-lt  among  the  Christiana  of  lute  years, 
and  is  on  the  increase." 

A  missionary  in  Syria  also  writes:  "It 
seems  the  Turks,  Mohammedans,  Christians, 
and  Jews  think  they  can  not  live  without 
keeping  slaves." 

This  is  a  matter  which  affects  the  cause 
of  Christ  at  large,  and.  we  should  be  glad  to 
know  that  the  Conference  of  all  Christians 
will  be  able  to  give  these  topics  their  atten- 
tion, and  to  give  such  utterance  as  shall  as- 
sist to  bring  an  end  to  such  a  state  of  things. 
The  Committee  will  be  thankful  for  any  aid 
you  will  give  in  this  matter.  They  are  as- 
sured of  your  thorough  sympathy,  and  will 
be  cheered  by  seeing  that  you  have  been  able 
to  take  action.  I  am  yours  truly, 

BENJ.  MILLARD,  Secretary. 


PROTESTANTISM  IN  BRAZIL. 

1  Rua  Nova  de  Sao  Jose,  Sao  Paulo, 

Brazil,  Aug.  13, 1873. 

To  the  General  Conference  of  the  Evangelical 
Alliance  to  be  held  in  the  city  of  Xew  Tork, 
October  2, 1873 : 

REV.  FATHERS  AND  DEAR  BRETHREN  IN 
OUR  LORD  AND  SAVIOUR  JESUS  CHRIST, — 
We  have  the  honor  to  inform  you  that  at 
the  annual  meeting  of  the  Evangelical  Con- 
ference of  the  Province  of  Sao  Paulo,  Brazil, 
held  on  the  21st  of  July,  1873,  in  Santa  Bar- 
bara, the  Evangelical  Alliance  of  Brazil  was 
organized. 

We  inclose  a  copy  of  our  Basis  and  Con- 
stitution, which  is  similar  to  the  one  adopt- 
ed by  the  Evangelical  Alliance  of  the  Unit- 
ed States,  and  also  a  list  of  officers  elected. 
Though  containing  but  few  Brazilian  names, 
we  are  thankful  for  these ;  and  if  the  work 
of  evangelizing  this  nation  progress  in  the 
future  as  it  has  in  the  past,  we  have  no 
doubt  whatever  that  the  Lord  in  his  own 
good  time  will  raise  others  to  join  us. 

We  request  your  united  prayers  in  our  be- 
half. We  are  in  the  midst  of  extreme  ultra- 
montanism,  and  consequently  in  the  midst 
of  gross  superstition  and  bold  skepticism. 
The  bishops  have  lately  rebelled  against  the 
government,  and  openly  declare  to  acknowl- 
edge no  other  authority  but  the  infallible 
Pope.  The  final  result  must  be  separation 
of  Church  and  State. 

We  do  not  enjoy  religions  liberty,  but 
merely  religious  toleration,  and  are  subject 
to  much  annoyance  in  the  exercise  of  our 
religious  privileges.  In  some  places  the  peo- 
ple are  compelled  by  the  military  to  kneel 
down  in  the  streets  when  the  host  passes ; 
in  others,  either  the  mob  or  the  police  breaks 
up  religious  gatherings,  as  Avas  not  long  ago 
the  case  in  Pernambuco.  We  are  not  per- 


mitted to  build  houses  of  worship  in  the 
form  of  churches  or  temples.  Our  Protest- 
ant national  guards  are  compelled  to  do  serv- 
ice on  the  Lord's  day,  and  to  accompany  un- 
covered any  procession  of  images  which  the 
priests  may  see  fit  to  order. 

But  blessed  be  the  Lord  our  God,  the  good 
seed  is  taking  root  in  the  hearts  of  the  na- 
tion. The  colporteurs  sell  annually  thou- 
sands of  dollars'  worth  of  Bibles,  Testament.-. 
and  religious  reading.  Churches  are  being 
organized,  and  in  many  places  the  people 
request  the  preaching  of  the  Gospel.  The 
Catholic  priesthood  here  is  demoralized,  cor- 
rupted, and  the  people  are  tired  of  these  their 
spiritual  teachers. 

We  regret  that  we  can  not  be  personally 
represented  at  your  General  Conference,  but 
we  are  especially  instructed  to  assure  you 
of  our  deep  interest  in  all  your  deliberations. 
May  the  Spirit  of  God  dwell  richly  in  you 
and  among  you.  May  the  world  have  once 
more  a  proof  of  the  vital  union  of  true  be- 
lievers. May  all  your  discussions  be  to  the 
glory  of  God  and  of  his  Son. 

We  shall  be  most  happy  to  receive  reports 
of  the  proceedings  of  your  Conference  for 
distribution  among  our  members  and  peo- 
ple, and  at  the  same  time  request  the  secre- 
taries of  the  different  branches  to  favor  us 
with  any  publication  or  information  which 
they  may  deem  useful  to  us. 

The  grace  of  our  Lord  Jesus  Christ  bo 
with  you  all. 

Your  humble  and  obedient  brethren  in 
Christ  Jesus,  our  Lord, 

E.  VANORDEN, 
JOHN  IRWIN  LEE, 
M.  P.  B.  DE  CARVALHOSA, 
Cor.  See's,  E.  A.,  Brazil. 


RELIGIOUS  LIBERTY  IN  TURKEY, 

AND 

THE  CONDITION  OF  ITS  PROTESTANT 
POPULATION. 

WHEN  the  famous  Haiti  Sherif,  extorted 
from  the  Turkish  government  in  the  begin- 
ning of  the  reign  of  Sultan  Abdul-Medjid 
(circa  1840),  was  confirmed  and  strengthen- 
ed by  the  treaty  of  Paris  in  February,  1856, 
Christian  nations,  and  notably  the  Protest- 
ant nations  of  Great  Britain  and  the  United 
States,  regarded  the  contest  over,  the  ques- 
tion of  religious  liberty  in  Turkey  as  virtu- 
ally settled,  the  victory  as  substantially  won. 
The  concessions  made  were  taken  as  made 
in  good  faith ;  the  promises  were  accepted 
as  meaning  what  they  seemed  to  mean. 

Yet  even  in  the  years  immediately  suc- 
ceeding the  Crimean  War,  there  were  not 
wanting  those  who  maintained  that  the  con- 
cessions unwillingly  made  under  pressure 
were  little  worth,  and  that  every  possible 
difficulty  would  be  thrown  in  the  way  of 
their  realization.  Now,  after  seventeen  years. 


APPENDIX  II. 


737 


if  we  see  evidence  both  of  an  honest  purpose 
on  the  part  of  the  Turkish  government  to  re- 
deem its  pledges,  and  actual  progress  in  re- 
deeming them,  no  doubt  it  is  all  we  can  fair- 
ly demand.  But  the  fact  that  the  Turkey 
Branch  of  the  Evangelical  Alliance  feels 
bound  to  present  a  memorial  on  this  subject 
to  the  General  Alliance  meeting  in  New  York 
shows  that  we  fail  to  find  evidence  of  such 
progress  as  we  are  entitled  to  expect. 

We  remark,  however,  in  passing,  that  there 
are  many  men,  and  some  of  them  influential 
men  in  government  counsels,  who  honestly 
desire  not  only  to  meet  the  literal  and  tech- 
nical sense  of  the  imperial  grants  above  re- 
ferred to,  but  to  secure  and  maintain  in  Tur- 
key full  religious  liberty  for  all  classes. 

On  the  other  hand,  it  should  also  be  re- 
marked that  the  government  has  always  of- 
ficially maintained  that  it  never  intended  to 
concede  to  Christian  powers  any  right  of -in- 
terference in  relation  to  any  class  of  its  sub- 
jects, and  most  emphatically  so  in  relation 
to  its  Moslem  subjects,  and  has  always  con- 
sistently declared  that  it  reserves  to  itself 
the  exclusive  and  absolute  right  of  control 
in  respect  to  all  the  affairs  of  all  its  subjects. 
When  we  have  acknowledged  a  formal  and 
official  granting  of  religious  toleration,  and 
the  abrogation  of  the  death  penalty  as  pun- 

.  ishment  for  a  change  of  faith  as  such,  we  have 
acknowledged  the  fact  as  it  really  exists. 

We  now  proceed  to  cite  evidence  that  re- 
ligious liberty  is  still  seriously  interfered 
with,  not  only  in  relation  to  Mohammedans 
becoming  Christians,  but  in  the  case  of  evan- 
gelical Christians  generally.  We  readily  ac- 
knowledge, indeed,  that  the  government  has 
formidable  difficulties  to  contend  with  in  the 
fact  that  the  principles  of  religious  liberty 
are  neither  understood  nor  appreciated  by 
the  mass  of  the  people  of  its  various  nation- 
alities; we  admit  also  that  most  of  the 
grievances  that  have  been  suffered  have 
arisen,  not  from  the  spontaneous  action  of 
the  government,  but  from  the  intrigues  often 
of  several  sects  against  our  Protestant  breth- 
ren, the  fault  of  the  authorities  being  that 
the  local  governor  lent  himself,  in  most  in- 
stances, to  be  the  tool  of  oppression,  while 
redress  from  the  Porto  was  tardy  and  inef- 
ficient ;  nay,  we  shall  even  admit  that,  in 
some  instances,  the  native  Protestants  may 
not  have  sought  the  attainment  of  their  ob- 
jects, such  as  the  building  of  churches  and 
schools,  in  the  precise  order  and  method  re- 
quired by  law  and  custom.  Still,  after  all 

1  these  deductions,  we  fail  to  find  evidence  of 
such  a  disposition  on  the  part  of  the  govern- 
ment to  grant  religious  liberty  to  their  Prot- 
estant subjects  as  the  national  engagements 
fairly  entitle  us  to  expect ;  and  we  maintain 
that  those  solemn  pledges  of  the  sovereign 
imply  the  obligation  of  seeing  to  it  that 
•what  is  promised  by  the  central  government 
shall  not  be  rendered  a  dead  letter  through 
47 


the  intrigues  of  fanatics,  the  venality  of  lo- 
cal magistrates,  or  even  the  ignorance  and 
errors  of  the  sufferers  themselves.  We  ob- 
serve, then,  that — 

1.  The  Protestant  communities  are,  to  a 
large  extent,  denied  the  right  of  representa- 
tion in  the  general,  provincial,  and  local  coun- 
cils of  the  empire. 

Complaints  come  up  repeatedly,  and  are 
loudly  urged  from  all  the  provinces,  that  in- 
justice and  bad  faith  characterize  the  acts 
of  the  government  in  this  regard ;  and  the 
most  earnest  and  repeated  efforts  of  the  civil 
head  of  the  Protestants  ai'e  without  avail  to 
correct  the  evil.  The  council  in  which  the 
Protestants  naturally  desire  to  be  represent- 
ed is  the  Council  of  Justice ;  but  the  ex- 
perience of  Protestants  is  that  they  are  al- 
most always  kept  out  of  these  councils,  and 
when  once  admitted,  are  again  thrust  out  on 
the  slightest  pretext,  and  that  a  most  invid- 
ious distinction  is  made  to  their  disadvan- 
tage when  compared  not  only  "with  Osman- 
lees,  but  also  with  the  other  Christian,  and 
especially  with  the  Roman  Catholic  subjects 
of  the  Porte.  For  example  : 

In  the  province  of  Aleppo,  •with  a  popula- 
tion of  some  seven  thousand  Protestants, 
they  have  no  representative  in  the  Central 
Provincial  Council.  In  the  large  communi- 
ties of  Aiutab,  Marash,  and  Oorfa  (in  the 
province  of  Aleppo),  there  are  no  Protestant 
representatives  in  the  local  councils  of  jus- 
tice ;  while  the  Eoman  Catholics,  with  much 
smaller  communities,  are  represented.  In 
one  instance,  where  the  Protestants  largely 
outnumbered  the  Roman  Catholics  (six  to 
one),  and  a  Protestant  was  chosen  to  repre- 
sent both  communities,  he  was  set  aside,  and  a 
Roman  Catholic  received  by  the  government. 

In  like  manner,  in  the  province  of  Sivasr 
Protestants  have  tried  in  vain  to  secure  the 
same  rights  as  others ;  and  even  in  the  cities 
of  Sivas,  Yozgat,  and  Marsovau,  where  at 
one  time  Protestants  sat  in  the  councils,  they 
were  afterward  removed.  The  same  is  true 
in  the  provinces  of  Diarbekir,  Erzroom,  and 
Angora,  and  in  Syria.  In  keeping  with  this, 
it  is  not  long  since  the  head  of  the  whole 
Protestant  community  of  the  empire  suffered 
the  indignity  of  being  placed,  on  days  of 
formal  presentation  to  the  Sultan,  out  of  the 
order  and  rank  he  formerly  held  along  with 
other  representatives  of  Christian  sects,  and 
was  put  after  the  Jewish  representative. 

2.  The   declaration  that   Christian  testi- 
mony is  received  on  an  equality  with  Mos- 
lem testimony  is  not  borne  out  by  facts,  es- 
pecially where  Moslem  interests  are  affected. 

Christians  are  constantly  exposed  to  the 
old  indignity  of  having  their  testimony  set 
aside  by  Moslem  judges;  and  it  is  always 
easy,  and  constantly  practiced,  so  to  control 
the  process  of  a  cause  as  to  preserve  the  old 
injustice,  even  where  the  appearance  of  fail- 
dealing  is  kept  up.  But  in  large  portions  of 


738 


APPENDIX  II. 


the  empire  this  new  concession  is  absolutely 
a  dead  letter. 

3.  All  the  efforts  of  Protestants,  both  na- 
tive and  foreign,  to  build  churches,  schools, 
houses  for  the  pastor,  or  such  like,  are  hin- 
dered to  the  last  degree  by  the  government, 
or  by  local  officials. 

The  government  professes  to  foster  edu- 
cation and  favor  eleemosynary  institutions. 
But  Robert  College  waited  seven  years  for 
leave  to  be.  A  theological  seminary  at  Mar- 
sovan  was  not,  it  is  true,  hindered  in  the 
building ;  but  the  local  government  was  aft- 
erward so  vexed  because  it  had  not  prevent- 
ed it,  that  now,  for  two  years  and  a  half,  a 
missionary  is  hindered  from  building  a  house 
for  himself,  when  there  is  confessedly  no 
real  objection  to  it ;  and  this,  too,  although 
the  American  legation  has  done  its  best  to 
secure  justice  in  this  instance. 

Most  of  the  places  of  Protestant  worship 
throughout  the  country  were  built  under  the 
name  of  houses,  or  sometimes  that  of  schools, 
as  less  likely  to  rouse  opposition  than  that 
of  church,  the  government  haviug  rendered 
the  procuring  of  permission  for  the  erection 
of  a  church  so  nearly  impossible  as  greatly 
to  discourage  attempts  on  the  part  of  Prot- 
estant communities  to  provide  places  of  wor- 
ship recognized  as  such.  Whether  the  real 
difficulty  consists  in  the  opposition  of  the 
central  government,  or  in  the  antipathies  of 
local  officials,  or  in  the  state  of  the  laws  they 
have  to  administer,  it  is  not  for  us  to  say ; 
we  simply  state  the  facts  as  we  find  them. 

In  numerous  instances,  also,  where  for 
many  years  the  ringing  of  a  chapel  bell  for 
the  regular  services  of  the  Sabbath  had 
been  permitted,  such  ringing  has  lately  been 
summarily  and  arbitrarily  forbidden. 

4.  The  government  has  within  the  last  dec- 
ade made  a  persistent  and,  to  a  large  ex- 
tent, a  successful  effort  to  crush  out  relig- 
ious inquiry  among  Mohammedans. 

Some  years  ago  there  was  considerable 
open  inquiry  concerning  Christian  truth 
among  Moslems.  In  the  summer  of  1864  the 
government  arrested,  imprisoned,  and  ban- 
ished all  upon  whom  it  could  lay  hands  of 
those  wholly  or  partially  committed  to  Chris- 
tianity ;  and  the  intimidation  and  espionage 
then  and  subsequently  practiced  have  borne 
their  expected  fruit  in  keeping  back  inquir- 
ers, and  making  the  impression  upon  Mo- 
hammedans that  religious  liberty  does  not 
exist  in  fact — at  least,  for  them.  Instances 
could  be  cited  from  Constantinople,  Asia  Mi- 
nor, and  Syria,  did  our  limits  allow  of  de- 
tails. It  is  but  right,  however,  to  add  that 
the  Osmanlee  converts  to  Christianity  who 
stood  firm  in  1864  have  since  been  allowed  to 
profess  their  adopted  faith,  and  even  to  labor 
actively  for  its  diffusion,  without  molesta- 
tion, though  doubtless  under  our  protection. 

On  the  other  hand,  it  is  a  cause  of  serious 
complaint  that  rude  attacks  upon  Christian- 


ity are  allowed  by  the  government  to  be  pub- 
lished in  the  Turkish  language,  while  no  re- 
ply is  permitted,  and  that  although  half  the 
population  of  the  empire  professes  the  ca- 
lumniated faith.  By  what  right  is  our  faith 
reviled,  and  at  the  same  time  our  mouths  pe- 
remptorily closed  f 

5.  Notwithstanding  all  paper  professions 
and  promises  of  the  government  in  regard 
to  the  administration  of  justice,  the  testi- 
mony reaching  us  from  all  parts  of  the  em- 
pire —  testimony  oftentimes  most  explicit 
and  damaging  to  the  government  —  shows 
either  insincerity  or  imbecility  in  carrying 
out  auy  principles  of  justice  at  all,  or  lim- 
iting the  oppression  felt  by  the  Christian 
population  to  be  so  galling.    Redress  of  ac- 
knowledged wrongs  is  excessively  tardy,  and 
delinquent  officials,  when  removed  for  mis- 
demeanor, are  often  reinstated  or  promoted, 
in  defiance  of  all  justice  or  even  decency. 

6.  There  is  no  part  of  this  whole  subject 
which  more  fitly  calls  for  the  thoughtful  at- 
tention  of  Christians  from  all  Protestant 
countries,  as  represented  in  the  Evangelical 
Alliance,  than  the  fact  that  during  the  last 
decade  the  Protestant  powers  have  taken  a 
new  departure,  pursued  a  new  line  of  policy, 
in  relation  to  Turkey. 

The  Sublime  Porte  has  claimed  to  have 
exclusive  control  in  its  own  internal  affairs, 
and  has  shown  itself  increasingly  unwilling 
to  brook  dictation,  or  even  advice,  from  for- 
eign powers  in  relation  to  its  management 
of  the  religious  affairs  of  its  own  subjects  of 
all  denominations.  In  deference  to  this 
claim  on  the  part  of  Turkey,  and  perhaps 
with  a  laudable  desire  to  respect  the  rights 
of  Turkey  as  an  independent  state,  recog- 
nized as  a  member  of  the  body  politic  of 
Europe,  the  Protestant  powers  have  taken 
long  steps  backward  since  the  time  when 
Lord  Stratford  de  Redcliffe  represented  Great 
Britain  at  the  Sublime  Porte.  The  conse- 
quence is  that  now  ministers  and  embassa- 
dors  of  Protestant  powers  receive  such  in- 
structions from  their  governments  with  ref- 
erence to  interfering  in  religious  matters  in 
Turkey,  and  the  tendency  toward  absolute 
non-interference  is  so  strong,  that  wo  may 
well  fear  results  unfavorable  to  Protestant, 
and  even  to  all  Christian  interests  in  this 
country.  Roman  Catholics,  indeed,  seem  still 
to  be  efficiently  protected;  but  Protestants 
seem  in  danger  of  being  left  to  the  uncertain 
justice  of  Turkish  officials,  with  what  result 
our  previous  remarks  sufficiently  enable  us 
to  foresee. 

While  stating  these  grievances,  we  would 
not  be  understood  as  denying  that  Protest- 
ants, native  and  foreign,  enjoy  many  impor- 
tant privileges  in  Turkey.  The  publication 
and  circulation  of  the  Holy  Scriptures,  and 
of  religious  books  in  general,  are  freely  per- 
mitted, in  all  languages,  all  over  the  empire. 
The  opening  of  schools  is  not  interfered 


APPENDIX  II. 


739 


with,  nor  are  any  prohibited  from  meeting  in 
each  other's  houses  for  divine  worship,  or 
from  organizing  themselves  into  churches 
or  ecclesiastical  unions.  In  regard  to  such 
things,  it  is  but  a  few  years  since  Turkey 
contrasted  most  favorably  with  most  of  the 
states  of  Europe.  We  thankfully  acknowl- 
edge all  this ;  and  we  only  desire  that  the 
Turkish  government  should  go  forward,  and 
grant  to  its  Protestant  subjects  the  unham- 
pered enjoyment  of  those  rights  and  priv- 
ileges which  are  their  due,  and  which  the 
liberal  conduct  of  the  Porte,  at  a  time  when 
such  liberality  was  rare,  led  us  confidently 
to  expect  would  never  be  withheld  from 
them. 

In  conclusion,  it  appears  to  us  that  the  ex- 
igencies of  the  subject  which  forms  the  head- 
ing of  this  paper  call  for  the  following  ac- 
tion on  the  part  of  the  Evangelical  Alliance : 

1.  That  that  body  give  publicity  to  the 
facts  we  have  presented,  in  order  to  awaken 
the  attention  of  the  Christian  world,  and 
enlist  for  our  cause  the  support  of  Christian 
public  opinion. 

2.  That  the  Alliance  memorialize  the  gov- 
ernment of  Great  Britain,  as  the  power  to 
which  the  Protestants  of  Turkey  have  al- 
ways been  taught  to  look  especially  for  pro- 
tection in  time  of  need,  and  deprecate  any 
\vithdrawal  of  the  most  efficient  support  of 
liberty  of  conscience,  and  of  perfect  religious 
equality  among  all  subjects  of  the  Porte. 

The  Committee  of  the  Turkey  Branch  of 
the  Evangelical  Alliance, 

GEORGE  W.  WOOD, 
ALEXANDER  THOMSON, 
GEORGE  F.  HERRICK. 

CONSTANTINOPLE,  August  29, 1ST3. 
APPENDIX. 

Two  illustrations  of  the  tendency — we  fear 
we  must  say  the  wish — of  the  government 
to  ignore  the  existence  of  its  Protestant  sub- 
jects have  been  brought  under  our  notice 
in  time  only  to  be  referred  to  here. 

1.  Sal  Nameh  is  an  official  annual  register 
of  all  the  government  establishments  and 
principal  officers  of  the  empire,  including 
nearly  all  the  clergy  of  every  denomination. 
But  here  you  will  search  in  vain  for  any 
mention  of  the  Protestant  clergy,  or  of  their 
local  civil  heads ;  nor  is  there  any  mention 
even  of  the  Vckeel  of  the  whole  Protestant 
community,  though  he  is  a  recognized  officer 
of  the  government,  with  chambers  assigned 
to  him  at  the  Sublime  Porte. 

2.  Jahriri  Emlak  is  an  official  census  of  the 
population  and  property  of  the  empire.     All 
other  denominations  are  here  duly  enumer- 
ated, but  there  is  no  rubric  assigned  to  the 
Protestants,  who  are  therefore  included  un- 
der one  or  other  of  the  other  denominations, 
as  the  officiating  clerk  found  most  conven- 
ient.   We  can  not  but  regard  this  as  a  mean 
insult  to  a  community  which  presents  no 


less  than  eighty  per  cent,  of  its  population 
of  both  sexes  as  able  to  read,  and  which, 
during  the  thirty  years  of  its  existence,  has 
afforded  no  instance  of  conviction  for  any 
crime.  A  community  presenting  so  striking 
a  contrast  to  the  other  bodies  of  the  empire 
was  surely  entitled  to  ordinary  courtesy  at 
the  hands  of  their  rulers. 


MEMOKIAL  ON  THE  OPIUM  TRADE. 

To  the  Eepresentatives  of  the  Evangelical  Al- 
liance assembled  in  New  York : 

BELOVED  BRETHREN, — We,  the  members 
of  the  Turkey  Branch  of  the  Evangelical  Al- 
liance, beg  leave  to  call  your  attention  to  a 
most  momentous  subject,  hoping  that  you 
will  take  it  into  serious  consideration.  The 
dearest  object  of  our  desires  being  the  salva- 
tion of  the  whole  human  race  from  its  lost 
estate,  we  would  use  all  proper  means  for 
the  removal  of  hinderauces  to  its  accomplish- 
ment. Such  a  hinderance  we  are  pained  to 
see  lamentably  effectual  in  preventing  the 
moral  renovation  of  a  people  comprising 
nearly  one  third  of  the  earth's  inhabitants ; 
but  which  is  removable,  we  believe,  by  the 
united  influence  of  evangelical  Christendom. 
In  order  to  this  end,  we  ask  for  earnest  ac- 
tion on  your  part.  The  fact  to  which  we  re- 
fer is  the  opium  trade  in  China.  Feeling 
keenly  the  reproach  that  rests  upon  us  and 
our  religion  when  Christian  nations  carry  on 
this  nefarious  business,  we  unite  in  present- 
ing this  case  for  your  consideration,  urging 
your  attention  to  the  following  points,  viz. : 

1.  The  physical,  mental,  and  moral  ruin 
wrought  by  the  habitual  use  of  opium,  and 
the  sad  spectacle  presented  by  so  mighty  a 
nation  falling  victims  to  its  power.     What 
other  spectacle  upon  the  face  of  the  earth 
can  move  more  strongly  the  Christian  heart  ? 
What  object  is  more  worthy  to  rouse  Chris- 
tians to  united  action  than  the  hope  of  re- 
moving this  curse  ?   Unless  the  evil  be  speed- 
ily checked,  centuries  of  sadder  degradation 
and  deeper  misery  must  result  to  the  people 
of  China. 

2.  The  Chinese  government  and  many  of 
the  intelligent  among  the  people  are  alive 
to  the  damage  this  opium  traffic  is  doing. 
They  are  anxious  to  save  the  multitudinous 
inhabitants  of  the  empire  from  this  blight. 
Heathen  China  supplicates  the  help  of  Chris- 
tian nations  in  putting  down  this  diabolical 
trade,  and  shall  she  supplicate  in  vain  ? 

3.  The  position  of  any  Christian  nation  en- 
gaged in  this  traffic,  protecting  it  by  law 
and  by  force,  with  no  other  reason  to  give 
for  such  a  course  than  the  great  revenues  ac- 
cruing therefrom,  is  contrary  to  the  spirit 
of  Christianity,  and  injurious  to  its  name — 
these  gains  being  at  the  sacrifice  of  the  in- 
terests, temporal  and  eternal,  of  myriads  in 
China.    This  wrong  done  by  Christians  is,  in 


740 


APPENDIX  II. 


the  eyes  of  the  Chinese  people,  a  blot  upon 
Christianity,  an  evidence  of  its  inferiority  to 
their  own  heathenism  as  a  system  of  morals, 
and  a  bar  to  its  progress  among  them. 

We  therefore  earnestly  beseech  you  to  take 
this  subject  in  hand,  and  unite,  as  far  as  may 
be,  the  sentiment  of  the  Christian  world ; 
and  by  delegations,  the  press,  the  pulpit,  or 
otherwise,  exert  a  strong  influence  for  the 
suppression  of  this  opium  traffic,  or,  at  least, 
for  the  deliverance  of  the  Christian  name 
from  the  stain  that  traffic  has  brought 
upon  it. 

Our  hearts  have  thrilled  at  the  boldness 
and  success  with  which  the  Alliance  has 
during  past  years  come  to  the  defense  of 
religious  freedom  in  Turkey  and  Russia ;  but 
lo !  here  is  a  cause  more  mighty ;  here  we 
see  imperiled  vaster  interests.  God  grant 
that,  after  having  been  so  successful  in  plead- 
ing the  cause  of  oppressed  Christians,  your 
influence  may  be  equally  powerful  in  rescu- 
ing the  purity  of  the  Christian  name. 

Believing,  as  we  do,  that  a  right  use  of 
your  influence  may,  under  God,  result  in  so 
great  a  boon  to  China  as  her  deliverance 
from  the  fetters  of  a  fearful  vice,  and  dispose 
her  people  more  favorably  toward  the  relig- 
ion of  Jesus  Christ,  we  can  not  do  otherwise 
than  entreat  you,  in  humble  dependence  on 
Almighty  aid,  to  exert  your  utmost  power  in 
all  legitimate  ways  for  the  accomplishment 
of  this  object. 

GEORGE  W.  WOOD,  Chairman. 

GEOKOB  F.  HEKKICK,  Secretary. 


CRUELTY  TO  ANIMALS. 

BY  HENRY  BERGH,  ESQ.,  OF  NEW  YORK. 

LADIES  AND  GENTLEMEN, — I  am  inclined 
to  believe  that,  on  my  appearance  upon  this 
platform,  sentiments  of  the  sort  I  am  about 
to  mention  are  uppermost  in  your  minds,  to 
wit :  "  What  assurance,  what  audacity,  what 
folly,  in  that  man  to  venture  where  angels 
might  fear  to  tread — is  he  mad  that  he  thus 
dares  to  open  his  mouth  within  these  classic 
and  elegant  walls,  which  have  resounded 
•with  the  eloquence  of  the  most  renowned 
speakers  of  the  day,  and  now  echo  with  the 
wisdom  of  God's  servants,  assembled  here 
from  all  parts  of  the  civilized  world  f " 

But  the  privilege  has  been  graciously  ac- 
corded me  to  invite  your  attention  for  the 
space  of  ten  minutes  to  a  subject  which  is 
of  real  importance  to  the  world  at  large — I 
mean  our  religious  duty  to  that  vast  portion 
of  God's  creation,  the  inferior  animals.  Rel- 
atively, ten  minutes  is  a  brief  period  of  time, 
and  yet  in  ten  minutes  what  deeds  of  good 
or  evil  may  be  enacted — deeds  which  may 
influence  the  destinies  of  men  and  nations 
for  all  time.  Brief,  therefore,  as  is  this  frac- 
tion of  life — which  every  ticking  of  the  clock 
continually  abbreviates — I  am  truly  grate- 
ful for  the  opportunity  which  is  procured 


mo  of  giving  utterance  to  a  few  reflections 
in  your  hearing. 

Eight  years  ago,  those  precious  creatures, 
which  clothe  us,  and  feed  us,  and  work  for 
us,  were  regarded  by  the  statutory  laws  of 
our  country  only  as  property.  Feeling  sen- 
sible of  the  magnitude  of  this  error,  in  a 
moral  as  well  as  material  point  of  view,  I 
humbly  undertook  the  initiative  of  a  reform. 
What  progress  has  been  made  in  that  direc- 
tion may  be  inferred  from  the  fact  that  twen- 
ty-seven States  and  Territories  of  our  Union 
and  of  Canada  have  enacted  laws  and  char- 
tered societies  for  the  protection  from  cruel- 
ty of  these  speechless  and  devoted  servants 
of  mankind.  But  so  much  yet  remains  to 
be  done  that  I  am  here  to-day  to  ask  you, 
through  the  medium  of  your  holy  office,  to 
come  to  our  aid.  And  no  more  appropriate 
occasion  for  so  doing,  it  seems  to  me,  could 
offer  than  the  present,  during  the  presence 
in  this  city  of  the  delegated  servants  of  the 
Most  High,  assembled  here  from  almost  ev- 
ery Christian  nation  of  the  world.  In  a  ma- 
terial point  of  view,  mankind  generally  ad- 
mit the  positive  utility  of  dumb  animals ; 
but  as  to  their  moral  responsibilities  to  them 
in  return,  their  admissions  are  not  so  gen- 
eral. The  omnipotent  Creator  of  all  things, 
in  hi»  dealings  with  his  human  children,  em- 
ploys mysterious  means  to  accomplish  his 
purposes. 

Last  winter,  for  example,  his  sovereign 
will  was  manifested,  in  a  manner  as  terrible 
as  it  was  efficacious,  through  the  agency  of 
the  epizootic.  This  widespread  and  deso- 
lating scourge  was  the  means  of  bringing 
home  to  the  understanding  of  the  most  cruel 
and  obtuse  their  dependence  on  the  horse. 
If  consequences  so  replete  with  disorder  and 
alarm  could  ensue  by  reason  of  one  race  of 
animals  being  partially  disabled,  what  would 
be  the  result  if  mankind  were  suddenly  de- 
prived of  the  use  of  all  others  as  well  f  Could 
a  deluge  or  an  earthquake  be  more  disas- 
trous ?  How  often  in  my  pity  and  admira- 
tion of  these  speechless  servants  of  mankind 
have  I  been  met  with  this  complaint :  "  Why 
are  you  always  occupying  your  time  with 
dumb  beasts ;  why  not  elevate  your  thoughts 
to  the  level  of  your  own  race,  which  is  much 
more  worthy  of  your  labors  ?" 

If,  my  friends,  we  cast  our  eyes  over  the 
earth,  do  we  not  find  that  half  of  that  which 
charms  our  senses  and  satisfies  our  hearts  is 
derived  from  the  animal  kingdom  ?  If  we 
look  about  for  some  relation  of  life  in  which 
the  animal  kingdom  has  no  connection  with 
mankind,  frankly  speaking,  we  can  not  find 
one.  If  we  think  of  agriculture,  science,  lit- 
erature, poetry,  music,  pleasure,  industry  of 
any  sort — they  are  every  where  represented. 

Let  us  begin  with  pleasure.  Shall  it  be 
fishing  and  the  chase  ?  Three  species  of  an- 
imals are  required,  viz.,  the  bird,  the  fish,  and 
the  quadruped.  Is  it  ridiug?  The  horse, 


APPENDIX  II. 


741 


the  mule,  the  ass,  the  ox,  the  camel,  and  the 
reindeer  are  necessary,  according  to  the  lo- 
cality we  inhabit.  Is  it  the  banquet  ?  What 
a  meagre  repast  it  would  be,  if  among  the 
delicacies  these  poor  animals  were  wanting 
to  the  menu.  Is  it  that  last  and  loveliest  of 
all  living  objects,  a  beautiful  woman  ?  Ex- 
amine and  enumerate  the  attire  which  sets 
off  her  charms.  Look  at  the  dazzling  robe 
of  silk,  the  dainty  gloves,  the  minion  shoes, 
the  plumes  which  ornament  her  hair,  the 
pearls  which  hang  about  her  neck,  the  Cash- 
mere shawl,  the  furs,  and  sometimes  even  the 
ruby  color  of  her  cheeks,  and  tell  me,  if  you 
please,  whence  do  all  these  come? 

Is  not  this  truth,  therefore,  forced  upon 
us :  that  while  these  animals  can  live  under 
the  protection  of  Nature  alone,  man  can  not 
live  without  them  ?  The  Old  Testament 
makes  numerous  allusions  to  them,  and  in 
our  prayer-books  we  find  expressions  such 
as  these — the  innocent  lamb,  the  heavenly 
dove,  etc. ;  and,  finally,  Jesus,  coming  into 
the  world,  was  permitted  to  be  born  in  a 
manger,  between  an  ox  and  an  ass,  and  upon 
one  of  the  latter  the  Saviour  of  the  world 
made  his  triumphal  entry  into  Jerusalem. 

As  to  Poetry,  she  is  nourished  by  fiction  ; 
she  also  compares  not  the  beautiful  woman 
to  one  of  her  sex,  but  rather  to  the  swan,  the 
butterfly,  and  gazelle.  If  we  speak  of  Mu- 
sic, were  they  not  our  first  masters  ?  Do 
they  not  furnish  the  chords  which  draw  such 
exquisite  sound  from  the  violin  and  harp, 
and  provide  the  piano-forte  with  its  snow- 
white  ivory?  With  what  burning  eloquence, 
wit,  sarcasm,  and  romantic  histories,  tales, 
and  poems  has  not  the  goose-quill  lent  its 
aid !  Where  is  derived  the  candle  which  the 
poet,  the  student,  and  the  minister  lights  to 
aid  his  meditations  ?  the  oil  within  the  bea- 
con light  ?  and  then,  after  the  fatigues  of  the 
day,  is  it  not  upon  feathers,  hair,  and  wool 
that  aching  limbs  recline  ?  What !  Shall 
we  give  in  return  to  these  creatures,  made 
of  flesh  and  blood  like  ourselves,  and  so  de- 
voted, useful,  and  intelligent,  only  violence 
and  disdain?  Blows  and  neglect  for  their 
labor  and  the  product  of  their  bodies  ?  Tor- 
ment and  death  for  real  love  and  disinter- 
ested affection  ? 

Ah !  my  friends  of  the  human  race,  you 
imagine  yourselves  independent  of  these  in- 
ferior creatures,  and  you  are  amazed  that 
men  and  women  should  form  themselves  into 
societies  for  their  protection.  You  interro- 
gate us  with  the  impious  demand,  "  Why  do 
you  waste  your  time  in  defending  senseless 
brutes?"  Creatures,  remember,  which  the 
great  Maker  of  all  has  condescended  to  call 
into  being.  You  freely  bestow  your  love  and 
admiration  on  a  gem  or  flower  which  serves 
for  an  hour  the  indulgence  of  your  pride  or 
caprice,  and  then  is  laid  aside,  while  these 
animals  give  you  their  affection  in  return 
for  a  few  caresses,  and  place  their  lives  and 


services  at  your  disposal  for  a  handful  of  hay 
and  a  bucket  of  water!  True,  they  speak 
not  to  our  ears,  but  by  their  deeds  do  they 
not  address  themselves  to  our  hearts,  if  we 
have  any  ?  Inquire  of  him  that  has  felt  the 
pressure  of  time  in  his  soul,  and  experienced 
the  misery  of  humanity — sickness,  poverty, 
and  the  abandonment  of  his  kind ;  ask  him 
his  sentiment  of  these  confiding  beings. 
What  a  treasure  to  the  suffering  paralytic  in 
his  chamber  is  the  little  feathered  prisoner 
which  sings  to  him  of  joy  and  hope !  What 
profound  attachment  is  formed  between  the 
unfortunate  captive  of  the  Bastile  and  the 
little  animal  which  shares  his  solitude,  no 
matter  how  mean  and  insignificant  it  be ! 

The  instinct  of  cruelty  is  opposed  to  relig- 
ion, and  is  not  less  a  sin  because  the  object 
of  it  is  a  speechless  brute ;  nay,  the  senti- 
ment of  mercy  seems  all  the  more  lovely  in 
proportion  to  the  humbleness  and  depend- 
ence of  the  recipient  of  it.  We  have  voices 
to  make  our  wrongs  heard  and  respected,  but 
these  humble  beings  have  only  the  faculties 
of  feeling  and  endurance. 

In  a  word,  I  venture  to  declare  that  this 
cause  of  mercy  to  the  inferior  animals  is  one 
of  the  most  essential  elements  of  true  relig- 
ion ;  and  that  no  man  or  woman  can  be  an. 
acceptable  Christian,  in  the  sight  of  that 
just  Being  whose  chief  attribute  is  mercy 
to  all  his  creatures,  and  yet  be  insensible  to 
its  holy  and  universal  significance. 


AMERICAN    SEAMEN'S    FRIEND    SOCI- 
ETY. 

[Sent  to  the  Committee  on  the  Programme  by  Rev. 
Dr.  S.  H.  Hall,  for  the  use  of  the  Conference.— .Ed.] 

This  society  was  organized  May,  1828  (in- 
corporated April,  1833),  "  to  improve  the  so- 
cial, moral,  and  religious  condition  of  sea- 
men ;  to  protect  them  from  imposition  and 
fraud;  to  prevent  them  from  becoming  a 
curse  to  each  other  and  the  world ;  to  res- 
cue them  from  sin  and  its  consequences,  and 
to  save  their  souls."  It  proposes  to  sanctify 
commerce,  an  interest  and  a  power  in  the 
earth  second  only  to  religion  itself,  and  make 
it  every  where  serve  as  the  handmaid  of 
Christianity.  Its  first  president  was  the 
Hon.  Smith  Thompson,  and  the  late  Bishop 
Mcllvaine,  of  Ohio,  its  first  corresponding 
secretary. 

It  is  estimated  that  there  are  3,000,000  of 
men  engaged  in  operating  the  commerce  of 
the  world.  These  men  "doing  business  on 
the  great  waters"  are  largely  deprived  of  the 
means  of  grace.  Nor  are  they  readily  reach- 
ed by  the  efforts  of  the  Church  to  give  the 
Gospel  to  the  destitute,  but  special  efforts  in 
their  behalf  have  been  attended  with  great 
success,  and  particularly  the  agency  of  this 
national  society,  which,  while  non-denomi- 
national, according  to  its  charter,  is  heartily 
indorsed  by  the  leading  ecclesiastical  bodies 


742 


APPENDIX  II. 


of  the  country,  and  commended  to  the  church- 
es as  doing  important  service  in  the  great 
work  of  the  world's  evangelization.  The 
society  aims  to  secure  the  preaching  of  the 
Gospel  to  seamen  by  missionaries  and  chap- 
lains, and  the  maintenance  of  Bethels  in  the 
principal  ports  of  the  United  States  and  for- 
eign countries,  locating  them  at  the  tempo- 
rary centres  of  an  ever-changing  commerce. 
Besides  preaching  the  Gospel  to  seamen  on 
shipboard  and  on  shore,  and  to  those  em- 
ployed upon  our  inland  waters,  chaplains 
visit  the  sick  and  dying  in  hospitals  and 
elsewhere,  and  as  far  as  possible  supply  the 
place  of  parents  and  friends. 

The  society  also  encourages  the  estab- 
lishment of  Sailors'  Homes,  Reading-rooms, 
Savings  Banks,  etc.,  and  the  wide  distribu- 
tion of  Bibles,  tracts,  etc.  The  Sailor's  Home, 
190  Cherry  Street,  New  York,  is  the  property 
and  under  the  direction  of  the  society.  It 
was  opened  in  1842,  siuce  which  time  it  has 
accommodated  85,000  boarders.  This  one  in- 
stitution has  saved  to  seamen  and  their  rela- 
tives $1,500,000.  More  or  less  shipwrecked 
seamen  of  various  nationalities  are  constant- 
ly provided  for  at  the  Home,  where  a  mis- 
sionary of  the  society  is  in  daily  attendance, 
and  religious  meetings,  besides  the  regular 
family  worship,  are  held  on  week-day  even- 
ings. Similar  institutions  exist  iu  other  cit- 
ies under  the  care  of  auxiliaries. 

A  few  years  ago  the  society  inaugurated 
the  work  of  supplying  sea-going  vessels  with 
loan  libraries,  averaging  forty -five  volumes, 
including  the  Bible  and  some  other  care- 
fully selected  religious  books,  put  up  in  a 
neat  case,  and  intrusted  as  a  general  thing 
to  converted  sailors,  who  thus  become  for 
the  time  effective  missionaries  among  their 
shipmates.  Since  this  work  was  inaugu- 
rated over  4500  libraries  have  gone  forth, 
with  195,000  volumes,  which  by  frequent  re- 
shipment  have  been  accessible  to  probably 
200,000  men.  More  than  eight  hundred  hope- 
ful conversions  at  sea  have  been  reported 
from  this  single  agency. 

The  society  publishes  (monthly)  the  Sail- 
or's Magazine,  designed  to  collect  and  com- 
municate information,  and  to  enlist  the  sym- 
pathy and  co-operation  of  Christians  of  ev- 
ery name  in  securing  its  object ;  the  Seamen's 
Friend,  gratuitously  furnished  chaplains  and 
missionaries  for  distribution  among  seamen  ; 
and  the  Life-Boat,  for  the  use  of  Sabbath- 
schools. 

During  the  last  year  the  Society  had  near- 
ly fifty  chaplains,  missionaries,  etc.,  in  its 
service,  and  expended  in  its  world-wide  work 
$65,000.  It  is  steadily  extending  its  useful- 
ness, and  of  late  has  been  signally  blessed  by 
the  great  Head  of  the  Church. 

The  rooms  of  the  Society  are  at  No.  80 
Wall  Street,  New  York. 

R.  P.  BUCK,  Esq.,  President. 
8.  H.  HALI,  D.D.,  Cor.  Sec.  and  Treat. 


FRATERNAL  APPEAL 

TO  TUB 

FRIENDS  OF  THE  EVANGELICAL  AL- 
LIANCE AND  OF  CHRISTIAN  UN- 
ION GENERALLY; 

WITH  A  PROVISIONAL  SKETCH  OF  A  PLAN  FOK 
A  GENERAL  PROTESTANT  UNION. 

[This  Appeal  of  the  late  Rev.  Dr.  Schmucker,  of 
Gettysburg,  Penn.,  who  took  part  in  the  organization 
of  the  Evaogelical  Alliance  iu  London,  1846,  and  would 
have  addressed  the  General  Conference  but  for  his  la- 
mented death,  was  brought  before  the  Committee  on 
the  Programme,  by  his  friend,  the  Kev.  Dr.  Conrad, 
of  Philadelphia,  with  the  request  that  it  may  be  al- 
lowed a  place  in  the  official  proceedings,  which  was 
cheerfully  granted,  iri  justice  to  the  memory  of  the  au- 
thor and  his  zealous  labors  for  Christian  union.  It 
presents  an  elaborate  plan  for  an  official  confedera- 
tion of  the  Protestant  denominations.  This  is  a  prop- 
er subject  for  discussion  at  a  Conference,  and  possi- 
bly for  future  action,  though  not  by  the  Alliance  as 
now  constituted.  The  Alliance  aims  simply  at  a  vol- 
untary union  of  individual  Christians  of  different 
churches,  without  interfering  with  their  denomina- 
tional relations  or  assuming  any  power  of  ecclesias- 
tical legislation.— .Ed.] 

DEAR  BRETHREN  IN  CHRIST, — We,  the  un- 
dersigned, invite  your  serious  attention  to  a 
matter  which  the  Sou  of  God  considered  of 
sufficient  importance  to  make  it  the  subject 
of  a  detailed  prayer  to  his  heavenly  Father 
near  the  close  of  his  incarnate  mission.  "  Fa- 
ther," said  he, "  the  hour  is  come :  glorify  thy 
Son,  that  thy  Son  also  may  glorify  thee." 
And  again :  "  I  pray  that  they  all  may  be  one : 
as  thou,  Father,  art  in  me  and  I  in  thee,  that 
they  also  may  be  one  in  us :  that  the  world 
may  believe  that  thou  hast  sent  me."  Hero 
the  Saviour  himself  represents  the  unity  of 
his  followers  as  an  important  means  for  the 
triumph  of  his  kingdom  and  extension  of 
his  glory.  Let,  therefore,  no  believer  in 
Christ  henceforth  regard  the  subject  of 
Christian  union  as  of  secondary  moment,  or 
refuse  to  listen  to  its  claims,  especially  in 
these  latter  days,  "when  many  are  running 
to  and  fro,  and  knowledge  shall  be  in- 
creased." 

For  centuries  past  the  Protestant  church- 
es have  suffered  more  or  less  from  intestiuo 
dissensions. 

The  reformation  of  the  corrupt  Church 
of  Rome  was  effected  separately  in  the  dif- 
ferent countries  of  Europe  by  theologians 
and  civil  rulers,  who,  though  generally  sin- 
cere and  faithful,  were  possessed  of  different 
degrees  of  qualifications  for  the  work,  and 
who,  though  agreed  on  all  points  of  funda- 
mental doctrine,  yet  differed  in  some  things 
of  less  moment.  In  each  country  the  doc- 
trinal basis  or  confession  naturally  express- 
ed the  views  of  those  who  composed  it, 
whether  they  were  Lutherans  or  Reformed, 
Episcopalians  or  Presbyterians,  and  these 
were  then  established  by  law.  Such  were 
the  Augsburg  Confession,  the  Thirty-nine 
Articles  of  the  Episcopal  Church,  the  West- 


APPENDIX  II. 


743 


minster  Confession,  etc.  The  differences  be- 
tween these  principal  historic  creeds  were 
not,  as  is  sometimes  popularly  supposed,  the 
result  of  sectarian  divisions  among  Protest- 
ants ;  for  they  were  written  and  first  pub- 
lished separately,  by  different  persons,  iu  dif- 
ferent countries,  and  without  any  special  ref- 
erence to  each  other.  Unfortunately,  none  of 
these  different  creeds  gave  sufficient  promi- 
nence to  the  fundamental  unity  and  agree- 
ment of  the  Church  of  Christ,  nor  did  the 
latter  of  them  express  a  full  and  cordial  rec- 
ognition of  all  other  Protestant  Churches, 
as  integral  parts  of  the  one  body  of  Christ. 
And  during  several  centuries  no  stated  inter- 
course existed  between  the  churches  of  dif- 
ferent Protestant  countries.  Where  only 
one  of  these  denominations  occupied  an 
entire  country,  as  did  the  Lutherans  in 
Sweden,  Denmark,  and  Norway,  there  was 
little  or  no  difficulty.  But  where,  two  or 
even  more  denominations  occupied  the  same 
territory,  and  naturally  each  professed  its 
own  creed,  the  conflict  of  sentiments  became 
more  obvious,  and  opposing  interests  gave 
rise  to  angry  controversies.  Many  of  these 
confessions,  unlike  the  oecumenical  creeds  of 
the  earlier  ages,  were  of  great  length,  con- 
taining not  only  the  grand  cardinal  doctrines 
of  the  Gospel,  but  also  a  vast  number  of  mi- 
nor tenets,  less  distinctly  revealed  in  God's 
Word,  which  the  mass  of  Christians  never 
have,  and  in  this  world  probably  never  will 
all  understand  alike.  The  polemical  spirit 
generated  in  the  conflicts  with  the  Papists, 
and  the  Romish  intolerance  still  adhering  to 
many  Protestant  theologians,  induced  them 
to  engage  in  unprofitable  controversies 
among  themselves  on  non-essential  doc- 
trines, which  often  disturbed  the  peace  of 
the  Church. 

But  in  the  United  States  the  evils  of  sec- 
tarianism— that  is,  of  opposing  creeds  and  de- 
nominations, on  the  same  ground — have  been 
exemplified  in  the  highest  degree,  which  has 
naturally  arisen  from  the  peculiarity  of  our 
history  and  situation. 

The  several  earliest  colonies  which  emi- 
grated to  this  country  were  generally  char- 
acterized by  the  religious  homogeneity  of 
each ;  the  Puritans  occupying  the  Northeast- 
ern States,  while  the  Episcopalians  predom- 
inated in  Virginia  and  other  southern  por- 
tions of  the  country.  But  for  a  century 
past  emigration  has  proceeded  from  almost 
every  part  of  Europe,  and  every  one  of  the 
different  religious  organizations  in  those 
countries  has  its  representatives  iu  nearly 
all  the  cities  and  towns  of  our  land.  Every 
part  of  this  population  would  naturally  en- 
deavor to  establish  a  congregation  of  its  own 
denomination,  though  the  aggregate  amount 
of  all  the  inhabitants  of  any  given  town  or 
village  numbered  not  more  than  five  hundred 
or  a  thousand  souls.  The  conflict  for  the  es- 
tablishment and  enlargement  of  half  a  dozen 


or  more  denominations  on  the  same  territo- 
ry, and  of  half  a  hundred  in  our  cities,  still 
continues,  and  is  productive  of  unhappy  in- 
tellectual, material,  social,  and  religious  con- 
sequences. 

But  of  the  immense  waste  of  the  resources 
of  the  churches,  both  pecuniary  and  intel- 
lectual, by  the  erection  and  foundation  of 
twice  as  many  theological  seminaries  as  are 
requisite  for  the  number  of  students,  by  the 
location  of  at  least  twice  as  many  ministers 
in  every  town  and  village  as  are  necessary 
to  minister  to  the  whole  population ;  and 
of  the  great  conflict  of  interests  thus  caused 
between  different  denominations,  the  jeal- 
ousies and  rivalries  of  every  kind,  we  can 
not  here  speak  in  detail. 

A  somewhat  similar  state  of  things  has 
arisen  in  Great  Britain,  from  the  large  num- 
ber of  Dissenting  denominations  existing 
there. 

This  lamentable  condition  of  the  Protest- 
ant churches  has  long  been  deplored  by  the 
most  enlightened  and  devoted  disciples  of 
Christ ;  especially  in  view  of  the  constant 
secret  machinations  of  the  papal  leaders, 
and  progressive  aggressions  of  their  compact 
and  well-organized  legions  in  this  country, 
toward  gaining  control  of  our  government 
and  of  the  education  of  the  rising  genera- 
tion. 

Various  efforts  have  been  made  to  remedy 
these  evils,  by  inaugurating  measures  to  pro- 
mote the  cause  of  Christian  union  and  fra- 
ternal co-operation  among  Protestants.  The 
first  Society,  so  far  as  we  know,  ever  formed 
for  the  express  purpose  of  promoting  Chris- 
tian" union,  was  that  organized  during  the 
anniversaries  of  1839,  in  the  Tract  Society's 
rooms  in  New  York.  After  its  organization, 
the  society  purchased  several  hundred  cop- 
ies of  the  little  volume  bearing  the  title, 
"  Fraternal  Appeal  to  the  American  Church- 
es," and  distributed  them  gratuitously  among 
the  members  and  other  friends  of  the  cause 
iu  different  parts  of  the  land.  Owing,  how- 
ever, to  the  disturbed  state  of  the  ecclesias- 
tical atmosphere,  and  other  causes,  the  soci- 
ety accomplished  but  little,  and  was  soon 
permitted  to  expire. 

A  few  years  later,  in  the  fall  of  1845,  the 
present  writer,  in  order  to  recall  attention 
to  the  subject,  prepared  an  extended  address 
on  the  subject  of  Christian  union,  and  hav- 
ing obtained  the  assent  and  promise  of  co- 
operation from  about  fifty  of  the  leading  di- 
vines and  friends  of  union,  he  added  their 
names,  and  distributed  it  under  the  title  of 
"  Overture  on  Christian  Union  ;"  inviting  a 
meeting  in  New  York  during  the  anniversa- 
ry week  of  1846.  Soon  after  its  publication, 
however,  the  invitation  to  the  Evangelical 
Alliance  in  London,  in  August,  1846,  reached 
this  country.  As  the  leading  friends  of  un- 
ion desired  to  attend  this  World's  Conven- 
tion, and  many  of  them  to  start  before  the 


744 


APPENDIX  II. 


May  meetings  in  New  York,  that  meeting 
was  dropped  by  common  consent ;  and  since 
then  the  great  Evangelical  Alliance  has 
taken  the  place  of  all  other  societies  for  the 
subject  of  Christian  union,  until  of  late. 

While  it  is  admitted  that  the  Evangelical 
Alliance  has  accomplished  a  great  and  glori- 
ous work,  throughout  the  length  and  breadth 
of  the  Protestant  world,  in  diffusing  the 
spirit  of  brotherly  love  and  union  among  all 
denominations  and  among  Christians  indi- 
vidually, and  has  vindicated  the  cause  of 
the  oppressed,  its  results  have  mainly  been 
of  a  public  nature,  and  it  has  not  exerted  its 
full  influence  on  individual  churches,  and 
on  the  Christian  community  at  large.  It  is 
believed  that  its  power  for  good  would  be 
greatly  augmented  by  some  additional  or- 
ganization, calculated  to  extend  its  influence 
into  the  individual  judicatories  and  church- 
es, and  among  church  members.  Such  a 
plan  has  lately  been  submitted  to  the  Chris- 
tian public,  and  the  object  .of  this  Appeal  is 
still  further  to  explain  the  character  of  that 
plan,  and  to  inaugurate  measures  by  the 
friends  of  the  Kedeemer  for  its  amendment 
and  adoption. 

I.  This  plan  is  perfectly  feasible,  because  all 
the  parts  of  which  it  is  to  consist  not  only 
now  exist,  but  are  already  in  actual  and  suc- 
cessful operation  in  the  Protestant  world. 
It  does  not  contemplate  the  formation  of  any 
new  association  or  society,  it  requires  no 
additional  meetings  of  those  already  in  ex- 
istence, and  involves  no  additional  trouble 
or  expense,  except  such  as  may  arise  from 
increased  activity  for  the  extension  of  the 
Redeemer's  kingdom.    This  plan  embraces — 

(1.)  The  existing  World's  Evangelical  Alliance. 

(2.)  The  several  existing  National  Alliances : 
the  British,  the  American,  the  German,  the 
Dutch,  the  French,  the  Swiss,  etc. 

(3.)  The  existing  highest  ecclesiastical  body 
of  each  denomination  in  the  United  States  ; 
and  in  foreign  nations  the  auxiliaries  of  each 
National  Branch,  which  are  also  voluntary 
associations. 

II.  This  plan  does  not  propose  to  interfere 
with  the  denominational  standards  and  in- 
stitutions, doctrinal,  disciplinarian,  or  char- 
itable, of  the  several  churches  adopting  it ; 
but  leaves  to  each  one  the  entire  control  over 
its  own  affairs. 

III.  This  plan  simply  proposes  to  add  to 
the  two  grades  of  the  Evangelical  Alliance, 
namely,  the  World's  Alliance  and  the  Nation- 
al Alliances,  the  existing  highest  ecclesi- 
astical judicatory  or  body  of  each  evangel- 
ical denomination  in  this  country,  and  to 
unite  them  all  as  individual  bodies  into  one 
voluntary  advisory  union  or  confederation, 
by  the  adoption  of  certain  fraternal  terms 
of  association  by  each  of  the  several  confed- 
erated bodies.     And  by  this  simple  arrange- 
ment, so  easily  effected)  if  deemed  wise  and 
desirable,  a  fraternal,  voluntary,  and  adviso- 


ry organic  union  will  be  accomplished  be- 
tween all  the  confederate  denominations, 
closer  than  that  organic  union  of  the  church- 
es in  the  apostolic  age.  By  this  arrange- 
ment the  great  subjects  of  Christian  duty 
and  enterprise,  which  from  year  to  year  may 
occupy  the  attention  of  the  Evangelical  Al- 
liance, will  regularly  become  the  subjects 
of  discussion,  deliberation,  and  action  to 
twenty  times  more  judicatories,  and  reach 
the  ministry  and  membership  of  nearly  the 
whole  Protestant  Church. 

IV.  Finally,  this  plan  does  not  in  the  least 
preclude  other  judicious  local  efforts  and 
manifestations  of  Christian  union,  or  union 
of  homogeneous  bodies,  but  rather  promotes 
them. 

The  only  additions  necessary  to  be  made  to 
the  existing  rules  and  regulations  of  these 
several  bodies  are  the  following : 

I.  Additions  to  the  existing  Constitution  and 
Rules  of  the  World's  Alliance;  being  also,  in  a 
few  cases,  easy  modifications  of  them : 

(1.)  The  World's  Alliance  ought  to  consist  of 
about  one  hundred  delegates  from  the  bounds 
of  each  National  Alliance  :  to  be  elected,  in 
the  United  States,  by  the  highest  judicatory 
of  each  confederate  denomination,  in  equal 
numbers  of  clerical  and  lay  delegates. 

In  other  countries  the  delegates  are  to  be 
elected  by  the  members  of  the  National  Al- 
liances, or  in  any  other  way  designated  by 
each  National  Alliance  for  itself. 

(2.)  The  World's  Evangelical  Alliance 
should  meet  every  seven  years,  and  as  often 
intermediately  as  may  be  deemed  desirable. 

(3.)  The  doctrinal  basis  of  the  World's  Al- 
liance, and  of  all  its  National  Branches, is  that 
adopted  at  the  formation  of  that  body  at 
London,  in  September,  1846.  Nor  shall  any 
person  be  admitted  to  a  seat,  either  in  the 
World's  Alliance  or  any  of  its  National 
Branches,  until  he  has  authenticated  himself 
as  a  regular  member  of  some  confederate 
church  or  congregation;  has  signed  the  doc- 
trinal pledge ;  has  avowed  his  approval  of 
the  Design  and  Constitution  of  the  Alliance ; 
and  paid  into  the  treasury  from  one  to  five 
dollars,  or  more,  for  the  necessary  expenses 
and  objects  of  the  meeting. 

(4.)  The  powers  of  the  Evangelical  Alliance, 
and  all  its  Branches,  are  only  those  of  an 
Advisory  Council;  and  its  operations  are  in- 
tended, not  to  interfere  with  existing  eccle- 
siastical organizations,  but  to  promote  the 
same  objects  of  common  interest. 

(5.)  The  design  and  great  icork  of  the  World's 
Evangelical  Alliance  is  to  take  under  its  re- 
view the  general  interests  of  Christianity  and 
of  humanity  in  all  nations,  throughout  the 
entire  field,  which,  the  Saviour  says,  is  the 
world.  This  comprehends,  (a.)  The  religious 
interests  of  the  heathen  world,  the  sugges- 
tion of  the  most  suitable  locations  for  For- 
eign Christian  Missions,  and  the  proper  priu- 


APPENDIX  II. 


745 


ciples  of  non-interference  between  them, 
etc. ;  organized  efforts  to  prevent  the  intro- 
duction of  intoxicating  liquors  and  narcotic 
substances  among  the  heathen,  and  to  pro- 
mote the  diffusion  of  Gospel  light  among 
them.  (&.)  It  embraces  all  international  re- 
lations and  subjects,  such  as  the  discussion 
and  circulation  of  the  principles  of  Christian- 
ity on  the  subject  of  peace,  and  the  evils  and 
guilt  of  offensive  war ;  the  desirableness  and 
feasibility  and  duty  of  Christian  nations  to 
abstain  from  war,  and  to  settle  all  their  dif- 
ferences, either  by  referring  them  to  a  third 
power  for  arbitration,  or  by  both  parties  ap- 
pointing ministers  plenipotentiary  to  discuss 
and  decide  them  ;  or  by  urging  the  nations 
to  establish  an  International  Court.  Each 
nation  should  appoint  one  or  two  members, 
and  the  whole  decide  by  majority  of  votes, 
adopting  as  their  juridical  code  the  acknowl- 
edged Laws  of  Nations,  interpreted  by  the  spir- 
it of  Christianity,  (c.)  To  discuss  and  pro- 
mote the  cause  of  religious  liberty,  by  adopt- 
ing and  publishing  correct  principles  on  this 
subject,  and  by  appealing,  on  proper  occa- 
sions, to  civil  rulers  of  nations  in  behalf  of 
the  oppressed. 

II.  Proposed  additions  to  the  Constitution 
and  Rules  of  the  National  Branch  Alliances : 

(1.)  The  American  Branch  Alliance  shall 
consist  of  an  equal  number  of  delegates,  lay 
and  clerical,  as  near  as  can  be,  from  each  of 
the  confederated  denominations,  and  shall 
meet  triennially,  and  as  much  oftener  as  may 
hereafter  be  agreed  on.  An  equal  or  sena- 
torial delegation,  rather  than  one  propor- 
tioned to  the  size  of  each  denomination,  is 
preferred,  in  order  to  prevent  a  few  large 
denominations  from  controlling  the  whole 
confederation — the  fear  of  which  would  pre- 
vent some  denominations  from  adopting  the 
plan.  Otherwise,  the  two  largest  denomina- 
tions of  our  country  (the  Baptist  and  Meth- 
odist) would  have  as  many  delegates  as  all 
the  others  combined.  Nor  will  the  larger 
denominations  have  reason  to  complain,  or 
to  apprehend  maladministration,  as  the  ulti- 
mate execution  of  the  purposes  of  the  Alli- 
ance within  their  bounds  will  be  effected 
mainly  through  their  own  judicatories,  pas- 
tors, and  church  members ;  and  the  immediate 
agents  of  the  Alliance,  if  any  are  employed, 
will  always  be  instructed  to  act  in  conjunc- 
tion with  them.  The  delegates  to  the  Amer- 
ican National  Alliance,  in  addition  to  the 
qualifications  above  named  (I.,  3),  shall  also 
present  certificates  of  their  election  duly  at- 
tested. 

(2.)  The  delegates  to  the  American  Branch 
Alliance  shall  be  elected  by  the  highest  judi- 
catory  or  ecclesiastical  body  of  the  several 
confederate  denominations,  consisting  of  at 
least  five  hundred  ministers  each.  The  small- 
er bodies  may  aggregate  numerically,  and 
when  amounting  to  five  hundred  ministers 
or  more,  the  aggregate  shall  be  entitled  to  the 


same  number  of  clerical  and  lay  delegates  as 
one  of  the  large  denominations,  and  each 
body  a  fractional  proportion  of  them.  At 
present,  the  number  of  delegates  from  each 
denomination  may  be  twenty-five,  and  here- 
after it  shall  be  fixed,  from  time  to  time,  by 
the  National  Alliance. 

(3.)  Each  of  the  other  National  Alliances 
shall  have  exclusive  power  to  settle  the  num- 
ber of  its  own  delegates  and  mode  of  ap- 
pointing them. 

(4.)  In  addition  to  the  delegates  above 
named,  who  constitute  the  proper  and  equal- 
ly balanced  body  of  the  World's  Evangelical 
Alliance,  and  of  its  National  Branches,  all 
such  friends  of  the  cause  as  see  fit  to  attend 
the  meetings  of  those  bodies  at  their  own  ex- 
pense may  do  so,  and  have  a  seat  provided 
for  them  as  accepted  visitors;  provided  they 
first  duly  authenticate  themselves,  as  the 
delegates  do,  in  regard  to  church  member- 
ship, doctrinal  subscription,  and  contribution 
to  the  funds  of  the  meeting ;  but  they  can 
not  participate  in  any  discussions  or  action 
of  the  body. 

(5.)  Finally,  church  members,  connected  with 
any  one  of  the  confederated  denominations 
in  America,  not  finding  it  convenient  to  at- 
tend the  meetings  of  their  National  Branch, 
may  become  connected  with  it,  as  contributing 
members,  by  forwarding  to  the  treasurer  at 
New  York  from  one  to  five  dollars,  or  more, 
together  with  a  certificate  of  church  mem- 
bership from  their  pastor  or  from  any  ac- 
credited minister  of  a.  confederated  church, 
and  receive  a  certificate  of  such  membership, 
stating  the  amount  paid.  This  plan  will  grad- 
ually enlist  a  large  number  of  church  mem- 
bers throughout  the  cities,  towns,  and  coun- 
try, connected  with  the  Alliance,  co-operat- 
ing with  its  salutary  measures,  and  furnish- 
ing the  necessary  funds  to  carry  on  its  oper- 
ations. 

(6.)  If  the  highest  judicatory  of  any  de- 
nomination, of  at  least  five  hundred  minis- 
ters, is  unwilling  to  elect  delegates  to  the 
National  Alliance,  and  a  considerable  portion 
of  it  be  favorably  disposed,  that  portion  may, 
by  holding  a  convention,  or  in  any  equitable 
way,  appoint  or  elect  one  half  the  quota  of 
delegates  due  to  each  denomination,  to  be 
duly  authenticated. 

(7.)  As  to  the  officers  and  working  organ- 
ization of  the  American  National  Alliance, 
they  are  fully  provided  for  in  its  Constitution. 

(8.)  The  grand  objects  aimed  at  by  the 
American  National  Alliance,  in  addition  to 
those  already  enumerated  as  originating  in 
the  World's  Alliance,  are  such  as  the  follow- 
ing, within  the  bounds  of  our  own  country: 

a.  To  promote  harmony,  non-interference, 
and  efficiency  in  the  effort  of  the  evangelical 
churches  to  supply  all  the  waste  places  in 
our  land,  and  to  proclaim  the  Gospel  through- 
out the  heathen  world. 

b.  To  promote  concert  of  effort  in  main- 


746 


APPENDIX  II. 


taiuiug  the  daily  reading  of  God's  Word  in 
all  our  public  schools. 

c.  To  prepare  and  circulate  suitable  tracts 
and  popular  works  on  the  grand  objects  of 
Christian  benevolence    and   enterprise    for 
which  the  association  was  instituted. 

d.  To  promote  concert  of  action  in  provid- 
ing for  Christianizing  the  numerous  heathen 
immigrants  who  are  flocking  to  our  land,  and 
erecting  heathen  temples  among  us. 

e.  To  promote  love  and  free  sacramental 
communion,  recognition,  and   co-operation 
among  Christians  of  different  denominations 
in  objects  of  common  interest ;  as  well  as  to 
sustain  each  other's  discipline. 

/.  To  devise  means  for  correcting  the  wide- 
spread political  corruption  prevailing  among 
some  of  our  citizens  and  rulers,  which  threat- 
ens the  destruction  of  our  civil  liberties,  and 
can  not  fail  to  bring  down  upon  us  the  judg- 
ments of  a  holy  and  righteous  God. 

g.  To  co-operate  in  procuring  stringent 
laws,  prohibiting  Congress  and  state  legisla- 
tures from  appropriating  public  funds  or 
lands  to  any  religious  denomination,  or  for 
any  religious  denominational  purpose. 

III.  The  Denominational,  or  Primary  Branch- 
es. The  action  necessary  to  bring  the  de- 
nominational branches,  or  the  supreme  judi- 
catories  or  ecclesiastical  bodies,  into  harmo- 
nious co-operation  with  this  Alliance  or  Prot- 
estant Confederation  is  simple,  and  easily 
accomplished.  These  bodies  are  not  required 
to  make  any  change  in  their  doctrinal  or 
disciplinarian  Constitution,  nor  to  elect  any 
new  officers ;  but,  acting  under  their  existing 
officers  and  rules,  to  pass  the  following  reso- 
lutions : 

(1.)  Each  denomination  of  acknowledged 
evangelical  character,  containing  at  least  five 
hundred  ordained  ministers,  desiring  to  enter 
into  this  confederation,  shall  first,  through 
its  highest  judicatory,  pass  a  resolution  ap- 
proving the  Constitution  and  Design  of  the 
World's  Evangelical  Alliance,  and  its  Amer- 


ican National  Branch,  as  detailed  in  their 
constitutions. 

(2.)  Said  highest  judicatory  shall  elect  del- 
egates to  the  next  American  National,  and  the 
next  World's  Alliance,  and  send  them,  duly 
authenticated,  as  hereinbefore  prescribed,  to 
attend  the  next  meetings. 

(3.)  It  shall  also  assign  a  particular  time 
in  its  fixed  order  of  business  when  the  affairs 
relating  to  the  Alliance  shall  be  taken  up  and 
transacted. 

(4.)  Such  judicatory  shall  resolve  that, 
whatever  their  powers  may  be  when  acting 
on  other  matters,  all  their  action  as  a  Branch 
of  the  Alliance  shall  be  merely  advisory. 

(5.)  The  stated  duties  of  these  highest  ec- 
clesiastical bodies,  or  judicatories,  as  branch- 
es of  the  Alliance,  are  the  following :  a.  To 
elect  delegates  to  all  the  meetings  of  the 
American  Branch  Alliance,  and  also  of  the 
World's  Alliance,  ft.  To  receive  from  their 
delegation,  through  their  chairman,  a  writ- 
ten report  of  the  transactions  of  each  meet- 
ing of  the  American  Branch,  and  of  the 
World's  Alliance,  c.  To  discuss  the  topics 
and  recommendations  of  these  reports,  and, 
if  approved,  to  take  such  action  to  carry  them 
into  effect  as  they  may  deem  proper,  and  to 
invite  the  action  of  their  inferior  bodies,  of 
their  ministers  and  laymen,  for  the  same  pur- 
pose. 

(6.)  Should  any  denomination  become  dis- 
satisfied with  the  influence  of  the  Alliance,  it 
may  at  any  time  withdraw  from  the  connec- 
tion by  a  resolution  of  its  highest  judicatory 
announcing  the  fact. 

(7.)  The  details  of  this  plan  are  to  be  re- 
garded as  introduced  provisionally,  until  the 
meeting  of  the  elected  delegates,  who  have  full 
power  to  make  such  alterations  and  amend- 
ments in  them  as  a  majority  of  them  may 
deem  proper. 

[Signed  by  the  Rev.  Dr.  S.  S.  SCHMUCKER, 
Emeritus  Professor  of  the  Theological  Semi- 
nary at  Gettysburg,  and  many  others.] 


ADDRESSES  AND  RESOLUTIONS  OF  THANKS. 

[At  the  concluding  business  session  of  the  Conference,  on  Saturday  afternoon,  October  llth,  Addresses  of 
Thanks,  from  the  several  Foreign  Delegations,  were  presented  and  read  to  the  Conference,  and  warmly  in- 
dorsed in  brief  speeches  by  members  of  these  delegations.  Sundry  Resolutions  of  Thanks  were  then  moved 
by  different  delegates,  seconded  and  appropriately  responded  to  by  others,  and  adopted  by  unanimous  vote 
of  the  assembly.  The  final  resolution  was  one  of  thanks  to  the  presiding  officer  of  the  Conference,  and  was 
followed  by  the  closing  remarks  of  the  President,  which  are  given  in  the  "Historical  Sketch," pp. 48-45.— Ed.'] 


ADDRESSES  OF  THANKS 

FROM  FOREIGN  DELEGATIONS. 


FROM  THE  BRITISH  DELEGATION. 

PRESENTED  TO  THE  CONFERENCE  BY  LORD  AL- 
FRED S.  CHURCHILL,  OF  LONDON. 

At  a  meeting  of  the  delegates  from  Great 
Britain  and  Ireland,  held  on  the  10th  of  Oc- 
tober, 1873,  Lord  Alfred  S.  Churchill  in  the 
chair,  it  was  moved  by  Charles  Reed,  Esq., 


M.  P.,  of  London,  seconded  by  the  Eight  Rev. 
the  Dean  of  Canterbury,  and 

Resolved,  That  the  delegates  from  Great 
Britain  and  Ireland  to  the  Conference  of  the 
Evangelical  Alliance  now  assembled  in  the 
city  of  New  York  feel  constrained  to  express 
collectively  their  grateful  appreciation  of 
the  thoughtful  kindness  and  the  abounding 
hospitality  with  which  they  have  been  re- 
ceived by  the  American  brethren.  They  do 
not  doubt  that  their  own  feelings  are  shared 


APPENDIX  II. 


747 


by  all  the  delegates  from  other  countries ; 
but  they  have  had  special  joy  in  the  oppor- 
tunities afforded  by  the  Conference  for  inter- 
course with  those  who  are  not  only  their 
kindred  in  Christ,  but  are  related  to  them 
by  the  strong  ties  of  language  and  of  race. 
They  earnestly  desire  that  the  labor  and  the 
liberality  which  have  so  largely  contributed 
to  make  the  present  assembly  memorable 
will  be  followed  by  great  and  abiding  re- 
sults ;  that  the  American  churches  may  be 
invigorated  for  their  Christian  work ;  that 
Christian  men  in  other  lands  may  be  im- 
pelled to  more  self-sacrificing  exertions  for 
the  evangelization  of  the  masses  of  mankind; 
and  that  peace  and  amity  may,  year  by  year, 
increasingly  characterize  the  relationships 
of  individuals,  of  churches,  and  of  nations. 
ALFRED  S.  CHURCHILL,  Chairman. 


FROM  THE  GERMAN  DELEGATION. 

PRESENTED  BY  THE  KEV.  T)R.  DORNER,  OF 
BERLIN. 

The  German  delegates  to  the  Sixth  Gen- 
eral Conference  of  the  Evangelical  Alliance 
at  New  York,  in  taking  leave,  desire  pub- 
licly to  express  their  cordial  thanks  for  the 
exceedingly  warm  and  hospitable  reception 
which  it  was  their  privilege  to  enjoy  in 
this  couutry,  and  especially  in  the  city  of 
New  York.  As  this  gathering  of  evangel- 
ical men  from  all  parts  of  the  globe  in  such 
numbers  was  without  precedent,  so  the  hos- 
pitality extended  by  the  representatives  of 
Protestant  churches,  by  numerous  societies 
for  art,  science,  and  philanthropy,  by  great 
industrial  associations,  and  by  government 
officials  and  magistrates,  was  unexampled  in 
its  grandeur.  We  part  with  a  deep  sense  of 
gratitude,  and  also  with  intensified  con- 
sciousness of  the  unity  which  binds  togeth- 
er the  evangelical  Christians  of  different 
nations,  and  we  shall  deem  it  an  honor  and 
pleasure,  if  an  opportunity  be  given  to  us, 
to  return  to  our  American  brethren  visiting 
German y,  as  far  as  we  may  be  able,  the  kind- 
ness here  received.  May  the  Lord  bless  this 
country,  and  increase  the  external  and  inter- 
nal happiness  of  its  inhabitants,  and  shield 
with  his  protecting  hand  the  national  ban- 
ner. 

[The  signatures  of  all  the  German  dele- 
gates were  appended.] 


FROM  THE  FRENCH-SPEAKING  DELE- 
GATIONS. 
PRESENTED  BY  THE  REV.  DR.  FISCII,  OF  PAKIS. 

MR.  PRESIDENT  AND  MEMBERS  OF  THE 
COMMITTEE  OF  THE  AMERICAN  BRANCH  OF 
THE  EVANGELICAL  ALLIANCE,  —  The  dele- 
gates of  the  three  countries  which  form  the 
French-speaking  branch  of  the  Evangelical 
Alliance — France,  Switzerland,  and  Belgium 
— express  hereby  their  deeply  felt  thanks 


for  the  admirable  reception  which  they 
have  met  in  this  Conference.  The  thought 
of  convoking  here  these  great  assizes  of  our 
evangelical  churches  came  from  God,  who 
gave  to  our  American  friends  perseverance 
in  the  pursuance  of  that  purpose,  and,  after 
a  long,  incessant  toil,  they  see  now  their  la- 
bors crowned  with  a  success  which  went  far 
beyond  all  expectations.  They  have  been 
instrumental  in  bringing  upon  all  the  evan- 
gelical churches  a  blessing  which  will  be 
lasting,  as  we  ask  God  for  it.  The  cordiali- 
ty, the  grandeur  of  their  reception  filled  our 
hearts  with  gratitude.  We  shall  go  back  to 
our  homes  and  our  labors  much  refreshed, 
quickened,  and  encouraged:  The  bonds  of 
fellowship  which  tie  us  to  our  American 
brethren  have  been  drawn  much  closer ;  we 
love  them  already  —  we  shall  love  them 
much  more  henceforth.  We  hope  that 
serious  communion  of  prayer  may  sancti- 
fy these  ties,  and  make  them  conducive 
of  a  great  revival  over  all  our  respective 
countries. 

And  with  a  last  word,  uttered  from  the 
bottom  of  our  hearts,  we  say  to  our  friends 
of  this  continent,  God  bless  you. 

[Signed  by  the  French  delegates  from  the 
three  countries.] 


FROM  THE  CANADIAN  DELEGATIONS. 

PRESENTED  BY  THE  REV.  GEORGE  M.  GRANT,  OF 
NOVA  SCOTIA. 

At  a  meeting  of  the  delegates  from  the 
Dominion  of  Canada,  held  on  the  10th  of  Oc- 
tober, 1873,  in  the  parlor  of  the  Young  Men's 
Christian  Association  Rooms,  Rev.  Dr.  Green, 
of  Toronto,  in  the  chair,  the  following  reso- 
lution was  moved  by  R.  Wilkes,  Esq.,  M.  P., 
seconded  by  the  Rev.  A.  B.  Simpson,  of  Ham- 
ilton, and  unanimously  agreed  to  : 

Eesolved,  That  the  delegates  from  Canada 
to  the  Conference  of  the  Evangelical  Alli- 
ance now  assembled  in  the  city  of  New  York 
can  not  part  without  expressing  their  grate- 
ful sense  of  the  munificent  hospitality  which 
they,  in  common  with  the  other  foreign  del- 
egates, have  received  at  the  hands  of  the 
United  States  Branch  of  the  Evangelical  Al- 
liance, the  Young  Men's  Christian  Associa- 
tion, the  managers  of  the  various  public 
institutions,  and  the  civic  authorities  and 
citizens  of  New  York  and  Brooklyn.  The 
delegates  rejoice  to  believe  that  the  great  ob- 
jects which  the  Alliance  contemplates  have 
been  promoted  in  a  marked  manner  by  this, 
its  first  session  in  America.  While  there  has 
been  a  cementing  of  Christian  hearts  from 
many  lauds,  they  can  not  but  trust  that  the 
ties  of  common  origin,  language,  interests, 
and  faith  which  bind  together  the  United 
States  and  Canada  may  be  especially  strength- 
ened by  the  hallowed  influences  under  which 
the  Conference  has  held  its  meetings ;  and 
they  venture  to  hope  that  the  Canadian 


748 


APPENDIX  II. 


Branch  may  be  able  at  no  distant  date  to  re- 
ciprocate in  some  measure  the  Christian  cour- 
tesies and  hospitality  they  have  received. 
Signed,  on  behalf  of  the  meeting,  by 

ANSON  GREEN,  Chairman. 
GEOEOK  MOJJKO  GBANT,  Secretary. 


RESOLUTIONS  OF  THANKS, 

ADOPTED  BY  THE  CONFERENCE. 
THANKS  TO  ALMIGHTY  GOD. 

MOVED  BY  THE  REV.  DR.  ORMISTON,  OF  NEW 
TORE. 

Resolved,  That,-  in  view  of  the  great  and 
manifold  blessings  of  divine  Providence 
vouchsafed  to  this  meeting  of  the  Evangel- 
ical Alliance,  its  members  gratefully  desire 
to  record  a  humble  and  hearty  expression  of 
devout  thankfulness  to  Almighty  God  for 
his  goodness,  and  to  commend  each  other  to 
his  care. 

TO  THE  YOUNG  MEN'S  CHRISTIAN 
ASSOCIATION  AND  OTHERS. 

MOVED  BY  THE  REV.  PROF.  JONES,  OF  WALES. 

Resolved,  That  the  thanks  of  the  Confer- 
ence are  eminently  due  to  the  Young  Men's 
Christian  Association  of  this  city  for  the  use 
of  their  building,  with  all  its  elegant  and 
commodious  apartments,  which  has  largely 
contributed  to  the  success  and  comfort  of 
the  Conference.  Our  thanks  are  also  pre- 
sented to  Mr.  Peter  Cooper  and  the  Messrs. 
Steinway  for  the  gratuitous  use  of  their 
halls,  and  to  the  trustees  of  the  several 
churches  whose  buildings  have  been  gener- 
ously placed  at  our  disposal. 


TO  PASTORS  AND  CHURCHES. 

MOVED  BY  THE  REV.  WM.  ARNOT,  OF  EDIN- 
BURGH. 

Resolved,  That  the  General  Conference  rec- 
ognizes with  great  satisfaction  the  interest 
which  the  pastors  and  churches  of  the  city 
of  New  York,  Brooklyn,  and  vicinity  have 
taken  in  the  Evangelical  Alliance,  which  in- 
terest appears  to  pervade  the  whole  coun- 
try.   

TO  THE  FAMILIES  WHO  HAVE  ENTER- 
TAINED DELEGATES. 

MOVED  BY  THE  REV.  3.  C.  HARRISON,  OF  LONDON. 

Resolved,  That  the  most  cordial  thanks  of 
the  delegates  from  abroad  are  due  and  are 
hereby  affectionately  presented  to  the  Chris- 
tian families  of  this  city  who  have  with  so 
much  hospitality  received  us  into  their 
homes,  and  contributed  so  largely  to  our 
comfort  and  happiness;  the  memory  of 


which  we  shall  cherish  with  gratitude  when 
we  return  to  our  several  countries,  aiid 
through  the  remainder  of  our  lives. 


TO  THE  PRESS. 

MOVED  BY  THE  REV.  DR.  BUDINGTON,  OF  BROOK- 
LYN. 

Resolved,  That  the  thanks  of  the  Alliance 
are  due,  and  are  hereby  tendered  to  the 
Press  in  this  city  and  elsewhere,  which  has 
given  to  the  public,  and  at  great  expense, 
reports  remarkably  full  and  accurate  of  the 
papers  read  and  the  speeches  uttered  at  these 
assemblies ;  and  our  acknowledgments  are 
also  made  for  the  intelligent  appreciation  so 
generally  shown  of  the  objects  and  spirit  of 
this  Alliance. 


TO  STEAM-SHIP  AND  RAILROAD  COMPA- 
NIES, AND  TO  VARIOUS  IN- 
STITUTIONS. 

MOVED  BY  THE  REV.  DR.  SCHAFF,  OF  NEW  YORK. 

Resolved,  That  the  thanks  of  the  Confer- 
ence be  presented  to  the  proprietors  and 
agents  of  the  several  Transatlantic  steam- 
ship lines  who  so  generously  furnished  facil- 
ities of  transportation  for  the  foreign  dele- 
gates, and  to  those  American  railroad  com- 
panies who  so  kindly  proffered  free  excur- 
sions to  both  foreign  and  American  delegates, 
thereby  greatly  contributing  to  the  success 
of  the  Conference  and  to  the  gratification  of 
all  its  members ;  also  to  the  various  institu- 
tions that  have  extended  courtesies  to  the 
members  of  the  Conference. 


TO  THE  COMMITTEES  AND  OFFICERS 
OF  THE  CONFERENCE. 

MOVED  BY  JAS.  GIRDLESTONE,  ESQ.,  OF  LONDON. 

Resolved,  That  the  thanks  of  the  Confer- 
ence be  presented  to  the  several  committees 
of  the  United  States  Alliance  for  their  labors 
in  making  preparation  for  this  Conference ; 
and  to  the  officers  of  the  Conference  for  their 
efforts  to  conduct  its  proceedings  to  a  satis- 
factory result. 

TO  PRESIDENT  WOOLSEY. 

MOVED  BY  THE  REV.  DR.  HALL,  OF  NEW  YORK. 

Resolved,  That  the  cordial  thanks  of  the 
members  and  friends  of  the  Evangelical  Al- 
liance, now  in  Conference,  be  tendered  to  the 
venerable  Dr.  Woolsey  for  the  wisdom,  fidel- 
ity, and  efficiency  with  which  he  has  filled 
the  chair  of  the  President  during  these 
lengthened  sessions. 

[The  resolution  having  been  seconded,  was 
put  by  the  mover,  and  carried  with  marked 
cordiality.] 


APPENDIX  III. 

STATISTICAL  TABLES— ROLL  OF  MEMBERS- 
BASIS  AND  CONSTITUTION  OF  ALLIANCE 
—IN  MEMORIAM. 


APPENDIX  HI,— CONTENTS, 


PAGE 
A  STATISTICAL  EXHIBIT  OF  EVANGELICAL  CHRISTIANITY  IN  THE  UNITED 

STATES 75 1 

ROLL  OF  THE  SIXTH  GENERAL  CONFERENCE  OF  THE  EVANGELICAL  AL- 
LIANCE      755 

THE  BASIS  OF  THE  EVANGELICAL  ALLIANCE 760 

CONSTITUTION  OF  THE  UNITED  STATES  EVANGELICAL  ALLIANCE 761 


To  THE  MEMORY  OF  PRONIER  AND  CARRASCO 762 


A  STATISTICAL  EXHIBIT  OF  EVANGELICAL  CHRIS- 
TIANITY IN  THE  UNITED  STATES.1 

BY  THE  REV.  DANIEL  DORCHESTER,  A.M.,  LOWELL,  MASS. 


WITHIN  the  brief  limits  assigned  to  this 
paper,  only  a  bare  statement  of  numbers  can 
be  given,  without  comments,  and  with  only 
such  explanations  as  are  indispensable. 
With  very  considerable  labor  and  corre- 
spondence the  data  have  been  collected,  as 
far  as  possible,  from  official  sources,  and  the 
utmost  care'  and  fidelity  have  been  observed 
in  the  use  that  has  been  made  of  them.  No 


comparisons  with  the  past,  showing  the 
wonderful  progress  which  American  Chris- 
tianity has  made,  will  be  attempted.  The 
exhibit  for  a  single  year  of  itself  will  bo 
deeply  impressive  and  inspiring.  The  fig- 
ures, for  the  most  part,  will  represent  the 
year  1872,  complete  data  for  the  present 
year  from  so  broad  a  field  not  being  yet 
obtainable. 


I.— STATISTICS  OF  CHURCH  ORGANIZATIONS,  MINISTERS,  AND 
COMMUNICANTS,  FOR  1872. 

TABLE  I. 
CHURCHES  NOT  EMBRACED  IN  ECCLESIASTICAL  FAMILIES. 


Denominations. 

Churches. 

Ministers. 

Communicants. 

3263 

3201 

318  tlO 

2950 

3004 

239  218 

57  405 

72 

7  916 

50 

6  000 

270 

325 

39  100 

German  Evangelical  Church  Union,  Bible"| 
Christians,  Schwenkfelders,  and    a   few> 

35,000 

Total        

64S3 

6652 

703  555 

TABLE  II.8 

THE  LUTHERAN  FAMILY  OF  CHURCHES. 


Lutheran  Bodies. 

Churches. 

Ministers. 

Communicants. 

General  Synod  of  the  U.  States  of  America 
General  Council  of  America  

1148 

872 

605 
470 

103,320 

138,117 

1C9 

91 

11,844 

Synodical  Conference  of  North  America..  .  . 
Other  Synods  

1165 
529 

750 

227 

191,134 
42,780 

Total    

38S3 

2215 

487,195 

1  [This  exhibit  of  Protestant  Church  Statistics  was 
not  brought  before  the  Conference,  but  is  here  in- 
serted by  direction  of  the  Committee  on  the  Pro- 
gramme, and  may  serve,  in  part,  to  supply  the  defi- 
ciency of  the  first  division  containing  the  Reports  on 
the  State  of  Religion.  The  author  of  this  paper  has 
in  preparation  a  larger  statistical  work  on  the  prog- 
ress of  American  Christianity  during  the  national 
century  now  closing.— P.  S.] 

a  From  the  Congrcriatioiial  Quarterly,  January,  1873, 
prepared  by  Rev.  A.  II.  Quint,  D.D. 

3  From  the  "Episcopal  Church  Almanac  for  1873." 

[According  to  the  Protestant  Episcopal  Almanac  for 
1874,  the  number  of  bishops  is  53 ;  the  number  of  oth- 
er clergy,  3055 ;  the  number  of  communicants,  246,051. 
The  religious  and  social  influence  of  this  body  is  much 
greater  than  its  numerical  strength,  especially  in  the 
large  cities  —  New  York,  Philadelphia,  and  Boston. 
Quite  recently  a  secession  has  taken  place,  headed  by 
Dr.  George  David  Cummins,  lately  Assistant  Bishop 
of  the  Diocese  of  Kentucky.  It  was  organized  in  New 
York,  December  2, 1S73,  under  the  name  of  the  Reform- 
ed Episcopal  Church,  on  the  basis  of  the  provisional 
(Dr.  White's)  Prayer-book  of  17S5,  and  has  two  bish- 
ops, George  D.  Cummins,  and  Charles  E.  Cheney,  of 
Chicago,  who  was  consecrated  by  the  former.— P.  S.] 


4  For  1871,  from  the  Friend's  Review,  and  embra- 
cing only  the  "evangelical"  portion  of  the  denomi- 
nation. 

6  From  the  Moravian  "Text-book"  for  1873. 

6  Estimated  by  Rev.  Josiah  Litch,  a  very  worthy 
and  leading  minister  among  this  class  of  Adveutists. 
Besides  these,  there  are  about  50,000  Adveutists  who 
hold  Arian  and  Materialistic  views. 

7  For  1867,  from  Professor  Schem's  tables. 

8  These  statistics  were  taken  from  the  "New  York 
Observer  Year-book  for  1873." 

[The  "Lutheran  Almanac  " for  1874  gives  the  follow- 
ing numbers: 


Churches. 

Ministers. 

Coininu- 

General  Synod  of  the  United  ( 
States  o'f  America                  i 

1182 

711 

106,517 

General  Council  of  America.  . 
Southern  General  Synod  
Synodical  Conference  of  North  ) 

MS 

165 
14-26 

502 
98 
873 

152.470 
12,419 
202,885 

Other  Synod«  

605 

243 

54,948 

T"1  il... 

4346 

2432 

528.639 

-P.  S.] 


752 


APPENDIX  III. 


TABLE  III. 
THE  PRESBYTERIAN  FAMILY  OF  CHURCHES. 


Bodies  bearing  the  name  "  Presbyterian." 

Churches. 

MinUter*. 

Communicant*. 

Presbyterians,1  O.  S.  &  N.  S.,  reunited  in  1STO.  

4802 

4  534 

472  023 

"              Southern*  

1  685 

809 

9'!  903 

"  United"*  of  North  America  

772 

591 

73  452 

Cumberland*  

1  872 

1  108 

86  174 

Synod  of  Reformed6  

100 

90 

8  782 

"  Free  Synod  "of  

-\ 

Associate  Reformed  Synod  of  the  South' 
O.  S.  Synod  of  Missouri7  

.... 

'TO  1 

751 

Estimated 
30  000 

Other  minor  bodies  

J 

General  Synod  of  Reformed  Church8  

132 

58 

10,009 

Total  Presbyterians  

9  263 

7  395 

774  343 

Kindred  Bodies. 
Reformed  Chnrch7  (late  Dutch  Reformed)  ,  

481 

601 

67  123 

Reformed  Church7  (late  German  Reformed)  

1,312 

585 

130  299 

Total  kindred  bodies  

1  793 

1  OSC 

197  422 

Total  Presbyterian  Family  

11  056 

8  481 

971  765 

[X.  B.— The  above  Table  has  been  submitted  to  Rer.  Dr.  Hatfield,  and  by  him  brought  down  to  the  latest  accessible  dates.— Ed.] 

TABLE  IV. 
THE  BAPTIST  FAMILY  OF  CHURCHES. 


Bodies  bearing  the  name  "  Baptist." 

Churches. 

Ministers. 

Communicant,. 

Baptists  9  Regular  (North  and  South)  

19.720 

11  S93 

1  585  232 

"         Free-will10  (main  body)  

1,463 

1,197 

69  910 

Minor  independent  bodies10  of  Free-will  Baptists  —The"] 
Chatahoochie,  American,  Tow  River,  West  Virginia, 
Arkansas,  United  Indiana,  Central  Illinois,  Southern 
Illinois,  Union,  Ky.,Cumberland,Ky.,  Alabama,  North  f 
Missouri,  Sandy  Creek,  Illinois,  Saline  Co.,  Missouri, 
North-west  Illinois,  and  North  Carolina  Associa- 

246 

12,610 

Baptists  Colored  Southern11  (Additional)  

75  000 

"         Anti-Mission12    

40  000 

78 

86 

7?  609 

"         Seventh-day,  German14  

20 

2  000 

"         Six  Principle14  

22 

20 

3  000 

Total  Baptists  by  name  

21,549 

13,196 

1,795,361 

Kindred  Bodies. 

200,000 

Chnrch  of  God,  or  Wiuebreunariaus  

400 

350 

30,000 

500 

1,200 

50,000 

16,000 

Total  kindred  bodies  

900 

1,550 

296,000 

Total  Baptist  Family  .  .  . 

22,449 

14.746 

2.091.361 

1  From  the  "Minutes  of  General  Assembly  "  for  1873. 

2  From  the  "  Minutes  of  the  General  Assembly  of 
the  Southern  Presbyterian  Church  for  1873." 

3  "Minutes"  of  the  General  Assembly  of  said  Church 
for  1873. 

4  "Minnies"  of  said  Church  for  1873. 

6  "Minutes  of  the  Synod  for  1872." 

8  "The Tercentenary-book" of  Presbyterianism, pp. 
195, 196. 

7  From  the  "  N.  Y.  Observer  Year-book  "4br  1873. 

8  "Minutes  of  the  Synod  for  1S72." 

9  From  "  Baptist  Year-book  for  1S73."    The  Regu- 
lar Baptists  are  divided  into  two  General  Conventions, 
North  and  South,  which  are  entirely  independent  of 
each  other.     The   Northern  Convention  represents 
6052  churches,  4460  ministers,  and  619,736  communi- 
cants; and  the  Southern  Convention  represents  13,608 
churches,  7431  ministers,  and  1,065, 496  communicants. 

10  "Free -will  Baptist  Almanac  for  1873."    The  sta- 
tistics of  some  of  the  minor  bodies  are  for  1870. 


11  Abont  two-thirds  of  the  colored  Baptists  in  the 
South,  although,  according  to  Rev.  N.  G.  Merry  and 
other  leading  ministers  of  that  body,  independent  of 
the  Regular  Baptists  (white),  in  all  their  ecclesiastical 
associations,  are  nevertheless  reckoned  in  with  the 
Regular  Baptists,  in  their  Year-book  (q.  v.).    The  75,000 
"additional"  is  on  the  basis  of  numbers  given  to  the 
compiler  of  these  tables,  by  Rev.  Mr.  Merry,  of  Nash- 
ville, Tenn. 

12  In  the  "Baptist  Almanac  for  1S01"  as  having80,000 
communicants.    They  have  since  declined.    They  are 
estimated  at  40.000  in  1872. 

13  From  official  sources  for  1870. 

14  Estimated. 

15  This  denomination  make  no  enrollment  of  com- 
municants.   They  are  estimated  at  350,000.    Quite  de- 
cided Arian  tendencies  have  been  manifested  among 
them :  but  it  is  supposed  that  200,000  of  them  may  be 
classified  as  evangelical. 

19  "  Baptist  Year-book  for  1373." 


APPENDIX  III. 


753 


TABLE  V. 
THE  METHODIST  FAMILY  OP  CHURCHES. 


Bodies  bearing  the  name  "  Methodist." 

Ministers.  1 

Local 
Preachers. 

Probationers. 

Me-nber.. 

Total 
Communicants.? 

10,242 

11,964 

185,945 

1  272,496 

1  468  683 

"             "       South*.. 
"                 "        Colored  Church,  ) 
South5  / 

3,013 

5,134 
6,838 

651,146 

67,888 

654,159 

67,888 

Methodist  Episcopal  African  (Bethel)1! 

1,000 

5,000 

25,000 

350,000 

376,000 

Methodist  Episcopal  African  (Zion)) 

700 

900 

25,000 

174,300 

200,000 

Methodist  Protestant  Church  

423 

70  000 

70  423 

100 

10  000 

10  100 

143 

158 

1,196 

5  828 

7  165 

26 

167 

455 

2  667 

3  148 

"         Reformed  Church  

3,200 

3  200 

"         Welsh  Calvinistic  Church.. 
"         Congregational  Church  — 
"  The  Methodist  Church  "  

20 
110 
766 

432 

1,796 

2,000 
8,000 
52,000 

2,000 
8,000 
54  562 

Total  Methodists  

16,543 

29,593 

239,392 

2,669,525 

2  925  328 

Kindred  Bodies. 
Evangelical  Association  

660 

453 

81,690 

82  350 

United  Brethren  

870 

831 

125,464 

126,334 

"Bible   Union,"   and    other  smaller) 

12,000 

12,000 

Total  kindred  bodies  

1,530 

1,284 

219,154 

220,684 

Total  Methodist  Family  

18,073 

30,877 

239,Blii> 

2,888,679 

3,146,012 

TABLE  VI. 
GENERAL  SUMMARY. 


Families  of  Churches,  etc. 

Churches. 

Ministers. 

Communicants. 

6  483 

6,652 

703  555 

The  Lutheran  Family  of  Churches  

3,883 

2,215 

487,195 

11  056 

8,481 

971  765 

The  Baptist  Family  of  Churches  

22,449 

14,746 

2,091,361 

The  Methodist  Family  of  Churches  

27,5386 

18,073 

3,146,012 

71  409' 

50,167 

7,399,888 

From  the  foregoing  tables  we  have  the 
following  results,  representing  the  forces  of 


1  Embraces  ministerial  members  of  the  Annual  Con- 
ferences. 

2  Embraces  ministers,  members  in  full,  and  pro- 
bationers, all  of  whom,  according  to  the  Methodist 
usages,  constitute  the  body  of  communicants.    The 
ministers  are  reckoned  in  here  because  they  are  not 
numbered  as  members  of  the  local  societies,  as  in 
most  other  denominations. 

3  From  the  Annual  Minutes  for  1872. 

4  See  Table  in  the  Nashville  Christian  Advocate, 
April  5th,  1873. 

6  Statistical  report  of  the  Special  General  Confer- 
ence, held  at  Augusta,  Ga.,  March  19th,  1873. 

*  The  Annual  Minutes  of  the  various  Methodist 
bodies  do  not  report  the  number  of  societies,  or  church 
organizations.  In  many  instances  the  name  of  a  so- 
ciety which  appears  in  the  Minutes  is  only  the  lead- 
ing society  of  a  "circuit,"  which  often  contains  from 
two  to  ten  or  more  email  societies,  served  by  several 
ministers.  The  above  number  has,  therefore,  been 
taken  from  the  United  States  Census  for  1870,  which 
gives  the  number  of  church  "organizations"  as  a 
distinct  item  from  church  edifices.  It  embraces 
25,278  bearing  the  name  Methodist,  815  of  the  Evan- 
gelical Association,  and  1442  of  the  United  Brethren. 
Total,  27,538. 

7  When  compared  with  the  number  given  by  the 
United  States  Census,  there  is  an  apparent  discrepan- 
cy.   According  to  that  document,  the  whole  number 
of  Church  organization!*,  including  Catholic  and  oth- 
er non-evangelical  bodies,  in  1870,  was  72,459.    This 
is,  however,  explained  by  the  fact  that  most  of  the 
above  are  for  a  period  two  years  later,  and  also  by 

48 


Evangelical  Christianity  in  the  United  States 
in  the  year  1872 : 

Ministers 50,167 

Church  organizations 71,409 

Communicants 7,399,888 

II.— HIGHER  EDUCATION.8 

Collegiate  institutions   authorized  by  the 
States  to  confer  degrees  in  the  arts : 

Congregationalists 21 

Presbyterians  (all  kinds) 31 

Baptists  (all  kinds) 3S 

Episcopalians 18 

Methodists  (all  kinds) 53 

United  Brethren 5 

Lutherans 16 

Reformed  (Dutch  and  German) 6 

Friends 4 

Evangelical  Association 

Moravians _ 

Total 194 

Number  of  professors  reported  in  162  institu-)     j  ^ 

tions •.•••;••/ 

Number  of  students  reported  in  157  institu-\ 

tions / 


the  notes  given  by  the  Superintendent  of  the  census 
on  pages  515,  516,  517,  518,  519, 524,  525,  and  526  of  the 
Compendium. 

8  The  data  for  this  table  have  been  collected  from 
the  valuable  Report  on  Education  by  General  Eaton. 
Washington,  D.  C.,  1872. 


754 


APPENDIX  III. 


Theological  Institutions. 

Congregationalism 8 

Presbyterians  (all  kinds) 19 

Baptist*  (all  kinds) 22 

Moravians 1 

United  Brethren 1 

Episcopalians 12 

Methodists  (all  kinds) 13 

Lutheran  and  German  Reformed  Churches. _21 

Total "97 

In  the  above  list,  in  some  cases,  only  a 
professorship  of  theology  is  represented,  or 
a  provision  for  quite  limited  theological  in- 
struction. 

Professors  reported  in  82  institutions 304 

Students  reported  in  T8  institutions 2,825 

Whole  number  of  graduates  reported  from  45) 
institutions )  19,531 

All  of  the  above  institutions  are  under 
the  patronage  and  supervision  of  the  evan- 
gelical churches. 

III.— FOREIGN  MISSIONS. 

Foreign  Missionary  Boards  in  the  United  States        18 

Foreign  Missions 83 

Foreign  Stations  and  Sub-stations 2,273 

Foreign  Missionaries — males 4S3\     QQ- 

"  "  —females 514) 

Total  laborers  on  foreign  stations •  3,908 

Native  converts  enrolled 96,039 

Scholars  iu  schools  (day)— (incomplete) 06,436 

Woman's  Missionary  Boards 10 

Auxiliaries 3,625 

Foreign  Missionaries  supported 205 

Assistant  laborers,  Bible-readers,  etc. 293 

Schools  supported 195 

IV.— HOME  MISSIONS. 

Home  Missionary  Boards,  including  societies') 

in  aid  of  Freedmeu,  American  Sunday-school  V  38 

Union,  etc ) 

Laborers  —  Ministers,    Licentiates,    Colpor-)  s  -^ 

teurs.  Teachers,  etc j  ' 

Localities  supplied  with  religious  instruction.  9,129 

Conversions  and  additions  to  churches  report-)  nr  QIC 

«d  iu  one  year /  26'91S 

Sunday-schools  organized  in  one  year 4,621 

V.— RELIGIOUS  PERIODICALS, 
BOOKS,  TRACTS,  ETC. 

About  nineteen -twentieths  of  the  relig- 
ious periodical  literature  is  furnished  by  the 
evangelical  churches. 

Number  of  periodicals*. 407 

Regular  circulat ion 4,764,358 

Copies  issued  in  one  year 125,950,496 

There  are  not  less  than  twenty  Religious 
Publication  Boards  sustained  by  the  evan- 
gelical churches  in  the  United  States.  The 
annual  receipts  from  sales  and  charitable  do- 

•  See  United  States  Census  for  1870. 


nations  of  sixteen  of  these  houses  amounted 
iu!872  to $4,165,370,  of  which$725,158.72  was 
received  in  charitable  contributions  by  four- 
teen societies. 

Amount  of  Publications. 

\  otn  •  • 
American  Bible  Society,  in  57  years,  B1-)  pn  9nn 

bles  and  Testaments /  30,390,824 

American  Tract  Society,  in  48  years 26,188,406 

Methodist  Book  Concern,  New  York,  in  16)  „, 

years /  28i363,306 

American  Tract   Society,   Boston,  in   ii\   „  01 
years f  d,»i5,92(, 

Total  volumes  by   four  houses  in)  „_  „. 
given  years j- 85,848,461 


Tracts. 

American  Tract  Society,  in  48  years 

American  Tract  Society,  Boston,  in  11 

years 

Methodist  Book  Concern,  New  York,  in 

12  years 

Total    pages  of  tracts   by  three 
houses 


Page.. 

2,635,108,095 
92,980,520 

63,344,8(Ki 


2,791,433,415 


The  Presbyterian  Board  of  Publication,  in 
33  years,  published  18,609,656  copies  of  vol- 
umes and  tracts. 

The  Baptist  Publication  Board,  in  49 
years,  published  46,232,017  copies  of  volumes 
and  tracts,  which  were  equal  to  2,182,834,947 
pages  18mo.  . 

VI.  —  PECUNIARY  LIBERALITY. 

Receipts  of  leading  benevolent  societies, 
in  a  single  year,  in  the  United  States  (1872). 

For  Foreign  Missions $2,150,00(1 

For  Home  Missions. 2,600, 000 

For  Church  Extension 500,000 

For  Ministerial  Education 450,000 

For  Religious  Publication  work 725,00<i 

Total "  $6,425,000 

The  above  are  only  a  small  portion  of 
the  charitable  offerings  of  the  evangelical 
churches — some  of  the  most  important. 

Total  receipts  of  four  classes  of  religious 
societies,  from  the  organization  of  each  down 
to  1873. 

Religious  Publication  Boards $73,000,000 

Foreign  Mission  Boards 37,000,000 

Home  Mission  Boards 33,000,000 

Ministerial  Education  Boards 11,000,000 

Total $154,000,000 

These  figures  are  taken  from  tables  near- 
ly completed,  by  the  author  of  this  paper, 
from  data  collected  from  official  sources. 

"  The  Lord  God  of  our  fathers  make  us  a 
thousand  times  so  many  more  as  we  are,  and 
bless  us  as  he  hath  promised"  (Dent,  i.,  11). 


ROLL  OF  THE  SIXTH  GENERAL  CONFERENCE 


THE  EVANGELICAL  ALLIANCE, 


HELD    IN    THE 


City  of  New  York,  October  id  to  \2th,  1873. 


PRESIDENT, 

Ex-President  THEODORE  D.  WOOLSEY,  D.D.,  LL.D.,  New  Haven,  Conn. 

VICE-PRESIDENTS, 

Hon.  WM.  F.  HAVEMEYER,  CHARLES  REED,  Esq.,  M.P.,  England. 

Mayor  of  New  York.  Hon.  IRA  HARRIS,  New  York. 

Hon.  WM.  E.  DODGE,  New  York.  Hon.  GEORGE  H.  STUART,  Penn. 

Hon.  ROBERT  C.  WINTHROP,  LL.D.,  Mass.  Hon.  D.  M.  BATES,  Delaware. 

Prof.  I.  A.  DORNER,  D.D.,  Germany.  Prof.  JOSEPH  HENRY,  LL.D.,  D.C. 

Prof.  PHILIP  SCHAFF,  D.D.,  New  York.  Hon.  PETER  PARKER,  M.D.,  D.C. 

Rev.  GEORGE  FISCH,  D.D.,  France.  ELLIOTT  H.  PENDLETON,  Esq.,  Ohio. 

Lord  ALFRED  S.  CHURCHILL,  England.  Rev.  JOHN  C.  BACKUS,  D.D.,  Maryland. 

Hon.  WM.  A.  BUCKINGHAM,  Connecticut.  Hon.  JOHN  EVANS,  Colorado. 

Hon.  FELIX  R.  BRUNOT,  Penn.  Gen.  CLINTON  B.  FISK,  Missouri. 

Hon.  ALEX.  H.  H.  STUART,  Virginia.  Principal  DAWSON,  LL.D.,  Canada. 

Hon.  W.  H.  GROESBECK,  Ohio.  Rev.  SAMUEL  H.  Cox,  D.D.,  New  York. 

Hon.  F.  T.  FRELINGHUYSEN,  New  Jersey.  Hon.  DANIEL  HAINES,  New  Jersey. 

W.  H.  ASPINWALL,  Esq.,  New  York.  JAMES  COURT,  Esq.,  Canada. 

Rev.  ALEXIS  CASWELL,  D.D.,  LL.D.,  R.I.  Rev.  PHARCELLUS  CHURCH,  D.D.,  New  York. 

Hon.  WILLIAM  CLAFLIN,  Mass.  Rev.  GEORGE  PECK,  D.D.,  New  York. 
MORRIS  K.  JESUP,  Esq.,  New  York. 


GENERAL  SECRETARY, 

Rev.  S.  IRENJEUS  PRIME,  D.D. 

HONORARY  SECRETARIES, 

Rev.  JAMES  DAVIS.  Rev.  T.  D.  ANDERSON,  D.D. 

Rev.  H.  KRUMMACHER.  Rev.  W.  IVES  BUDINGTON,  D.D. 

Rev.  EMILE  F.  COOK.  Rev.  HERVEY  D.  GANSE. 

Rev.  M.  COHEN  STUART.  Rev.  H.  B.  RIDGAWAY,  D.D. 

Rev.  H.  WILKES,  D.D.,  LL.D.  Rev.  NOAH  HUNT  SCHENCK,  D.D. 

RECORDING  SECRETARIES, 

Rev.  G.  W.  SAMSON,  D.D.  Rev.  G.  W.  WELDON,  M.A. 

Rev.  C.  DALLAS  MAKSTOX,  M.A.  Prof.  CHARLES  A.  AIKEN,  D.D. 

Rev.  T.  LORRIAUX.  Rev.  HENRY  B.  CHAPIN,  Ph.D. 

Rev.  W.  NOEL.  Rev.  A.  S.  HUNT,  D.D. 

Rev.  EDWARD  RONDTHALER. 


756 


THE  SIXTH  GENERAL  CONFERENCE  OF 


MEMBERS. 

Delegates  from  Alliances  iu  various  Countries  of  EUROPE  and  ASIA. 


Great  Britain. 

John  Ashworth,  Rochdale. 

Rev.  Joseph  Angus,  D.D.,  London. 

Rev.  Wm.  Arnot,  Edinburgh. 

Rev.  W.  H.  8.  Aubrey,  London. 

Rev.  Thomas  W.  Aveling,  London. 

W.  A.  Aveling,  London. 

Rev.  John  Bam,  Montrose.  Scotland. 

Rev.  Jas.  C.  Bass,  Limerick. 

Thos.  J.  Bass,  Limerick. 

Rev.  L.  E.  Berkeley,  Lurgan,  Ireland. 

Rev.  J.  C.  Brown,  LL.D.,  Berwick,  England. 

R.  W.  Buckley,  London. 

Rev.  Alex.  Burnett,  Aberdeen. 

J.  D.  Carnegie,  Dublin. 

Lord  Alfred  S.  Churchill,  London. 

J.  Compton,  Chelsea. 

Rev.  Robt.  Crook,  LL.D.,  Belfast. 

Rev.  James  Davis,  London. 

Rev.  John  Evans,  Liverpool. 

Rev.  W.  H.  Fremautle,  London. 

Rev.  J.  C.  Gallaway,  London. 

James  Girdlestone,  Esq.,  London 

Rev.  8.  C.  Gordon,  M.  A.,  Reading. 

Rev.  Wm.  Graham,  D.D.,  Bonn,  Prussia. 

S.  M.  Greer,  Dublin.          • 

Rev.  Robert  Hamilton,  Brighton. 

Joseph  Harrap,  Leicester. 

Rev.  Wm.  Harris,  London. 

Rev.  J.  C.  Harrison,  London. 

Rev.  A.  A.  Isaacs,  Leicester. 

Rev.  E.  E.  Jenkins,  Southport. 

Rev:  Prof.  J.  Harris  Jones,  Ph.D.,  Trevecca  College, 
Wales. 

Rev.  T.  Y.  Killen,  Belfast. 

John  King,  Birmingham. 

Rev.  Robert  Kuox,  D.D.,  Belfast. 

Rev.  Prof.  Stanley  Leathes,  King's  College,  London. 

Rev.  William  Lees,  Oldham. 

L.  F.  S.  Maberly,  Dublin. 

Lory  Marsh,  M.D.,  London. 

Rev.  C.  Dallas  Marston,  M.A.,  London. 

Rev.  William  M'Caw,  Manchester. 

Rev.  Archibald  M.  M'Millau,  London. 

W.  J.  Menzies,  Edinburgh. 

Rev.  Henry  Miller,  Hammersmith. 

Hugh  Miller,  M.D.,  Broomfleld,  Scotland. 

Rev.  Wm.  Morgan,  Blackrock,  Cork,  Ireland. 

Rev.  David  Mullan,  Dublin. 

Rev.  Joseph  Parker,  D.D.,  London. 

Rev.  Thomas  Penrose,  Reading. 

Charles  Reed,  Esq.,  M.P.,  London. 

Rev.  James  H.  Rigg,  D.D.,  Westminster,  London. 

Rev.  J.  S.  Russell,  London. 

Rev.  A.  L.Simpson,  D.D.,  Derby,  England. 

Very  Rev.  R.  Payne  Smith,  D.D.,  Dean  of  Canter- 
bury. 

Rev.  Richard  Smyth,  D.D.,  Londonderry. 

Rev.  Robert  Smyth,  B.  A.,  Raphoe,  Ireland. 

Rev.  J.  F.  Stevenson,  LL.B.,  Reading. 

Rev.  W.  F.  Stevenson,  Dublin. 

H.  H.  Stewart,  M.D.,  Dublin. 

Rev.  R.  Stothert,  Edinburgh. 

Rev.  John  Stoughton,  D.D.,  London. 

Rev.  C.  Stovel,  London. 

George  Sykes,  Dublin. 

Rev.  Henry  Tarrant,  Leeds. 

James  Taylor,  Oldhiim. 

Charles  Tyler,  London. 

George  Tyler,  London. 

Rev.  William  Tyler,  London. 

George  Vigeon,  London. 

Joshua  Warren,  London. 

Rev.  George  W.  Weldon,  M.  A.,  London. 

Rev.  Joseph  Wilkins,  Brighton. 

J.  Carwell  Williams,  London. 

Rev.  John  Wood,  Reading. 

William  Worth,  Leicester. 

France. 

Rev.  J.  F.  B.  Combe,  Pialoux,  Dr6me. 
Rev.  Emile  F.  Cook,  B.A.,  Paris. 
Rev.  Auguste  Decoppet,  B.D.,  Paris. 
Rev.  George  Fisch,  D.D.,  Paris. 
Rev.  E.  W.  Hitchcock,  Paris. 
Rev.  Matthlen  Lelievre,  Nimes. 
Rev.  Theophilns  Lorrianx,  B.D.,  Paris. 
Rev.  Elie  Robin,  B.D.,  Paris. 
Rev.  Nathaniel  Weiss,  B.D.,  Paris. 


Germany. 

Rev.  Eugene  Bauman,  Lubbenow. 
Rev.  Charles  Boguer,  Strassburg. 
Rev.  Prof.  Theodor  Christlieb,  D.D.,  University  of 

Bonn,  Prussia. 

Rev.  Prof.  I.  A.  Dorner,  D.D.,  University  of  Berlin. 
Rev.  A.  Dorner,  Ph,D.,  University  of  Gottingen. 
Rev.  Edward  Dreier,  Neuen  Kircheu,  Hanover. 
Rev.  Prof.  W.Krafft.D.D.,  University  of  Bonn,  Prussia. 
Rev.  H.  Krummacher,  Brandenburg. 
Rev.  W.  Noel,  Berlin. 

Prof.  Edmund  Spiess,  Ph.D.,  University  of  Jena. 
Rev.  Leopold  Witte,  Coethen,  Prussia. 
Rev.  Paul  Zimmermann,  Ph.D.,  Leipsic. 

Switzerland. 

Rev.  Prof.  J.  F.  Astie,  Lausanne. 
Prof.  Felix  Bovet,  Neuchatel. 
Rev.  Franck  Coulin,  D.D.,  Geneva. 
Rev.  Prof.  C.  Pronier,  Geneva. 
Rev.  Eugene  Reichel,  Montmirail. 
Ernest  Saladiu,  Geneva. 

Belgium. 

Rev.  Leonard  Anet,  Brussels. 
Rev.  Emile  Rochedieu,  Brussels. 

Holland. 
Rev.  M.  Cohen  Stuart,  D.D,,  Rotterdam. 

Spain. 

Rev.  Antonio  Carrasco,  Madrid. 
Rev.  Fritz  Fliedner,  Madrid. 

Italy. 
Rev.  Matteo  Prochet,  Genoa. 

Greece. 
Rev.  M.  D.  Kalopothakes,  M.D.,  Athens. 

Turkey. 

Rev.  Edwin  E.  Bliss,  D.D.,  Constantinople. 
Rev.  T.  C.  Trowbridge,  Constantinople. 

Persia. 
Rev.  B.  Labaree,  Jun. 

India. 

Rev.  James  Long,  Calcutta. 
Rev.  Narayan  Sheshadri,  Bombay. 
Rev.  J.  S.  Woodside,  Northern  India. 
Wm.  Yorke,  Dindigal,  Madras. 

DELEGATES    FROM   ALLIANCES    IN    THE    BRITISH 
PROVINCES. 

Belleville,  Canada 
Rev.  John  Burton. 
Rev.  Richard  Lewis. 
R.  Richardson. 
Rev.  C.  A.  Hanson. 

Bermttda  Islands. 
Rev.  K.  F.  Junor. 

Coburg,  Canada. 
Rev.  William  Briggs. 
Rev.  James  Douglass. 

French-Canadian. 
Pasteur  Laflenr. 
Pasteur  Coussirat 

Halifax,  Nova  Scotia. 
Rev.  J.  M.  Cramp,  D.D. 
Rev.  John  Forrest. 
Rev.  George  M.  Grant 
Rev.  George  W.  Hill. 
Rev.  John  Latheru. 
Rev.  John  Mnnro. 
Rev.  Robert.  Murray. 
Rev.  John  Read. 
Rev.  E.  M.  Saunders. 
Henry  B.  Webster. 

Hamilton,  Canada. 
Rev.  D.  H.  Fletcher. 
Rev.  Hugh  Johnstone,  M.A. 
Rev.  John  M 'Coll. 
Rev.  A.  B.  Simpson. 
Rev.  Manly  Benson. 


THE  EVANGELICAL  ALLIANCE. 


757 


Jamaica,  West  Indies. 
Rev.  William  Murray,  Falmouth. 

Montreal,  Canada. 

Principal  Dawson,  LL.D.,  M'Gill  College. 

Rev.  Dean  Bond,  LL.D. 

T.  Jas.  Claxton. 

Rev.  George  Douglas,  LL.D. 

Rev.  J.  M.  Gibson,  M.  A. 

Rev.  John  Jenkins,  D.D. 

Rev.  H.  Wilkes,  D.D.,  LL.D. 

New  Brunswick. 
Rev.  J.  E.  Bill. 
Le  Baron  Botsford,  M.D. 
Rev.  8.  G.  Dodd. 
Rev.  Samuel  Houston. 
J.  E.  Irvine. 
James  M'Millan. 

Ottawa,  Canada. 
Rev.  Daniel  M.  Gordon. 
George  Hay. 
Rev.  W.  J.  Hunter. 

Portsmouth,  Canada. 
Rev.  A.  Wilson. 

Prince  Edward  Island. 
Rev.  Isaac  Murray. 
Hon.  Charles  Young. 

Quebec,  Canada. 
Rev.  Dr.  Cook. 
James  Hossack. 
Rev.  D.  Marsh. 
John  C.  Thompson. 

St.  Hyacinthe,  Canada. 
Rev.  R.  P.  Duclos. 

Toronto,  Canada. 
A.  J.  Arnold. 
Rev.  Anson  Green,  D.D. 
Rev.  John  M.  King,  M.A. 
Rev.  D.  J.  Macdoiniell,  B.D. 
Rev.  William  Reid,  M.A. 
Rev.  Robert  Wallace. 
Robert  Wilkes,  Esq.,  M.P. 


DELEGATES    FROM    THE     UNITED     STATES    ALLI- 
ANCE   AND    ITS    BRANCHES. 

United  States  Alliance. 
Rev.  W.  P.  Abbott,  New  York. 
Rev.  Wm.  Adams,  D.D.,  LL.D.,  New  York. 
Franklin  Allen,  N«w  York. 
Pres.  W.  H.  Allen,  LL.D.,  Philadelphia. 
Pres.  M.  B.  Anderson,  LL.D.,  Rochester,  N.  Y. 
Rev.  Rufus  Anderson,  D.D.,  LL.D.,  Boston,  Mass. 
Rev.  T.  D.  Anderson,  D.D.,  New  York. 
Rev.  Thos.  Armitage,  D.D.,  New  York. 
Rev.  W.  W.  Atterbury.  New  York. 
Rev.  H.  M.  Baird,  Ph.D.,  New  York. 
Rt.  Rev.  G.  T.  Bedell,  Gambier,  O. 
Rev.  Henry  Ward  Beecher,  Brooklyn. 
Gerard  Beekman,  New  York. 
James  A.  Bennett,  M.D.,  New  York. 
Hon.  Nathan  Bishop,  LL.D.,  New  York. 
Rev.  R.  R.  Booth,  D.D.,  New  York. 
Cephas  Brainerd,  New  York. 
James  Brown,  New  York. 
J.  Crosby  Brown,  New  York. 
Hon.  Felix  R.  Brunot,  Pittsburg,  Pa. 
Hon.  W.  A.  Buckingham,  Norwich,  Conn. 
Rev.  W.  I.  Budington,  D.D.,  Brooklyn. 
Rev.  S.  D.  Burchard,  D.D.,  New  York. 
Rev.  C.  P.  Bush,  D.D.,  New  York. 
Rev.  Robert  Cameron,  New  York. 
Pres.  W.  H.  Campbell,  D.D.,  New  Brunswick,  N.  J. 
Rev.  Henry  B.  Chapin,  Ph.D.,  New  York. 
Prof.  Elie  Charlier,  New  York. 
Rev.  A.  H.  Clapp,  D.D.,  New  York. 
Rev.  F.  W.  Conrad,  D.D.,  Philadelphia. 
Rev.  S.  W.  Crittenden,  New  York. 
Rev.  G.  R.  Crooks,  D.D.,  New  York. 
Rev.  Howard  Crosby,  D.D.,  New  York. 
Rt.  Rev.  Geo.  D.  Camming,  D.D.,  Kentucky. 
Hon.  J.  L.  M.  Curry,  LL.D.,  Richmond,  Va. 
Rev.  S.  8.  Cutting,  D.D.,  New  York. 
Rev.  C.  F.  Deems,  D.D.,  New  York. 
Rev.  Thomas  DeWitt,  D.D.,  New  York. 
Rev.  D.  Stuart  Dodge,  New  York. 


United  States  Alliance — continued. 
Hon.  Wm.  E.  Dodge,  New  York. 
Rev.  H.  Dyer,  D.D.,  New  York. 
Rev.  Thos.  M.  Eddy,  D.D.,  New  York. 
Rev.  J.  M.  Ferris,  D.D.,  New  York. 
Cyrus  W.  Field,  New  York. 
Prof.  Geo.  P.  Fisher,  D.D.,  New  Haven,  Conn. 
Hon.  F.  T.  Frelinghuysen,  Newark,  N.  J. 
Rev.  C.  D.  FOB?,  D.D.,  New  York. 
Rev.  Richard  Fuller,  D.D.,  Baltimore,  Md. 
Rev.  Hervey  D.  Ganse,  New  York. 
Rev.  A.  D.  Gillette,  D.D.,  New  York. 
Prof.  D.  R.  Goodwin,  D.D.,  Philadelphia. 
Rev.  H.  L.  Grandlieuard,  New  York. 
Prof.  A.  H.  Guyot,  LL.D.,  Princeton,  N.  J. 
Rev.  John  Hall,  D.D.,  New  York. 
John  C.  Havemeyer,  New  York. 
Rev.  George  H.  Hepworth,  New  York. 
Prof.  R.  D.  Hitchcock,  D.D.,  LL.D.,  New  York. 
Prof.  Charles  Hodge,  D.D.,  LL.D.,  Princeton,  N.  J. 
Rev.  Moses  D.  Hoge,  D.D.,  Richmond,  Va. 
Rev.  Joseph  Holdich,  D.D.,  New  York. 
Rev.  J.  Stanford  Holme,  D.D.,  New  York. 
Rev. Mark  Hopkins,  D.D.,  LL.D.,  Williamstown,  Mass. 
W.  W.  Hoppin,  Jnii.,  New  York. 
Pres.  Alvah  Hovey,  D.D.,  Newton  Centre,  Mass. 
Prof.  J.  F.  Hurst,  D.D.,  Madison,  N.  J. 
Rev.  David  Inglis,  D.D.,  Brooklyn. 
Morris  K.  Jesup,  New  York. 
Prof.  D.  P.  Kidder,  D.D.,  Madison,  N.  J. 
Caleb  B.  Knevals,  New  York. 
Rev.  C.  P.  Krauth,  D.D.,  Philadelphia. 
William  F.  Lee,  New  York. 
Rev.  J.  M.  Ludlow,  D.D.,  New  York. 
Prof.  B.  N.  Martin,  D.D.,  New  York. 
Rev.  G.  D.  Mathews,  New  York. 
Pres.  Jas.  M'Cosh,  D.D.,  LL.D.,  Princeton,  N.  J. 
T.  W.  Morris,  New  York. 
Rev.  R.  C.  Morse,  New  York. 
Rev.  W.  A.  Muhlenberg,  D.D.,  New  York. 
Rev.  J.  O.  Murray,  D.D.,  New  York. 
Kev.  Wm.  Nast,  D.D.,  Cincinnati,  O. 
Prof.  Henry  A.  Nelson,  D.D.,  Cincinnati,  O. 
Pres.  J.  W.Nevin,  D.D.,  Lancaster,  Pa. 
Rev.  W.  W.  Newell,  D.D.,  New  York. 
Rev.  Richard  Newton,  D.D.,  Philadelphia. 
Rev.  W.  R.  Nicholson,  D.D.,  Newark,  N.  J. 
Rev.  John  Orcutt,  D.D.,  New  York. 
Rev.  Wm.  Ormistou,  D.D.,  New  York. 
Hon.  Peter  Parker,  M.D.,  Washington,  D.  C. 
Rev.  W.  A.  Passavant,  D.D.,  Pittsburg,  Penn. 
John  Paton,  New  York. 
Rev.  W.  W.  Patton,  Chicago,  111. 
Rev.  Wm.  M.  Paxton,  D.D.,  New  York. 
Prof.  W.  S.  Plumer,  D.D.,  Columbia,  S.  C. 
Pres.  Noah  Porter,  D.D.,  LL.D.,  New  Haven,  Conn. 
Pres.  Eliph.  Nott  Potter,  D.D.,  Schenectady,  N.  Y. 
Rev.  H.  Powell,  New  York. 
Rev.  Geo.  L.  Prentiss,  D.D.,  New  York. 
Rev.  S.  Irenaeus  Prime,  D.D.,  New  York. 
Rev.  E.  D.  G.  Prime,  D.D.,  New  York. 
Rev.  H.  B.  Ridgaway,  D.D.,  New  York. 
Rev.  C.  S.  Robinson,  D.D.,  New  York. 
Rev.  E.  P.  Rogers,  D.D.,  New  York. 
Rev.  E.  Rondthaler,  Brooklyn. 
Caleb  T.  Rowe,  New  York. 
Rev.  W.  T.  Sabine,  New  York. 
Rev.  G.  W.  Samson,  D.D.,  New  York. 
Prof.  Philip  Schaff,  D.D.,  New  York. 
Rev.  Noah  Hunt  Schenck,  D.D.,  Brooklyn. 
S.  B.  Schieffelin,  New  York. 
Gustav  Schwab,  New  York. 
Bishop  E.  de  Schweinitz,  S.T.D.,  Bethlehem,  Pa. 
Bishop  M.  Simpson,  D.D.,  Philadelphia. 
Prof.  H.  B.  Smith,  D.D.,  LL.D.,  New  York. 
Isaac  T.  Smith,  New  York. 
Rev.  J.  Cotton  Smith,  D.D.,  New  York. 
Rev.  Lucius  E.  Smith,  D.D.,  New  York. 
Rev.  T.  Ralston  Smith,  D.D.,  Yonkers,  N.  Y. 
Rev.  J.  M.  Stevenson,  D.D.,  New  York. 
John  A.  Stewart,  New  York. 
Rev.  C.  A.  Stoddard,  D.D.,  New  York. 
.James  Stokes,  Jan.,  New  York. 
Rev.  Richard  S.  Storrs,  D.D.,  Brooklyn. 
Hon.  Geo.  H.  Stuart,  Philadelphia. 
James  Stuart,  New  York. 
Rev.  M.  C.  Sutphen,  D.D.,  New  York. 
Rev.  W.  M.  Taylor,  D.D.,  New  York. 
David  D.  Terry,  New  York. 
Frederick  P.  Terry,  New  York. 
Rev.  John  Thompson,  D.D.,  New  York. 
Rev.  S.  H.  Tyug,  Jan.,  D.D.,  New  York. 
Geo.  M.  Vanderlip,  New  York. 
Rev.  J.  H.  Vincent,  D.D.,  New  York. 


758 


THE  SIXTH  GENERAL  CONFERENCE  OF 


United  State*  Allia.net— continued. 
Pres.  W.  P.  Warren,  D.D.,  Boston,  Mass. 
Rev.  E.  A.  Wnshburn,  D.D.,  New  York. 
Rev.  A.  C.  Wedekind,  D.D.,  New  York. 
Rev.  G.  U.  Wenner,  New  York. 
Norman  White,  New  York. 
Rev.  E.  C.  Wines,  D.D.,  New  York. 
F.  H.  Wolcott,  Astoria,  N.  Y. 
W.  H.  S.  Wood,  New  York. 
Rev.T.  D.  Woolsey,  D.D.,  LL.D.,  New  Haven,  Conn. 


UNITED    STATES  BRANCH   ALLIANCES. 

Ashtabula,  Ohio. 
Rev.  A.  D.  Morton. 
Rev.  8.  D.  Feet. 

Baltimore,  Md. 

Hon.  Charles  J.  Baker. 
Rev.  E.  R.  Eschbach. 
Rev.  J.  E.  Graiumer,  D.D. 
Rev.  Joseph  T.  Smith,  D.D. 
Rev.  J.  WTM.  Williams,  D.D. 

Central  Pennsylvania. 

Rev.  R.  P.  Gibson. 
Rev.  W.  H.  Snyder. 
Rev.  G.  F.  Stelling. 

Charleston,  S.  C. 
Rev.  O.  F.  Gregory. 
Rev.  L.  H.  Shuck. 

Chicago,  III. 

Prof.  Charles  A.  Blanchard. 
Hon.  Philo  Carpenter. 

D.  R.  Holt. 

Gen.  C.  H.  Howard. 
J.  B.  T.  Marsh. 
Rev.  W.  A.  Nichols. 
Hon.  Mark  Skinner. 

Cincinnati,  Ohio 
Rev.  B.  W.  Chidlaw. 
Rev.  R.  M.  Hatflold,  D.D. 
Rev.  R.  Jeffery,  D.D. 
Rev.  W.  C.  M'Cune. 
H.  Thane  Miller. 
Rev.  R.  L.  Stanton,  D.D. 
Rev.  J.  F.  Wright. 

Cleveland,  Ohio. 
Horace  Ben  ton.     ' 
Rev.  E.  P.  Gardner. 
Rev.  H.  C.  Haydn. 
Rev.  S.  H.  Lee. 

Detroit,  Kick. 
Rev.  G.  D.  Baker. 
Colin  Campbell. 
Rev.  George  Duffleld,  D.D. 
Rev.  A.  Owen,  D.D. 
Rev.  A.  T.  Pierson. 
Rev.  E.  H.  Pilcher,  D.D. 
Kev.  J.  P.  Scott 

Flushing,  L.  /. 
Henry  A.  Bogert. 
Rev.  E.  S.  Fail-child. 
S.  L.  Gooding. 

E.  A.  Goodridge,  M.D. 
Malcolm  Graham. 
Rev.  E.  L.  Janes. 

H.  J.  Russell. 

Johnstown,  If.  Y. 
Rev.  James  A.  Williamson. 

Monroe,  Mich. 
W.  H.  Boyd. 
Rev.  D.  P.  Pntnam. 
Rev.  T.  M.  Shauafelt. 
Rev.  J.  C.  Wortley. 

Nashville,  Tenn. 

Rev.  A.  J.  Baird,  D.D. 
Rev.  T.  G.  Jones,  D.D. 

Newbern,  N.  C. 
E.  Hnbbs. 
Rev.  L.  C.Vass. 

New  Haven,  Conn. 

Rev.  Hnbbard  Beebe. 
Rev.  H.  L.  Dietz. 


New  Haven,  Conn. — continued. 
Rev.  William  T.  Hill. 
James  W.  Hnbbell. 
Rev.  David  Murdock,  D.D. 
Rev.  S.  D.  Phelps,  D.D. 
Rev.  O.  H.  White,  D.D. 

Northern  New  York. 
Rev.  James  Gardner. 
R.  E.  Hungerford. 
Hon.  Willard  Ives. 
Rev.  J.  J.  Porter,  D.D. 


Rev.  E.  Winter. 


Pella,  Iowa. 


Philadelphia,  Pa. 

Rev.  Luther  Albert,  D.D. 

Gustavus  S.  Benson. 

Rev.  George  D.  Boardman,  D.D. 

Rev.  William  P.  Breed,  D.D. 

Rev.  John  P.  Dales,  D.D. 

William  Getty. 

James  Grant. 

Rev.  H.  S.  Hoffmnn. 

Rev.  Z.  M.  Humphrey,  D.D. 

Rev.  G.  W.  M'Laughlin. 

Rev.  George  C.  Muddox. 

Rev.  Henry  C.  M'Cook. 

Rev.  J.  J.  Pomeroy. 

Rev.  Wm.  C.  Robinson. 

Rev.  T.  P.  Stevenson,  D.D. 

Rev.  Henry  W.  Warren. 

John  R.  Whitney. 

Rev.  T.  W.  J.  Wylie,  D.D. 

Pittsburg,  Pa. 
Rev.  J.  H.  Crumb. 
Rev.  J.  Douglass,  D.D. 
Rev.  Thomas  Hanna. 
Rev.F.  A.  Noble,  D.D. 
Rev.  J.  C.  Pershing,  D.D. 
Rev.  S.  F.  Scovel,  D.D. 
Rev.  E.  K.  Squier,  D.D. 

Rochester,  N.  Y. 
Rev.  D.  K.  Bartlett. 
J.  D.  Bell. 
Louis  Chnpin. 
Rev.  J.  W.  Freund. 
W.  B.  Level. 
Rev.  J.  L.  Robertson. 
Rev.  C.  Siebenpfeiffer. 

San  Francisco,  Cal. 
Rev.  T.  M.  Cunningham,  D.D. 
Rev.  Otis  Gibson. 

Springfield,  Ohio. 

Rev.  A.  H.  Bassett. 
Rev.  A.  Lowry,  D.D. 
Rev.  P.  H.  Mowry. 

St.  Anne,  III. 
Rev.  C.  Chiniquy. 

St.  Louis,  Mo. 

Rev.  A.  H.  Bnrlingham,  D.D. 
Rev.  C.  H.  Foote,D.D. 

Syracuse,  A".  Y. 
Rev.  A.  F.  Beard. 
Rev.  J.  H.  Frazee. 
Rev.  D.  D.  Love,  D.D. 
Rev.  Nelson  Millard. 
Rev.  B.  Pick. 
Rev.  E.  G.  Thurber. 

Taylorville,  III 
Rev.  L.  F.  Walker. 

Toledo,  Ohio. 
Rev.  H.  M.  Bacon. 
Rev.  J.  G.  Fraser. 
Rev.  H.  M.  M'Cracken. 

Washington,  D.  C. 

Rev.  J.  G.  Bntler,  D.D. 
Rev.  G.  D.  Chenoweth. 
Rev.  J.  W.  Parker,  D.D. 
Rev.  Dr.  Rankin. 
Rev.  Byron  Snnderland,  D.D. 
Rev.  O.  H.  Tiffany,  D.D. 
Rev.  W.  W.  Williams,  D.D. 


THE  EVANGELICAL  ALLIANCE. 


759 


INVITED  GUESTvS. 

In  addition  to  the  Delegates  from  various  Branches  of  the  Alliance,  the  following 
gentlemen  were  admitted  to  the  floor  of  the  Conference  by  invitation  of  the  United  States 
Alliance. 


Prof.  C.  A.  Aiken,  D.D.,  Princeton,  N.  J. 

Rev.  Jas.  Allison,  D.D.,  Pittsburg,  Pa. 

Rev.  L.  H.  Atwater,  D.D.,  Princeton,  N.  J. 

Rev.  F.  D.  Ayer,  Concord,  N.  H. 

Rev.  J.  C.  Backus,  D.D.,  Baltimore,  Md. 

Rev.  Leonard  Bacon,  D.D.,  New  Haven,  Conn. 

Rev.  W.  S.  Blackstock,  Goderich,  Canada. 

Rev.  S.  W.  Boardman,  Auburn,  N.  Y. 

Rev.  J.  H.  A.  Bomberger,  D.D.,  Freeland,  Pa. 

Rev.  N.  Bouton,  D.D.,  Concord,  N.  H. 

Pres.  S.  G.  Brown,  D.D.,  Clinton,  N.  Y. 

Rev.  J.  J.  Carruthers,  D  D.,  Portland,  Me. 

Rev.  Alexis  Caswell,  D.D.,  Providence,  R.  I. 

Pres.  W.  C.  Cattell,  D.D.,  Easton,  Penu. 

L.  T.  Chamberlain,  Chicago,  111. 

Rev.  J.  T.  Champlin,  D.D.,  Waterville,  Me. 

Rev.  Pharcellus  Church,  D.D.,  New  York. 

.Tames  Court,  Montreal,  Canada. 

Rev.  Samuel  H.  Cox,  D.D.,  Bronxville,  N.  Y. 

Pres.  J.  Cummings,  D.  D.,  Middletown,  Conn. 

Key.  Daniel  Curry,  D.D.,  New  York. 

Rev.  Henry  Darling,  D.D.,  Albany,  N.  Y. 

Rev.  Cyrus  Dickson,  D.D.,  New  York. 

Gen.  Clinton  B.  Fisk,  St.  Louis,  Mo. 

Rev.  John  O.  Fiske,  D.D.,  Bath,  Me. 

D.  K.  Flickinger,  Dayton,  O. 

Rev.  Ephrnim  Flint,  D.D.,  Hinsdale,  Mass. 

Rev.  P.  H.  Fowler,  D.D.,  Utica,  N.  Y. 

Prof.  W.  H.  Green,  D.D.,  Princeton,  N.  J. 

Hon.  Daniel  Hainus,  Hamburg,  N.  J. 

Hon.  Win.  F.  Havemeyer,  New  York. 

Rev.  E.  O.  Haven,  D.D.,  New  York. 

JameS  Hemphill,  Chester,  S.  C. 

Rev.  Thos.  Holme?,  D.D.,  Merom,  Ind. 

Oliver  Hoyt,  Stamford,  Conn. 

Rev.  A.  S.  Hunt,  D.D.,  Brooklyn,  N.  Y. 

Rev.  R.  Irvine,  D.D.,  Augusta,  Geo. 

Rev.  M.  W.  Jacobus,  D.D.,  Allegheny,  Penn 

Bishop  E.  S.  Janes,  D.D.,  New  York. 

Rev.  H.  Kendall,  D.D.,  New  York. 

Rt.  Rev.  Alfred  Lee,  D.D.,  Delaware. 

Rev.  John  Leyburu,  D.D.,  Baltimore,  Md. 


Pres.  George  Loomis,  D.D.,  Meadville,  Penn. 
Rev.  C.  H.  Malcolm,  D.D.,  Newport,  R.  I. 
Hon.  J.  W.  Marshall,  Washington,  D.  C. 
Pres.  J.  A.  M'Cauley,  D.D.,  Carlisle,  Penn. 
Rev.  A.  T.  M'Gill,  D.D.,  Princeton,  N.  J. 
Rev.  J.  M.  M'Donald,  D.D.,  Princeton,  N.  J. 
Rev.  Samuel  Mease,  Cincinnati,  O. 
Rev.  F.  Merrick,  D.D.,  Delaware,  O. 
Rev.  James  Morrow,  New  Orleans,  La. 
T.  H.  Nevin,  Allegheny,  Penn. 
Pres.  F.  H.  Newbold,  Delaware,  O. 
Hon.  Peter  Parker,  M.D.,  Washington,  D.  C. 
Rev.  Wm.  Patton,  D.D.,  New  Haven,  Conn. 
Rev.  George  Peck,  D.D.,  New  York. 
Rev.  T.  Pry  or,  D.D.,  Nottoway  C.  H.,  Va. 
Rev.  L.  C.  Ransom,  Memphis,  Tenn. 
Rev.  C.  H.  Read,  D.D.,  Richmond,  Va. 
Pres.  Asa  D.  Smith,  D.D.,  Hanover,  N.  H. 
Rev.  J.  F.  Stearns,  D.D.,  Newark,  N.  J. 
Pres.  W.  A.  Stearns,  D.D.,  Amherst,  Mass. 
Rev.  Abel  Stevens,  LL.D.,  New  York. 
Rev.  N.  Summerbell,  D.D.,  Cincinnati,  O. 
Rev.  Elliot  E.  Swift,  D.D.,  Allegheny,  Penn. 
Rev.  Sewall  Teuney,  D.D.,  Ellsworth,  Me. 
E.  S.  Toby,  Boston,  Mass. 
Pres.  J.  F.  Tuttle,  D.D.,  Crawfordsville,  Ind. 
Rev.  A.  R.  Van  Nest,  D.D.,  Florence,  Italy. 

FOREIGN  MISSIONARIES. 
Rev.  Andrew  Abraham,  South  Africa. 
Rev.  H.  J.  Bruce,  India. 
Rev.  C.  H.  Carpenter,  Burmah. 
Rev.  Justus  Doolittle,  China. 
Rev.  Joseph  Edkins,  China. 
Rev.  A.  Grout.  South  Africa. 
Rev.  Samuel  Jessnp,  Syria. 
Rev.  Gulian  Lansing,  Egypt. 
Rev.  S.  G.  M'Farland,  Stain. 
Rev.  Benjamin  Schneider,  D.D.,  Constantinople. 
Rev.  John  C.  Smith,  Ceylon. 
Rev.  J.  V.  N.  Talmage,  D.D.,  China. 
Rev.  J.  J.Walsh,  India. 


THE    BASIS 


EVANGELICAL  ALLIANCE.  I 

ADOPTED  AT  THE  ORGANIZATION  OF  THE  AMERICAN  BRANCH  OF  THE  EVAN- 
GELICAL ALLIANCE,  IN  JANUARY,  1867. 


Resolved,  That  in  forming  an  Evangelical  Alliance  for  the  United  States,  in  co-operative 
union  with  other  Branches  of  the  Alliance,  we  have  no  intention  or  desire  to  give  rise  to  a 
new  denomination  or  sect ;  nor  to  effect  an  amalgamation  of  Churches,  except  in  the  way 
of  facilitating  personal  Christian  intercourse  and  a  mutual  good  understanding ;  nor  to 
interfere  in  any  way  whatever  with  the  internal  affairs  of  the  various  denominations ;  but 
simply  to  bring  individual  Christians  into  closer  fellowship  and  co-operation,  on  the  basis 
of  the  spiritual  union  which  already  exists  in  the  vital  relation  of  CHRIST  to  the  members 
of  his  body  in  all  ages  and  countries. 

Resolved,  That,  in  the  same  spirit,  we  propose  no  new  creed ;  but,  taking  broad,  historic- 
al and  evangelical  catholic  ground,  we  solemnly  re-affirm  and  profess  our  faith  in  all  the 
doctrines  of  the  inspired  Word  of  GOD,  and  in  the  consensus  of  doctrines  as  held  by  all  true 
Christians  from  the  beginning.  And  we  do  more  especially  affirm  our  belief  in  the  Divine- 
human  person  and  atoning  work  of  our  LORD  and  SAVIOUR  JESUS  CHRIST,  as  the  only  and 
sufficient  source  of  salvation,  as  the  heart  and  soul  of  Christianity,  and  as  the  centre  of  all 
true  Christian  union  and  fellowship. 

Resolved,  That,  with  this  explanation,  and  in  the  spirit  of  a  just  Christian  liberality  in 
regard  to  the  minor  differences  of  theological  schools  and  religious  denominations,  we  also 
adopt,  as  a  summary  of  the  consensus  of  the  various  Evangelical  Confessions  of  Faith,  the 
Articles  and  Explanatory  Statement  set  forth  and  agreed  on  by  the  Evangelical  Alliance 
at  its  formation  in  London,  1846,  and  approved  by  the  separate  European  organizations; 
which  articles  are  as  follows : 

"  1.  The  divine  inspiration,  authority,  and  sufficiency  of  the  Holy  Scriptures. 

"2.  The  right  and  duty  of  private  judgment  in  the  interpretation  of  the  Holy  Scrip- 
tures. 

"  3.  The  Unity  of  the  Godhead,  and  the  Trinity  of  the  Persons  therein. 

"  4.  The  utter  depravity  of  human  nature  in  consequence  of  the  Fall. 

"  5.  The  incarnation  of  the  SON  of  GOD,  his  work  of  atonement  for  the  sins  of  mankind, 
and  his  mediatorial  intercession  and  reign. 

"6.  The  justification  of  the  sinner  by  faith  alone. 

"  7.  The  work  of  the  HOLY  SPIRIT  in  the  conversion  and  sanctification  of  the  sinner. 

"8.  The  immortality  of  the  soul,  the  resurrection  of  the  body,  the  judgment  of  the 
world  by  our  LORD  JESUS  CHRIST,  with  the  eternal  blessedness  of  the  righteous,  and  the 
eternal  punishment  of  the  wicked. 

"  9.  The  divine  institution  of  the  Christian  ministry,  and  the  obligation  and  perpetuity 
of  the  ordinances  of  Baptism  and  the  LORD'S  Supper. 

"  It  being,  however,  distinctly  declared  that  this  brief  summary  is  not  to  be  regarded 
in  any  formal  or  ecclesiastical  sense  as  a  creed  or  confession,  nor  the  adoption  of  it  as  in- 
volving an  assumption  of  the  right  authoritatively  to  define  the  limits  of  Christian  broth- 
erhood, but  simply  as  an  indication  of  the  class  of  persons  whom  it  is  desirable  to  embrace 
within  the  Alliance." 


CONSTITUTION 


ADOPTED  JANUARY,  1867. 
Revised  at  the  Sixth  Annual  Meeting,  January  26,  1874. 


ARTICLE  I. 

This  Organization  shall  be  known  as  THE  EVANGELICAL  ALLIANCE  FOR  THE  UNITED 
STATES  OF  AMERICA. 

ARTICLE  II. 

The  objects  of  this  Association  shall  be  to  manifest  and  strengthen  Christian  unity,  and 
to  promote  religious  liberty  and  co-operation  in  Christian  work,  without  interfering  with 
the  internal  affairs  of  different  denominations. 

ARTICLE  III. 

Any  person  may  be  introduced  as  a  member  of  this  Alliance,  on  his  own  application,  by 
signing  the  Constitution,  and  assenting  to  the  principles,  the  basis,  and  the  objects  of  this 
Association. 

ARTICLE  IV. 

The  officers  of  this  Alliance  shall  be  a  PRESIDENT,  VICE-PRESIDENTS,  HONORARY  SECRE- 
TARIES, CORRESPONDING  and  RECORDING  SECRETARIES,  and  a  TREASURER. 

ARTICLE  V. 

The  business  of  this  Alliance  shall  be  conducted  by  an  Executive  Committee,  elected 
annually  by  the  Alliance  from  the  various  denominations  of  Christians  represented  in  the 
Alliance ;  and  the  officers  of  the  Alliance  shall  be  cx-officio  members  of  the  Executive 
Committee.  The  members  shall  hold  their  places  until  the  election  of  their  successors ; 
and  are  empowered  to  fill  their  own  vacancies.  The  Executive  Committee  shall  meet  by 
appointment  of  the  Alliance,  or,  on  its  own  adjournment,  or  at  the  call  of  the  Chairman,  by 
the  request  or  with  the  consent  of  any  five  members ;  provided  that,  in  case  of  every 
special  meeting,  due  notice  shall  be  given.  Five  members  shall  constitute  a  quorum. 

ARTICLE  VI. 

The  Alliance  shall  meet  annually,  at  such  time  and  place  as  the  Executive  Committee 
may  appoint. 

ARTICLE  VII. 

Local  organizations  in  the  United  States,  adopting  the  principles  of  this  Alliance,  may 
become  connected  with  it  by  a  vote  of  the  Executive  Committee,  their  members  thus  be- 
coming individually  members  of  this  Alliance. 

ARTICLE  VIII. 

This  Constitution  may  be  altered  only  at  an  annual  meeting,  and  by  a  vote  of  two- 
thirds  of  the  members  present,  provided  notice  of  the  amendment  be  given  at  a  previous 
annual  meeting ;  unless  the  alteration  be  recommended  by  the  Executive  Committee. 


Jn  iflEmorji   of 
PRONIER   AND    CARRASCO. 


EVERY  good  cause  has  its  martyrs,  but  the  "  blood  of  martyrs  is  the  seed  of  the  Church." 
It  is  our  sad  duty  to  close  this  volume  with  an  obituary  notice  of  two  eminent  dele- 
gates to  the  General  Conference,  who,  on  their  return  to  Europe,  found  a  watery  grave  in 
the  Atlantic  Ocean,  while  their  spirits,  united  in  life  by  the  bonds  of  friendship  and  Chris- 
tian brotherhood,  went  up  to  the  assembly  of  the  first-born  in  heaven. 

On  a  visit  to  Europe,  in  behalf  of  the  General  Conference,  in  1869,1  met  Professor  Ce"sar 
Pronier  at  the  Swiss  Pastoral  Conference  in  Geneva,  where  he  delivered  one  of  the  princi- 
pal addresses,  and  the  youthful  Antonio  Carrasco,  at  the  Church  Diet  in  Stuttgart,  where 
he  spoke  with  Southern  fervor  oil  the  opening  prospects  of  a  new  reformation  in  Spain, 
Count  Andreas  Bernstorff  acting  as  his  interpreter.  I  became  convinced  that  they  were  the 
proper  men  to  represent,  at  the  International  Conference,  the  one  the  Free  Church  of  Ge- 
neva, the  other  the  evangelization  movement  in  Spain.  Both  were  gentlemen  of  acknowl- 
edged ability  and  power,  and  earnest,  devoted  Christians.  They  were  accordingly  invited 
to  the  Conference  in  1870,  and  again  in  1873,  and  accepted  the  invitation.  Their  addresses 
before  the  Conference  are  embodied  in  this  volume,  and  will  be  read  with  a  melancholy 
interest. 

Professor  CESAR-LOUIS  PROXIER  was  born  forty-two  years  ago,  at  Geneva,  Switzerland, 
October  19, 1831.  In  early  life  he  came  to  this  country,  and  engaged  for  a  short  time  in 
business  in  the  State  of  New  York,  but  returned  to  Switzerland,  and  studied  for  the  Gos- 
pel ministry  at  Geneva  and  in  the  University  of  Berlin.  At  the  age  of  thirty-two  (1863), 
he  was  called  to  the  chair  of  Systematic  Theology  in  the  Theological  Seminary  of  the 
Free  Church  in  Geneva,  formerly  occupied  by  the  distinguished  Dr.  Gaussen.  He  was 
justly  regarded,  especially  after  the  death  of  his  colleague,  Dr.  Merle  d'Aubigne"  (1872), 
as  the  pillar  of  this  institution,  and  as  one  of  the  champions  of  Protestant  Christianity 
in  French  Switzerland.  He  was  greatly  esteemed  and  beloved  by  his  friends  and  pupils ; 
all  Geneva  was  agitated  by  the  news  of  his  death,  and  manifested  its  sympathy  by  lib- 
eral aid  to  his  bereaved  family.  He  leaves  a  widow  in  delicate  health,  and  six  children 
— three  sons  and  three  daughters — the  oldest  not  quite  fourteen  years  of  age.  Professor 
Prouier,  when  on  the  eve  of  departure,  before  the  outbreak  of  war  in  1870,  wrote  to  a 
friend  that  he  apprehended  he  would  never  return  from  America,  but  considered  it  his 
duty  to  the  Alliance  and  to  his  institution  to  go.  He  had  the  same  presentiment  in  1873; 
he  spoke  of  it  to  his  friends,  and  hoped  that  something  might  occur  which  would  justify 
him  to  remain  at  home.  But  he  made  the  sacrifice ;  he  bade  his  family  and  friends  his 
dernier  adieu,  and  landed,  after  a  stormy  passage,  in  New  York,  August  29.  He  spent  some 
delightful  weeks  with  friends  at  Princeton,  and  afterward  visited  the  literary  institu- 
tions of  New  York  and  New  England.  He  was  very  modest  and  retiring,  but  preached 
several  times,  addressed  students  of  theology,  and  performed  his  duty  to  the  Alliance 
faithfully.  At  the  close  of  his  address  before  the  Conference  the  following  significant  pas- 
sage occurs : 

"The  future  is  obscure,  gentlemen;  as  obscure  as  those  cloudy  and  indistinct  horizons  toward 
which,  when  crossing  the  Atlantic,  I  have  sometimes  seen  the  passengers  on  deck  casting  uneasy 
glances.  The  mighty  ship  was  dashing  through  the  trackless  ocean ;  her  prow  was  cleaving  the 
foaming  waves ;  her  sails  were  swelling  in  the  wind,  and  the  heavy  sound  of  her  working  engines 
struck  on  the  ear ;  thus,  with  the  ever-increasing  obscurity,  did  we  sail  into  night  and  darkness. 
So  it  is  often  with  nations.  What  is  in  store  for  us  I  know  not.  Perhaps  the  future  has  in  re- 
serve for  us  strange  surprises  that  will  far  exceed  our  hopes  or  tears.  The  horizon  may  perhaps 
clear  when  some  kindly  breeze  springs  up  to  drive  away  the  thickest  of  the  fog.  But  be  that  as  it 


764  IN  MEMORY  OF  PHONIER  AND  CARRASCO. 

may,  be  certain,  gentlemen,  that  Switzerland  will  never  become  the  hot-bed  of  clerical  fanaticism. 
We  are  assured  that  God  will  never  abandon  that  home  of  liberty,  that  theatre  of  religious  events 
which,  with  the  names  of  Zwingle  and  Calvin,  have  borne  the  blessings  of  the  Reformation  to  the 
most  distant  coast  of  your  distant  land.  He  will  remember  the  work  of  our  fathers.  He  will  in- 
spire the  faithful  preachers  of  his  Word,  the  churches  and  societies  jealous  of  his  glory,  with  a 
heroic  and  simple  faith.  He  will  destroy  the  best-laid  plans  of  the  enemy.  Therefore,  gentlemen, 
let  Switzerland  hold  a  large  place  in  your  affections.  Pray  for  her  in  this  her  day  of  crisis.  Often 
does  she  direct  her  gaze  toward  you.  Remember  her  also ;  and  may  a  powerful  current  of  sym- 
pathies traverse  the  seas  like  that  submarine  wire  which  enables  us  to  maintain  uninterrupted 
communication  with  each  other!" 

Rev.  ANTONIO  CARRASCO  was  one  of  the  leaders  of  the  new  reformation  in  Spain.  He 
was  born  in  Malaga,  January  19, 1843,  and  was  consequently  only  thirty-one  years  of  age 
when  he  closed  his  career  on  earth.  When  a  youth  of  sixteen,  he  became  acquainted  with 
the  pure  Gospel  at  Gibraltar,  gave  his  heart  to  Christ,. and  joined  a  little  band  of  Bible- 
readers  which  Matamoros  had  gathered  around  him  at  Malaga.  Persecution  soon  began, 
and  he  was  imprisoned  for  two  years,  with  Matamoros  and  six  other  Spaniards,  for  no 
other  crime  but  holding  devotional  meetings  and  reading  the  Scriptures.  They  were  then 
condemned  to  hard  labor  as  galley-slaves.  The  Evangelical  Alliance  sent  a  deputation 
to  Madrid  in  May,  1863 ;  and,  although  not  admitted  to  the  presence  of  Queen  Isabella, 
it  obtained  their  release.  Their  sentence  was  changed  from  penal  servitude  to  exile. 
Carrasco  went  to  Geneva,  and  there  studied  theology  for  five  years  with  Pronier  and  Merle 
d'Aubign6.  A  younger  brother  of  his  is  now  studying  in  the  same  seminary.  Matauioros 
took  refuge  in  Lausanne,  and  died  in  the  arms  of  his  friend  Carrasco.  After  the  expul- 
sion of  Queen  Isabella  from  the  throne  of  Spain,  in  September,  1868,  and  the  consequent 
proclamation  of  religious  liberty,  Carrasco  returned  to  Spain,  and  entered  with  great  zeal 
on  the  work  of  evangelization.  He  became  the  pastor  of  the  Free  Church  in  Madrid, 
which  he  gathered  and  acceptably  served  till  his  departure  for  New  York,  intending  to 
return  to  it  with  new  vigor.  Its  membership  gradually  increased  to  about  700,  and  em- 
braced all  classes  of  society,  though  mostly  of  the  poor  and  lowly.  It  is  the  largest  of  the 
twenty-seven  Protestant  congregations  organized  since  1868.  Carrasco  was  considered 
the  ablest,  as  he  was  the  best  educated,  Protestant  preacher  in  Spain.  "  He  was,"  writes 
an  English  evangelist  from  Madrid,  Dec.  9, 1873,  "  our  principal  representative,  the  mouth- 
piece of  Protestantism  in  Spain.  None  like  he  had  that  marvelous  command  of  language 
and  that  felicity  of  expression  that  carry  away  an  audience."  He  was  also  the  President 
of  the  Protestant  Synod,  and  made  frequent  visits  to  the  scattered  congregations  through- 
out Spain.  Mr.  Castelar,  himself  the  first  orator  and  statesman  of  his  country,  regarded 
him  as  one  of  the  most  eloquent  speakers,  and  wished  to  engage  his  services  for  the  Span- 
ish Republic ;  but  Carrasco  preferred,  in  poverty,  to  preach  the  Gospel,  and  to  labor  for 
the  spiritual  regeneration  of  the  most  bigoted  Romish  nation  on  earth.  He  was,  how- 
ever, a  decided  Republican,  and  an  ardent  advocate  of  the  abolition  of  slavery  in  the 
Spanish  colonies,  in  behalf  of  which  he  addressed,  early  last  year,  in  the  hall  of  the 
Grand  Opera  in  Madrid,  an  audience  of  three  thousand  hearers  with  great  power.  Two 
days  before  his  departure  from  New  York  he  made,  in  Dr.  Adams's  church,  alongside  of 
the  converted  Brahmin,  Sheshadri,  an  earnest  and  vigorous  speech  in  French  and  Span- 
ish, and  kindled  an  enthusiasm  for  the  evangelization  of  his  country  which  manifested 
itself  at  once  in  liberal  donations  for  his  young  and  struggling  church.  One  lady  alone 
gave  him,  just  before  he  sailed,  four  hundred  dollars  in  gold  for  the  support  of  a  col- 
porteur. He  leaves  behind  him  a  young  widow  with  three  children,  one  of  whom  was 
born  while  he  was  in  this  country. 

These  beloved  brethren  lingered  after  the  close  of  the  Conference  for  a  few  weeks,  to 
promote  the  great  objects  to  which  their  lives  were  consecrated  at  home.  They  ob- 
tained from  friends  in  America  some  funds  and  promises  of  future  aid  for  their  fields  of 
usefulness,  and  endeared  themselves  to  many  Christian  people  in  our  country.  They 
embarked  in  the  French  steamer,  the  ill-fated  Ville  du  Havre,  November  15,  1873,  and 
occTipied  the  same  state-room  on  the  ship.  The  awful  disaster  that  overtook  the  vessel 
on  Saturday,  the  22d  day  of  November,  at  2  A.M.,  and  involved  the  death  of  the  majority 
of  her  passengers,  is  part  of  the  mournful  history  of  the  year  1873,  and  shed  a  gloom 
over  many  families  of  our  own  country.  The  steamer  came  into  collision  with  the  sail- 
ing vessel  Loch  Earn,  was  struck  on  the  side  in  which  was  the  state-room  of  our  friends. 


IN  MEMORY  OF  PEONIER  AND  CARRASCO.  765 

aud  sank  in  twelve  minutes.  It  is  probable  that  Mr.  Carrasco  was  killed  at  the  moment 
of  the  collision,  as  he  was  never  seen  afterward.  Professor  Pronier,  fearfully  injured 
about  his  head,  and  profusely  bleeding,  appeared  for  a  moment  on  deck  in  an  almost  de- 
lirious state,  and,  going  below  again  to  his  friend,  sank  with  the  steamer  into  the  bosom 
of  the  deep.  His  last  words  to  Rev.  Emile  Cook  were  words  of  pious  resignation,  "  Nous 
ftommes  entre  les  mains  de  Dieu."  Thus  died  two  noble  martyrs  to  the  cause  of  Christian 
union.* 

When  the  distressing  intelligence  reached  us  first  by  telegraph,  early  in  December,  we 
made  inquiries  as  to  the  condition  in  which  the  bereaved  families  of  our  delegates  were 
left,  and  it  was  ascertained  that  they  were  entirely  destitute  of  this  world's  goods. 

The  sympathies  of  Christian  hearts  in  the  United  States  were  awakened,  and  at  once  it 
was  resolved  to  make  some  expression  in  behalf  of  the  widows  and  fatherless. 

At  the  meeting  of  the  Executive  Committee  of  the  Evangelical  Alliance  of  the  United 
States,  held  in  the  Bible  House,  December  22,  the  following  preamble  and  resolutions,  sub- 
mitted by  Rev.  William  Adams,  D.D.,  were  adopted,  and  cordially  commended  to  the  Chris- 
tian people  of  this  country : 

Greatly  afflicted  by  that  mysterious  Providence  which  has  consigned  to  a  watery  grave  Rev.  Pro- 
fessor Pronier,  of  Geneva,  and  Rev.  Antonio  Carrasco,  of  Madrid,  when  on  their  homeward  voy- 
age from  the  recent  Conference  in  this  city,  be  it 

Resolved,  That,  cherishing  with  great  affection  the  memory  of  these  brethren,  who  endeared 
themselves  to  so  many  during  their  recent  visit  to  this  country,  we  extend  to  their  desolate  families, 
in  this  sudden  and  terrible  bereavement,  our  tenderest  Christian  sympathy. 

As  an  expression  of  this  affection  and  sympathy,  and -in  cordial  obedience  to  the  Divine  teaching 
to  "  love  not  in  word  only,  but  in  deed  and  in  truth,"  be  it  further 

Resolved,  That  this  Alliance  will  undertake  to  raise  a  memorial  fund,  to  be  held  by  the  Finance 
Committee  of  the  Evangelical  Alliance  in  this  country,  who  shall  be  empowered  to  expend  the  same, 
or  its  (semi-annual)  income,  according  to  their  best  judgment,  to  aid  in  the  support  of  Mrs.  Pro- 
nier and  Mrs.  Carrasco,  and  in  the  education  of  their  children. 

Resolved,  That  all  churches  sympathizing  with  the  Evangelical  Alliance  be  hereby  requested  to 
take  a  collection  on  the  third  Sabbath  in  January,  or  as  near  that  time  as  possible,  in  furtherance 
of  this  object,  confident  that  such  an  act  will  not  only  convey  needful  relief  to  the  distressed,  but 
will  prove  a  means  of  promoting  a  new  and  greater  interest  in  Christian  brotherhood  and  Christian 
evangelism  throughout  the  world. 

Before  this  official  action  of  the  Evangelical  Alliance,  a  large  and  deeply-affected  con- 
gregation was  gathered  in  the  church  on  Madison  Square,  December  14, 1873,  when  ad- 
dresses were  made  by  Rev.  Drs.  Adams,  Crosby,  Schaff,  Tyng,  and  Bishop  Janes,  and  prayer 
was  offered  by  Rev.  Dr.  Murray.  A  collection  was  raised,  amounting  to  more  than  $900. 
On  the  same  day,  in  the  Broadway  Tabernacle,  Rev.  Dr.  Taylor,  pastor,  a  collection  of  $450 
was  taken. 

These  sums  were  largely  increased  by  private  donations  from  sundry  individuals.  One 
gentleman  of  the  city  gave  f  1000.  Another,  who  himself  lost  a  daughter  in  the  same 
shipwreck,  made  a  thank-offering  of  $100  for  the  rescue  of  his  son,  who  escaped  the  same 
fate  by  swimming  to  the  Loch  Earn.  Many  sent  in  their  contributions  anonymously. 
Before  the  close  of  the  year  the  sums  contributed  amounted  to  nearly  $4000,  and  it  is 
hoped  that  they  will  soon  be  increased  to  $10,000. 

It  is  proposed  to  put  this  memorial  fund  into  the  hands  of  the  Finance  Committee  of  the 
Alliance,  to  be  applied,  at  their  discretion,  for  the  benefit  of  the  widows  and  children  who 
have  been  so  suddenly  and  terribly  bereaved.  Contributions  may  be  sent  to  Caleb  T. 
Rowe,  Esq.,  Treasurer  of  the  Evangelical  Alliance,  Bible  House,  New  York. 

Three  other  delegates  to  the  Conference,  all  from  Paris,  were  also  on  board  the  Ville  du 
Havre:  Rev.  Messrs.  Th.  Lorriaux,  Emile  F.  Cook,  and  N.  Weiss  ;  but  we  rejoice  to  know 
that,  after  heroic  exertions  to  save  some  fellow-passengers,  they  escaped  with  their  lives, 
and  after  many  perils  by  sea  arrived  safely  at  home.  Mr.  Lorriaux  was  a  great  comfort 
to  the  rescued  passengers  on  the  Trimountain,  and  is  spoken  of  by  them  in  most  grateful 
terms.  Mr.  Weiss  was  too  sick  to  leave  the  Loch  Earn,  and  Mr.  Cook  kindly  remained 

*  We  blush  iu  the  name  of  onr  common  humanity,  not  to  say  Christianity,  to  record  that  the  notorious 
L'Univerx,  of  Paris,  the  chief  organ  of  Ultramontane  Romanism,  represented  this  disaster  as  a  righteous 
judgment  of  God  on  the  Ville.  du  Havre  for  carrying  so  many  "false  prophets"  on  board,  especially  the 
apostate  Carrasco  1  Has  the  editor  of  that  paper  (since  suspended)  never  read  of  the  story  of  the  Galileans, 
and  the  severe  rebuke  of  our  Lord?  (Luke  xiii.,  1-6). 


766  IN  MEMORY  OF  PHONIER  AND  CARRASCO. 

•with  him  in  the  ship,  which  was  severely  injured  by  the  collision,  and  ultimately  perish- 
ed; but  in.  the  very  moment  of  this  second  shipwreck  our  two  brethren  came  in  sight 
of  the  British  Queen,  which,  after  some  days,  brought  them  to  the  shores  of  England.  Mr. 
Weiss  recovered ;  but  Mr.  Cook,  who  on  his  arrival  in  Paris  was  hardly  recognized,  in  his 
strange  clothing,  by  his  own  wife  and  children,  is  temporarily  disabled,  in  consequence  of 
the  awful  excitement  of  several  weeks,  and  is  now  in  the  South  of  France.  Special  effort** 
are  now  making  to  repair  their  losses  independently  of  the  Pronier  and  Carrasco  fund, 
and  the  Executive  Committee  has  voted  a  contribution  to  each  from  the  General  Con- 
ference fund. 

In  the  mean  time  their  friends  in  Europe  are  active  in  the  same  charity.  The  good 
people  of  Geneva  have  outdone  us  in  their  exertions  for  the  Pronier  family,  and  have 
adopted  the  children  as  orphans  of  the  Free  Church. 

We  see,  then,  already  a  silver  lining  to  this  cloud.  The  calamity  which  has  overtaken 
two  eminent  servants  of  Christ  will  be  overruled,  in  the  providence  of  God,  for  the  ad- 
vancement of  his  kingdom  in  Switzerland  and  Spain,  and  throughout  the  world.  We 
recognize  his  hand  in  this  affliction,  and  humbly  and  devoutly  bow  to  the  will  of  Him 
whose  footsteps  are  in  the  mighty  deep,  and  who  doeth  all  things  well. 

P.S. — After  the  above  was  set  in  type,  the  whole  sum  of  ten  thousand  dollars,  which  it  was 
proposed  to  raise  for  this  charity,  has  been  secured,  and  even  more,  by  contributions  from  many 
churches  and  benevolent  individuals.  The  whole  thing  was  done  with  little  effort,  and  with  the 
utmost  promptness  and  cheerfulness.  As  one  of  many  specimens,  I  quote  a  remark  from  a  letter  of 
the  Rev.  Dr.  John  Hall  (January  23),  inclosing  a  check  for  $1515.75:  "Of  this  sum,  $1052.50 
came  to  me  in  checks,  and  the  balance  in  cash,  many  of  the  contributors  begging  that  no  publi- 
cation be  made  of  their  names,  and  some  of  those  who  handed  me  the  money  withholding  their 
names.  I  never  saw  more  cheerful  giving. " 

Our  brethren  in  Switzerland,  as  I  just  learn  from  Dr.  Coulin,  of  Geneva,  have  raised  with  the 
same  promptness  even  the  double  sum  for  the  Pronier  family  alone  (100,000  fr.,  or  $20,000), 
and  30,000  fr.  ($6000)  for  the  Carrasco  family.  Well  done,  good  old  Switzerland ! 

We  greatly  rejoice  in  this  practical  illustration  of  the  idea  of  Christian  union,  which  the  Evan- 
gelical Alliance  aims  to  manifest  and  to  strengthen.  It  is  the  best  close  of  this  volume.  It  was 
our  blessed  Lord  who,  by  his  Spirit  of  love,  has  directed  the  General  Conference  and  inspired  this 
beautiful  charity.  To  him  be  all  the  glory !  P.  S. 

New  York,  January  2T,  1874. 


EMILE  F.  COOK. 


BEFORE  going  to  press,  intelligence  was  received  from  Paris  that  another  of  our  dele- 
gates, the  Rev.  EMILE  F.  COOK,  after  surviving  two  shipwrecks,  died  in  the  prime  of  life 
(44  years  of  age)  at  Hyeres,  in  the  South  of  France,  January  29, 1874,  and  was  buried  at 
Niines,  February  2,  where  he  spent  a  part  of  his  youth,  and  where  he  was  married.  His 
last  words  to  his  wife  were :  "  Do  not  despond,  every  thing  is  for  the  best ;  I  have  the 
peace  of  God,  I  have  it."  He  maintained  to  the  last  that  he  did  well  in  going  to  America, 


and  had  no  cause  to  regret  it.  He  leaves  a  widow  and  seven  children,  the  oldest  a  girl 
of  17,  the  youngest  a  baby  of  fifteen  months,  without  means  of  support.  His  funeral  was 
attended  by  a  large  and  deeply -moved  congregation  and  twenty -one  ministers  of  the 
Gospel.  Rev.  M.  Babut,  Rev.  M.  Lelievre,  and  others  paid  touching  tribute  to  his  mem- 
ory, as  an  amiable  gentleman,  a  devoted  Christian,  and  a  useful  pastor.  A  full  report  is 


768  EMILE  F.  COOK. 

given  in  L'lSvangelist  of  Nlmes,  February  5,  a  paper  once  edited  by  himself,  and  now  by 
his  friend  and  fellow-delegate,  Rev.  M.  Lelievre. 

Eniile  Cook  was  the  eon  of  the  Rev.  Dr.  Charles  Cook,  the  father  of  Methodism  in  France 
and  in  Switzerland.  He  was  born  in  Niort  (Deux-Sevres),  1830,  educated  in  Lausanne 
and  the  Wesleyan  institutions  in  England,  ordained  to  the  Gospel  miuistry  in  1854,  and 
labored  in  several  missionary  stations  in  France,  and,  since  1866,  as  pastor  of  the  French 
Wesleyan  congregation  in  Paris.  During  the  siege  in  1870  he  converted  his  church  and 
house  into  a  hospital,  and  was  unremitting  in  his  attention  to  the  sick  and  wounded.  He 
was  also,  for  the  last  two  years,  President  of  the  Wesleyan  Conference  in  France.  While 
in  this  country  last  autumn,  as  delegate  of  the  Paris  Committee  of  the  Alliance  to  the 
General  Conference,  he  endeared  himself,  as  a  lovely  and  manly  Christian  character,  to 
all  who  became  personally  acquainted  with  him.  He  was  greatly  delighted  with  his  visit 
to  America,  although  not  in  good  health  at  the  time,  and  most  grateful  for  the  kind  re- 
ception he  received.  So  he  expressed  himself  to  me  on  his  last  visit,  with  Mr.  Weiss,  on 
the  day  before  his  departure.  The  only  drawback  to  his  pleasure  was  when  he  thought 
of  the  feeble,  struggling  Protestantism  in  his  own  native  and  beloved  France,  as  con- 
trasted with  the  powerful  Protestantism  of  this  country.  "  Pray  for  France,"  was  his  re- 
quest ;  and  "  France  for  Jesus  alone,"  was  his  highest  wish. 

After  the  shipwreck  of  the  Ville  du  Havre  he  remained,  in  the  heroic  spirit  of  Christian 
self-denial,  with  his  sick  friend  and  fellow-delegate,  the  Rev.  N.  Weiss,  on  board  the  Loch 
Earn,  and  took  such  good  care  of  him  that  the  latter  acknowledges  that  under  God  he 
owes  his  life  to  Cook.  He  conducted  devotions  with  the  officers  and  sailors  every  day. 
When,  after  long  and  terrible  sufferings,  they  came  in  sight  of  the  British  Queen,  just  as 
the  Loch  Earn  was  about  to  sink,  the  captain  turned  to  Cook,  and  said, "  Your  prayers 
have  saved  us."  We  have  already  referred  to  his  arrival  in  Paris,  and  his  departure  for 
the  South  of  France  to  restore  his  shattered  health.  At  first  he  seemed  to  recover,  and 
hoped  soon  to  return  to  his  work,  but  at  last  succumbed  to  the  shock  of  the  terrible  dis- 
aster. His  wife  bears  the  loss  with  Christian  resignation,  and  feels  thankful  that  she  was 
permitted  to  take  care  of  her  husband  in  his  last  moments. 

Cook  takes  now  his  place  with  Pronier  and  Carrasco  as  a  martyr  of  the  General  Con- 
ference and  the  cause  of  Christian  union.  The  same  charity  which  came  so  promptly 
and  cheerfully  to  the  aid  of  the  families  of  our  brethren  from  Geneva  and  Madrid,  will  at 
once  be  set  in  motion  for  the  family  of  our  brother  from  Paris ;  and  the  whole  work,  I 
trust,  will  be  accomplished  in  a  few  weeks.  On  Monday,  February  16,  the  Ministers'  Meet- 
ing of  the  Methodist  Episcopal  Church  in  New  York,  after  listening  to  the  sad  news  and 
an  appeal  from  Dr.  Schaff,  resolved  to  raise  five  thousand  dollars  for  the  benefit  of  the 
family  of  brother  Cook,  and  appointed  a  committee,  consisting  of  the  Rev.  Drs.  Foss, 
Curry,  Crooks,  Judge  Fancher,  and  others,  to  carry  out  the  resolution.  On  Sunday  even- 
ing, February  22,  a  memorial  service  was  held  in  St.  Paul's  Methodist  Episcopal  Church, 
in  Fourth  Avenue,  in  which  the  pastor,  Dr.  Foss,  Dr.  Adams,  Dr.  Schaff,  and  Judge  Faucher 
made  addresses,  and  a  liberal  collection  was  taken  up.  A  similar  meeting  was  held  in 
Brooklyn.  The  Executive  Committee  of  the  Alliance,  on  Monday,  February  23,  passed 
resolutions  of  sympathy  with  the  Cook  family  similar  to  those  reported  in  the  case  of 
Prouier  and  Carrasco.  About  two  thousand  dollars  are  already  secured,  and,  more  than 
this,  a  new  and  stronger  interest  has  been  kindled  in  the  evangelization  of  France.  So 
we  may  well  say  with  our  departed  brother,  now  resting  in  heaven  from  his  labors,  "  Ev- 
ery thing  is  for  the  best."  The  friends  of  the  Alliance  in  Europe  also  will  not  deny  them- 
selves the  privilege  of  manifesting  their  practical  sympathy  with  "  the  fatherless  and 
widows  in  their  affliction."  "And  now  abideth  faith,  hope,  charity ;  but  the  greatest  of 
these  is  charity." 

Sew  York,  February  23, 1874. 


INDEX. 


Abolition  of  the  Slave-Trade,  735. 

ADAMS,  REV.  WILLIAM,  D.D.,  LL.D.;  Address  of  Wel- 
come, 65. 

Addresses  of  Thanks,  746. 

ALLEN,  HON.  WILLIAM  H.,  LL.D. ;  the  Labor  Ques- 
tion, 670. 

America,  Ecclesiastical  and  Spiritual  Relation  of,  to 
England,  184. 

American  Ideas  in  Europe,  549. 

American  Seaman's  Friend  Society,  741. 

ANDERSON,  REV.  T.  D.,  D.D. ;  Rules  of  Order  moved 
by,  16. 

ANDEESON,  PBES.,  M.B.,  LL.D. ;  on  Darwinism  and  the 
Development  Theory,  321 ;  on  the  Right  Use  of 
Wealth,  357. 

ANDERSON,  REV.  RUFFS,  D.D.,  LL.D. ;  Divisions  of  Mis- 
sionary Fields  of  Labor— Missionary  Courtesy,  583. 

ANET,  REV.  LEONABD  ;  the  Religious  and  Moral  Con- 
dition of  Belgium,  95. 

ANGUS,  REV.  JOSEPH,  D.D. ;  Duty  of  the  Churches  in 
relation  to  Missions,  583. 

Antislavery  Society,  London ;  Abolition  of  the  Slave- 
Trade,  735. 

Apologetics  (Christian),  Comparative  Study  of  Relig- 
ious in  its  Bearing  upon,  309. 

Appendix  to  Division  III.,  317. 

Appendix  L,  716 ;  II.,  728 ;  III.,  750. 

Archbishop  of  Canterbury,  Letter  to  the  Dean  of  Can- 
terbury, 720. 

ABNOT,  REV.  WILLIAM  ;  the  Relation  between  Doc- 
trine and  Life,  327. 

ASTIE,  REV.  PROF.  J.  F. ;  the  Free  Churches  of  the 
Continent ;  or,  American  Ideas  in  Europe,  549. 

AVELING,  REV.  T.  W. ;  Christian  Philanthropy,  675. 

Basis  of  the  Evangelical  Alliance,  760. 

BEDELL,  RIGHT  REV.  GEEGOKY  T.,  D.D. ;  Spiritual 
Unity  not  Organic  Union,  150. 

BEECHEK,  REV.  HENRY  WARD  ;  the  Mission  of  the  Pul- 
pit, 392. 

Belgium,  Religious  and  Moral  Condition  of,  95. 

BERGH,  HENRY;  Cruelty  to  Animals,  740. 

BERKELEY,  REV.  LOWBY  EDMONDS  ;  Evangelization  in 
Ireland,  508. 

BERNSTOKFF,  COUNT  ANDREAS  :  Lay  Preaching,  C01. 

Bible,  Cosmogony  and  the,  276. 

BOVET,  FELIX,  Pii.D. ;  Christianity  and  the  Gospel, 
261.  . 

BBAINERD,  CEPHAS  ;  Young  Men's  Christian  Associa- 
tions, 419. 

Brazil  Branch,  Evangelical  Alliance  :  Protestantism 
in  Brazil,  736. 

British  Alliance ;  Letter  of  Greeting,  719. 

British  Provinces  of  North  America,  129. 

BROWN,  REV.  J.  C.,  LL.D. ;  on  the  Development  The- 
ory, 31S. 

49 


BKUNOT,  HON.  FELIX  R. ;  the  Indians  in  the  United 

States,  630. 
BURNETT,  RET.  ALEXANDER  ;  on  the  Days  of  Creation, 

319. 

CAIRNS,  REV.  JOHN,  D.D. ;  the  Causes  of,  and  Best 
Methods  of  Counteracting  Modern  Infidelity,  228. 

CAMPBELL,  REV.  W.  H.,  D.D. ;  the  Influence  of  Chris- 
tianity on  Civil  and  Religious  Liberty,  558. 

Care  of  the  Sick,  681. 

CARRASOO,  REV.  ANTONIO;  -Report  on  the  State  of  Re- 
ligion in  Spain,  112. 

CARRASOO  and  PRONIEK,  to  the  Memory  of,  763. 

Christian  Philanthropy,  675. 

Christian  Liberty,  481. 

Christianity  and  the  Gospel,  261 ;  and  Humanity,  302 ; 
Modern  Literature  and,  363,  369 ;  the  Influence  of, 
on  Civil  and  Religious  Liberty,  558 ;  the  Effects  of 
Civil  and  Religious  Liberty  on,  562 ;  among  the 
Hindoos,  605;  as  a  Reforming  Power,  661 ;  in  its  Re- 
lations to  Crime  and  Criminals,  695. 

CURISTLIEU,  REV.  PKOF.  THEODORE,  D.D. ;  Response  to 
Dr.  Adams's  Address  of  Welcome,  9 ;  on  the  Best 
Methods  of  Counteracting  Modern  Infidelity,  203 ; 
Theses,  222. 

Church,  the  Unity  of,  based  on  Personal  Union  with 
Christ,  139 ;  (the)  and  the  Nation,  529 ;  and  State, 
Evils  of  a  Union  of,  544;  the  Working  Power  of, 
666. 

Churches,  Duty  of,  in  Relation  to  Mission?,  583  ;  (Ori- 
ental) Missions  to,  634. 

CHURCHILL,  LORD  ALFRED  S. ;  Response  to  Dr.Adams's 
Address  of  Welcome,  7. 

City  Missions,  647. 

Civilization  (Modern),  Protestantism,  and  Romanism, 
461. 

Closing  Report  of  the  Committee  on  the  Programme, 
729. 

Committee  on  the  Programme,  Closing  Report  of,  729. 

Committee  for  Inner  Missions,  Germany;  Fraternal 
Salutations,  721. 

Communion  of  Saints ;  POTTER  and  LEWIS,  154 ;  MARS- 
TON,  160. 

Conference  of  the  Evangelical  Alliance,  Sixth  Gen- 
eral—Historical Sketch  — Date  of  Holdinsr,  3;  So- 
cial Reunion,  Oct.  2d.  6;  Organization  of,  Oct.  3d, 
11;  Reports  on  State  of  Religion,  17;  the  Daily 
Prayer-Meeting,  19;  "Christian  Union,"  Oct.  4th, 
20;  Sunday  Services,  Oct.  5th,  21;  "Christianity 
and  its  Antagonisms,"  Oct.  6th,  22  ;  French  Meeting 
held,  24;  "Christian  Life," Oct.  7th,  26;  "Romanism 
and  Protestantism,"  Oct.  8th,  29;  Brooklyn  Meet- 
ing, 31 ;  "  Christianity  and  Civil  Government,"  Oct. 
9th,  31 ;  Public  Institutions  visited,  33;  "  Christian 
Missions  —  Foreign  and  Domestic,"  Oct.  10th,  34: 
German  Meeting  held,  36;  Reception  by  Hon.  \Vil- 


770 


INDEX. 


Ham  E.  Dodge,  37 ;  "Christianity  and  Social  Re- 
forms," Oct  llth,  87;  Addresses  aud  Resolutions 
of  Thanks,  39  ;  Closing  Address  of  the  President, 
43 ;  Farewell  Services,  Sunday,  Oct.  12th,  45 ;  Ex- 
cursion to  Princeton  and  Philadelphia,  48 ;  Public 
Meeting  in  Horticultural  Hall,  Philadelphia,  49 ;  Ex- 
cursion .to  Washington,  60 ;  Presentation  to  the 
President  of  the  United  States,  50 ;  Visit  to  the  Cap- 
itol and  Public  Buildings,  51 ;  Free-Trip  Tickets  to 
Niagara  Falls,  62 ;  Roll  of  Members,  755. 

CONRAD,  REV.  F.  W.,  D.D. ;  Interchange  of  Pulpits, 
1T4. 

Constitution  of  the  United  States  Evangelical  Alli- 
ance, 761. 

Constitution  and  Government  in  the  United  States, 
the  Relation  of,  to  Religion,  523. 

Contents,  Table  of,  57;  Division  I.,  70;  Division  II., 
138;  Division  III.,  202;  Division  IV.,  326;  Division 
V.,  426;  Division  VI.,  522  ;  Division  VII.,  582;  Di- 
vision Vin.,  660. 

COOK,  REV.  EMILE  F.,  B.A. ;  Christian  Union ;  or  the 
Evangelical  Alliance  in  France,  169 ;  Death  of,  767. 

Cosmogony  and  the  Bible,  276. 

COULIN,  REV.  FRANOK,  D.D. ;  Response  to  Dr.  Ad- 
ams's Address  of  Welcome,  8 ;  How  shall  Protestant 
Ministers  best  meet  the  Demands  of  the  Present 
Age?  475. 

Counteracting  Modern  Infidelity,  203 ;  Theses,  222. 

Creation,  Biblical  Account  of,  in  the  Light  of  Modern 
Science,  276 ;  Diagram  of  the  Biblical  Account  of, 
277;  Diagram  of  the  Two  Records  —  Biblical  and 
Scientific,  287. 

Crime  and  Criminals,  Christianity  in  its  Relations  to, 
695;  Industrial  Schools  as  an  Agency  in  the  Pre- 
vention of,  701. 

Criticism  (Modern)  and  the  Gospel  History,  238. 

CROOKS,  REV.  GEORGE  R,  D.D.,  Christian  Love  the 
Bond  of  Christian  Union,  167. 

Cruelty  to  Animals,  740. 

CUMMINS,  RIGHT  REV.  GEOIJGE  DAVID,  D.D.,  Roman 
and  Reformed  Doctrines  of  Justification  Contrast- 
ed, 467. 

CURRY,  HON.  J.  L.  M.,  LL.D. ;  Evils  of  a  Union  of 
Church  aud  State,  544. 

Darwinism,  Discussion  on,  317. 

D'AuBiGNE,  MERLE  ;  Testamentary  Address,  717. 

DAVIS,  REV.  JAMES  ;  the  Evangelical  Alliance  —  its 
Origin,  Objects,  and  Operations,  189. 

DAWSON,  PEES.  J.  W.,  LL.D.  ;  Primitive  Man  and 
Revelation,  272 ;  on  the  Days  of  Creation,  319 ;  on 
the  Darwinian  System,  319,  320. 

DECOPPET,  REV.  AUGUSTS,  B.D. ;  Religion  in  the  Re- 
formed Church  of  France,  71. 

DE  SCHWEINITZ,  RIGHT  REV.  E.,  S.T.D. ;  Missions 
among  the  Lowest  of  the  Heathen,  619. 

Development,  Religious  Aspects  of  the  Doctrine  of, 
264 ;  Discussion  on  the  Doctrine  of,  317. 

Divisions  of  Missionary  Fields  of  Labor,  588. 

Doctrine  and  Life,  the  Relation  between,  327. 

DODGE,  HON.  WILLIAM  E. ;  Address  at  Opening  of  Con- 
ference, 12 ;  Reception  given  by,  37. 

DODGE,  REV.  D.  STUART  ;  Paper  of  Rev.  Dr.  Jessnp 
read  by,  634. 

DOEDES,  PROF.  J.  I.,  D.D. ;  "  A  Word  of  Sympathy 
with  my  Best  Wishes,"  724. 

DORCHESTER,  REV.  DANIEL,  A.M. ;  a  Statistical  Exhibit 


of  Evangelical  Christianity  in  the  United  Stat«8, 
751. 

DOBNER,  REV.  PROF.  I.  A.,  D.D. ;  Response  to  Dr.  Ad- 
ams's Address  of  Welcome,  8 ;  on  the  Infallibilism 
of  the  Vatican  Council,  and  Nominal  Protestantism, 
42T. 

DORNER,  REV.  AUGUST,  Pu.D. ;  the  Reaction  of  the 
German  National  Spirit  against  Ultramontanism, 
446. 

DUFF,  REV.  ALEXANDER,  D.D.,  LL.D. ;  Letter  to  Hon. 
George  H.  Stuart,  723. 

Duty  of  the  Churches  in  relation  to  Missions,  583. 

EDDY,  REV.  THOMAS  M.,  D.D. ;  the  Obligations  of  Lit- 
erature, Science,  and  Commerce  to  Christian  Mis- 
sions, 594 

EDKINS,  REV.  JOSEPH  ;  on  Comparative  Philology  and 
the  Comparison  of  Religions,  320. 

Education,  Secular  and  Religious,  in  England,  377. 

Emperor  William  of  Germany,  "Cordial  Greeting  and 
Best  Wishes  "of,  721. 

England  and  Russia  in  Central  Asia,  731. 

England,  Ecclesiastical  and  Spiritual  Relations  of 
America  to,  184 ;  Secular  and  Religious  Education 
in,  377. 

Europe,  Free  Churches  on  the  Continent  of,  549. 

Evangelical  Alliance,  Historical  Sketch  of  the  Sixth 
General  Conference  of,  3 ;  in  France,  169 ;  its  Origin, 
Objects,  and  Operations,  189 ;  its  Objects  and  Influ- 
ence, 197 ;  Brazil  Branch,  736 ;  Turkey  Branch,  736, 
739 ;  Roll  of  the  Sixth  General  Conference  of,  755 ; 
the  Basis  of,  760 ;  Constitution  of,  for  the  United 
States,  761. 

Evangelical  Christianity  in  the  United  States,  a  Sta- 
tistical Exhibit  of,  751. 

Evangelical  Home  Mission  of  France,  643. 

Evangelical  Ober-Kirchenrath,  Cordial  Greeting,  721. 

Evangelization  in  Ireland,  508 ;  in  France,  517. 

Evils  of  a  Union  of  Church  and  State,  544. 

Faith  and  Reason,  255. 

Farewell  Address,  by  REV.  NOAH  HUNT  SOHENOK,  D.D., 
707. 

FISCH,  REV.  GEORGE,  D.D. ;  Response  to  Dr.  Adams's 
Address  of  Welcome,  S ;  the  other  Protestant  Church- 
es in  France,  76;  the  Present  State  of  Popery  in 
France,  43S. 

FISHER,  REV.  GEORGE  P.,  D.D. ;  Protestantism,  Ro- 
manism, and  Modern  Civilization,  461. 

FI.IEDNER,  REV.  FRITZ  ;  the  Evangelization  of  Spain, 
123. 

France,  Religion  in  the  Reformed  Church  of,  71 ;  Oth- 
er Protestant  Churches  in,  76 ;  Sunday-schools  in, 
410;  Present  State  of  Popery  in,  438;  Evangeliza- 
tion of,  517 ;  Evangelical  Home  Mission  of,  643. 

Fraternal  Appeal,  by  the  REV.  DR.  SOHMUOKER,  742. 

Free  Churches  of  the  Continent,  549. 

FREMANTLE,  REV.  W.  H.,  M.A. ;  the  Church  and  the 
Nation,  529. 

FULLER,  REV.  RICHARD,  D.D. ;  Personal  Religion,  its 
Aids  and  Hinderances,  333. 

GASPARIN,  COUNT  AGENOR  DE;  the  Care  of  the  Sick, 

681. 

German  Church  Diet,  Letter  of  Greeting,  720. 
German  Protestant  Congregations  Abroad,  Missions 

among,  650. 


INDEX. 


771 


Germany,  Christian  Life  in,  78;  Evangelical  Theology 

in,  85. 
GIRDLESTONE,  JAMES,  ESQ.  ;    Legislation   on   Moral 

Questions,  535. 
GOODWIN,  REV.  DANIEL  R.,  D.D. ;  the  Effects  of  Civil 

and  Religious  Liberty  on  Christianity,  562. 
Gospel  History  and  Modern  Criticism,  238. 
Gospel,  Christianity  and  the,  261 ;  and  Philosophy,  288. 
Gospel  Ministry,  Need  of  Liberal  Support  for  the,  56T. 
GRANT,  GEN.  U.  S.    See  President  of  the  United  States. 
Greece,  Religion  in,  127. 
GRUNDEMANN,  REV.  R.,  Pn.D. ;  Protestant,  Catholic, 

and  Greek  Missions  Compared  as  to  Principle, 

Method,  and  Results,  591. 
GUYOT,  PROF.  ARNOLD  HENEY,  LL.D. ;  Cosmogony  and 

the  Bible ;  or,  the  Biblical  Account  of  Creation,  in 

the  Light  of  Modern  Science,  276 ;  on  the  Days  of 

Creation,  319. 

HALL,  REV.  JOHN,  D.D. ;  Need  of  Liberal  Support  for 

the  Gospel  Ministry,  567 ;  What  to  Preach,  397. 
HALL,  REV.  S.  H.,  D.D. ;  American  Seaman's  Friend 

Society,  741. 
HARRISON,  REV.  JOSHUA  C. ;  Family  Religion — with 

Especial  Reference  to  England,  341. 
Heathen,  Missions  among  the  Lowest,  619. 
Hindoos,  Christianity  among  the,  605. 
Historical  Sketch  of  the  Sixth  General  Conference — 

see  under  "  Conference  of  the  Evangelical  Alliance, 

Sixth  General." 

HITCHCOCK,  REV.  ROSWEI.L  D.,  D.D.,  LL.D. ;  Roman- 
ism in  the  Light  of  History,  430. 
HODGE,  REV.  CHARLES,  D.D.,  LL.D. ;  the  Unity  of  the 

Church  based  on  Personal  Union  with  Christ,  139 ; 

on  the  Development  Theory,  318 ;   on  Darwinism, 

320. 
HOGE,  REV.  MOSES  D.,  D.D. ;  the  Mission  Field  of  the 

South,  623. 

Holland,  Religious  Condition  of,  90. 
HOPKINS,  REV.  MARK,  D.D. ;  Sunday  Legislation,  540. 
Horticultural  Hall, Philadelphia, Public Meetingin, 49. 
HOVEY,  REV.  ALVAH,  D.D. ;  Christian  Liberty,  481. 
Humanity,  Christianity  and,  302. 
HYAOINTUE,  LOYSON,  PERE,  Letter  from,  490. 

Idealism,  the  Strength  and  Weakness  of,  293. 

India,  Woman's  Work  in,  612. 

Indians  (the),  in  the  United  States,  630. 

Industrial  Schools  as  an  Agency  in  the  Prevention  of 
Crime,  701. 

Infallibilism  of  the  Vatican  Council,  and  Nominal 
Protestantism,  427. 

Infidelity  (Modern),  the  Best  Methods  of  Counteract- 
ing, 203,  224,  228 ;  in  Isolated  Individuals,  204;  Sci- 
entific Systems  of,  206 ;  a  Growing  Social  Power  in 
Church  and  State,  217 ;  Causes  of,  228 ;  American : 
its  Factors  and  Phases,  249. 

In  Memoriam — Pronier  and  Carrasco,  763 ;  Cook,  767. 

Intemperance  and  its  Suppression,  689. 

Interchange  of  Pulpits,  174. 

International  Association  for  the  Defense  of  the  Chris- 
tian Faith,  734. 

Ireland,  Evangelization  in,  508. 

Italy,  State  of  Religion  in,  106. 

JACOBFB,  REV.  M.  W.,  D.D.,  LL.D. ;  Support  of  the 
Christian  Ministry,  574. 


JESSTTP,  REV.  HENRY  HARRIS,  D.D. ;  Missions  to  the 
Oriental  Churches,  634. 

JONES,  JOHN  HARRIS,  Pn.D. ;  Christianity  as  a  Re- 
forming Power,  661. 

Justification,  Roman  and  Reformed  Doctrines  of,  Con- 
trasted, 467. 

KALKAR,  REV.  C.  H.  A.,  D.D. ;  State  of  Religion  in 
Scandinavia,  101. 

KALOPOTHAKES,  REV.  MICHAEL  D.,  M.D. ;  Religion  in 
Greece,  127. 

KIDDEK,  REV.  PROF.  DANIEL  P.,  D.D. ;  the  Best  Meth- 
ods of  Preaching,  387. 

KILLEN,  REV.  T.  Y. ;  Ministerial  Support  in  the  Irish 
Episcopal  and  Presbyterian  Churches,  571. 

KNOX,  REV.  ROBERT,  D.D. ;  City  Missions,  647. 

KRAFFT,  REV.  PROF.  W.,  D.D. ;  the  Vatican  Council 
and  the  Old  Catholic  Movement,  491. 

KRATTTH,  REV.  PROF.  CHARLES  P.,  D.D. ;  the  Strength 
and  Weakness  of  Idealism,  293. 

KRUMMAOHER,  REV.  HERMANN  ;  Christian  Life  in  Ger- 
many, 78. 

Labor  Question,  the,  670. 

Lay  Preaching,  598,  601. 

LEATHES,  REV.  PROF.  STANLEY;  Best  Methods  of  Coun- 
teracting Infidelity,  224. 

Legislation,  on  Moral  Questions,  535 ;  Sunday,  540. 

LELIEVRE,  REV.  MATTHIEC;  the  Evangelical  Home 
Mission  of  France,  643. 

Letter  from  the  Old  Catholic  Congress,  485. 

Letter  from  PERE  HYACINTHE  LOYSON,  490. 

Letters  of  Greeting— Appendix  I.:— From  Dr. Merle 
D'Aubignu,  717 ;  British  Alliance,  719 ;  Archbishop 
of  Canterbury,  720 ;  German  Church  Diet,  720;  Com- 
mittee for  Inner  Missions,  Germany,  721 ;  Emperor 
William  of  Germany,  721;  Evangelical  Ober-Kir- 
chenrath,  721 ;  Prof.  Rosseeuw  St.  Hilaire,  722 ; 
Rev.  Alexander  Duff,  D.D.,  LL.D.,  723;  Prof.  J. 
I.  Doedes,  D.D.,  724 ;  Hon.  Robert  C.  Wiuthrop, 
LL.D.,  724 

LEWIS,  PROF.  TAYLEH,  LL.D. ;  Letter  on  the  Commun- 
ion of  Saints,  156. 

Liberty,  Christian,  481 ;  Civil  and  Religious,  the  Influ- 
ence of  Christianity  on,  558;  Civil  and  Religions, 
the  Effects  of,  on  Christianity,  562. 

Literature,  Modern,  and  Christianity,  363,  369. 

LONG,  REV.  J. ;  England  and  Russia  in  Central  Asia, 
731. 

Lord's  Supper  in  Relation  to  Christian  Union,  ISO. 

LORRIAUX,  REV.  THEOPUILUS,  B.D. ;  the  Evangeliza- 
tion of  France,  517. 

Love  (Christian)  the  Bond  of  Christian  Union,  167. 

LOYSON.    See  Hyacinthe. 

MARSTON,  REV.  C.  DALLAS,  M.A. ;  the  Communion  of 

Saints— Modes  of  its  Promotion  and  Manifestation, 

160. 
M'Cosii,  PRES.  JAMES,  D.D.,  LL.D ;  Religions  Aspects 

of  the  Doctrine  of  Development,  264. 
Memorial  on  the  Opium  Trade,  739. 
MERLE  D'AuniONij ;  Testamentary  Address,  717. 
Ministerial  Support,  567,571,574. 
Missionary  Fields  of  Labor,  Divisions  of,  588. 
Missionary  Courtesy,  588. 
Missions,  Duty  of  the  Churches  in  relation  to,  583 ; 

Protestant,  Catholic,  and   Greek   compared,  591 ; 


772 


INDEX. 


(Christian),  the  Obligations  of  Literature,  Science, 
and  Commerce  to,  594 ;  Among  the  Lowest  of  the 
Heathen,  619 ;  to  the  Oriental  Churches,  634 ;  French 
Evangelical  Home,  643  ;  City,  647 ;  Among  German 
Protestant  Congregations  Abroad,  660. 

Mission  Field  of  the  South,  023. 

Moral  Questions,  Legislation  on,  535. 

Mi  in  i  M. IK',.  REV.  WILLIAM  AUGUSTUS,  D.D. ;  the 
Lord's  Supper  in  relation  to  Christian  Union,  ISO. 

MURRAY,  REV.  ROBERT;  the  British  Provinces  of 
North  America,  129. 

MURRAY,  REV.  WILLIAM;  Christianity  in  the  West 
Indies,  133. 

NAST,  REV.  WILLIAM,  D.D. ;  Personal  Religion  — its 
Aids  and  Hinderances,  338. 

Nation,  the  Church  and  the,  529. 

NAVILLK,  PROF.  ERNEST  ;  the  Gospel  and  Philosophy, 
288. 

NELSON,  REV.  HENRY  A.,  D.D. ;  Intemperance  and  its 
Suppression,  689. 

NEVIN,  PRES.  JOHN  WILLIAMSON,  D.D.,  LL.D. ;  Chris- 
tianity and  Humanity,  302. 

NEWTON,  REV.  RICHARD,  D.D. ;  '  Importance  of  the 
Sunday-school  Agency,  405. 

NOEL,  REV.  W. ;  the  Evangelical  Alliance— its  Objects 
and  Influence,  197;  Missions  of  the  Evangelical 
Church  of  Prussia  among  German  Protestant  Con- 
gregations Abroad,  650. 

Obligations  of  Literature,  Science,  and  Commerce  to 

Christian  Missions,  594. 
Old  Catholic  Congress,  Letter  from,  485. 
Old  Catholic  Movement  and  the  Vatican  Council,  491. 
OOSTERZEE.     See  Van  Oosterzee. 
Opium  Trade,  Memorial  on,  739. 
Oriental  Churches,  Missions  to,  634. 

PATTON,  REV.  W.  W.,  D.D. ;  Revivals  of  Religion- 
how  to  make  them  Productive  of  Permanent  Good, 
351. 

PARKER,  REV.  JOSEPH,  D.D. ;  Modern  Preaching  and 
its  Requirements,  383. 

Peace  Society,  London,  on  Peaceful  Arbitration,  730. 

Peaceful  Arbitration,  730. 

Philanthropy,  Christian,  675. 

Philosophy,  the  Gospel  and,  288. 

Plan  for  a  General  Protestant  Union,  742. 

PI.ITMER,  REV.  WILLIAM  S.,  D.D. ;  Family  Religion, 
348. 

Popery,  Present  State  of,  in  France,  438. 

POKTER,  REV.  NOAH,  D.D.,  LL.D. ;  Modern  Literature 
in  its  Relation  to  Christianity,  369. 

POTTER,  REV.  ELIPHALET  NOTT,  D.D. ;  the  Commun- 
ion of  Saints— Modes  of  its  Promotion  and  Mani- 
festation, 154. 

Preaching  (Modern)  and  its  Requirements,  383 ;  Best 
Methods  of,  387 ;  What  to  Preach,  397 ;  Lay,  598, 
001. 

Preface,  55. 

PRESIDENT  OP  THE  UNITED  STATES;  Presentation  of 
Delegates  to,  50 ;  Address  of  Welcome  by,  51. 

PRIME,  REV.  S.  IREN^US,  D.D. ;  Response  to  Resolu- 
tion of  Thanks,  42. 

Primitive  Man  and  Revelation,  272. 

PROCHF.T,  REV.  MATTEO;  the  State  of  Religion  in  Ita- 
ly, 106. 


PRONIER,  REV.  C. ;  Roman  Catholicism  in  Switzerland 

since  the  Proclamation  of  the  Syllabus,  498. 
PRONIER  and  CARRASOO,  to  the  Memory  of,  763. 
Protestant,  Catholic,  and  Greek  Missions  compared, 

691. 
Protestant  Ministers  —  how  shall  they  best  meet  the 

Demands  of  the  Present  Age  ?  475. 
Protestantism,  Infallibilism  and,  427 ;  Romanism  and 

Modern  Civilization,  461 ;  in  Brazil,  736. 
Prussia,   Missions    of  the    Evangelical   Chnrch   of, 

among  German  Protestant  Congregations  Abroad, 

660. 
Prussian  Church  Laws  (Four),  and  Ultramontanisra, 

443. 
Pulpits,  Interchange  of,  174 ;  the  Mission  of,  392. 

Reason  and  Faith,  255. 

REED,  CHARLES,  ESQ.,  M.P. ;  Response  to  Dr.  Adams's 
Address  of  Welcome,  10 ;  The  Sunday-school  Work 
— its  Greatness ;  the  Chnrch  Responsible  for  it,  399. 

Reforming  Power,  Christianity  as  a,  661. 

REIOHEL,  REV.  EUGENE  ;  State  of  Religion  in  Switzer- 
land, 99. 

Religion,  State  of,  in  France,  71,  76 ;  in  Germany,  7S, 
85;  in  Holland,  90;  in  Belgium,  95;  in  Switzerland, 
99 ;  in  Scandinavia,  101 ;  in  Italy,  106 ;  in  Spain,  112, 
123;  in  Greece,  127;  in  British  Provinces  of  North 
America,  129 ;  in  the  West  Indies,  133 ;  Personal,  its 
Aids  and  Hinderances,  333,  338 ;  Family,  341,  348 : 
Revivals  of,  351 ;  the  Relations  of  Constitution  and 
Government  in  the  United  States  to,  523. 

Religions,  Comparative  Study  of,  in  its  Bearing  upon 
Christian  Apologetics,  309. 

Religious  Liberty  in  Turkey,  736. 

Resolutions  of  Thanks,  748. 

Revelation,  Primitive  Man  and,  272. 

Revivals  of  Religion— how  to  make  them  Productive 
|  of  Permanent  Good,  351. 

RIGO,  REV.  JAMES  H.,  D.D. ;  Relations  of  the  Secular 
and  Religious  Elements  in  Popular  Education  in 
England,  377. 

ROBIN,  REV.  E. ;  Industrial  Schools  as  an  Agency  in 
the  Prevention  of  Crime,  701. 

Roll  of  the  Sixth  General  Conference  of  the  Evangel- 
ical Alliance,  755. 

Roman  and  Reformed  Doctrines  of  Justification  Con- 
trasted, 467. 

Roman  Catholicism  in  Switzerland  since  the  Procla- 
mation of  the  Syllabus,  493. 

Romanism,  in  the  Light  of  History,  436 ;  Appeal  of, 
to  Educated  Protestants,  450 ;  Protestantism  and 
Modern  Civilization,  4C1. 

ROSSEEUW  ST.  HILAIRE,  Letter  of  Regret  and  of  Fra- 
ternal Greeting,  722. 

Rules  of  Order  adopted  by  the  Conference,  16. 

Scandinavia,  State  of  Religion  in,  101. 
SCHAFF,  REV.  PROK.  PHILIP,  D.D. ;    Address  at  the 
French  Meeting,  24;  Introduction  to  Letter  from 
the  Old  Catholic  Congress,  485. 
SCHENCK,  REV.  NOAU  HUNT,  D.D. ;  Farewell  Address, 
i      707. 

SOHMUOKKR,  REV.  S.  S.,  D.D. ;  Plan  for  a  General  Prot- 
i  estnnt  Union,  742. 

SUKSHADRI,  REV.  NARAYAN  ;  Response  to  Dr.  Adams's 
Address  of  Welcome,  10 ;  Christianity  among  the 
i     Hindoos,  605. 


INDEX. 


773 


Sick,  the  Care  of,  681. 

SIMPSON,  REV.  A.  L.,  D.D. ;  Modern  Literature  and 
Christianity,  3C3. 

Sixth  General  Conference,  Roll  of,  755. 

SMITH,  VERY  REV.  R.  PAYNE,  D.D. ;  Letter  from  the 
Archbishop  of  Canterbury,  presented  by,  IT;  Chris- 
tian Union  Consistent  with  Denominational  Dis- 
tinctions, 146. 

South  (the),  Mission  Field  of,  623. 

Spain,  State  of  Religion  in,  112 ;  Evangelization  of, 
123. 

SPIESS,  EDMUND,  Pii.D. ;  Comparative  Study  of  Re- 
ligions in  its  Bearing  upon  Christian  Apologetics, 
309. 

Statistical  Exhibit  of  Evangelical  Christianity  in  the 
United  States,  751. 

STEVENSON,  REV.  W.  FLEMING  ;  the  Working  Power 
of  the  Church — how  Best  to  Utilize  it,  666. 

STOKES,  REV.  R.  S.,  D.D. ;  the  Appeal  of  Romanism  to 
Educated  Protestants,  449. 

STOUGIITON,  REV.  JOHN,  D.D. ;  Response  to  Dr.  Adams's 
Address  of  Welcome,  8 ;  on  the  Ecclesiastical  and 
Spiritual  Relations  of  America  to  England,  184. 

STUART,  REV.  M.  COHEN,  D.D. ;  Response  to  Dr.  Ad- 
ams's Address  of  Welcome,  9 ;  on  the  Religious  Con- 
dition of  Holland,  90. 

STUART,  HON.  GEOBGK  H. ;  Lay  Preaching,  598. 

Sunday-school  Work :  Its  Greatness — the  Church  Re- 
sponsible for  it,  399. 

Sunday-school  Agency,  Importance  of,  405. 

Sunday-schools  in  France,  410. 

Sunday-schools — the  Bible  Service,  415. 

Sunday  Legislation,  540 ;  Concerted  Action  on,  733. 

Swiss  Society,  Geneva  Committee  of,  on  Sunday  Leg- 
islation, 733. 

Switzerland,  State  of  Religion  in,  99 ;  Roman  Cathol- 
icism in,  498. 

Thanks,  Addresses  of,  746 ;  Resolutions  of,  748. 

THOLDCK,  PROF.  AUGUST,  D.D. ;  Evangelical  Theology 
in  Germany,  85. 

TIFFANY,  REV.  DR.  ;  Address  to  the  President  of  the 
United  States,  on  Presentation  of  the  Delegates,  50. 

Turkey  Branch,  Evangelical  Alliance ;  Religious  Lib- 
erty in  Turkey,  736 ;  Memorial  on  the  Opium  Trade, 
739. 

Ultramontanism  and  the  Four  Prussian  Church  Laws, 
443;  the  Reaction  of  the  German  National  Spirit 
against,  446. 


Union  (Christian)  Consistent  with  Denominational 
Distinctions,  145  ;  in  France,  169 ;  the  Lord's  Supper 
in  relation  to,  180 ;  of  Church  and  State,  Evils  of,  544. 

United  States,  the  Relations  of  Constitution  and  Gov- 
ernment in,  523. 

United  States,  the  Indians  in,  630. 

United  States  Evangelical  Alliance,  Constitution  of, 
761. 

Unity  of  the  Church  based  on  Personal  Union  with 
Christ,  139. 

Unity  (Spiritual),  not  Organic  Union,  150. 

VAN  OOSTERZEE,  REV.  J.  J.,  D.D. ;  the  Gospel  History 
and  Modern  Criticism,  238;  International  Christian 
Evidence  Society,  734. 

Vatican  Council  and  the  Old  Catholic  Movement,  491. 

VINOENT,  REV.  J.  H.,  D.D. ;  Sunday-schools— the  Bi- 
ble Service,  415. 

WARREN,  REV.  WILLIAM  F.,  D.D. ;  American  Infidel- 
ity ;  its  Factors  and  Phases,  249. 

WASIIBURN,  REV.  E.  A.,  D.D. :  Reason  and  Faith,  255. 

Wealth,  the  Right.  Use  of,  357. 

WEISS,  REV.  NATHANAEL  ;  Sunday-schools  in  France, 
410. 

Welcome,  Address  of,  65. 

WELDON,  REV.  GEORGE  W. ;  on  the  Doctrine  of  Devel- 
opment, 317. 

West  Indies,  Christianity  in  the,  133. 

WINES,  REV.  E.  C.,  D.D.,  LL.D.;  Christianity  in  its 
Relations  to  Crime  and  Criminals,  695. 

WINTHROP,  HON.  ROBERT  C.,  LL.D. ;  Letter  to  Rev. 
Dr.  Adams,  724. 

WITTE,  REV.  LEOPOLD;  Addendum  to  Tholuck's  Pa- 
per, 88;  Ultramontanism  and  the  Four  Prussian 
Church  Laws,  443. 

Woman's  Work  in  India,  612. 

WOODSIDE,  REV.  J.  S. ;  Woman's  Work  in  India,  612. 

WOOLSEY,  REV.  THEODORE  D.,  D.D.,  LL.D. ;  Address 
on  taking  the  chair,  as  President  of  the  Conference, 
15 ;  Response  to  Resolution  of  Thanks,  at  close  of 
Conference,  43 ;  on  the  Relations  of  Constitution 
and  Government  in  the  United  States  to  Religion, 
523. 

Working-men's  Lord's  Day  Rest  Association,  London, 
Letter  from,  734. 

Working  Power  of  the  Church— how  Best  to  Utilize 
it,  666. 

Young  Men's  Christian  Associations,  419. 


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whole  of  the  "Spectator."  Complete  in  3  vols.,  Svo,  Cloth,  $G  00. 

ALCOCK'S  JAPAN.  The  Capital  of  the  Tycoon:  a  Narrative  of  a  Three  Years' 
Residence  in  Japan.  By  Sir  ROTHEKFOUD  ALCOCK,  K.C.B.,  Her  Majesty's  Envoy 
Extraordinary  and  Minister  Plenipotentiary  in  Japan.  With  Maps  and  Engravings. 
2  vols.,  12mo,"Cloth,  $3  50. 

ALISON'S  HISTORY  OF  EUROPE.  FIRST  SERIES  :  From  the  Commencement  of 
the  French  Revolution,  in  1789,  to  the  Restoration  of  the  Bourbons,  in  1815.  [In 
addition  to  the  Notes  on  Chapter  LXXVI.,  which  correct  the  errors  of  the 
original  work  concerning  the  United  States,  a  copious  Analytical  Index  has  beeu 
appended  to  this  American  edition.]  SECOND  SERIES  :  From  the  Fall  of  Napoleon, 
in  1815,  to  the  Accession  of  Louis  Napoleon,  in  1S52.  8  vols.,  Svo,  Cloth,  $16  00. 

BALDWIN'S  PRE-HISTORIC  NATIONS.  Pre-Historic  Nations ;  or,  Inquiries  con- 
cerning some  of  the  Great  Peoples  and  Civilizations  of  Antiquity,  and  their 
Probable  Relation  to  a  still  Older  Civilization  of  the  Ethiopians  or  Cushites  of 
Arabia.  By  JOHN  D.  BALDWIN,  Member  of  the  American  Oriental  Society. 
12mo,  Cloth,  $1  75. 

EARTH'S  NORTH  AND  CENTRAL  AFRICA.  Travels  and  Discoveries  in  North 
and  Central  Africa:  beinsr  a  Journal  of  an  Expedition  undertaken  under  the 
Auspices  of  H.  B.  M.'s  Government,  in  the  Years  1S49-1S55.  By  HENEY  BARTU, 
Ph.D.,  D.C.L.  Illustrated.  3  vols.,  Svo,  Cloth,  $12  00. 

HENRY  WARD  BEECHER'S  SERMONS.  Sermons  by  HENRY  WARD  BF.EOHER, 
Plymouth  Church,  Brooklyn.  Selected  from  Published  and  Unpublished  Dis- 
courses, and  Revised  by  their  Author.  With  Steel  Portrait.  Complete  in  2  vols., 
Svo,  Cloth,  $5  00. 

LYMAN  BEECHER'S  AUTOBIOGRAPHY,  &o.  Autobiography,  Correspondence, 
<fec.,  of  Lyman  Beecher,  D.D.  Edited  by  his  Son,  CHARLES  BEEOIIER.  With  Three 
Steel  Portraits,  and  Engravings  on  Wood.  In  2  vols.,  12mo,  Cloth,  $5  00. 

BCSWELL'S  JOHNSON.  The  Life  of  Samuel  Johnson.  LL.D.  Including  a  Journey 
to  the  Hebrides.  By  JAMES  BOSWELL,  Esq.  A  New  Edition,  with  numerous 
Additions  and  Notes.  By  JOHN  WILSON  CROKEK,  LL.D.,  F.R.S.  Portrait  of 
Boswell.  2  rols.,  Svo,  Clpth,  $4  00. 

SARA  COLERIDGE'S    MEMOIR   AND  LETTERS.    Memoir  and  Letters  of  Sara 

Coleridge.    Edited  by  her  Daughter.    With  Two  Portraits  on  Steel.    Crown  Svo, 

Cloth,  $2  50. 
SIIAKSPEARE.    The  Dramatic  Works  of  William  Shakspeare,  with  the  Corrections 

and  Illustrations   of  Dr.  JOHNSON-   G.  STEEVKNH,  and  others.     Revised  by  ISAAO 

REEU.    Engravings.    6  vols.,  Royal  12mo,  Cloth,  $9  00. 


/4      Harper  6»  Brothers'  Valuable  and  Interesting  Works. 


DRAPER'S  CIVIL  WAR.  History  of  the  American  Civil  War.  By  JOHN  W.  DBA- 
PER,  M.D.,  LL.D.,  Professor  of  Chemistry  and  Physiology  in  the  University  of 
New  York.  In  Three  Vols.  8vo,  Cloth,  $3  50  per  vol. 

DRAPER'S  INTELLECTUAL  DEVELOPMENT  OF  EUROPE.  A  History  of  the 
Intellectual  Development  of  Europe.  By  JOHN  W.  DRAPER,  M.D.,  LL.D.,  Profess- 
or of  Chemistry  and  Physiology  in  the  University  of  New  York.  Svo,  Cloth,  $5  00. 

DRAPER'S  AMERICAN  CIVIL  POLICY.  Thoughts  on  the  Future  Civil  Policy  of 
America.  By  JOHN  W.  DRAPER,  M.D.,  LL.D.,  Professor  of  Chemistry  and  Physiol- 
ogy in  the  University  of  New  York.  Crown  Svo,  Cloth,  $2  50. 

DU  CHAILLU'S  AFRICA.  Explorations  and  Adventures  in  Equatorial  Africa  with 
Accounts  of  the  Manners  and  Customs  of  the  People,  and  of  the  Chase  of  the  Go- 
rilla, the  Crocodile,  Leopard,  Elephant,  Hippopotamus,  and  other  Animals.  By 
PAUL  1$.  Du  CHAILLU.  Numerous  Illustrations.  Svo,  Cloth,  $5  00. 

BELLOWS'S  OLD  WORLD.  The  Old  World  in  its  New  Face :  Impressions  of  Eu- 
rope in  1867-1868.  By  HENRY  W.  BELLOWS.  2  vols.,  12mo,  Cloth,  $3  50. 

BRODHEAD'S  HISTORY  OF  NEW  YORK.  History  of  the  State  of  New  York. 
By  JOHN  ROMEYN  BRODUEAD.  1609-1691.  2  vols.  Svo,  Cloth,  $3  00  per  vol. 

BROUGHAM'S  AUTOBIOGRAPHY.  Life  and  Times  of  HKNEY,  LORD  BROUGHAM. 
Written  by  Himself.  In  Three  Volumes.  12mo,  Cloth,  $2  00  per  vol. 

BULWER'S  PROSE  WORKS.  Miscellaneous  Prose  Works  of  Edward  Bulwer. 
Lord  Lytton.  2  vols.,  12mo,  Cloth,  $3  50. 

BULWER'S  HORACE.  The  Odes  and  Epodes  of  Horace.  A  Metrical  Translation 
into  English.  With  Introduction  and  Commentaries.  By  LORD  LYTTON.  With 
Latin  Text  from  the  Editions  of  Orelli,  Macleane,  and  Yonge.  12mo,  Cloth,  $1  75. 

BULWER'S  KING  ARTHUR.  A  Poem.  By  EARL  LYTTON.  New  Edition.  12mo, 
Cloth,  $1  75. 

BURNS'S  LIFE  AND  WORKS.  The  Life  and  Works  of  Robert  Burns.  Edited 
by  ROBERT  CHAMBERS.  4  vols.,  12mo,  Cloth,  $6  00. 

REINDEER,  DOGS,  AND  SNOW-SHOES.  A  Journal  of  Siberian  Travel  and  Ei- 
plorations  made  in  the  Years  1865-'67.  By  RICHARD  J.  Bosu,  late  of  the  Russo- 
American  Telegraph  Expedition.  Illustrated.  Crown  Svo,  Cloth,  $3  00. 

CARLYLE'S  FREDERICK  THE  GREAT.  History  of  Friedrich  II.,  called  Frederick 
the  Great.  By  THOMAS  CARLYLE.  Portraits,  Maps,  Plans.  &c.  6  vols.,  l'2mo. 
Cloth,  $12  00. 

CARLYLE'S  FRENCH  REVOLUTION.  History  of  the  French  Revolution.  Newly 
Revised  by  the  Author,  with  Index,  &c.  2  vols.,  12mo,  Cloth,  $3  50. 

CARLYLE'S  OLIVER  CROMWELL.  Letters  and  Speeches  of  Oliver  Cromwell. 
With  Elucidations  and  Connecting  Narrative.  2  vols.,  12mo,  Cloth,  $3  50. 

CHALMERS'S  POSTHUMOUS  WORKS.  The  Posthumous  Works  of  Dr.  Chalmers. 
Edited  by  his  Son-in-Law,  Rev.  WILLIAM  HANNA,  LL.D.  Complete  in  9  vols., 
12mo,  Cloth,  $13  50. 

COLERIDGE'S  COMPLETE  WORKS.  The  Complete  Works  of  Samuel  Taylor 
Coleridge.  With  an  Introductory  Essay  upon  his  Philosophical  and  Theological 
Opinions.  Edited  by  Professor  SUEDD.  Complete  in  Seven  Vols.  With  a  fine 
Portrait.  Small  Svo,  Cloth,  $10  50. 

DOOLITTLE'S  CHINA.  Social  Life  of  the  Chinese :  with  some  Account  of  their  Re- 
ligious, Governmental,  Educational,  and  Business  Customs  and  Opinions.  With 
special  but  not  exclusive  Reference  to  Fuhchau.  By  Rev.  JUSTUS  DOOLITTLE, 
Fourteen  Years  Member  of  the  Fuhchau  Mission  of  the  American  Board.  Illus- 
trated with  more  than  150  characteristic  Engravings  on  Wood.  2  vols.,  12mo, 
Cloth,  $5  00. 

GIBBON'S  ROME.  History  of  the  Decline  and  Fall  of  the  Roman  Empire.  By  ED- 
WARD GIBBON.  With  Notes  by  Rev.  H.  H.  MILMAN  and  M.  GUIZOT.  A  new  cheap 
Edition.  To  which  is  added  a  complete  Index  of  the  whole  Work,  and  a  Portrait 
of  the  Author.  6  vols.,  12mo,  Cloth,  $9  00. 

HAZEN'S  SCHOOL  AND  ARMY  IN  GERMANY  AND  FRANCE.  The  School 
and  the  Army  in  Germany  and  France,  with  a  Diary  of  Sieare  Life  at  Versailles. 
By  Brevet  Major-General  W.  B.  HAZKN.  U.S.A..  Colonel  Sixth  Infantry.  Crown 
Svo,  Cloth,  $2  50. 

TYERMAN'S  WESLEY.  The  Life  and  Times  of  the  Rev.  John  Wesley,  M.A., 
Founder  of  the  Methodists.  By  the  Rev.  LUKK  TYERMAN,  Author  of  "The  Life 
of  Rev.  Samuel  Wesley."  Portraits.  3  vols.,  Crown  Svo,  Cloth,  $7  50. 

VAMBfiRY'S  CENTRAL  ASIA.  Travels  in  Central  Asia.  Being  the  Account  of  a 
Journey  from  Teheran  across  the  Turkoman  Desert,  on  the  Eastern  Shore  of  the 
Caspian,  to  Khiva,  Bokhara,  and  Samarcand,  performed  in  the  Year  1863.  By 
ARMINIUS  VA.MB^RY,  Member  of  the  Hungarian  Academy  of  Peeth,  by  whom  he 
was  sent  on  this  Scientific  Mission.  With  Map  and  Woodcuts.  Svo,  Cloth,  $4  50. 


Harper  6°  Brothers'  Valuable  and  Interesting  Works.      5 

THOMSON'S  LAND  AND  THE  BOOK.  The  Land  and  the  Book;  or,  Biblical 
Illustrations  drawn  from  the  Manners  and  Customs,  the  Scenes  and  the  Scenery 
of  the  Holy  Land.  By  W.  M.  THOMSON,  D.D.,  Twenty-five  Years  a  Missionary 
of  the  A.  B.  C.  P.  M.  in  Syria  and  Palestine.  With  two  elaborate  Maps  of  Pales- 
tine, an  accurate  Plan  of  Jerusalem,  and  several  hundred  Engravings,  representig 
the  Scenery,  Topography,  and  Productions  of  the  Holy  Land,  and  the  Costumes, 
Manners,  and  Habits  of  the  People.  2  large  12mo  vols.,  Cloth,  $5  00. 

DA  VIS'S  CARTHAGE.  Carthage  and  her  Remains :  being  an  Account  of  the  Exca- 
vations andResearcb.es  on  the  Site  of  the  Phoenician  Metropolis  in  Africa  and  other 
adjacent  Places.  Conducted  under  the  Auspices  of  Her  Majesty's  Government. 
Bv  Dr.  DAVIS,  F.R.G.S.  Profusely  Illustrated  with  Maps,  Woodcuts,  Chromo- 
Lithographs,  &c.  8vo,  Cloth,  $4  00. 

EDGEWORTH'S  (Miss)  NOVELS.   With  Engravings.    10  vols.,  12mo,  Cloth,  $15  00. 
GROTE'S  HISTORY  OF  GREECE.    12  vols.,  12mo,  Cloth,  $18  00. 

HELPS'S  SPANISH  CONQUEST.  The  Spanish  Conquest  in  America,  and  its  Rela- 
tion to  the  History  of  Slavery  and  to  the  Government  of  Colonies.  By  AKTIIUR 
HELPS.  4  vols.,  12mo,  Cloth,  $6  00. 

BALE'S  (MRS.)  WOMAN'S  RECORD.  Woman's  Record ;  or,  Biographical  Sketches 
of  all  Distinguished  Women,  from  the  Creation  to  the  Present  Time.  Arranged 
in  Four  Eras,  with  Selections  from  Female  Writers  of  each  Era.  By  Mrs.  SAEAU 
JOSEPHA  HALE.  Illustrated  with  more  than  200  Portraits.  8vo,  Cloth,  $5  00. 

HALL'S  ARCTIC  RESEARCHES.  Arctic  Researches  and  Life  among  the  Esqiu 
maux:  being  the  Narrative  of  an  Expedition  in  Search  of  Sir  John  Franklin,  in 
the  Years  ISUO,  1861,  and  1862.  By  CHARLES  FRANCIS  HALL.  With  Maps  and  100 
Illustrations.  The  Illustrations  are  from  Original  Drawings  by  Charles  Parsons, 
Henry  L.  Stephens,  Solomon  Eytiuge,  W.  S.  L.  Jewett,  and  Granville  Perkins, 
after  Sketches  by  Captain  Hall.  8vo,  Cloth,  $5  00. 

HALLAM'S  CONSTITUTIONAL  HISTORY  OF  ENGLAND,  from  the  Accession  of 
Henry  VII.  to  the  Death  of  George  II.  8vo,  Cloth,  $2  00. 

HALLAM'S  LITERATURE.  Introduction  to  the  Literature  of  Europe  during  the 
Fifteenth,  Sixteenth,  and  Seventeenth  Centuries.  By  HENRY  HALLAM.  2  vols., 
8vo,  Cloth,  $4  00. 

HALLAM'S  MIDDLE  AGES.  State  of  Europe  during  the  Middle  Ages.  By  HENRY 
HALLAM.  Svo,  Cloth,  $2  00. 

HILDRETH'S  HISTORY  OF  THE  UNITED  STATES.  FIRST  SERIES  :  From  the 
First  Settlement  of  the  Country  to  the  Adoption  of  the  Federal  Constitution. 
SECOND  SERIES  :  From  the  Adoption  of  the  Federal  Constitution  to  the  End  of 
the  Sixteenth  Congress.  6  vols.,  Svo,  Cloth,  $18  00. 

HUME'S  HISTORY  OF  ENGLAND.  History  of  England,  from  the  Invasion  of  Ju- 
lius Caesar  to  the  Abdication  of  James  II.,  1CSS.  By  DAVID  HUME.  A  new  Edi- 
tion, with  the  Author's  last  Corrections  and  Improvements.  To  which  is  Prefix- 
ed a  short  Account  of  his  Life,  written  by  Himself.  With  a  Portrait  of  the  Au- 
thor. 6  vols.,  12mo,  Cloth,  $9  00. 

JAY'S  WORKS.  Complete  Works  of  Rev.  William  Jay :  comprising  his  Sermons, 
Family  Discourses,  Morning  and  Evening  Exercises"  for  every  Day  in  the  Year, 
Family  Prayers,  &c.  Author's  enlarged  Edition,  revised.  3  vols.,  Svo,  Cloth, 
$600. 

JEFFERSON'S  DOMESTIC  LIFE.  The  Domestic  Life  of  Thomas  Jefferson  :  com- 
piled from  Family  Letters  and  Reminiscences  by  his  Great-Grauddaughter, 
SAKAII  N.  RANDOLPH.  With  Illustrations.  Crown  Svo,  Illuminated  Cloth,  Bev- 
eled Edges,  $2  SO. 

JOHNSON'S  COMPLETE  WORKS.  The  Works  of  Samuel  Johnson,  LL.D.  With 
an  Essay  on  his  Life  and  Genius,  by  ARTHUR  MURPHY,  Esq.  Portrait  of  Johnson. 
2  vols.,  8vo,  Cloth,  $4  00. 

KINGLAKE'S  CRIMEAN  WAR.  The  Invasion  of  the  Crimea,  and  an  Account  of 
its  Progress  down  to  the  Death  of  Lord  Raglan.  By  ALEXANDER  WILLIAM  KINO- 
LAKE.  'With  Maps  and  Plans.  Two  Vols.  ready.  12mo,  Cloth,  $2  00  per  vol. 

KINGSLEY'S  WEST  INDIES.  At  Last:  A  Christmas  in  the  West  Indies.  By 
CHARLES  KINGSLET.  Illustrated.  12mo,  Cloth,  $1  60. 


the  Royal  Geographical  Society,  Hon.  Corresponding  Member  and  Gold  Medalist 
of  the  French  Geographical  Society,  <fec.  With  Maps  and  Portraits  and  numerous 
Illustrations,  chiefly  from  Drawings  by  Captain  GRANT.  Svo,  Cloth,  uniform  with 
Livingstone,  Barth,  Burton,  &c.,  $4  00. 

STRICKLAND'S  (Miss)  QUEENS  OF  SCOTLAND.  Lives  of  the  Qn  Jens  of  Scot- 
land and  English  Princesses  connected  with  the  Regal  Succession  jf  Great  Brit- 
ain. By  AONES  STRICKLAND.  8  vols.,  12mo,  Cloth,  $12  00. 


6      Harper  &*  Brothers'  Valuable  and  Interesting  Works. 

KRUMM ACKER'S  DAVID,  KING  OF  ISRAEL.  David,  the  King  of  Israel :  a  Por- 
trait drawn  from  Bible  History  and  the  Book  of  Psalms.  By  FREDERICK  WILLIAM 
KIM-MM  MMIKI:,  D.D.,  Author  of  "Elijah  the  Tishbite,"  &c.  Translated  under  the 
express  Sanction  of  the  Author  by  the  Rev.  M.  Q.  EASTON,  M.A.  With  a  Letter 
from  Dr.  Krummacher  to  his  American  Readers,  and  a  Portrait.  12mo,  Cloth, 
$176. 

LAMB'S  COMPLETE  WORKS.  The  Works  of  Charles  Lamb.  Comprising  his  Let- 
ters, Poems,  Essays  of  Elia,  Essays  upou  Shakspeare,  Hogarth,  Ac.,  and  a  Sketch 
of  his  Life,  with  the  Final  Memorials,  by  T.  NOON  TALFOURI*.  Portrait  2  vols., 
12mo,  Cloth,  $3  00. 

LIVINGSTONE'S  SOUTH  AFRICA.  Missionary  Travels  and  Researches  in  South 
Africa ;  including  a  Sketch  of  Sixteen  Years'  Residence  in  the  Interior  of  Africa, 
and  a  Journey  from  the  Cape  of  Good  Hope  to  Loando  on  the  West  Coast ;  thence 
across  the  Continent,  down  the  River  Zambesi,  to  the  Eastern  Ocean.  By  DAVID 
LIVINGSTONE,  LL.D.,  D.C.L.  With  Portrait,  Maps  by  Arrowsmith,  and  numerous 
Illustrations.  Svo,  Cloth,  $4  50. 

LIVINGSTONES'  ZAMBESI.  Narrative  of  an  Expedition  to  the  Zambesi  and  its 
Tributaries,  and  of  the  Discovery  of  the  Lakes  Shirwa  and  Nyassa,  1858-1864. 
By  DAVID  and  CIIARLEB  LIVINGSTONE.  With  Map  and  Illustrations.  Svo,  Cloth, 
$500. 

M'CLINTOCK  &  STRONG'S  CYCLOPAEDIA.  Cyclopaedia  of  Biblical,  Theological, 
and  Ecclesiastical  Literature.  Prepared  by  the  Rev.  JOHN  M'CI.INTOCK,  D.D., 
and  JAMES  STRONG,  S.T.D.  5  vols.  now  ready.  Royal  Svo.  Price  per  vol.,  Cloth, 
$5  00 ;  Sheep,  $6  00 ;  Half  Morocco,  $8  00. 

MARCY'S  ARMY  LIFE  ON  THE  BORDER.  Thirty  Years  of  Army  Life  on  the 
Border.  Comprising  Descriptions  of  the  Indian  Nomads  of  the  Plains ;  Explo- 
rations of  New  Territory;  a  Trip  across  the  Rocky  Mountains  in  the  Winter; 
Descriptions  of  the  Habits  of  Different  Animals  found  in  the  West,  and  the  Meth- 
ods of  Hunting  them;  with  Incidents  in  the  Life  of  Different  Frontier  Men,  &c., 
&c.  By  Brevet  Brigadier-General  R.  B.  MARCY,  U.S.A.,  Author  of  "The  Prairie 
Traveller."  With  numerous  Illustrations.  Svo,  Cloth,  Beveled  Edges,  $3  00. 

MACAULAY'S  HISTORY  OF  ENGLAND.  The  History  of  England  from  the  Ac- 
cession of  James  II.  By  THOMAS  BAHINGTON  MAOAULAY.  With  an  Original  Por- 
trait of  the  Author.  5  vols.,  Svo,  Cloth,  $10  00 ;  12mo,  Cloth,  $7  50. 

MOSHEIM'S  ECCLESIASTICAL  HISTORY,  Ancient  and  Modern  ;  in  which  the 
Rise,  Progress,  and  Variation  of  Church  Power  are  considered  in  their  Connec- 
tion with  the  State  of  Learning  and  Philosophy,  and  the  Political  History  of  Eu- 
rope during  that  Period.  Translated,  with  Notes,  &c.,  by  A.  MACLAINE,  D.D. 
A  new  Edition,  continued  to  1S26,  by  C.  COOTE,  LL.D.  2  vols.,  Svo,  Cloth,  $4  00. 

NEVIUS'S  CHINA.  China  and  the  Chinese :  a  General  Description  of  the  Country 
and  its  Inhabitants ;  its  Civilization  and  Form  of  Government :  its  Religious  and 
Social  Institutions ;  its  Intercourse  with  other  Nations ;  and  its  Present  Condition 
and  Prospects.  By  the  Rev.  JOHN  L.  NEVIUS,  Ten  Years  a  Missionary  in  China. 
With  a  Map  and  Illustrations.  12mo,  Cloth,  $1  75. 

THE  DESERT  OF  THE  EXODUS.  Journeys  on  Foot  in  the  Wilderness  of  the 
Forty  Years'  Wanderings ;  undertaken  in  connection  with  the  Ordnance  Survey 
of  Sinai  and  the  Palestine  Exploration  Fund.  By  E.  H.  PALMER,  M.A.,  Lord 
Almoner's  Professor  of  Arabic,  and  Fellow  of  St.  John's  College,  Cambridge. 
With  Maps  and  numerous  Illustrations  from  Photographs  and  Drawings  taken 
on  the  spot  by  the  Sinai  Survey  Expedition  and  C.  F.  Tyrwhitt  Drake.  Crown 
Svo,  Cloth,  $3  00. 

OLIPHANT'S  CHINA  AND  JAPAN.  Narrative  of  the  Earl  of  Elgin's  Mission  to 
China  and  Japan,  in  the  Years  1857,  '58,  '59.  By  LAURENCE  OLIPHANT,  Private 
Secretary  to  Lord  Elgin.  Illustrations.  Svo,  Cloth,  $3  50. 

OLIPHANT'S  (MRS.}  LIFE  OF  EDWARD  IRVING.  The  Life  of  Edward  Irving, 
Minister  of  the  National  Scotch  Church,  London.  Illustrated  by  his  Journals  and 
Correspondence.  By  Mrs.  OLIPHANT.  Portrait.  Svo,  Cloth,  $3  50. 

RAWLINSON'S  MANUAL  OF  ANCIENT  HISTORY.  A  Manual  of  Ancient  His- 
torv,  from  the  Earliest  Times  to  the  Fall  of  the  Western  Empire.  Comprising 
the' History  of  Chaldsea,  Assyria,  Media,  Babylonia,  Lydia,  Phoenicia,  Syria,  Ju- 
dffia  E^vpt,  Carthage,  Persia,  Greece,  Macedonia,  Parthia,  and  Rome.  By 
GKORGE  RAWLINSON,  M.A.,  Camden  Professor  of  Ancient  History  in  the  Univer- 
sity of  Oxford.  12mo,  Cloth,  $2  50. 

SMILES'S  LIFE  OF  THE  STEPHENSONS.  The  Life  of  George  Stephenspn,  and 
of  his  Son,  Robert  Stepheuson  ;  comprising,  also,  a  History  of  the  Invention  and 
Introduction  of  the  Railway  Locomotive.  By  SAMUEL  SMILES,  Author  of  "Self- 
Help,"  &c.  With  Steel  Portraits  and  numerous  Illustrations.  Svo,  Cloth,  $3  00. 

SMILES'S  HISTORY  OF  THE  HUGUENOTS.  The  Huguenots:  their  Settlements, 
Churches,  and  Industries  in  England  and  Ireland.  By  SAMUEL  SMILES.  With  an 
Appendix  relating  to  the  Huguenots  in  America.  Crown  Svo,  Cloth,  $2  00. 


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THE  LIBRARY 

UNIVERSITY  OF  CALIFORNIA 
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STACK  COLLECTION 


30m-8,'65(F6447s4)9482 


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THIS  BOOK  IS  DUE  ON  THE  LAST  DATE 
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